"wendy7" wrote in message
news:bE6Zc.5416$Mf.4136@fed1read02...
Hi there Ted, How was your time in India? Glad to see
you back safe & sound.

Hi Wendy,

It was generally good. There were depressing things (like the homeless
children and the beggars). But there were good things too, such as the good
students I encountered. Granted, not all the students were "good", but the
good ones made facing the various challenges worthwhile.

I picked up some interesting items (a little box, wood overlaid with some
kind of metal and some material I can't identify which was used to create a
picture of a pheasant). And, I bought a marble chess set.

I did have some adventures. For example, as I have circulation problems in
my feet, I developed a rash around my ankles and ants were drawn to the dead
skin flakes. Alas, they walked through something nasty on their way to feed
on me and that resulted in an infection that put me in the hospital for a
few days. Nothing serious though (since I got immediate treatment). But to
make it more interesting, the man with whom I shared a house called my
mother to let her know, and his peculiar sense of humour overwhelmed him.
You see, when he called Mom, he said something to the effect "Mrs. Byers, I
don't want to alarm you, but Ted has been eaten by poisonous ants." And
then afterwards, he tells me that she said "Well, next time, let the ants
keep going until they've eaten another fifty pounds!" ;-) Of course, she
denies saying such a thing. His duties there finish in December, and Mom
has given him strict instructions that he is to come and visit her, with his
family. And this is with the support of his wife, who wants to see Mom pin
his ears back. ;-) We all got a good chuckle out of that. I have some
pictures of this adventure; the result of the interaction between John's
peculiar sense of humour and that of my department head. It shows me being
taken to the hospital with my legs cut off, arriving at the hospital DOA, as
well as John driving a "state-of-the-art" ambulance. And here I am, alive
and well, with my legs working fine, indubitably a testament to the skills
of the physicians and surgeons there. ;-)

Another adventure involved a rainstorm. You see, Chandigarh is very flat,
and any time there is a significant rainfall, the city is flooded until
several hours after the rain stops. So, I lived through the first flood I
have witnessed in person. That rainfall was actually a good thing, despite
the inconvenience, since that whole area of India has experienced a drought
for several years and desperately needed the water.

And, as for orchids, I was in the wrong part of India. The Punjab is
generally too dry most of the time, and the winter is too cool, for the
orchids with which we're most familiar. But, had I been there longer, I
would have made some growth chambers and brought the orchids in from Assam
and Sikkim (the parts of India that have the most orchids).

Cheers,

Ted