La Familia Brophy

I keep thinking about Dhanushkodi, a village Lisa and I visted 10 years ago on our trip around India, when I hear about the tidal wave that killed so many people yesterday.

We went for a day trip from Rameswaram to see “Hanuman’s Bridge,” a line of rocks that dot the sea on between this southern tip of India and Sri Lanka. They are said to be remnants of the bridge Hanuman built for Rama’s army to cross into Lanka and rescue Sita. It was hard place to get to even though it was few miles away. We wound up hitching a ride in a truck, making nervous jokes about being kidnapped by the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group fighting for a seperate state in Sri Lanka.

We’d read that Dhanushkodi had been a small town with regular train sevice until it was swept away by a cyclone in 1964. The enormity of the horror of a small town being swept away didn’t really sink in until we arrived. The weight of the tragedy seemed fresh 30 years later. The few people living there in 1994 were in extreme poverty and unlike in much of India, many looked at in an angry way.

We walked up the peninsula to see Hanuman’s bridge. The land was narrow enough that we could see the sea on either side as we trudged through the sand. Just as we sat down, a wave crashed and surprised us by pulling off Lisa’s shoe - we barely rescued it. We saw a group of boy walking back to the village with a fish get jumped by older boys who stole the fish and threw it back in the water. It felt like a wicked evil place and we got out of there as fast as we could, sitting alone on a bus that had arrived waiting to go rather than staying outside trapped between angry people and an angry sea.

I wonder how Dhanushkodi faired 10 years later and 40 years after it was swept away the first time. There had been plans to extend the railway out there again, to encourage more people to move there and attract tourists. I hope those plans were scrapped, and there aren’t any new ghosts in Dhanushkodi.

Update: I just reread my journal entry from that day (January 17, 1995). It was worse than I remembered. i forgot the stench of rotting fish, the human excrement, the boys who pickpocketed my sun glasses, than the hooligans who surrounded us on the beach an jeered at us in Tamil. Lisa says she remembers that I was in a particularly bad mood that day, and she has some OK memories of the place.

Here’s a news story on Dhanushkodi that points out how the cylcomne was almost exactly 40 years ago.

We had great Birthday/Christmas weekend in Connecticut. You can see some new photos in the photo section.

We came back a little early because the weather was turning. I am so glad we did, the storm is really intense - I can’t imagine driving up 91 through this. It’s nice weather to be indoors to. I’ve had fun shovelling.

Man, there goes the crazy plow! It’s really a backhoe, and barely can barely handle the snow itself, and the driver doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. Last year he took out someone’s fence, and every time he goes by I’m sure he’s going to hit out car even though it’s in a drive way

Anyway, here’s a pictre of Nathan sitting on a lion outside his Yaya’s house yesterday. There’s a picture of Lisa sitting on the same lion 30 years ago, but we can’t find it. I am shocked by how old Nathan looks in this photo.

We kicked off the festivities for Lisa’s birthday. I made a cake for tonight. We’ll be going to Connecticut tomorrow for Lisa’s birthday. I don’t think we’ll have internet access there, so we’ll post Christmas photos when we get back. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

I set up a new blog about my work. So if you miss my super nerdy posts about RSS feed and APIs and user interaction and all that, check out Ben at Work.

Nathan did something new tonight. I left him in the living room to go do something and then on my way back I was talking to Lisa. I realized I couldn’t heard Nathan so I came in to see what he was doing. He was sitting on the couch reading one of his library books to himself. The book is called Pie in the Sky and it about a cherry tree. He called me over saying “Papi, see!” and then sort of read me the book, a real role reversal. Then later tonight he was singing his lullaby with Lisa (I need to get a recording of that, it was really funny). There’s always something new.

Here’s a blog post from some one at the same conference I attended in New Orleans. He had a much grimmer view of New orleans than I did, maybe because he’s Canadian, and maybe because he saw more than I did.

Geof’s post on New Orleans

I My recent post on the same trip

Nathan has gotten a few early Christmas presents but this one from his aunts and uncles or I guess his great aunts and uncles in Connecticut takes the cake. It is a little airport that has an elevator and luggage mover and fun ramps to run his cars on. It also connects up to his Brio train set which is pretty darn cool.

He hasn’t wanted to play with anything else since this arrived in the mail yesterday. Here he is first thing this morning:

I knitted this little bunny for one of Nathan’s friends. It was really quick and easy. Check out the pattern at kategilbert.com You can download it and get knitting right away.

Knitted Bunny

Nathan made this candle for the Christmas tree in his toddler group last week. He got to bring it home today but since he had only painted the plate last week and it was magically transformed into a candle he was rather confused today. When I said what a beautiful candle it is he had a freak out and kept saying, “Candle inside!” When we got home I taped a birthday candle inside and that satisfied him.

Nathan’s Candle

I spent 48 hours in New Orleans this week. I was down there for a small conference, so I spent most of the time working, but I did get a few impressions of the place.

Because I was at work, most of my impressions were of the hotel, the W New Orleans. It was a really funny place, very fancy in a ultra-modern, designer way. The whole place is dimly lit, the lobby, elevator, meeting rooms, even the bathroom in my hotel room. The lobby has hundreds of tea lights in little red glasses, which are lit at night. Relaxing techno music plays everywhere, they give you a CD in your room so you can keep the music going in there (and to rip MP3s from of course). In the meeting rooms you get black paper and white pencils to write with, just to be different. Basically the place was really funny, and I found it entertaining not annoying.

The people in New Orleans reminded me of the southern version of New Yorkers - really direct and open but not exactly polite, though not rude either. Of course only people I talked to from New Orleans were hotel staff, taxi drivers, waiters and shop clerks so maybe they would have been different if I weren’t paying them.

The whole city smelled slightly of body odor and rot (at least I hope it was the city!) and I got the impression Satan would stay there when he was on vacation. I wandered into the French quarter for meals. You certainly get a lot of pressure to drunk there. I got a scotch on the rocks and one point and it was nearly 8 ounces of Dewars. I had lot’s of good food, though that’s been the case everywhere I’ve travelled this year besides Indianapolis.

I liked New Orleans, I wouldn’t be sad to go back but it’s not one of my favorites (those are Austin, San Francisco and Denver). I am happy to have it checked off the life list. Re-reading this it sounds like I have become to jaded by travel this year - I do hope it slows down next year so I get more of thrill when I arrive in a new city.