Why I Love Living in India 2.0

We have now lived over two years in Delhi (not counting the 2-3 months per year that we flee it). We recently decided to stay until spring of 2010, and then we're out of here to Who-Knows-What-and-Where. Are we crazy?

Some days two more years in Delhi seems like eons; other days I feel panicked that I've barely wrapped my brain around it or seized all the opportunities to learn and grow. I made a list the first year we were here about what I love about Delhi, partly to talk myself into liking it. I've again been asking myself lately why we are staying in this place that often makes us want to tear our hair out, so it's time to try the list again:

1. I can wear pants to church! If you're Indian, dressing up for church means either wearing a sari (six yards of fabric wrapped around you with a halter-top blouse, unless you can convince a tailor to make it otherwise) or a salwar kameez (a long tunic top with pants that resemble MC Hammer pants from to 80's and a long scarf called a dupatta draped around your neck). I've recently gotten into wearing the salwar kameez gig, and it's fantastic! I can sit on the floor with kids without any worries about exposing myself, those Hammer pants are fantastically comfortable, and if I need to wipe up any kid emergencies, I've always got my dupatta handy. Add to that the delight and amusement of the members seeing me dressed like a native, and it's a win-win situation (this picture isn't me, by the way!).

And it's not just the pants. The flavor of Church is different here too. Since the Gospel is relatively new and there's a scarcity of people, resources, and time, we've learned what the essential elements of Church are. And we've gotten better about letting everything else go--no complicated visuals or handouts, choosing to do seminary but not mutual in our little branch, learning to accept that a hastily-prepared talk or lesson is okay when coupled with inspiration. Those are some lessons I really needed to learn.


2. Our new driver Anil. Having a driver seems like a grand idea, but it took us 11 tries to find someone that doesn't frustrate us more than help us (read more details than you ever wanted to know about the old drivers here). But now that we've finally found one we like, you can't beat the convenience of having someone to drive you around while you read stories to your kids in the back, to park you car, to clean your car, to pick up the dry cleaning, to take kids home after a youth activity so you can get home to your own kids, etc.

3. The Food. I love Indian food. Yummy. I love the fresh roti (flat breads), the raitha (yogurt relish), the curries (love that spicy tingly flavor on my lips), the paneer (fresh tofu-like cheese), the fresh lime sodas (sweet and salty is such a sensory delight), mangoes, lychee fruit, okra from our garden. Hungry yet? I love it that Rich and I can walk to the New Friends Community Centre on date night and choose from a dozen or more amazing and affordable restaurants with ambience--Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, North Indian, South Indian, and McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Dominoes if we miss America!

4. Our Garden and the Mali (Gardener).
Isn't this guy so Zen? In addition to the good karma I think his countenance brings our household, I love having a gardener that only costs $20/month and enjoying the fruits of a garden that I didn't have to slave over (or fail over, which was as was often the case in Texas with babies). Our grapefruit tree produced about 70 grapefruits this year, which turned out to be the Pulsipher adults' and kids' favorite daily breakfast habit. Delicious!

In the spring/summer we get to watch the wonder of our two banana trees producing bananas. First it's a huge purple bud (which in the South, they pull off and eat) which soon opens up to reveal little flowers that eventually turn into bananas. Amazing. Then the whole giant tree falls down and grows up again that tall in a year. Now our grapefruit tree has yummy fragrant blossoms and all over town there are these gorgeous orangey-red blossoms on a tree whose name I hope to learn (anyone know its name??). I also love to go down the street and buy a bunch of flowers for next to nothing and brighten up my house with their color and smell.

5. Margaret and Poojah.
These wonderful women help keep us sane and alive. Some days it's a real drag having Margaret and her daughter Poojah around ALL THE TIME, often just sitting in the kitchen, but really it's so nice to have someone else do most of the cleaning and cooking so I can focus on other stuff. And when the kids don't like the dinner that Margaret has made, at least I'm not the one who has slaved over something nobody wants to eat! I don't miss the cleaning AT ALL, but I do miss cooking lately, so I'm starting to do a bit more. Still you can't beat the consistency of dinner on the table every weeknight, even if you decide to spend the afternoon at the pool and come home hungry. I also love having Margaret babysit our kids every Friday night so we can go on a date even if we forgot to plan ahead and call a babysitter.


