Everyone is Building

It just occurred to me this past week that everyone here is building. It is truly amazing. My drive to work is approximately one mile. Upon make the left out of our apartment complex, you can immediately see buildings being built on both sides of the road. All buildings here are made strictly out of concrete. There is no wood used anywhere, except as scaffolding. Branches of trees have been cleverly cut so they can brace walls, hold entire stories of buildings, and anchor the structure while the actual foundation is built. What's more, is that all of the building occurs during the day when it is anywhere from 100 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

From one office window, one can see an enormous structure being built by Dell, while a stones throw away, you can see an entire campus being built by Oracle. (Not nearly as cool as the round towers just south of San Francisco) Everyone is building.

In our apartment complex, there is an entire section that is being rebuilt from scratch. And if you venture just a few miles toward the center of town, you will pass by a large number of stores that are being built, rebuilt, re-built again, or just looking like their building to stay ahead of the competition. It is amazing to see people, particularly women, walking on the sides of the streets caring bags of concrete mix on the top of their head.

This city is growing at a pace that I don't think one can comprehend. And, unfortunately, the infrastructure just isn't there to support it. In particular, the pollution here is awful. Yet, I hear it is actually very clean when compared to Mumbai of Bangalore. The rickshaws, trucks, and motorcycles are not spewing clean exhaust. You can see the pollution everywhere you go. Today, as I was sitting by the pool, the clouds actually took on a nice tan hue. Kind of disturbing to me.

All of these thoughts happened after my first experience playing cricket. I had always seen this sport on TV back home, but had never really had the desire to watch it or learn about it. Well, this has now been forced upon me. India is obsessed with cricket. It is more popular than any other sport. This extends to our office as well. There is a cricket club that has been established comprised of almost every individual in the office. We play on a field, basically a giant brown clay tennis court, in the middle of the city under the lights. It is much too hot to play during the day.

I played in our match this past Friday night. It was exciting. I hit a four run home run. And then got out on the next pitch. Apparently, outs are a much bigger deal in cricket that they are in baseball. Which was clear to me after I realized that was my only "at bat" for the rest of the evening. Kind of a bummer. So, I hope to improve my skills the next time out.

That's it for now. I am off to the pool. I hope this letter finds all of you happy and healthy.

B