Home Improvement

Here's a picture of our driver Maraj (left) and guard Rambir (right, holding Isaac). That thing on the ground is the closet organizer the carpenter was building in the front yard for us. The most amazing thing was that the carpenter was dressed up in a button-down shirt with nice slacks and shiny leather shoes and he still looked that way when he left!

This is Babu, our landlord's property manager. We only wish we had such a good property manager for our house! Babu came over on Saturday and supervised the painter painting the gate, the plumber/electrician replacing two of the water heaters, and the carpenter building shelves and a clothes rack in the prayer closet. My favorite home improvement was the gadgets they installed on the doors to make them automatically shut when people come in to keep the mosquitos out (which I was even more grateful for when I found out yesterday that our driver Maraj's 6-year-old daughter has malaria)! Babu thinks I'm a crazy woman with my constant requests, and he just laughs whenever I ask for yet another thing.

This is Isaac standing among some of the beautiful flowers in our garden. Our mali (gardener) doesn't speak any English, but I asked him one day through Sarita if we could plant some vegetables. The very next day he showed up with tomato transplants from someone else's garden! And yesterday I handed him some herb seed packets and he cheerfully planted them--even the cantaloupe, which he thought was papaya and he kept saying would take 10 months to grow.

This is the painter painting our newest baby gate. He changes into his painting clothes in our front yard and squats wherever he's painting. He's very Zen.

This is Isaac taking Graham for a walk on a rug we got on loan. Graham is getting so mobile (though not walking yet!). I think if he had more floor time he'd be scooting around, but no such luck with so many people to carry him around!

Here's the loaner rug again with Farookh in the background. Farookh came recommended to me be a friend I met from Nepal, and when I called him up he brought over 10 similar rugs and laid them out in the living room so we could see how they looked! The service here is incredible. The rugs are very expensive though, so I'm on a quest for something less fancy and more inexpensive. I was also turned off to this rug when it stained Graham's hands and face when he started drooling on it!

On Saturday we asked Sarita and Sudhir to make us chapatis (kind of like wheat tortillas) and daal (lentils with curry-type spices). Yummy!

While we were eating Isaac opened the back door and looked outside. "Look, Mommy!" he said, "The guard is eating the same things we are!" Sure enough, his wife had sent him with the same delectable treat. Only he was warming his chapatis on the heater in the garage!

Russell liked the chapatis a whole bunch, but he kept insisting, "No, NOT chapatis, tortillas!"

FHE at the Cutlers

This is what Rich wrote in our FHE journal yesterday:

22 January 2006

Although India defies description, here's what we all love about it:

Russell: A gecko (referring to the plastic gecko he's playing with)
Merinda: Where's your favorite place to play?
Russell: A [our] new house!
Isaac: Who do you like to play with? Sarita? Sudhir? Rambir? Mommy? Daddy? Maraj? The gardener?
Russell: (No to all, except the gardener!)

Isaac: My favorite helpers are Sarita and Sudhir. One of the electrical guys, Dad asked about a simple soldering iron . . . Dad found a guy with a neat office with a 'cilloscope and guess what? . . . (talks for a long time)

Merinda (via Isaac who whispers in my ear) I like that they deliver groceries. I like that the driver puts the kids in their car seats. I never feel alone.

Daddy: I like that I can walk to all sorts of stores. I like the positive attitudes of everyone at work. I like all the personal contact you get when there's no more superstores and online ordering.

Graham: Bwaa . . . Goo . . . (which means he likes it that we pay to have 6 people around who want to hold him. He likes when strangers pinch his cheeks and say "So sweet." He likes the danger of not being old enough to be immunized for lots of things.

A Day in the Life of Mindy

So there’s never a dull moment in India. Here’s the play-by-play run-down of my day:

4:00 am Isaac woke up complaining his arm hurt. I think it’s growing pains. I gave him some Tylenol after distracting him didn’t work and he finally went to sleep.

4:30 am Couldn’t sleep so I emailed and blogged on my newly set-up computer

6:30 am Took a very quick shower in order to have hot water before it ran out

7:30 am Sent Isaac off to school with Rich and the driver

8:00 am Tried to figure out how to direct Sarita and Sudhir to do the things I want around the house and while I was thinking they were working and I realized they’re doing pretty much everything I would ever do and more. The only thing we’re really missing is a good cleaner to scrub the bathrooms with so I can see how really bad or good they are. Still looking for that . . . Have yet to see Comet or anything like it.

