Finding the Funny

Happy September 1, from these bathing beauties.

My #1 mom goal this year is to go until mid-term break without a single stain on James' school shirts. But it requires a lot of time and Shout stain removal, which they don't sell here in India, so could someone please send me some more Shout?

A bit of our pantry, just in case you're interested to see the Indian labels

Happy September 1, 2010, people. September. It’s the time of year here, here being India, that we have chances of sun. It’s wonderful. Vitamin D peeking its little head out. I was able to put three loads of wash on the line. None of it really dried fully, but dried to damp and then a little finish-finish in the dryer. I know, I know, you love it when I talk about my laundry. Two weeks in a row. I hope I am not seeing a pattern here.

The poinsettia tree. Who knew that it was not just a small plant at Christmas?

Does anybody know if this is lemon basil? It smells a little lemony, a little basily.

Anyway, I feel a bit lighter this week folks. Last week, a bit down. Let’s blame it on the rain, yeah, yeah - You gotta blame it on somethin’. Finding the funny in my days again. For example, at dinner tonight, the kids were talking about secret passageways around the world - to Ireland, to England, to Horseland. And then I mistakenly told them about the Chunnel. That being sort of, kind of, a secret passageway. Boy, I should have never opened the big can of Chunnel. Because for the next 30 minutes, the kids all tried to figure out how they built the Chunnel. Let’s just say it was a bit mind numbing.

Last night, I actually went out after dark. It’s a very rare experience here. First of all, I hate walking in the dark. I am afraid that I will kick a rat. Not like they’re running wildly all over, but I do hear them whilst I walk to and fro. Secondly, I hate driving in the dark. Street lights are few and far between. The narrow roads seem narrower. The near misses of hitting other cars seem more frightening. And there are lots of nighttime walkers that one day I feel as if I am going to give them a little bump while driving. But there was a meeting of the minds that was calling to me and I braved the night and just did it. Hooray.

So the meeting of the minds was about a conference that my friend Bec is initiating, along with her sister Debbie. Bec and her husband Glen are the ones that really held our hands 24/7 as we tried to sort through living here. Bec also, besides holding my hand, can really convince you of almost anything. I swear she could convince you that it would be okay to buy someone’s dirty underwear. Okay, I am digressing. Anyway, Bec has a huge heart for Indian women - Indian teenage girls specifically. So she, along with several others women, are trying to pull of a conference for teenage girls in Ooty come late October. They have invited about 400 girls from eight boarding schools in the area. Girls in India often get the raw end of the deal. There are few, if any, conferences for teenage girls in India. Here is a little snippet from the brochure, “The mission of ‘Sisters’ is to enable teenage girls to face the challenges of growing into womanhood with confidence and maturity. ‘Sisters’ empowers these girls to contribute their gifts and talents to help one another and to provide solutions to the failings of the status quo.” So, I hope to keep you all in the know of how the conference planning goes.

The meeting of the minds.

In other India news, three more brothel keepers were convicted to time in prison, which makes six total in FF’s four years. Two more girls were also rescued from brothels in Pune, both on the same raid two weeks ago. At the same time, our operatives have located a number of other girls who have not been rescued because they’ve either been moved or the police aren’t cooperating. One of these girls gave us amazing information about her trafficker, including a photo. We’re all praying that soon these girls will be rescued and that this trafficker will also be found and convicted.

So, I do need to give a shout out...to us. Us being Jayson and Tarrah Palm. You have got to love when you can give a shout out to yourself. Anyway, we celebrate our ninth anniversary tomorrow. We will celebrate it with our four darling children and the Freedom Firm volunteers and single staff. Pretty hot stuff, eh?

Happy Anniversary to us. Don't you love that I totally told you all it is our anniversary?

I wish you a wonderful start to your September and bid you farewell for now.

79 Loads of Bedding

Happy first day of school kids.

Sydney in her P.E. kit. So proud.

Three green lights are on, one more to go. When all four lights are shining brightly, that means we have internet. In our very own house. On our very own computer. Pretty dreamy, right? Since the frying of our modem/phone line in April, followed by our phone cord being ripped out of the telephone pole by the bus, we have tried in vain to get it back up and running. Oh no, it’s down to two green lights. This isn’t looking good folks. Anyway, some might say that the first blog back in India is off to a pretty slow start... I will probably agree, let’s see if I can amp it up a bit.

