A Happy Homecoming
I finally arrived home this afternoon at 4:45 pm. The Kids were in the playground but Tess was at home. She wanted to go down but I reminded her I hadn’t run since Saturday and had limited chances to hit 25 Km this week unless I really pushed the next few days. Tess agreed and I rushed out for a 3.5 Km run. (Along the way I “Vinced” something but that’s another story!) Ask me about it.
I came back from my run and checked the playground but everyone had just gone up. I rushed upstairs to find the babies in the middle of their baths. Amazingly they remembered me, and, even more, seemed genuinely happy to see me! I was so pleased.
Tess surprised me with new tricks from the trips… to start we sat in a circle on the playroom floor. Tess started singing “Head & Shoulders” and golly-smack-we-with-the yard-arm the kids were following along. Other songs ensued with similar results.
Next Seb and I had a shower together… I was covered in sweat and he was covered in playground dirt. We sang the “Red Plane” song in the shower as instructed by Seb who provided the script while I sang.
Had hardly been out of the shower a minute when Tess showed up with more triplet tricks. Seb and I rushed out to the dining area to find Jasper & Carys enthusiastically feeding themselves with SPOONS. Sela had finished. Wow, they change and grow daily!
Tess headed out to a Book Club meeting while Sebastian and I read two stories together, played in the pink car for “only five minutes” and then he went to bed. I should mention that this afternoon Seb had a play date with a girlfriend from school. Apparently Sebastian was the perfect gentlemen, well behaved and willingly shared toys and swings. We’re so proud of him!
I had a Walk To Emmaus meeting tonight but after taking the Red Eye from Mumbai was too exhausted to go. Instead I poured myself a Baptism Rum and settled in to send this blog update from my Blackberry.
Somewhere in the middle of answering e-mails and writing this update I drifted into the kitchen to re-charge my Baptism Rum. On the way I slipped in to see the slumbering kids. Amazing… they have come so far and are doing SO well. Adorable and gorgeous, they are so cute it hurts. I will post updated pics within the week.
I am off to read The Bible… since finishing the Alpha Course prayer book on September 30 there has been a drought of spiritual nourishment in my life. Time to fix that. At breakfast Sebastian and I have been reading from the prayer book. Tomorrow he will be expecting something! I am thinking of Proverbs. What do you think?
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8
India’s Highway of Progress
I have been coming to India since November 1997. My first trip happened in my first week at a new company. Tess was between jobs and came with me. I was in Delhi for a week, Tess stayed with me, and then she went off to explore for another week while I returned to Hong Kong. This week I am travelling with my boss who spent two months in Delhi back in 1992.
India has changed a lot during the last eight years. Changes tend to happen quickly, too. After the government approved highway and road enhancements in Delhi several years ago, within a month construction began, progressing steadily to complete the project in a relatively short amount of time. Likewise, while Delhi used to be generally a very dirty city, in many areas (probably a very small proportion) big efforts have been made to make the city look better. Each time I return to a major India city, there are new buildings, improved roads, more trees and plants. Eight years ago old Indian Ambassador cars rambled down pot-holed streets. Eventually as affluence spread, more and more modern cars appeared like Hondas and Toyotas. Drivers are still crazy, though, often driving in oncoming lanes until the threat of dangerous collisions force them back onto their proper side. To avoid these inevitable mishaps more and more divides have appeared to separate opposing traffic. Yes, lots of change and generally a better looking life… for some.
India in many ways has also NOT changed and each time I visit, it’s a bit of a crap shoot what I’ll encounter. I am pretty lucky for the most part, typically having smooth sailing. But there is still a glaring desparity between those who have and those who have not. Bangalore is generally cleaner and efforts have been made to clean-up parts of other major cities but what hasn’t been cleaned up is a mess. I remember right before my first trip to India a colleague said, "if China is dirty, India is filthy." In many ways that still holds true plus poverty seems to be everywhere. The poverty is so IN YOUR FACE that some people, unsure of their abilities to cope with such frailties of life, have told me they’ll never go to India as a result.
In reality, poverty is not everywhere. Without a doubt Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India and perhaps even Asia. The city is known for its highly skillled and motivated workforce who speak excellent English. India managers are also known to be excellent business professionals. Looking around the world you’ll find numerous ethnic Indians in very senior positions who started out in India. The business landscape is mixed with old and new mindsets. Often the paradox of progress pitched old mindsets hampers life going forward at the same speed as it does, for example, in China.