9:00 am Received a surprise visit from the American Women’s Association (AWA) Welcome Committee Chair Sandie Axelson. She lives down the road and was stopping by to make sure I was finding my way to the meeting

9:30 am Sent Sudhir to the market to buy laundry soap, bread, and stuff to make cholle for us (which turned out to be garbanzo beans).

10:00 am Went to the AWA meeting at the Delhi Golf Club. It was extremely posh, and I was (again) very under-dressed and the only one with my children. But I brought Sarita with me to help and it was nice. I met several moms with young children and got an idea of what AWA is all about. They do shopping trips and culture meetings and community outreach programs.

12:30 Picked Isaac up at school and we had lunch (hamburgers and mint chip ice cream cones) in the cafeteria with Marcia and her kids (Thomas & Ellie) along with several other families from Belgium, Australia, Korea, and somewhere else in Europe.

2:00 pm Returned home from school and fed Graham.

3:00 pm Received a visit from a merchant selling stools made of rope and bamboo. I told him I may be interested in buying some and he said he’d come back in a half hour with the stools I was talking about buying.

3:30 Received a visit from our driver’s sister. It turns out he sent her because he doesn’t speak English very well and wanted her to tell me that he doesn’t want to work for us anymore because he can make more money as a taxi driver and wants to make sure we can survive without him. The irony of this is that we have another driver lined up for next month and were trying to figure out how to tell him!

4:00 pm Merchant returned and I bought two stools and three cute little kid chairs and a table for 1000 rupees (about $20).

4:30 pm Went to this amazing fruit and vegetable market called Ohkla Market with Sarita, Isaac, and Graham while Russell stayed home with Sudhir and did puzzles. While Graham slept in the car with Maraj (the driver) we braved the market. It’s basically this long dirt road with people sitting on either side with big piles of produce in front of them. It’s loud, smells of animal dung, but the produce is beautiful. Sarita walked the whole line asking prices and then we turned back around and got the things we wanted at the best prices. We got a huge bag (so heavy that Sarita and I had to carry it together) of potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, onions, ginger, and cilantro for about 100 rupees ($2).

5:30 pm We got home and Sarita realized her cell phone was missing. I think someone stole it from her at the market. She went to her room to make sure she hadn’t left it there and came back and I could tell she had been crying. I would cry too if I’d lost a cell phone that had cost me almost one month’s wages! I wished they'd stolen mine instead. I called Rich and he suggested we just buy her a new one. I agreed—after all, we call her all the time and use up her minutes anyway.

6:30 pm I fill up the bathtub a whole three inches or so for the boys to take a bath (that’s all the hot water there is). We read “Homer Price” (Thanks, Aunt Amy!) in the kitchen so we can watch Sudhir make chapatis (like wheat tortillas).

7:00 pm Isaac and Russell eat their chapatis at their new little rope bamboo table with cheese and apple juice. Daddy gets home and holds Graham and practices saying his numbers in Hindi (he’s been learning them from Maraj while he drives him around). We’re so glad when Daddy comes home!

7:30 pm Isaac slips on the water draining from the washer and bites his tongue and starts bleeding. Daddy flees to the bedroom for two hours of conference calls (he added that part—I’m not bitter!). Russell asks me to pick him up and take him to bed.

7:40 pm Two men show up to assess our air conditioning needs. They say we need 12 tons of AC power and Freescale has currently only allowed 7 tons. We’ll see what the next guy says. The landlord’s daughter returns my call from earlier that day and assures me that she’s sending someone to REALLY fix the leak in the wall upstairs so it stops growing mold, but it will take a week or so. Glad we haven’t moved up there yet!

7:50 pm Isaac goes up to the roof to hang laundry, which he’s been begging me to do all night. Last night he was lamenting that he has to go to school and miss out on all the laundry fun (“When I go to high school, it will be even worse. I won’t get to do ANY laundry!”)

8:00 pm Isaac goes to bed.

8:15 pm Sarita and Sudhir finish cleaning the kitchen and I finally get to try their yummy cholle (garbanzo bean soup with cilantro, red onion, lots of garlic, and tomatoes) with chapatis.

9:15 am My day goes full circle and here I sit doing the email thing again. Phew!

