My Family Moves to India

IMHO, a good driver makes or breaks your experience as an expatriate in India. This is because your freedom to move around, your safety in the car, and your ability to keep the family running all depend on his reliability and capabilities. A good driver does more than drive; they shop for you, run errands, pick up your kids when you can't, fix things around the house, keep the car clean inside and out, keep track of utilities and other deliveries (like drinking water), and, when needed, translate.

Of course some foreigners are brave enough to drive over here. Actually, now that I think of it, one foreigner I know is brave enough to drive here in Chennai. The rest have a driver or take an autorickshaw.

I've heard all kinds of stories about drivers that refuse to give out their cellphone numbers (making it impossible to find them when you need them); leave their passengers stranded somewhere; swerve and honk wildly (more than is necessary); speak no recognizable English; or talk loudly on their cell phones the entire trip. The norm is for the drivers to take you on a detour to a shop that you don't want to go to, to get their "commission" from the shopkeeper.

All of these stories came from expatriates, but the funniest story that I've heard so far came from my driver. He told me of one driver who had a passenger who was such a bad backseat driver that the driver actually got out in the middle of traffic and walked off. It was especially funny because I've noticed that most red-blooded American males tend to give my driver all kinds of unecessary directions, when in fact he's been driving in Chennai for over a decade and knows exactly where he's going. (I know this for a fact, since I never know where I'm going, no matter what country I'm in, and he always gets me where I need to be. As far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much a one-man GPS system for Chennai.)

Of course like all good employee/employer relationships, the key is clear communication. This can be more difficult than usual when you combine two cultures and the lack of a shared native language. At first it was a bit iffy, but I think that now my driver and I understand each other about 80% of the time (this includes the somewhat abstract topics that occasionally come up, like why does the ocean stay put). Apparently, however, my habit of asking him if he wants overtime or not does not compute (although I did manage to get a clear "yes" out of him the other day, instead of the usual head wiggle). Tonight he told me that I need to "order me, Madame".

I told him that he'd better watch out, I might be calling him in the middle of the night asking for pickles. (He didn't get it. He reassured me that if so, he would be there.)

It's just too funny sometimes. Here I am, sitting in India, and my driver is telling me to order him around. I have to admit it's sometimes a little heady. Never in my wildest dreams....so why don't my kids and hubby take a page out of his book? Guess I'm not paying them enough, ha ha.

Side note: L stumped us all today. He announced that he is going to "stay a man and never get a wife and never kiss her on the lips because that's yucky!" We all had a good laugh at that one. If only he stays that way.... no chance.

I wanted to post this earlier....but events like 24-hour plane flights intruded. Belatedly, here is my first experience with the ancient art of Ayurvedic medicine. (Check out Wikipedia for a complete explanation of the why's and wherefore's.)

There's an Ayurvedic massage/doctor's office just down the main road from us, which Shawn loves to go to. He likes the massages they give. So as a gift to me, he set up a massage the night that the kids and I flew out of India.

So in the middle of packing, off I went to relax. (yeah right).

Mainly, my impression was that it was oily. Very, very oily. My first clue about the oiliness was when the masseuse put on a rubber apron....she poured a LOT of oil (not sure what kind) all over me and basically used long, relaxing strokes to massage it in. That took about an hour. I wanted to lie on the cool antique-looking table but I got the plastic-covered exam-type table instead (maybe because of the oil?)

That part over, I got a Nysam (sp?)treatment for my sinus infection. This consisted of breathing in some regular ole' steam from a teakettle, having some smelly herbal infusion dripped into my nose while my head was tipped back, a sinus massage, and then hawking and spitting up the mucous that all this produced. Lastly, they had me gargle with salt water (kudos to my mom, she always made us do that too.) Sounds gross but it wasn't really that bad. Amazingly, I haven't had any sinus problems since then, although that could also be related to the fact that I left India the same night.

The entire experience was topped off by a some brown grit being applied to soak up all the oil (I mean, it was dangerous to walk on the tile floor, I was so slippery), then green goop that smelled like chopped spinach, and then a bucket bath (Indian style).