I last left off back in Minnesota, and we were heading down to Mel and Mike’s wedding in St. Louis. “The wedding of the decade”, I think that is how I described it. Well, we had a most fabulous time, the location and people were gorgeous, with Mel taking the lead in the gorgeous category. I am pretty sure that is was the hottest wedding in history. At least my history. Heat index (don’t we love the heat index, it makes the temp sound much more dramatic) was at 115 degrees. And it was an outdoor wedding. I didn’t give a rip about how hot it was, because I was just so glad to be there, and not having to watch it on video in India.

After we sweated all day, we danced all night. Then we hopped into the car - jammies on and caffeine in hand - and drove through the night up to Minneapolis to catch a plane to fly back to India. The trip was super uneventful. Planes, waiting, expensive airport food, endless trips on the moving sidewalk with the kids, jammed vehicle with luggage and people, and dosas and idlis for breakfast in Gundlupet.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Sadly for the kids, the final McDonald's meal.

Spotted deer near the tiger reserve on the drive back to Ooty.

Our first encounter with our house was that we were locked out. That was awesome. Second encounter was walking in to a musty, musty, musty house (sneeze, sneeze, sneeze), also awesome. Third encounter was with mildewed bedding and clothes...mold creeping, creeping all over. You guessed it, awesome. Fourth encounter was whilst I was throwing one of 79 loads of bedding into the dryer, the dryer didn’t work. No biggie when it’s not the monsoon, but it’s rainy and cold all the time right now. So, all this transpired over about three hours. One would think that I would have packed up the family and headed straight back to the airport. But for some reason I was as calm as a spring breeze. It’s like my body and mind were saying, “This is how we roll here. If it were different, then it wouldn’t be my life in India... Welcome back, Tarrah”.

Our temporary dryer: A heater and fan in the bathroom.

In trying to dry out our home, we're using the fireplace for hours each day. But this time of year the wood we purchase is all wet, so we need to dry it in front of the fire before putting it in.

We are back to three green lights. Progress, maybe. Jayson is looking rather annoyed. Wishing that a guy in a smart looking uniform would come and do this for him... My husband is patient. Way more patient than I.

I have gotten flashbacks this week to our first weeks when we moved here originally. The jet lag that has almost defeated us. The mornings that last forever since we all were up at 3:00 a.m. Burning all sorts of food items when cooking. The feeling of being very alone, a world away from everyone and everything that we love... None of these are very positive feelings. The great thing though, is that most of those feelings passed within a few weeks. I definitely struggled with loneliness throughout the last two years, but the feeling of being very alone is different, to me, than loneliness. Being alone is similar to “ghost town with tumbleweed blowing through” type feelings. And that passed.

Guess what folks, the internet is on. Can you believe it? I can’t. I am sad to admit that I got butterflies in my tummy when I saw it connect. I am so obnoxious. Sorry. It’s the same feeling I had when the dryer was fixed only five days after they said it would be.

We found that the trick to getting the internet working is that the phone needs to be off the hook and we need to connect to the internet within 10 seconds of the "internet" green light coming on. Seriously.

Well, folks, I promise next week’s is going to be a little livelier. Stay with me, keep on reading, I have loved writing and sharing with you all about our life here in India. Until next week...

Complete and Utter Travel Envy

An ode to our birthday girl, who just turned two last Saturday

9:04 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010. I am sitting on my parents couch whilst my parents and Jayson watch the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox and eat Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake. I am feeling so “All-American”. Oh, a bald eagle flew by. And Betsie Ross and George Washington are having a conversation at the kitchen table. Hamburger and fries anyone?

Another all-American activity - the county fair

Ani's dream...being the seven-year-old girl she is gazing at in this picture

Okay, enough of my nonsense. I have two favorite parts of my day. Let me tell you about them. First one was between 10:00-11:30 a.m. this morning. A little background, today is the big pack up day, we take off at noon tomorrow. Okay, back to today, I pretty much had to talk Jayson off the ledge, several times... Yes, that’s my first favorite part. I know that can be traumatic for some, but not this ole’ girl. The kids were repelling off the furniture and each other and it looked like a big monster ate the stuff that we were supposed to be packing and then threw it back up and I could see Jayson slowly backing out of the house trying to make a run for it. So, I lassoed Jayson back in the house, gave him a pep talk about how life is messy, and this is one of those times, and the day will get better and he had to hang with me. Look how far we came today... Twins game and all. Aren’t you so proud of Jayson?