Take for instance one of the new aforementioned Delhi highways. The first time I travelled that highway… wow! By modern standards it was state of the art. I remember speeding down the highway, nervously sitting in the backseat because my car had no seatbelts, and feeling as if I was on a brand new piece of Highway 407 in Toronto. It looked the same, felt the same, flashed by the same. Amazing considering only minutes earlier I was driving down another major Delhi street that resembled a horrible slum!
The opening of this particular highway was atypical for old India. The first day everyone wanted to try it. Traffic was backed up a long way… rush hour in Delhi… just like Toronto! One truck driver sat in his big Indian truck, an official contributor to the Delhi Pollution Index, surveying the situation. The direction he wanted to travel was plugged solid. This would take him hours to get through. The other direction was deserted… no traffic at all!
I can just imagine what it was like that bright sunny morning atop the modern bridge stretching across the spanking new highway. As the truck driver jammed his truck into reverse black smoked probably billowed from the exhaust. Then he would back up to another ramp sporting an international "Do Not Enter" sign. Chug, chug, chug and more smoke as the truck’s gears noisily ground the beast forward, down the ramp, onto the empty highway… full speed ahead.
Do you think onlookers across the other side of the median, sitting in their traffic jam in the early morning heat, would have realised how perilous a situation the driver had placed himself and possibly others into? Or, would they have wished they were right behind him, driving the wrong way down the new highway of progress?
I am sure both mindsets prevailed when people first saw the speeding vehicle on the deserted highway but this is a peaceful, loving country – okay ignore Kashmir for the moment – who care deeply for the well-being of their fellow human beings. Therefore, no one would have liked what they saw when the truck turned the slight bend in the highway, slammed head-on into a modern Toyota or Honda, and instantly killed the mother, three young children and baby inside. Kid you not. True story.
In a panic the truck driver hopped over the guardrail and across a field… never to be found. His company, with hundreds of trucks and drivers, had no manifest of who was in what truck that day or any day for that matter! Management of the local transport company passively and bureaucratically resisted police long enough that the driver’s identity was never revealed. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe management never knew.
As much as I love India – and believe me I really love this country – the strange mindsets I often encounter, like the truck driver, are rich with peculiarities. This week we had endless problems with our flights. Resolving them tested everyone’s patience and emotions. At times we felt like the truck driver, innocently turning the bend only to find new collisions ahead of us. At times my boss felt that little had changed even though he knew that much had changed.
Alas, I have faith in India. This is a great country and worth visiting. That’s why I keep coming back, keep fighting for them in the corporate world, keep helping them find their way on the highway of progress.
Mind Chow
Until the lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.
Villainising CX
I am on my way to India today with my new boss. He is a good guy and we’re having fun. He likes cigars – someone to enjoy the occasional cigar with at HR events! I am on the Cathay Pacific (CX) flight from Hong Kong to Mumbai that touches down in Bangkok for less than an hour. During that time some passengers leave, some join us, the plane gets re-fueled and serviced. Pretty standard stuff.
Weird thing happened, though, on this flight. A man sitting across the aisle from me complained to the CX team that he had to get off the plane. I maintained staring at my Blackberry while eavesdropping. He started with this:
Passenger: I have to get off the plane because I am on the TG flight to Mumbai.
CX: That’s okay, our ground staff will still help you find TG.
P: But I have checked bags.
CX: Yes, the ground staff will make sure they get to TG, especially if the timing is tight.
So this debate went on for while and I kept thinking “what is this guy getting at?” Finally…
P: But how could this HAPPEN…
“Okay, HERE it comes,” I thought.
P: … that I have to get off the plane? Why am I not flying all the way with Cathay?
CX: I am so sorry, sir, I don’t know the answer to that either but our ground staff can help you. If there has been an error they will do everything possible to help you.
This went on for at least 20 – 30 minutes and the CX staff got more and more flustered that the airline was in error. But this was not the case, the guy clearly explained he had been ticketed to Bangkok on CX and on to Mumbai on TG. He had the boarding passes to match the flights.
P: But how could this HAPPEN…?
“Well this happened because your travel agent or secretary planned your flights this way,” I thought, along with, “I don’t think you fly much.”
P: I am a frequent flyer so I take this route all the time. It seems I am switching airlines and that is a mistake as I have now discovered Cathay flies direct to Mumbai.
