Hindsight is 20/20

People have told me before that I am a great question asker. Yesterday I asked a great question of Sydney, “Why did you cut your hair Sydney?” Answer: “Mommy, my bangs are always in my face and I can’t see the pretty flowers.” It’s hard to argue with that. We then talked about the next time she gets the urge to cut her hair, to please consult mommy first. All my children have practiced haircutting on themselves - following in their grandma’s shoes, I suspect - it no longer moves me to horror, just to laughter.

What do you mean she can't see? (Note the location of the scissors...)

She's had it! Taking matters into her own hands. (Literally, her own hands.)

She can see all the pretty flowers now. (And she will be able to see them for the next 4 years, since it will take quite a while to grow those bad boys out...)

There is a real possibility that the rest of the blog is going to about weather. Some might find this boring, but I beg you, give it a chance. On Saturday night, we were heading to a school event called “From Hollywood to Bollywood.” Sweet. It started raining hard, and it did not let up until Tuesday morning. And this rain was like none that I have ever seen. If I were to speculate... if it had been snow and if it had accumulated, it probably would have been 52 feet high. And it wasn’t just rain, it was wind.

Ani and Ashley went to "Hollywood to Bollywood" as the twins from Parent Trap

Sydney went as a potpourri of costume ideas

Jovie went as Vincent Van Gogh

Cowboy James

We got up Sunday morning, and of course it was still raining, but we really did not think anything of it at that point. We just went ahead with our day. We had a pretty quiet day ahead of us, so we thought we would jump in the car/van/can and head over to Coonoor, the next town over, about 45 minutes down the mountain. Let’s step back in time for a bit. When we lived in MN, during snowstorms we would see people driving around at mach speeds and think, they are either super-stupid or not from around here. Present day, I am sure that Ootians or Coonoorites thought both of those things about us when we were driving. Seriously (mom and dad, close your eyes for this part, it does not highlight our sound judgement) it kind of dawned on us when we were driving to Coonoor that this rain was not a normal rain. Every few minutes there was a tree laying down in the road or a landslide or a waterfall where there was not waterfall before. All these things causing us to drive around whatever was blocking our way.

The “live and learn” or “hindsight is 20/20” really does apply in our situation, because after the storm passed and damages were and are being assessed, this is what is being reported... The roads leading out of Ooty are still blocked by landslides. Petrol is being rationed. Homes slid right down the hills. Some homes, businesses and schools still have standing water. Most homes are still very damp. Power is still out in a few areas. They named this storm Cyclone Phyan. I am not a meteorologist, so I don’t know if what hit us was technically Cyclone Phyan. Maybe it was “Tropical Storm Phyan.” But regardless, the Arabian Sea is watching the tail end of this storm as I write this.

Cyclone Phyan

Almost every road in and around Ooty looks like these photos, if not much, much more

Weather devastates all parts of the world. But the difference that I am observing here is that devastation just looks different in a third world country. There is no home insurance on the 10 x 10 tin houses that many, many people live in here. Just because there is no insurance, doesn’t mean that it’s less of a home. Jayson went to go help put roof back together on Tuesday and it simply meant putting a tarp over it until another house is found for them.

Thank you for walking this journey with us. We feel completely humbled living here.