How Many Chefs Does It Take to Make a Fazita?

We have officially finished the New Tools Curriculum in India and tomorrow we are on to Peer Coaching. It was a good day, even though we thought we'd lost Bob again. He was 15 minutes late to pick us up this morning, an unusual occurrence. He's always on time in the mornings and to pick us up in the afternoons. It's the other times that are tricky and we had to bring in a translator to explain to him that he had the weekend off and wouldn't need to drive us to Agra (Vicky and me) or Jaipur (Les). Good thing. He was a bit fuzzy about where either city is.

Today was International Women's Day, a big deal in India. It was in the paper (quote coming) and one of the ladies brought all the women in the class a red rose. Women in India still have a hard time, but it looks to me like there's a core group of incredibly strong women who are working hard to build a better life for their sisters. Unfortunately, you still come across such treacley nonsense as this from the India Times this morning:

"What happens when you mix the freshness of the morning dw, the colours of the rainbow, the music of a rivulet and the sparkle of a distant star? Surely, you'll get a woman -god's masterpiece who keeps his world going. The clever fellow that he is, when he noticed he could not be physically present everywhere, he gave his angels to every family to keep his work alive on earth - truly, a woman stands testimony to god's plan itself.

(insert drivel here)...She makes every possible arrangement to make her home function as efficiently as she has pictured it in her mind. And so it does, because with her abilities there are rare chances of anything going amiss. [Ed. note: Given the natural state of my house, I'm a little concerned about the implications of this whole "pictured it in her mind" thing]

The mechanics of running a home is an art only a woman can master. " I'd finish the quote, but I may become ill.

Also in the India Times of late was a story about a young bride who set herself afire after an argument with her husband. To quote the story, "It was a marriage for love." And we all know how those will come to no good end. We also read that the Indian team beat the Dutch in a must-win cricket match just before the beginning of the World Cup, apparently winning on minnows. Not only is this game the most baffling and dull game in the known universe, but now we find that "The minnows add a lot of character and charm to the event." (Rahul Dravid, Indian cricket team and no longer a member of the ISPCA.)

So, exactly how many chefs does it take to make a fazita? We're not totally sure. The hotel restaurant has a theme buffet every week night. Tonight was Mexican night and on the menu were "fazitas, chicken or veg." There were, at any given time, at least three chefs ready, willing, and presumably able to create the fazita of your dreams. We still don't know how many chefs are required for such a daunting task because we never saw them do anything but sprinkle water on the griddle. I guess that might be a mystery for the ages, although we do know that it takes a mall security guard stationed every 50' to park cars in a mall parking lot. Anything that can be done by one is actually done by at least three, even "carpeting the roads." Apparently, the road to Jaipur is a good one because it has recently been carpeted. Hopefully, they've selected one for high traffic areas!

The Two-bit Taiwanese were back. Tonight's musical stylings included "My Heart Will Go On." I really wanted to ask for another power outage, but I didn't. We got it on the way up the elevator, though. The power went out, but they have really good emergency power, so we got off on what the display said was the 8th floor (where we live), only to find that it was the 7th floor. Must be some funny Indian power thing.

Happy International Women's Day, and to my sisters in Spokane: Keep up the good work. Remember that you steal for the good of the team.