6. The People.
I meet so many interesting people from all over the world and all over India every day. Recently I spent a few hours with a friend of mine Serena, who is from Thailand but has a British mother and an Indian father. It was fascinating to hear her life story, to visit her home and see all her Buddhist religious shrines all over her house and taste and smell her yummy Thai food. I've met and formed friendships with people here from Australia, Korea, Romania, Holland, England, Finland, Japan, Spain, Germany, Israel, Scotland, New Zealand, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Canada, Egypt, etc. And so many have such interesting jobs with aid organizations or government jobs or media organizations. The downside of this international crowd is the transiency. The other day I looked through my contacts on my cell phone and discovered that about half of the contacts no longer live in India (and I've only had my phone for a year!). But I think the fact that we all know most of us aren't here for long, and the fact that many of us are in crisis mode, makes us become better friends faster. Hopefully that means I'll keep in touch with some of these friends long after we've all moved on. Above (center) is my good friend Lesley from Scotland who recently moved with her family (including Isaac's good friend Kara) to France. We miss them!


7. Musikgarten is a Hit!
A few years before we moved here I shifted from teaching piano lessons to teaching group music and movement classes to preschoolers. I was really excited about the curriculum I was learning to use, but I had a really hard time getting enough students to get my studio off the ground. Here in Delhi there is a shortage of such extracurricular activities for small children especially, and the word-of-mouth network is amazingly powerful, so I have no trouble getting students. In fact, my only problem is turning them away so I don't get too busy doing it. I now have 5 classes I teach on Wednesdays with a total of 30 students I teach in my home (so we still have no living room furniture). I really love teaching my own kids along with their classmates in three of those classes (though it's not always easy). I also love the opportunity it gives me to have in my home every week interesting people from all over the world I wouldn't meet otherwise and give them something that enriches their family's lives.


8. Church Makes Us Stretch.

Being a member of the Church in India has been wonderful for us. It has tested, and thereby strengthened, our testimonies. It has given us a crash course in so many callings and leadership experiences that we may not have had otherwise. It has taught us how to do the best we can with what we have, and not get stressed stress over mediocrity and simplicity. I'm now teaching Seminary (sort of like a Bible study class) to the youth/young adults and find it so rewarding and inspiring to teach the Gospel to new converts and potential converts and see it through their eyes. It's refreshing to teach a group so thirsty for truth. I am also the secretary of the Young Women's organization, and am learning to not get too upset when no other leaders show up and I have to wing it. I help in Primary unofficially off and on, and have really gained a testimony of how simply teaching the Primary music pretty much gets the whole Gospel message across, even to children who barely speak English.

Rich has learned buckets and loads of stuff through being a branch president, and I marvel at his stamina, diplomacy, and leadership as he fills this calling. And now some inspiring reflections from Rich on this topic:

I was feeling quite discouraged in my calling and about staying in India one Sunday when I heard a talk by President Taylor in District Conference. He started talking about pioneers, and having heard a thousand people come in and tell the local members what great pioneers they are before, I was expecting more of the same. But instead he chose to talk to us foreigners, saying "I honor you from overseas who have left your friends and your families and the comforts of home and have followed the Spirit of the Lord to be here. You are pioneers." It was always the local members who were supposed to be the pioneers, but it had never occurred to me before that we too could qualify for such distinction. It made me feel ready for another two years.

9. The Travel & Extended Family Time.
One of the cool bonuses of moving overseas with a big corporation is that they provide an allowance for us to travel home once a year. Because we live in a hardship country, we are also required to leave the country for a rest and relaxation trip for at least a week once a year, and that is mostly paid for. It's really nice to have a dedicated time each year when we just go home to America to spend good quality time with all of our loved ones (and stock up on peanut butter and children's medicines). We feel so blessed to have visited Mom and Dad Gurney twice in New Zealand--and this last time to have Brandon meet us there during our visit was blissfully happy. We've discovered that on our big trips halfway around the world that it helps with jet lag to stop somewhere in the middle and run around site-seeing for a few days. This ends up not increasing the airline ticket much, and we've loved our short trips to Copenhagen, Rome, and Bangkok. Add to that the weekend trips we can take in this amazing country, and we really count ourselves pretty blessed to live halfway around the world from our families.

