I am sometimes inappropriate

The other day I was talking to a small group of people in my home. I had just met them and brought them to my home to talk about our aftercare home. One of the guys had long hair and we were talking about how in India, if you have long hair, people confuse you with being a lady. Like at the Metro station here, there are lines for the security check. One line is for women. So the Indians often would direct him to go through the ladies security check area. My inappropriate comment of the day was, "Well wouldn't that be a surprise for the lady patting you down." I had to laugh at myself later. When I first meet someone, I should try harder to be on my best behavior.

Horror inside an Orphanage

NEW DELHI: Inside a dank, dilapidated cloister for orphans in a Walled City bylane, a girl died a lonely death - writhing in pain in the dark shadows of the hellhole before bursts of diarrhoea and incessant vomiting snuffed out her life. The 11-year-old died just a day after she was brought back from hospital.

There was a curt one-liner scribbled in the orphanage records - death due to natural circumstances. But what lay hidden in the footnote was a story that can pull you up in convulsion of horror and shame.

The girl's autopsy report showed she had been repeatedly raped and even forced into unnatural sex for several months. A case has been lodged in the Jama Masjid police station and cops are questioning the orphanage staff and inmates to track down the culprits.

TOI conducted a thorough investigation into the incident and what unfolded was a shocking trail of exploitation and trample of innocence inside the orphanage - where a two-foot wall separates the girls' quarters from that of boys. There are no curbs on movement of kids and orphanage staff.

A student of Class III, the girl has been abandoned by her mother who lives in Rohini. She had been staying here for over a year and studies in the school on the orphanage campus.

The girl had complained of dizziness and stomach cramps after she returned from school on December 23 last year. She was immediately taken to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash hospital. "I remember she was vomiting and had loose motions. It was a regular medical check up. Her condition did not improve," the chief warden of the orphanage told TOI. The next day, her condition deteriorated and she slowly began to sink. Within hours, she died. "We give proper meals to the children and take good care of them. I don't know what exactly happened to her," said the warden. Doctors at LNJP conducted the post-mortem and preserved her viscera. A month later, her autopsy report was handed over to the police. The report confirms habitual sex and unnatural sex.

Delhi Police has been jolted into action and has registered a case under Sections 376 and 377 IPC. Cops are now trying to track down the accused in the orphanage .

Officials said the orphanage houses several male employees apart from teenage boys who easily move in out of the girl's quarters. Officials say they are trying to find out whether she had been lured by the accused or gangraped.

What God will Use

You just never know what God will use. I was thinking about all the skills I have learned that I could write on a resume. One of the skills that I learned to do in the past week is grant writing. At our aftercare home we applied for a UN grant. Three of us worked on it. None of us have ever written a grant proposal before. So we know that if we are selected for the grant that it will be a complete God thing. But now I can say that I have written (or helped write) a grant proposal.

So what other skills do I have? Like Napoleon Dynamite, my skills are varied. When I worked for Payless Drug Store I was probably taught the most skills. Here is a quick list of things that come to mind: cash register (before scanners and after), 10 key, laminating machine, copy machine, 1 hour photo developer, writing hunting/fishing licenses, perfume skills, make-up skills, customer service skills, bookkeeping skills, driving a fork-lift, credit card machine, facing skills. I have used some of these skills later in my life, but as of yet, no 1 hour photo developing skills have been needed and I doubt they will ever be needed.

Backpage

I follow human trafficking on Twitter. I know, you didn't know I was so hip. Well, somehow I figured out how to sign up for something useful. One of the big topics in the past couple of months is about a petition to get a website called backpage to take down their escort services and body rub advertisements. Backpage is like Craigslist it seems. So you can go on and find local services or items to buy. Several ladies have been killed recently after a guy has found them on Backpage and then met up with them. So I decided today to have a look at what all the fuss is about. I just chose Portland, OR as a city and looked at the escorts section. I was shocked and saddened at what I found. There must be an age requirement on it, because the youngest girls were 18 years old. So what I saw as I looked at a few postings were R-rated pictures of girls selling their services. But what I saw under that is human trafficking. What is the story of this girl? Is she being forced to look that way? To sell herself? Is she a run-away? Or is she a missing girl? She is for sure someone's daughter. Tears filled my eyes as I thought about that. Someone out there is missing their daughter and here she is on this website, being exploited. Someone else is taking the picture of the girl as she poses. Who is that person?

I read an article that a brother of a missing girl found her photo on Backpage. He was deliberately looking for her. So the police were able to track her and it did turn out to be a trafficking case. So as I see it, the only good thing that can come from this is that some girls may be rescued.

Christmas tree

We still have our Christmas tree up but we don't turn on the lights anymore. And if you ask me, the lights were the best part of the tree. Now the tree has skateboards piled around it. The lights had to plug into a electrical strip and we needed it elsewhere, so now the lights can't be turned on. I just wonder how long I can go before I put the poor tree away. But one of the problems is that I never got around to buying Micah his Christmas ornament for the 2011 Christmas, so I feel I need to have that before I can pack up he decorations. So I guess until that happens, we won't be able to put our tree away.

More Toilet Talk

One thing I hate about our fancy toilets, is that the hole is too far back. So when people use it, they often leave a skid mark on the toilet bowl above the water line. It is never me though because my rear sits back far enough on the toilet. So I don' want to clean the toilet bowl every time this happens since I think it should be the person who made the mark. So the mark stays there for a day or two until enough flushing washes it away, or maybe Bimla (househelp lady) cleans it. It isn't right that Bimla should have to clean it either. Poor lady. But why doesn't the person who makes the mark ever think of cleaning it?

Peanut Butter

I really wish my camera worked so I could add pictures of our peanuts, but alas, it doesn't.

When we were in Thailand several weeks ago, my friend Jennifer made homemade peanut butter. I helped. And since I did the last part, I got the most credit. I know people are just trying to encourage me to be more cookish, but I know Jennifer is the real hero.

So making peanut butter is not too hard. You roast your peanuts in a big wok and add some honey to it. Get those raskly peanuts all warm and toasty. Then you put some in a blender and add oil and blend it. That was my job. You can add more honey or sugar if you want. And presto, you have peanut butter. And it was really good. Our friend from Ethiopia was staying there too and she made a nice bread on the top of the stove. It went great with the peanut butter. And Dan (husband of Jen) bought some homemade mango jelly which also was delicious. So we all contributed to the peanut butter in our own special way.

Steve thought it would be a good idea for us to make our own peanut butter once we got home. So he and a friend went out and bought a big bag of peanuts. The only difference is that they were in the shell. The bag sat there for a few days until I got around to cracking the peanuts. It didn't take long before I realized that this was a stupid idea. It would take me hours to crack all those peanuts. And then our blender is used for making spicy chutney (salsa) and you just can't get that taste out completely. So our peanut butter, if I ever cracked all the peanuts, would be spicy and gross. So we just went out and bought a jar of peanut butter and we still have a bag of peanuts. Now we are handing out handfuls to the beggars on the street.