First Car Wreck We Didn't Cause

I've been in several car accidents but this was the first one with one of my children behind the wheel!
It happened several months ago while driving home from Seminary. It was the age old situation where you get stopped behind someone who is turning, they start to roll forward, you look over your shoulder to make sure you are clear, then slam on your gas to "shoot the gap" BEFORE checking to make sure the car in front of you has actually turned. Rookie mistake.

Funny thing was after he hit the car he slammed on the brakes as I was simultaneously yelling at him and so he assumed he had done the wrong thing and proceeded to let off the brake and step on the gas. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what the heck he was doing. I followed that up with more yelling "STOP, Stop what the heck are you doing!". After that he wasn't confused anymore.

The rest of the story is very long and drawn out as is any vehicle confrontation in India. There must be hours of sitting around talking and analyzing the situation before you can even think about a resolution. The idea being, to convince anyone who will listen its the other guys fault and to see how much money you can squeeze from them in the process. It didn't help that technically Big T doesn't have a license and shouldn't have been driving in the first place. Suffice it to say after an hour and a half of sitting around trying to resolve the situation Richard showed up and me and the kids left. A half hour later it was resolved. What can I say, Richard is a man who can get things done. Didn't hurt that he nearly ran the man over when he wouldn't get out from in front of the vehicle that was taking me and the kids home.... again, LONG story!

Initially we offered the other driver 2500 rs (approx. $55USD) and he scoffed at me. When we paid to have it fixed a few days later it only cost us 16000 rs (approx $30USD) to fix the bumper good as new. Repair work is extremely inexpensive here. He should have taken our offer instead of holding out for more. Come to find out later it was a government vehicle that he could have gotten fixed free of charge and simply pocketed whatever money he got from us. He thought since we were white foreigners he would go-for-the-gold but because he was so greedy he ended up with nothing!

(Bumper of the car we hit)

Holy-Giant-Balls-of-Hail-Batman!

Last week we were shocked out of our lackadaisical Sunday afternoon by a sudden and freak hail storm. It didn't last more than a few minutes but the size of the hail was shocking. Richard reconsidered going outside when his hand was immediately hit by a huge ice ball! We got the pictures of the hail in Richard's hands after it stopped.
We all stood at the windows in awe of this awesome display and amazing feat of Mother Nature...after all, we've had recent temperatures as high as 113 degrees. Guess that's why they call it Climate Change!

Because there is a serious cockroach issue in India almost everywhere you go you will notice little white moth balls in all the drains of bathrooms, sinks and showers. After taking the these pictures Little T says "They look like the toilet thingees Mom". We all had a good chuckle about that!