Making Friend with Our New Friends Colony House

This is Isaac and his great friend Thomas, with his sister Ellie in the background. We've been hanging out with them and their mom Marcia. They are from Australia and were staying in the same hotel as we were. They have recently relocated from China and Thomas and Isaac attend the same school, same age group. This picture was taken at one of the tombs at Lodi Gardens. I wish I had taken a picture of the family of native folk who sat on the lawn just a few feet from us while we picnicked and looked at us like we were zoo animals. The concept of personal space is almost non-existent here! Isaac has obviously learned to fit in already . . .
On Tuesday we had a little help taking the plunge and actually moving in for keeps to our house. Rich's co-workers were visiting from the USA and had trouble finding a hotel room for that night, so Rich volunteered our rooms. I had to do some scrambling to pack everything up, but we did it!
This is Isaac relishing some purified water from our new filter--one of the criteria we needed to meet before Miss Mindy was willing to move in.
This in Rich on his first conference call in the new house. Internet was another criteria for move-in so that we could have Daddy at home while he talks to people in the USA at night.
Here's Isaac and Russell taking their first bath in our new house. We can only get a few inches of warm water to fill the tub out of the hot water heater (or as they call it here, a "geezer"), but they didn't mind much!

Our Air Shipment Arrived!

Our air shipment arrived! The first thing we did was have them rip open the bike and scooter and the boys rode up and down the driveway with glee!

Sarita

This is Sarita, our maid who is living in our servant's quarters with her husband Sudhir even though we're not living at the house yet. Her English skills have been priceless in communicating with all the repairmen and shopkeepers. I've also taken her shopping with me to have an extra pair of hands while I haggle and search for appliances and housewares. Sudhir has been doing a great job keeping the house swept and cleaned--a big job with all the dust around here!

Little Boy Bliss

The driveway is quite long, so the boys have a good amount of space for racing!

Making Do

We gave up on the gas connection and an oven for now and had Sarita get us a 300 Rupee ($6) hot plate. We cooked our first meal (besides PB&J) on our hot plate. At one point the hot plate started making popping sounds and I screamed. The guard and driver came running! Never alone here . . .

First Meal in New Friends House

Here we are eating our first mac & cheese meal at our patio table we got to use as a dining table while we wait for our sea shipment to arrive. The house is dreadfully loud without furniture, rugs, and curtains. I'm hoping to work on that rugs and curtains part this week and pray for the sea shipment not to be delayed too far past its Feb 9th due date. Once our washing machine and dryer arrive and we get the Internet set up, we're planning to move in and start camping out on our air mattresses and have our own space.

Produce for Pennies

Sarita and Isaac at the Ohkla Fruit and Vegetable Market--a huge line of vendors camped out on the road with their produce and rock-bottom prices. See the little boy behind Sarita with a load his size on his head?

You Can Call Us!

This is us talking on the phone to Grandma and Grandpa Cutler via Skype. We can talk to all ya'll this way at only 2 cents a minute or free if you use your computer! Technology is such a blessing for us here--it keeps us connected here so much more than expats of previous generations. I got my own cell phone last week and everyone seems to have one here. Drivers, maids, everyone.

Graham Growing Great

Graham keeps on growing and tolerating new places and people on every turn. We've made friends with an Australian family staying in our hotel in similar circumstances, and when we've arrange playdates Marcia (the mother) asks when Graham will be napping. I always laugh and tell her he's had absolutely no schedule since we've arrived. He does sleep most of the night though, so that's been nice (I only wish I did--it's 4:30 am right now!).

Keeping the Hotel Staff on Their Toes

The staff at the hotel is wonderful about being helpful and playing with the children. Russell especially loves to jump on the steps outside while we get the car seats into the car. The doormen get very excited when he starts jumping several steps at a time, and he loves the attention.

Early Morning Munchies

One day last week Russell and Isaac were too tired in the evening to eat much dinner, and Russell kept waking up all night complaining that he was hungry. At about 3 am I threw up my hands and got everyone up for a delectable snack of peanut butter and goldfish!

Finding Five-Star Fun & Frivolous

This is Isaac and Russell eating cold cereal in the hotel restaurant. With all the delicacies they offer for breakfast, cold cereal usually wins with these boys. Luckily on this day we are all happy because we haven't broken anything!

They still had decorations up in this photo from New Year celebrations. People are still greeting each other here by wishing them a happy new year, and at church they talk often about how we hope Heavenly Father will take care of us in 2006 like he did in 2005.

More Fun Things to Do With a Bike

We went shopping last week for some patio furniture to use while we wait for our sea shipment to arrive. One shopkeeper showed us a picture of a patio table and chairs and we asked if he had one we could see. He asked us to wait 15-20 minutes and he would have it brought out. Sure enough, 30 minutes later this man pedaled up to the shop with the table and chairs in tow! If there's something to be done in India, there's manpower (not a machine) to do it for cheap! We didn't take a picture of it, but on another day we went to have a copy made of a key and watched a man dressed like a monk make the key using a metal file! Isaac was in heaven watching that one.

