We have been very fortunate with accomodation, we have one of the three apartments on campus that are reserved for foreign visitors. It is located in the center of campus, and is very quiet and secure. We have had a number of problems, some of which have been fixed (like poisoning all the ants and cockroaches), and others which we are learning to ignore, such as minor plumbing leaks, and some broken electrical outlets, and a squirrel which lives in the rafters. The problem that we can neither ignore nor get fixed is the leaking roof. (The department chairman commented that water proof roofing is the one technology that India had not been able to master, pointing to the department's ceiling). Every time it rains, we put out every container we have and collect a few gallons of water. The next morning I go down to the housing officer, explain the situation, he calls up the engineer, and tells me that it will be taken care of. No one in the department has any expectation that it will be fixed, even the people that have encouraged us to try to get all sorts of other things fixed. The monsoon is supposed to be over in about one month, and everyone agrees that we just have to wait until the end of October, and the problem will go away.

The departmental facilities are relatively good, my office is a little larger than my office in Sieg Hall and I have a view across a courtyard and I can occasionally see monkeys playing on the roof of the building. The only room in the building which is very high security is one of the toilets - it has a electronic lock with a six digit combination, and a raised floor. When I was first shown the room, I had assumed it was one of the computer labs until I noticed the type of fixtures. No one has an explanation as to why the highest security room in the building is a toilet. (The person I asked about this does not feel that there is an explanation, and that speculation on the subject is just pointless.) The other interesting thing that I saw on my building tour was a massive bees nest hanging outside someone's window. This is a very large honeycomb that is covered with bees. No one has bothered to remove it, although it apparently is an irritant to people with offices close to the nest. The computing facilities are adequate - I have a PC on my desk which usually works. There have been several afternoons without power but other than that I have had regular access (the power supply on campus is far more regular than off campus, which appears to suffer more "load shedding"). Getting hard copy is a challenge - I am looking at line-printer output for the first time in a decade. Getting the output involved all of the expected problems - locating the printer, and then asking someone where the power switch was (with the obvious meaning "how do you get this damn thing to work") then discovering that the line printer was operating in "paper shredder" mode, and finally trying to figure out the correct incantation to get files from one place to the other place. I have seen an existence proof that it is possible to use a laser printer, but this requires taking over the front office PC and feeding paper through by hand, so my paper consumption is certain to drop way down this year.

One thing that I haven't emphasized enough in these notes is just how many people there are here. Its not that everything is impossibly crowded, its just that everywhere you look, there will be a group of people. Although India has a reputation for inefficiency, there are many things that are done with very high efficiency and throughput. For example, the coffee center on campus must have an average throughput of at least 10 cups per minute. The routine is to stand in line, pay 1.75 rupees and get a ticket, and give the ticket to the person pouring cups from an urn (at busy times they will have two urns going). This is just an amazingly fast process where there is a steady click-click-click of coffee cups being served out. They must be operating at atleast 10 times the rate of the hub coffee counter (of course, the coffee center doesn't have to put up with any of that chocolate-lowfat-decaf-latte nonsense). Another high throughput activity is children's play equipment. We went to an excellent children's park downtown that has many different sets of equipment, as well has a few rides and a small train going around the park. Never have I seen so many families. Each piece of equipment was swarming with children. When Casey tried to get on a slide, he was only able to get part way up, and was left standing on a platform as a steady crowd passed by him. Eventually, he was able to fight his way against traffic and get off without ever going onto a slide. Whenever a child would get off a merry-go-round or swing, there would be half a dozen children ready to be deposited in its place. As the only non-Indian, Casey did receive some preferential treatment.

Autos continue to be a source of aggrevation and adventure. The other night a driver insisted on a fare that was well over double the appropriate fare - this lead to a long argument, but since we were literally speaking different languages, not much was accomplished. Eventually, a group of Kannada speakers arrived, and took over for me. I left (after paying the correct fare), and they continued the argument for at least another five minutes. One of the more exciting rides recently was when we were coming home and got stopped by a parade for the Ganesha festival. (The festival involves taking idols of Ganesh (the elephant god), and dropping them in a lake.) The parade consisted of hundreds of people lighting fireworks and throwing flowers. However, not everyone in the parade was taking it entirely seriously, since a number of men were wearing dresses and lipstick and others had on pig masks.

Casey is generally very adaptable. For example, he very quickly has adapted to being able to eat with his hands. He has also adapted very well to the Indian style of queuing - from his ability to cut through to the front of the line, one would think he was a natural born Indian. We spent the morning last saturday at the technology museum, which was rather mediocre. The crowds again paid a lot of attention to Casey. For some reason, people seem to believe that if you squeeze a child's cheeks, he will smile. After about the twentieth time, Casey was definitely not smiling. Casey is starting daycare this week. (For half days, the cost is 115 rupees per month!). Daycare is more formal than in the US, with an attempt to teach the children their ABCs and so on. (Apparently, kids need to know letters, and the names of animals and vegetables to get into a good school). The teacher will have the class reciting the alphabet or giving the names of vegetables. We found a school that does a relatively small amount of this - although there is some reciting of nursery rhymes in four different languages and learning names of things. Nancy said that when she observed, there were 80 kids and 8 teachers in a small room, so it didn't really matter what language they were using.