My second favorite part was when I was sorting through a suitcase that was set aside for St. Louis (Mike and Mel’s Wedding), and I was looking for a few sets of clothes for yours truly that were not for the important events (bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, wedding), but all the in-between clothes --- hang with me folks, this is getting a bit tedious, I promise I will tie it all together --- and I asked Jayson if he has seen them. He looked at me with complete innocence and said, “I packed them.” “Where Jayson?” said I. “In one of the 10 bags that are packed for India.” And then I slowly said, “Awesome.” I looked at my orange shorts and blue hoodie and told him to get used of this outfit because this is all that I have for the next five days. Underwear and all. He breathed deeply, and then went out to the mountain of bags and started looking, lightly, because, well, that’s all he had in him. I didn’t push it, and said, “Well, I guess we’ll just roll with it.”

9:27 p.m. So, our last few weeks in review. We had a great time spending a few weeks at my folks, doing northern Minnesota type things, which included a wonderful 24 hours spend with the amazing
Wolfe family, friends from Texas. Then we spent a week in Minneapolis with our church participating and teaching at Vacation Bible School. Definitely a great highlight of our summer. Doing life together every day with the people we love and miss so much. And now, the last three days, we have been shopping, sorting, passing-on, packing, etc. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we travel down to Minneapolis, spend the night at Sarah and David’s, and then bright, shiny and early Thursday morning, we head down to St. Louis for the wedding of the decade. All six of us are in the wedding, which is totally fantastic and I am curious, just curious, how quickly my children who will be donned in white, will get dirty at that outside wedding. Will it be 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 31 minutes...? Hmm.

The Wolfe and Palm kids, minus one Wolfe. Photo snatched from Sarah's blog: Pack of Wolfes

A bit of "Northern Minnesota type things" going on here. We think it was a lemonade stand.

9:41 p.m. On Saturday night, after the wedding, we will shove the kids in the car (like Jayson did with my clothes) not letting them out until we get to Minneapolis. We’ll drive through the night to get to the airport in Minneapolis by 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Then we’ll fly for endless hours back to India. I know, I know, complete and utter travel envy.

9:48 p.m. Well people, we are going back to India. Are we ready you ask? Ready like a woman just before giving birth. It’s all a bit painful, but you just need to do it. (Yes, there are some flaws in my analogy, but just go with it.) And likewise the packing and goodbyes and re-entry is all a bit messy, painful and tiring, but we have work to do, a great big work. And after a restful and filling two months, we are ready to jump in, to keep on coming alongside girls that long for freedom but don’t have the resources to do it on their own. Peace to you, see you in India.

Twelve bags. Packed and ready to go.

And we're done.

Where We Last Left Off

"Palm Kids" flag...the newest addition to the Lake Side Treehouse

We are driving through Hannibal, Missouri. Their water tower has “America’s Hometown” painted on it. I think they painted that phrase to try to convince themselves and others to think of that phrase more than Hannibal Lector, crazed, fictional murderer. Good try team, I still think of crazed, fictional murderer.

Well, I think the best bet right now is to start where we last left off. Profound, I know. After Minneapolis, we went back up to Bemidji and got ready to head to Canada for the Fourth of July weekend. My aunt and uncle have a place in Lake of the Woods (click here for Google map) and we try to go up there with my folks every summer. It’s a lovely, relaxing, fish-catching, blueberry-picking type of place. We also invited Jayson’s sister, Mel, and her fiancé, Mike, to join us. We have spent zero time with Mike, as living in India does get in the way of meeting and spending time with fiancés. So why not go to an Island in Canada to do the whole big brother, protective, checking the fiancé out thing? Perfect. We had a great weekend doing the things we love there, had fun watching Mike dive right into our family of six, and so look forward to standing up with them when they get married in a month.

Congratulations on catching the big one from Auntie Mel and Mike

On July 5 we headed down to Rockford, Illinois, “Jayson’s Hometown” (not necessarily on the water tower, but true nonetheless). I so love the mutual exchange of glad emotions in seeing family and friends that we haven’t seen for at least a year and half, if not upwards of three years. Also in Rockford, I met something that did a number on me. Possibly love at first sight... Our friends the McIntosh’s, who were out of town and graciously opened their house to us, had the washing machine and dryer of my dreams...

Pretty spicy dreams, eh? Anyway. The picture speaks for itself, but I must tell you the best part of the whole washing experience was, when the dryer finished, there was this lullaby like melody that sounded - not the abrasive dying goat/duck bleat that usually transpires. So, I looked at Jayson, with stars in my eyes, while petting the machines and asked him if I could have these when we move back. Pretty please?

On Friday, the 9th, we headed in to Chicago for the little girl mecca that beats all little girl meccas, American Girl Place. With their American Girl dolls in arm, Ani, Sydney, Mary, and Emma (their cousins), shopped and dined all afternoon in sensory overload. It was such a great memory made with all the Palm girls and cousins. Thanks Lorraine for a wonderful day.