10. Quiet Havens--Lodi Gardens, Tuglaqabad & Our Home (okay, not quiet, but a haven). Delhi is loud, dusty and smelly; but to know the sweet, you must taste the bitter. Once Rich and I were walking in a fairly residential area around 9 pm. He suggested we count how many seconds before we heard a horn honking (mind you, supposedly you aren't supposed to honk your horn in residential areas at night but instead use your lights to communicate). The highest we got in our counting was 6 seconds. On any given day, if you're paying attention, you will probably witness 5 men urinating on the side of the road nonchalantly. I find dust inside even tupperware containers at my house, stepping in cow manure is a common occurence, and if you get a cold it becomes your constant companion for a few weeks because the pollution is so bad.

Because of the oppressive nature of all of this, we keenly feel the contrast when we enter the havens of Lodi Gardens, Tughlaqabad, and our home. Lodi Gardens is a huge park with 4 tombs from the 16th century that Lady Willingdon decided to landscape into a beautiful garden when the Brits occupied Delhi. There are beautiful plants and trees, birds galore, and smooth sidewalks the kids can zoom along on their bikes and scooters. The tombs are gorgeous and though the park is often crowded with people, everybody is calm and happy there. And you can't hear horns honking or smell or see any garbage. Lovely.

Tughlaqabad is a huge abandoned city from the 12th century with enough greenery and hills and stone steps to climb that I can almost imagine that I am hiking in Zion National Park, my favorite childhood family vacation spot. It's one of the few places in Delhi where I feel a measure of solitude.

And lastly, I am so grateful for the haven that is our home. Thanks to the guard at the gate, the high walls that surround it, and the massive amounts of money Rich's company spent to ship our things here and buy us power backup and modern appliances, we can escape the sensory overload and confusion of Delhi in our comfortable home and take a deep breath before venturing out again.

11. Free Home Delivery.
Nearly everything from grocery stores to furniture shops to tailors to McDonald's make house calls and can deliver whatever you like right to your doorstep free of charge. Gotta love that. Especially if you can communicate your order successfully over the phone and get it delivered at the time it was promised!


12. The American Embassy School.
Among international schools, this one is rumored to be one of the best. We love it. There is such a nice sense of community there, the teachers are great, the facilities perfect. The population is diverse and you can't beat ice cream cones at lunch everyday! The picture above is Isaac's assistant KG teacher Ms. Jain with some of his classmates, including one of Isaac's best friends Alina, from Russia.

13. Pulsiphers!
If we did not live in India, we would not have the unique opportunity to host David and Dawn Pulsipher and their six kids for five months. Nor would we have had the chance to entertain other relatives who would not likely have come without the draw of David and Dawn & Co.--Aunt Nancy, Becca & Nathan, the Harmers, Dawn's sister and her nephew. David and Dawn have always been some of our favorite and most-admired cousins, so we were thrilled that Delhi is difficult enough to navigate and housing so expensive that we could have the honor of sharing our house with them.

It is delightful to share our Indian world and discuss it with these very academic, reflective, and Christlike relatives (and we're not just talking about the adults--Andrew, Elizabeth, Jonathan, Michael and Grace are fun to share reactions with as well). While they've been here the count on our little Mormon Utopia Compound has been 24! Definitely a full house. Our children have formed lasting friendships with all of them, and we will forevermore think of the Pulsiphers more like siblings than cousins.

Before they came, I felt in a funk of sorts (no pun intended, though the feeling is characteristically "Funky")--not sure of my place and purpose in India, yet terrified to think about going home to America where there's so many unknowns. Their arrival came at a perfect time, and having them in our home has made me feel more connected to America and family than I've felt in a while. There's nothing like hot breakfasts and real syrup every morning, and scene-by-scene re-creations of Star Wars movies to get us back in touch with our homeland! I'm not sure if we would have decided to stay if we had not enjoyed this grounding visit from our cousins--for better or for worse! Dawn especially has been such a great friend and example to me. She has been endlessly tolerant of my chaotic life and mind and so gently taught me so many things about leadership, motherhood, homemaking, routine and tact. I'm dreading their departure in two weeks, but we plan to visit them in Rexburg soon!

