To celebrate Rock's birthday (7 September), on Monday, September 11th, we went to the Belmont Mercy Home, an orphanage started by Rock's former mission presidents, where we celebrated with the kids there. Jennifer and I try to go to visit the children as often as we can, which turns out to be twice a month on average.

A blurry picture of Rock blowing out the candles on his cakes. Paul, the director of the home, is standing on Rock's left.
Some of the kids at the home singing and waiting patiently for the dessert.
A picture showing the chalkboard the kids had prepared with a birthday message.
Jennifer feeding Rock the first bite of cake - a tradition in India






What do the Carpenters, France, and India all have in common? Madam Santhe restaurant in Pondicherry, where Jennifer and I ate last week, eating our French-themed meal to the melodious strains of The Carpenters Greatest Hits including "On top of the wooooorld, looking.... down at creation... and the only explanation I can find....." We went to Pondicherry last weekend. It is a small union territory on the south-east coast of India, about 3 1/2 hours south of Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu. As a union territory, it officially falls under the direct stewardship of India's federal government and functions as a quasi-state, with its own governing structure and tax-system. While the part that we visited is the largest and most developed part of Pondicherry, officially three other cities on the coasts of India belong to the territory, one more in Tamil Nadu a bit farther to the south, one in Andhra Pradesh farther to the north, and one in Kerala in the south-west. The territory was officially a French colony until 1963, when the areas merged with the recently-independent India. The cities have successfully maintained their French influence and feel and are an enjoyable taste of the Mediterranean in the Bay of Bengal.

Jennifer enjoying a chocolate and banana crepe for breakfast at the Satsanga restaurant.
Rock and Jennifer enjoying a meal of steak and quiche at the Rendevous restaurant. Note1: This was our first steak since arriving in India. For religious reasons cow meat is hard to come by in most parts of the country. Note2: Rock fulfilled for a fourth year in a row his tradition of growing a beard during the summer. However, this one only lasted 2 1/2 weeks. It's hot here.

Sept 18, 2006

For those of you who are willing and feel comfortable doing so, I would appreciate your prayers. One of the most important things I have been trying to do for the organization with which I am working is to find a permanent VP of HR. We have found an individual that I think would be perfect for the job -- he has the necessary experience, the energy, and the passion about the organization's mission necessary to help take it to the next level. However, this individual is financially supporting his extended family and in order to be able to work for a price the org can pay, he needs to sell some land. Selling land in India is a very difficult and lengthy proces, but there is a prospective buyer who is taking a week to consider a deal.

My prayers are that if at all possible, the land deal can close in such a way as to allow this individual to both meet his family's needs and join the organization. If not, that we can quickly find a candidate who will meet the organization's needs.

Thank you.

Jennifer travels by plane much more than I do, and I believe that she will post something more about her frequent flying in the near future. However, yesterday I experienced something unique that I wanted to share.

I returned this afternoon from an overnight trip to Mumbai and ICICI headquarters where I had a series of meetings yesterday evening (which went successfully by the way). On my flight yesterday afternoon from Chennai to Mumbai, embarking the plane had been delayed about 20 minutes due to the plane arriving late from it's earlier port. After I and the plane's other passengers had boarded and moments before the plane was to back away from the gate (I was flying an airline that uses gates) a hurried and distraught passenger rushed onto the plane and found his seat near the middle of the aircraft.

As the plane was backing away from the gate, one of the stewardesses (the longest word you can type only using your left-hand on a qwerty keyboard) welcomed everyone aboard and announced that the flight to Mumbai would take approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes. At this announcement, the passenger just mentioned jumped out of his seat and quickly moved to the front of the aircraft saying, "Stop the plane! I'm on the wrong flight!" As we were only a matter of feet from the gate, the stewardess called the cockpit. The plane came to a halt and shortly began slowly inching foward. The passenger sheepishly went back to the middle of the plane, gathered his bag, and made his way back to the front of the plane.

After the plane's door had been opened and the misled passenger had been allowed to exit, I expected to be quickly on our way again. However, this was not to be. In a few minutes five security guards wearing red and white reflective jackets entered the plane and began systematically removing luggage from the overhead bins and asking us, the passengers, to identify which belonged to us. When they finished their questionning, everything returned to normalcy, only we were now 45 minutes behind schedule.

Luckily I had given myself a two-hour window to arrive so I was not late for my meetings.

But I did find it a little disconcerting that a passenger could pass through no less than three people checking his ticket and identification and still end up on the wrong plane.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Ode to 28

Tomorrow I complete my 29th year on the earth and celebrate one more year of not yet being 30.

This is a major milestone. Though not yet having children has slowed the aging process, it is undeniable that I am no longer a young man. My hair started getting gray flecks about four years ago. My metabolism stopped working properly about three years ago. My hair started thinning noticeably about two years ago (the real reason for the intermittent beards and longer curls – I’ve got to exert some control over my hair somehow). I had reason to communicate with my mother’s brother John this past month, and it was refreshing to have him refer to us as ‘you kids.’ Jennifer made the point however that it probably made him feel younger than it made us feel.

I'm glad, however, to celebrate my birthday in India. Last night my office mates gave me a box of Snickers Candy Bars as a gift. I was grateful.

I have spent the past two months mainly in Chennai with only a few minor expeditions to Andhra Pradesh to visit Jennifer and two trips to Mumbai for meetings. That is all about to change. My project has reached the stage where we are about to start interviewing every credit franchise we can all over the country. This means more trains, planes, and automobiles in the very near future.

The IFMR Small Enterprise Finance Centre (SEFC) crowd at dinner celebrating Rock's birthday. Starting from Rock and Jennifer on the left: Davina, from France, the SEFC coordinator; Professor Schoar, from Germany, the MIT professor in charge of all the centre's projects; Preethi, from Chennai, an SEFC research associate; Souditi, from Kolkata, another SEFC research associate.

September 1, 2006
Random Thoughts

It is hard to believe that it is already September. The time here somes to race and crawl at the same time, somehow. But right now it feels more like it is racing. We are still in the "thick" of things, but we are past the halfway mark. Suddenly there is so much I want to do before I have to leave.

My biggest priority in my work right now is to find a good permanent head of HR for my organization. We have a promising candidate coming in tomorrow to interview with the broader management team. I hope it works out. In India, the notice period is 1-3 months, and at this level of hiring it would be closer to 3 months. Even if this individual is a fit and is made an offer, we will just barely have enough time for a smooth transition.

Rock's birthday is this Thursday (September 7). It is hard to believe that he is turning 29. We are no longer "young adults." We are really quite close to being considered "middle-aged," which just feels weird to me. It feels like my parents are middle-aged, not me. A saying I once heard seems to apply... "Old people are just young people wondering what the heck happened."