On to St. Louis. Saturday, the 10th, through this morning, the 15th. St. Louis houses - among other people - Jayson’s sister, Julie, her husband, Chad, their girls, Mary and Emma, Jayson’s folks, Jay and Lorraine, and (moving in a month to Nashville) Jayson’s sister, Mel. His family are great hosts of fun and cousin frenzy. We zoo’d, we swam, we children museum’d, we partied, we dined and we just always wish that we lived closer. We are so glad that we don’t have to say goodbye, but that we all get to see each other at Mel’s wedding. Whew, goodbyes can be dreadful. Glad not to partake quite yet.

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, is in 15 minutes. If I were to choose to live in Mt. Pleasant or Hannibal, I’d choose Mt. Pleasant.

I am very conscience of the fact that I am not doing any sort of reflecting in this blog. It’s more like a laundry list of our whereabouts. Other than a few moments here and there, we have been all people, all the time. Which is absolutely marvelous and I wouldn’t want to change it. But the all people, all the time thing, does lead me to little reflection, therefore, in this blog there will be no deep thinking allowed.

So, in six hours we are to arrive at my Grandma’s for an overnight stay. We will take her house from a sweet Sunday afternoon drive to the European Autobahn in about two seconds. Six more hours of peace Grandma, soak it up.

Jamba Juice and Lake Calhoun

Photos of our time in the States to date...

One day after Jayson and the kids arrived, four families began arriving for three days of camping at Tarrah's parent's house in Bemidji.

We had two birthdays to celebrate right away! Tarrah's birthday cake, June 20

Sydney's birthday cake, June 19

Grandma and Grandpa have had so many special things lined up for the kids. Here's Grandma hosting a tea party for the kids in the treehouse

Root beer, grapes, snickerdoodles, mini-sandwiches, and then tea...what a great time with Grandma!

Ani got her ears pierced. This picture...pre-pierce.

Post-pierce was a bit sad for Ani. But now, she loves having her ears pierced.

I am sitting here in my friends Anna and Eric’s living room. The house smells really yummy. I have shorts on. I was able to go to our home church the morning, The Mills Church. I had lunch with friends. Then we all went to Jamba Juice and Lake Calhoun with a different friend and Anna is currently doing something with puff pastries and brie. My life is really good right now.

Prep for an amazing meal, Anna Schaberg style

Hospitality oozed in our direction while staying with Eric and Anna Schaberg


Playing at the park with the Schaberg kids

Let’s talk about all the things I am wild about as I end my third week in the States (in no particular order, so please do not read into it). Interstates. The Mills Church. Walking paths/sidewalks. My parents. Unending and uninterrupted electricity. Grape Nuts. Watching Jayson watch the World Cup. Long conversations with friends. Going to Sarah’s kid’s baseball/softball games. Berries. My cousin Chelsea’s hand-me-down clothes for yours truly. Cheese. “Camping” with friends. My dad’s fish fry. And let’s go back to berries for a second. I am loving them so much that I am contemplating eating my weight in berries this summer. I will let you know how that fares.

Jayson watching the World Cup - a wonderful pastime for him to unwind and enjoy

Am I sounding a little gushy-gushy about my time in the States? Yes. Will I compare the States to India. No. They are two very different countries and if I try to compare the two then I will do a disservice to both countries. I will say this though, this was my home for 30 plus years and I am absolutely wild about being home. Every day holds something fabulous. I am so thankful.

Has it been overwhelming to be here? Sometimes, but that’s okay. I should be overwhelmed at times. But I am just going with it. Why fight it.

Jayson has been working/speaking for Freedom Firm a decent bit since he got in. Not every day, but enough to feel the weight of the fight against human trafficking as we share with anyone who will listen.

Last Thursday, we started the summer “never ending road trip”. From this point on, we will not be in any spot for more than five days. Other than the fact that I may rename our family from “the palm six” to the “perfect storm”, we are actually quite favorable house guests, being that we live in a third world country usually. We are pretty much wowed by anything that anyone brings our way.

What a Palm family U.S. road trip looks like from the front seat

Also what a Palm family road trip looks like. At this point, Sydney had tried five different "potty stances", none of them quite working.

I am certain that this time in the States is necessary for our sustainability back in India. To revive. To connect. To sort. To drive.

Okay, it’s time to be done, for there is a delectable meal to be enjoyed and wonderful conversation to be had. Cheers for now.