14. Never a Dull Day. Nearly every day yields an interesting story, even if being the main character in the story was horribly frustrating or confusing or maddening! And lucky you, you get to read the stories and see from afar how the Cutler characters are faring in this weird world.

I just re-read my list from 2006, and it's pretty much the same, just more fleshed-out now (and long-winded). It's good to remind myself why living here is a good idea for the moment. Thanks for reading if you got this far. Now book your ticket to come visit this fall/winter to give us another boost when we'll surely need it. Frequent flyer miles are available for your use if you promise to bring us peanut butter and chocolate chips!

Kids, Guard, and Driver vs. Mouse

Men versus Mice. Three little kids, a driver, and a guard try and catch a mouse that has been living in our front yard. Who will win?

A Good Day

Rich told me several days ago that I need to write a positive blog. Well, I had a pretty decent day today, so here's all the positive, fabulous things that happened today:

1. Even though the high temperature today was 114 degrees, we managed to stay cool all day, thanks to car A/C, swimming pools, and generators. We are so blessed.

2. Isaac and I mowed the lawn together this morning. It felt so normal and suburban to do such a thing. And a little physical exercise is always a good thing!

3. Umesh, our handyman, showed up and fixed a bunch of things that were bugging me--a leaky toilet, a screen door that wouldn't stay shut, a broken light, and an outlet that kept frying multiplugs (literally . . . last night it was sizzling). When he shows up, Umesh is the greatest! Perhaps the greatest part about all of this is that I delegated to Sarita the job of calling him, waiting for him, and directing him. She did a superb job arranging it all.

4. I knew we would be gone all day but I had enough foresight to leave instructions with Sarita to make dinner for tomorrow (Sunday). So I don't have to cook and we have enough food I could even invite someone over.

5. Before bed we all knelt in a row on Isaac's bed and Russell volunteered to say the prayer ("because I in the middle!"). He always goes on and on and we can't catch it all, but he is so sincere and reverent. Most of tonight's prayer revolved around Grandma and Grandpa and trains. I think he blessed the food too. But so sweet.

6. Graham tried tofu rolled in wheat germ today and he liked it! He's also been eating graham crackers in the car when we're on the go and he loves them.

7. I hired a driver named Roy Issac today who can start Monday, speaks English, has good references and experience and will work for a reasonable salary! After having major communication and navigation barriers to lumber over today with my current driver, this will be a welcome relief. And he doesn't need a place to live, so that means one less person living here to cause trouble. Hooray! Now I can go explore the city more without worrying about getting hopelessly lost and hopefully start sending the driver out on some of my errands. Blessed again. What a relief. And Isaac is thrilled that we will have a driver named Mr. Issac and we also know Isaac Isaac Pritchett.

8. We went to a birthday party for Isaac's classmate Charlie at the British High Commission Lounge. It wasn't as formal as it sounded on the invitation, our kids didn't make any scenes, and I wasn't too socially awkward and chatted with some interesting people I hadn't met yet--a woman from Peru and some Japanese new mothers, and an American heading off to Moscow or Singapore.

9. Sister Pritchett from our branch invited us to ACSA (the American Embassy club). We had hamburgers, fries, root beer, M&M's, and swam in a wonderfully shaded pool and Isaac got to walk their dog Jaya (he likes dogs now since he's spent some time with her). The Pritchetts have been so good to us. Brother Pritchett wants to go back to the USA to teach economics at Harvard soon, but we're hoping they decide to stay.

10. Rich is in Taiwan on business but we have talked to him several times today. I also talked to Dad in New Zealand. What a blessing our mobile phones and phone networks are! I am happy to hear Mom is also a little better from whatever disease she caught in Delhi and that Dad survived the earthquake that hit Tonga while he was there for work. Blessed again.

So there you have it, Rich . . . a completely positive blog.

Of Chocolate, Drivers, Ambassador Taxis and Growing Pains

Isn't life really mostly about chocolate? But we'll get to the chocolate later. First the drivers.

Most of our problems these days can be traced back to our no good, very bad driver Pardeep. He's not a bad guy. He just won't ever look us in the eye or speak to us. You can ask Mom. We're not making this up. And with a few of the experiences we've had in the last few days, I'm not sure if he has a brain in his head at all.