All of this was done with only the masseuse (female)and the doctor (also female) present. The Tamils are nothing if not chaste when they give you a massage.

I then wobbled out to the car (well, come on, you can't expect me to walk a straight line after an experience like that! and went home to finish packing. Unknown to me, my face was still partially covered with the green stuff. Oh my. Was I embarrassed when I got home and looked into the mirror. Later, when we left for the airport, I told me driver, "Never let me leave anywhere covered with green again!" He had a good laugh.

I asked him then if he believed in Ayurvedic medicine; if he believed that it helped ailments.

He said no. My driver is a very practical man.

My favorite part? The sinus thing. Like I said, I think it really helped. I will definitely try it again if my sinuses act up again in Chennai.

Least favorite? Getting the grit and oil out of my ears. It took forever.

Overall impression? I wouldn't bother with the full-body massage again. I'd rather go to the Park Sheraton and get a more traditional massage (meaning, less oil and more pressure). But I would check into the different specific medicinal treatments that they offer - like reflexology or the sinus treatment.

In two words, "retail therapy".

After my temper tantrum over not being able to go to Bangalore because S got ill on Friday, I went out Saturday determined to buy some furniture. Yep, some women buy jewels (OK all Indian women buy jewels); I buy furniture (and books, but they are cheaper.)

The furniture here is wonderful. Solid wood, for the most part, and about 1/3 of what it would cost in the U.S. Teak and Rosewood prevail. Of course there are the bargain shops full of pressboard, but you can find many shops that sell solid wood furniture and "antiques". Sadly, most Indians don't have any furniture, but those that do, have some good stuff.

However, I find that just like the lights, my taste and Indian taste clash. I see a lot of ultra-modern lines, or very ornate, carved peices; both not my style. I don't want to sink money into something that is heirloom quality but that I don't truly like, so I was very happy to find a shop which sells imported Indonesian teak furniture that suits my style. The lines are cleaner, but the look is still exotic. And the wood - the wood is to die for; finished naturally, so that the beautiful teak grain shows, not covered over with nasty colored varnish.

So Saturday I took S's driver and we went to town to buy a desk for me. I would up buying two solid teak lamps and an absolutely beautiful roll top desk. I wish S could have been with me as he would have really liked the shop. The owners actually corrected me when I miscounted the money in their favor, and the desk came unharmed and on time today. (This is truly amazing.) Also, they spoke very good English. The wife told me that her husband personally picks out each peice and that they get a new container every month. I told her that I'd be back, ha ha.

So, I got out of my funk. Shawn recovered enough to help me unpack a bit - he set up the plasma TV and we got the entertainment room sorted out. After 300 or so boxes I was getting burned out. I counted today and I only have 16 more boxes to go, not including pictures and books. (Anyone who knows me know that the books deserve a month of unpacking all by themselves....besides, I'm still shopping for the perfect bookshelves, so I have no where to put them yet.)

For those of you who may wind up living here, the name of the shop is "Timbers" and it is in Nungumbakkam. Sorry for the drool on the goods.

On other fronts, today (Monday) was a relaxing day. We had some progress on the house - besides the desk arriving, giving me an place to unpack my files and things, the curtain rod men also came. They put up several rods and measured for draperies. Tomorrow they will finish putting up the downstairs rods and measure for the upstairs rods. Then in another month or so, we may actually have curtains up. Ha. It's amazing how long things take here. You wait, wait, wait....and then suddenly they all show up at once - progress!

I also called the furniture store which is supposed to be making the shoe cabinets. Since we don't wear our shoes indoors - no sensible person would, with the amount of dirt they track in (and not just ordinary midwestern mud, but the peculiar sticky, gritty, sterile dirt that is India) - all of our shoes are piled around the front door. Hence the need for shoe cabinets. After looking at the pressboard models available (wouldn't last a month), I decided to have some made. It's pretty cheap here, because labor is so inexpensive. After the man came out to measure and make sketches, though, there was this mysterious silence for several weeks....finally after a few phone calls he showed up again. Hopefully, they will arrive tomorrow. We shall see.

