Indian Night

Our social calendar can sometimes fill up rather quickly this time of year. One of the recent events we attended was put on by our fabulous friends Susan and Joe. (Susan and Joe are from India, but they have adopted Western names for use with people like me who would otherwise butcher their given names). This first photo is a picture of the folks celebrating Indian Night in traditional Indian dress. Susan owns somewhere around 5 bajillion saris, which was more than enough to outfit all of the ladies in attendance. As for the men - who are deftly hiding in the background of this picture - we just wore hats, which, incidentally, are quite a lot less complicated to put on than a sari. The smiling couple in the foreground of this picture is none other than Susan and Joe, our great hosts.

In this picture I am enjoying my not-so-traditional Indian hat (I guess they just sell hats like these to the tourists, who buy them thinking they are traditional). My comrades are Bobby and August, both of whom I work with at the school. And, yes, I know that their clothes are much more cool than mine, but I don't own a lot of traditional Indian clothing.

This last picture from Indian Night shows me and Sara enjoying a laugh with our friend Samir (or just "Sam", if you like). Sam also works with us at the school, and is always up for a social event. One of my favorite Sam stories involves the time a student insulted him in Arabic - when Sam responded to the student in Arabic, the student was quite embarrassed (obviously this student was not aware of Sam's Lebanese heritage). If you are a student at our school, I guess it pays to know who are the "Sams" and who are the "Samirs".

Here is a shot of the two of us - Sara is sporting her genuine Indian sari, and I. . . well. . . I'm standing there smiling. For those of you who are interested, make sure to ask Sara about the process it took her to actually get that thing on. Oh, sure, it looks all easy from where you are sitting, but there is quite a process.

After the great time we had, I decided Sara and I should add India to our list of future travel destinations. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to convince her. . . .