Last night we asked him to take us to the Russian Culture Center and gave him pretty clear instructions on what roads to take. The Culture Center is somewhere between India Gate and Connaught Place. But for whatever reason he drove around in circles between the two places for about an hour. Literally circles. There's the roundabouts that get you all turned around, but when we passed India gate for the third time, we knew there was something we were missing or this guy was missing. We kept asking if he knew where he was going, but kept getting a mumble that we think might have meant he did. Anyway, after passing the Russian Culture Center the first time, we had a nice drive seeing this lovely part of Delhi in circular fashion for about 45 minutes before we found our way back. Thank you, driver.

Apparently our driver friend doesn't think he's such a good driver either, because he's been telling other drivers we are looking for a driver. Today at least three (I've lost track) drivers showed up at our doorstep uninvited because they had heard we need a new one. One driver we interviewed a few days ago spoke English okay, but when I asked him to show me where we were on a map he was at a total loss. Another guy who showed up today works for an Irish family down the street but he wants more money. We're totally baffled on this one. But we do know this . . . the current driver MUST GO!

Another fun driver moment of the day: Today while we were at swimming lessons Rich had the driver take him to the Vasant Vihar branch for a church meeting. Then he sent the driver back to get us. He was about 45 minutes later than I expected and I was quite annoyed waiting for him in the 107 degree heat, but at least he came.

We left Rich at the church to find his own ride home because today we had a Young Women's activity at our house at 4:00 and I had promised to pick up four people. So when we got home, I pulled out my newest Hindi sentence: "sari do bajeh chalna hai" which I meant to mean, we'll be leaving again at 2:30.

Unfortunately, he didn't get the message right. When I looked outside at 2:35 to see if the driver was ready he was gone! The guard informed me with a smile that he had gone to get "sahib." He had gone to Vasant Vihar 40 minutes away to pick up Rich who was already home! And the silly man doesn't carry a cell phone like everyone else in India (though we just learned from his boss that he has one, he just doesn't have a charger) so I couldn't call to tell him to come back. All we could think to do was call a taxi. So off I went in one of those black and yellow ambassador taxis. The thing had A/C, it just wasn't cold at all. The windows turned out to be a better option, but at least I could communicate with this driver and he was willing to get out and ask if he didn't know where a place was.

One hour and several cell phone calls later for directions to everyone's house we had driven all over and had crammed 11 people--Alveena and her friend, Sister Beesa and her two children, Sister John and her two children, Carolina, the driver, and me--into the taxi and were hot, hot, hot. I taught the kids to play "I Spy" and blew on their necks to keep them from complaining about the heat. When we got there Sarah Jordan and her brother arrived and then Sister Amy Paul, the district young women president. Woo-hoo! Three young women and a whole gaggle of others!

The activity went well. I succeeded in getting out of teaching the kids to cook American food by asking Sister Beesa to come teach. She is a very good cook (she does it by profession in the American Embassy) and I learned a lot by watching her. I kind of had to stop watching her though once I realized I needed to play police. . .

Here's the chocolate part. One of the girls who came lives in a one bedroom house with her brother and parents with the kitchen outside. She was visibly impressed with our refrigerator, but after she checked out everything inside the refrigerator side and giggled at its contents (I'm not sure why), she looked at the freezer door with confusion on her face. I opened it and showed her that it's the place where we keep things really cold, like ice cream. Big smile on the ice cream. Then she pointed to the chocolate Easter eggs Mom brought when she came. At this point I made my mistake. I should have offered one to her, but I didn't. All I could think of was how Mom had paid $1 for each of those eggs (another story in and of itself that Mom will have to tell you) and that I didn't have enough to share with everyone who had come. So I didn't offer.

About ten minutes later I noticed two of the girls near the fridge chewing something and opening the freezer to get more. Chocolate! I told them if they wanted some of them, I'd be happy to give them, but don't just take them. One girl's face visibly heated up and her eyes watered as she swallowed whatever it was whole. For the rest of the activity every time I turned my back they were heading back into the pantry, or up in the boys room and shutting the door, or in the toy room looking guilty.