Catching Some Zzzzs

The traffic is heavy here, so we've spent much time in the car. Here's Isaac and Russell zonked out on such a trip.

Elephant Ride at a Birthday Party!!

Isaac, Russell, and Rich on the elephant with one of Isaac's classmates Jae Hyuk.

Elephant Ride with Joshua

Isaac being silly on the elephant with one of his classmates Joshua. They decided they needed to be friends because they have the same haircuts! Joshua was chiding the elephant "driver" for poking the poor animal, but I don't think he understood a word Joshua said!

First Birthday Party Invitation

Isaac got invited to a birthday party for his classmate Zara Purdy. We were amazed when we pulled up to this gigantic house on the outskirts of Delhi (they call them "farmhouses") and saw an elephant, an ice cream cart, horse ride, and blow-up jumping house, carnival games, face painting, a wet bar, and a spread of gourmet and kid food. Rich talked the kids into an elephant ride, and they loved it. We also got to meet lots of Isaac's classmates and their families and draw upon their expat experiences. The Purdys are so sweet and genuine. It was so thoughtful of them to invite us and help us tap into the social network.

Sunday Outing

On Sunday we took a walk to the Lotus Bah'ai Temple near our hotel. Walking there was an adventure in and of itself, but when we arrived, we were amazed by the throngs of people waiting in line to slip off their shoes and enter this fabulous temple of meditation.

Graham Has a Following

Here's Graham getting his usual attention from the crowds. "So sweet," they say, and pinch his fat cheeks and take pictures.

Favorite Quotes from Boys in Delhi

Russell (in the middle of the night): "I wanna go home to Mama-Dada's house."

Isaac (in the car from the airport to the hotel): "Driver, I have a question."

Russell (at our vacant new house): "We have a NEW house!"

Isaac (while driving and seeing kids on parent's laps in the front seat): "Mommy, those kids aren't very safe!"

Graham (all the time): "Bwuuu Bwaa Ah-Boo" (making raspberries!)

Isaac (to the college girls from Arizona we met in the immigration line at the airport): "My best friends in Texas are Jacob and Joseph. I'm going to make new best friends in New Delhi."

Isaac (to Grandma Cutler on the phone): "I'm a superhero. Know why? I helped my mom find her camera cord when Daddy was sleeping."

Russell (with his thumb in his mouth, looking out the window of our hotel): "I see a motorcycle, and another motorcycle and another motorcycle!"

Isaac (after we had to send away the car we'd sent for because it had no seat belts and we are waiting in our room starved): "Mommy, I know why you're giving us goldfish. So we'll stop saying we're hungry."

Isaac: "I just made up a law that might be true. Don't blow up anything near your furniture. Is that right? Well, it should be a law."

The Fabulous Flight

The boys were angels on the airplane. Of course, it helped that we were sitting in business class, but I don't think they would have cared. We played musical seats several times for variety, but we all slept for probably 8-10 hours of the 15-hour flight. Nana sent a bag full of planes that delighted Russell to no end (and annoyed the man two seats behind who was not amused by the airplane sounds he made while playing!). And Isaac loved listening to books on tape with the headset and cassette player from G&G Cutler and Aunt Katie.

Graham slept nearly the entire flight to Delhi in the bassinet. The rest of the time he played with his dinosaur from Aunt Katie and drooled a lot.

Graham also spent some time hanging out with the flight attendant Sheri. At one point, she took him and disappeared! I was a little worried, but figured she couldn't go far with us all on the same airplane over an ocean. She re-appeared after a few minutes, and it was a welcome break for Russell to get some one-on-one attention.

Happy New Year from Delhi!

We made it! We arrived here in Delhi at 10:30 pm New Year's Eve. The hotel came through for us, so when we brought out our five carts of luggage there was a man holding a sign that read "Richard Doyglaus Cutler" on it. I was relieved to not have to find our own transportation in the middle of the night! They had to send for a bigger car, but after waiting for a bit and seeing our first two cows meandering by, we filled up one SUV and one sedan with our 28 bags, car seats, and strollers. Hooray!

The SUV packed up tight. Rich had to sit in the front seat with the two other men and we caravaned to the hotel. We saw some fireworks on the way, and more cows!