My first indian dinner (kind of)

So... after I wrote yesterday, two of the accountants here Michelle and Dhannajay took me to dinner. They took me to a Thai food place on Sri's orders. Sri is the general manager/ owner here. I guess the place is a place Dave likes. We ordered curry, and had an awkward, but interesting conversation. They are both fluent in English, but they still have strong accents. In fact Michelle and her family speak English at home. It is her first language. I didn't know there were people here who spoke English as their first language. It surprised me. But her accent is still strong, and so she too can be hard to understand. The conversation was a bit awkward. They are nice people, but sitting down to dinner with people you have never met can be difficult. Especially when you don't have a ton in common. Dhannajay likes to play chess, and said he wanted to play with me at some point. He is Hindu, and is a vegetarian, like many people here. They asked me if I ate non-veg. I guess here that is a common question, but it struck me as odd. In America, we usually ask people if they are vegetarians or something like that, but here, so many people are vegetarian that being a "non-veg eater" is less common. Michelle on the other hand is Catholic. Her family is Catholic, and I guess whomever brought Catholicism to India, taught people to speak English, and somehow got them to use it for everything. And so through the ages, her family has spoken English, and been Catholic. Marriages here are usually arranged within the same religion, so there is little mixing between groups that way. Michelle is a non-veg eater (common with Catholics here) which, as I have come to discover, usually means that they are willing to eat chicken. Other meats are not well looked upon. Beef is very seldom had. Non-veg eaters usually will, but don't often like, to eat fish. Pork is seldom seen as well. We spoke some about religion. I try not to be nosey, but I do like to ask questions about their religion. Especially because Hinduism is so interesting to me. It seems like everyone kinda has their own spin on Hinduism. Since they don't have "church" on Sundays, there is really no regulation about what Hinduism is from one person to the next. I can ask the same questions to different people, and get very different answers. At this point, I have discussed religion with 4 people now. While I was waiting at the airport in New York, I spoke with somebody who was very nice while we waited. He explained to me about Hinduism (probably better than anyone else has since), and I explained to him about our religion. The guy who sat on the plane next to me was fun too. He wanted to talk about the "Da Vinci Code" and get my take on it. Evidently, he and his friends in India had read the book, and they were curious as too how the book was taken by Christians, and how much was truth, and how much was fiction (he didn't know if Mary Magdalen was even mentioned in the bible). I spoke to him for a while about the church and our beliefs... but in his case, I spoke mostly about Christianity. And then I spoke with Dhannajay and Michelle about religion too. Michelle was very curious about our religion. She had never heard of it before, and thought that it was interesting. We had a good talk. She is a very religious person. She reads the bible every day. I don't think I have ever met a Catholic who reads the bible every day. I was very impressed. The Catholics in Korea that I knew were told not to bother with such things... that reading the bible was just to difficult for every day people. I told here about The Book of Mormon, and said that I would bring it in on Monday for her. She was interested in seeing it. I'm not expecting that any of my teaching here in India will come to anything. Many of the same blockades that were in Korea are here: tradition in religion, strong family regulation, and little to no exposure to good practicing members. On the other hand, all of those things but the last are strengths if seen in a different light. Anyways, I really enjoy the people here. And the food wasn't bad. It wasn't my favorite, but I still liked it. I had a green curry that I was really worried about at first, because it had coconut milk in it, but I couldn't taste the coconut in it at all. It was a good dinner. After dinner we went back to the office, and I worked quite late with one of the programmers. We were here until about 2 am. At which time employees in Utah also had many things for me to do. Preetam, the programmer that I was working with took me home on his motorbike. I know by saying this, that mom is already clicking the comment link below to tell me to never get on that bike again... but I only live about a mile away, and there is virtually no traffic on this road. It really was quite safe. I had my camera with me, and I was more worried about it bouncing off my back than I was about falling off. Even if I had fallen off, we weren't going fast (it's mostly dirt road). Well... let's put it this way... I felt safer on that bike than I would walking home a mile in the dark when I was uncertain of the way. Anyways, that was my day yesterday... and it turned out pretty well I think. :-D Hope you all are doing well! I don't know if I will be able to call or talk much this weekend. I don't want to be here real late tonight, and I'm not sure what my Sunday holds. Sunday may end up being quite quiet this week. I may just stay home. We'll see.