Argh! I guess being a young women's leader in any country is often about being a police. But avoiding theft in my own home really makes me a little edgy. I thought about confronting the girls before they left about what I suspected might be in their pockets but decided not to. It was one of the girls' birthdays, after all, and frankly, they tell me stealing is defined differently here. It is wrong, definitely, but I think in India it's perceived more as borrowing, not stealing. Especially when taking from people like us who have thousands more square footage in our house and a bank account with thousands more rupees (actually, though, we don't have a bank account with rupees yet--that's yet another work in progress that has already spanned months!).

This is a photo of Sister Trija John, the 1st counselor in YW and the former branch president's wife with her son Saranj and Graham.

When we finally said goodbye to the whole lot of them (sent them home with the driver who finally came back after 4 hours when we got someone at the church to find him and tell him to go home!), Rich realized he had missed an appointment with someone at the church and we both wondered aloud why we can't ever get it all together much as we try. Russell and Isaac had some answers later on, unbeknownst to them.

Russell's Answer:
It's bedtime. I call out, "Russell, can you please come upstairs and get ready for bed?"

He replies something in very high whiny tones I cannot comprehend. I am feeding Graham, so I ask Isaac to go to Russell and see what's wrong.

Isaac comes back and says, "Russell says he can't come upstairs. He's run out of gas."

Isaac's Answer:
"Mom, my leg really hurts!"
"Does it hurt from when you fell off your bike earlier today?"
"No, it hurts all over."
"Does it hurt like growing pains?"
"Yeah, I think so. Ouch, it hurts."

Maybe this week we can fill up our gas tank on Sunday, get a new driver to get us around without crazy mix-ups and keep on growing.

Another Day in the Life of Mindy

7:00 pm (night before--to get the full picture we must start here...) I fall asleep on the floor while giving the FHE lesson. I've been totally exhausted fighting whatever disease my body has. I vaguely hear Rich and the kids pop popcorn and go to bed.

1:00 am I wake up and take out my contacts. Can't sleep because I'm still coughing and have been for over a month. I drink some herbal tea and read "A Joyful Mother of Children" by Linda Eyre for a bit. I realize that many of my frustrations are not unique to India and maybe I could get over this cough and feel better about life in general if I got some exercise.

6:00 am I wake up and tell myself I'm going to get up and take a walk. Fall back to sleep

6:45 am Isaac crawls in bed with us (next to Graham who joined us some time in the wee hours). I try to get out of bed and go for a walk without anyone noticing. Isaac asks where I'm going. "For a walk," I say. "Can I come?" I tell him he can if he gets ready in time. He does in lightning speed and we take a short walk.

7:00 am I come home to Russell nearly hyperventilating because he's been crying the whole time we were gone. "I wanted (sniff sniff) to go with Ma-Maaaaa."

7:15 am Russell and I go for a walk. I carry him most of the way. It's already getting hot. We see two dog fights on the way.

7:30 We eat breakfast. Oatmeal.

7:45 I realize I no longer have time for a shower and try to make myself look presentable enough anyway. Can't put my contacts in because one eye is too swollen. Maybe too much sleep?

7:55 Isaac and I go off to school leaving Rich with the sobbing Russell in his arms: "I want to go with Ma-Maaaaa!"

8:30 Drop Isaac off at school

8:40 Sign up Russell and Isaac for Saturday Swim Classes. I put them in the same class, mostly for logistical purposes. It's called Water Exploration, so surely they can both handle it.

9:00-10:00 Hindi Class. I learn how to say "Do Not Disturb" in Hindi: "Disturb nahee carriega." Good to know.

10:00-11:00 Wait for the driver to arrive outside the school on a bench while I worry about the kids at home with Sarita. Feel very guilty that I'm just sitting here while I could be at home taking care of my kids. Wonder if the Hindi class is such a good idea.

11:00-12:00 Go to Marcia's House for a coffee hour. I don't drink the coffee and wait for the kids to arrive with Sarita.

12:00-12:30 The kids arrive. Russell has a poopy diaper that's soaked through because he won't let Sarita change it. I get him all cleaned up and into Isaac's pants (which Sarita had mistakenly brought along). He won't take them off all day, insisting they are his pants as he pulls them up for the thousandth time!).