Despite the fact he was digging a bigger and bigger hole for himself – if he really took this route all the time he would know that CX transits through Bangkok – the CX staff never went down the tunnel of suggesting he might be the one who was wrong. Instead, I guess they planned on leaving that to the ground crew.
We landed, he de-planed and never got back on. I was amazed the effort he expended to make CX look bad when it appeared they had done nothing wrong.
My Scabby Knee
A quick update on weight and fitness… my weight is hovering around 184 – 186 with the lowest being 183.5 earlier this week. I have been running in preparation for the half marathon and eating fairly well. I think this is what has kept my weight down. I have avoided blogging because I was hoping to announce my weight dropping below 182 but alas, that hasn’t happened yet.
Unfortunately, two weeks ago I had a nasty mishap while running. With babies and Sebastian settling back into their morning routine, and yours truly settling back into late night calls, checking e-mails, meetings, spending time with Terrific Tess etc, it’s been hard to maintain running in the early morning. On a few occasions I have managed to get a run in during the evening.
One Wednesday night Tess had a wonderful dinner prepared but allowed me to skip out for a quick run before we ate. The previous evening we had measured 10 K in the car from a wet weekend run I completed in the pouring rain. When I first did the run I thought it was only 7 K but we discovered differently via the car. I was freshly motivated and on this particular run going faster than normal. As I dashed out of the house, cool techno coursing through my ears, I planned on running the 10 K again if quick enough, but if not then I’d grab a taxi home halfway through the run.
At the start of my run, just a few minutes from home, I ran by a construction site when “TICK”… left leg gave way after foot caught on unprotected pipe stretched across sidewalk. SMASH… landed hard on left knee. Body twisted to the right… CRUNCH… right knee hit sidewalk. Concrete scraped across right side of knee… continued twisting as body came to a stop while right arm and hip bumped along the sidewalk. All this happened in about two seconds.
I will refrain from sharing my mind’s thoughts, but it had something to do with my opinion of Hong Kong construction rules… or lack thereof. I was in extraordinary discomfort and SO angry. I hobbled around for a minute trying to determine how serious my injuries. There were a dozen pebbles embedded between my two palms. I later had fun digging them out in the shower. My knees, right leg and right arm were a mess but there were no sharp pains indicating a serious injury inside. I was about to head home when I heard inside my head, “run it out.”
"Run it out, hmmm…” I thought. I was in a great deal of numbing pain. The scrapes were also starting to sting like mad as bodily fluids rushed to the scene to begin repairs. “Okay, I thought, I’ll run it out for a few minutes to see how I feel.” I knew that the next two days my knees would be quite sore from the bruising. If I didn’t get a run in now, I might not run again for several days. I was also bitterly angry at the world. My fury needed to be vented so I started to run. Next thing I knew I had managed to knock-off 6 KM. By that time sweat mixing with blood was making a nice little design down my left leg. I decided to call it a night, hopped in a taxi to return home and commenced the clean up. The next few days saw some spectacular skin pyrotechnics on both knees.
I’ve been discovered…
Dear Friends
For most of my life I have been aware that God has been knocking on my door. A secret guarded more tightly than Fort Knox for fear my calling would be discovered. For most of my life I have ignored that knocking or only answered it on my terms, usually secretly, and when convenient for me.
The events of the last two years have highlighted loud and clear that God has worked miracles in my life and disciplined me at the same time. Most dramatic of those is Carys – a 900 gram baby recovering from an illness that comes with a 50% – 90% mortality rate when she was hardly a month old.
At the same time, God has been saying to me, "stop hiding out." A very dear friend of mine (David Brightling) recently said to me, and I paraphrase a bit here, "Most people walk through life with no vision, no calling. If you think you’re being called and it’s from God, this is a no brainer. Answer it." And so the rubber hits the road.
Where this leads me, Tess, Seb and the Terrific Trio, and what form this calling takes, only time and God will tell. The world around me is both familiar and unfamiliar at the moment. For now we’re not going anywhere, except… the next step on my Walk with God and commitment to Jesus Christ, is to be Baptised on Sunday, September 18 during the 9:30 AM service at Union Church on Kennedy Road. Yes, I was Christened as a baby – and I am eternally grateful to my father and late mother for that occasion – but this event is a public declaration and line of demarcation in my life. As a special friend in my life I invite you to attend and hope to see you there.
I also have Tess to thank for she is the one who laid the cobbles in the path that led me to this point.
"Do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart."
Proverbs 3:1
There but for the Grace of God I go.
Charles