12:30-1:30 We all go shopping together. Try for the third time to get into a shop called Basix that supposedly sells the only sofa beds in the city. The first time I tried to go it was closed for this strike against the government because they're tearing down buildings that aren't built to code. The second time I tried to go it was closed. On this third attempt today I find that the government had "sealed" the shop so not even the owner can get in! When I call the owner to see if it will open again, he assures me it will be "de-sealed" by tomorrow. We'll see . . . Meantime, Mom's prospect of a bed apart from an air mattress is looking dismal.

1:30-2:15 Go to the doctor to see why I'm still coughing after 1 month and two rounds of antibiotics. I don't realize until I cart the kids in and get checked in that I don't have any rupees to pay for the visit and Rich has my ATM card. I walk away frustrated. I try to change my US dollars at a nearby bank, but they don't do that there, of course. Realize I won't have time to see the doctor anyway once I try another bank, so I give up and go get Isaac.

2:00-2:30 Pick up Isaac at a playdate at a Korean classmate's house. His mom said (in broken English) she wanted Isaac over to help her son practice his English. When I arrive they are watching Harry Potter and eating pizza and there's another Korean classmate there. Isaac looks scared and/or bored. I rush him out of there as fast as I can. Isaac tells me in the car they didn't wear seatbelts on the way home from school. I say, "That's not really safe," and don't really know what else to say. Most Indian cars don't even have seat belts in the back seat. How can I require my kids to wear seat belts if they aren't even there?

2:30-3:00 Drive home. As we get out of the car the guard informs us that the garbage man will no longer pick up our garbage because it's too smelly (from our diapers--I guess we have more of them than most since we don't let our kids poop in the street). I wonder what we'll do if nobody will pick up our garbage . . .

3:00 Find that Sudhir has put two really wet and soapy rugs in the dryer and the whole mess is sloshing around in there. I ask him what this is and he looks at me blankly. I send them off on their lunch break and try to fix the mess. Just after they leave I find a square burned onto the wooden table in the kitchen hiding under a muffin tray. Make a mental note to ask Sarita about that one. This sort of stuff must be what Claudia was talking about when she kept telling me not to let them near anything you couldn't handle being broken or ruined.

3:00-3:30 Isaac lays on the rug at my feet while I feed the baby. "Mom, what does settled mean? Are we settled yet?" Everyone here seems to ask that question: "Are you settled yet?" I think for a minute, then say, "Isaac, I think settled means you feel like this is home. Do you feel that way yet?" "Yes," he says, and runs off to play. I'm so happy to hear he feels settled!

4:00-6:00 Feel too exhausted to face the projects and staff angst at home, so I decide to go to the Australian-New Zealand Mom's Group (they let Americans come as long as they aren't too obnoxious!). There's about 20 kids there, 12 moms, 3 ayahs (nannies). The "bag man" comes to show us all the designer leather bags he can make. I watch nearly all of the moms order a bag while I feed Graham baby food and try to fight fires with the kids. This bag man has funky colors, cool designs, all for $20-30. I think about how I still need to buy a generator and come up with more space for storing clothes and choose curtain fabric before I start thinking about bags. Besides, Rich would kill me if I came home with another bag!

6:00 Come home and make Mac and Cheese for the kids. I'm trying to gorge them on it before it expires in hopes that they'll be so sick of it they won't want it anymore once it's gone! Not sure if it will work. I don't plan on telling them we can get it here for $5 a box!

7:00 Find that Sarita and Sudhir have written angry messages in their time card book because we didn't pay them the way they wanted. Stew about that one while I get the kids ready for bed.

8:00 Sit down and try to figure out what is going on with Sarita and Sudhir and try to work out a workable solution. Graham wakes up and joins me on the floor nearby--he will sit happily forever chewing on a toy and then suddenly switch to the tummy-down position and zoom off in search of something better. His favorite things to head for are electrical outlets, of course!

9:00 Rich comes home and makes me toasted tuna and cheese sandwiches and offers good advice about dealing with Sarita and Sudhir. He lays down on the rug beside me and falls asleep.



I wrote all this down thinking that it would illustrate what a terrible day I had. Once it all came out, it wasn't all that bad. It turns out that I have bronchitis, so perhaps my feeling for the day was colored by the infection and exhaustion a bit. Anyway, it's a good life. In the end, the kids make life so joyful no matter where we live, as long as I step back from the mayhem and recognize it!

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!"

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!