And the lights...I discovered today that the lights my driver picked up for me last week are not the lights that I bought. They are much cheaper, flimsier lights. So I'll go sometime this week and try to get the correct item, but I have little hope. I'm a woman, non-confrontational, and I don't speak Tamil - three big strikes against me. We'll see. I'm putting that store on my black list of "cheater shops".

The other neat trick they do is to sell you the light but not the light bulb that's in it - those they sell separately. Nice. Retail cheating is a national sport here, second only to cricket.

Meanwhile, since we were home all day (school being out for the summer), I kept my driver busy fixing things. Mr. Fixit is earning his keep. He hung pictures, took off the grills on the third floor (so we can have one room where we don't feel like we are in jail), fixed a broken drawer, moved a bed from the upstairs to the downstairs....I just keep a running list for him these days. Our house is older and is falling apart faster than I can blink, so it's a good thing that we have a handyman around. He even irons. Girls, what you need is an Indian driver, aka another wife!

Yesterday we had it out with the school. I got a phone call from J's teacher, she-whose-name-shall-never-be-mentioned-in-our-house-again , to the effect that J could not return to her class if J could not "walk in on her own". (If you don't remember, we had agreed on several strategies to reduce J's anxiety over having this teacher, one of which was that the counselor would walk in with her each morning, since *I* am not allowed to be in the classroom.) She obviously felt that we were pampering J, and that J was faking her anxiety and illnesses.

That was followed a couple of hours later by a hysterical phone call from J, on my husband's driver's phone - he had gone to pick up L at noon and saw J sitting in the hallway, outside in the 110 F heat, sobbing. So he let her call me ("She suffering, Mam", he later told me.)

That toppled the cake. I called S, and stormed over to the school to pick J up immediately. I demanded a meeting with the principal, who was no help at all, as he pointed out that while there is a grievance procedure in place, with only 3 days of school left and both he and the she-devil teacher leaving, there wasn't any point in pursuing it. So be it. I withdrew J for the year.

S came a few minutes later and the principal got his opinion too. I wasn't there but I believe it was along the lines of "Why should we pay you to torment our child?", and "What kind of a manager allows his employees (the teacher ) this kind of leeway?" At any rate, the principal admitted to him that this particular teacher had been promised a 5th grade class and then moved to 1st grade, and, I quote "has been taking it out on people ever since".

Hmmmm. If it weren't for L's TOTALLY EXCELLENT teacher , we would withdraw both kids.

We will try again next year. I have signed up to be the room mother for J's class, so that should allow me to keep my finger on the pulse of the class, as well as reassuring J. Also, there will be a new principal for the elementary and this she-devil teacher is leaving India. That's good. J got the new 2nd grade teacher, who is moving here, so the teacher won't know as much/anything about J - won't be predisposed negatively towards her.

I am also going to get J's attendance records from our old school, to prove that NORMALLY she has very good attendance. I guess the glowing letter from her old teacher wasn't enough to convince she-devil that J is really a sweet child, who regularly and happily attends school.

Sadly, we are not the only parents who are displeased with this teacher ("I can't believe she is an American", one confided in me), and J is not the only child that this teacher is bullying. I watched her chastise two Korean boys to the point of tears over some spilled food at lunch one day. I have a feeling that she is very unhappy here, and the kids are easy targets.

On the flip side, I had a very long and interesting parent/teacher/audiologist conference with L's teacher today. I cannot say enough good about L's teacher . She truly is incredible. She got her audiologist friend, a very qualified and well-known woman, to evaluate L. We had a very good discussion and are all completely on the same page: L needs an aid next year - not to tutor him in academics but to work with him in a small group setting, focussing on L's social skills. We don't want L to feel as if he is getting the sole attention of this individual, because then he will use it to his advantage. Instead, we want this aid to simply help out in the classroom while keeping a close eye on L and encouraging him to learn to interact positively with his peers, to do his schoolwork, and to learn in a group setting. Also, the audiologist is going to follow up on my concerns about L's hearing in group settings - I really feel that he has some sort of processing or actual hearing problem when there is background noise. So we will begin that evaluation in July. Since we are in India, not only will we get a highly qualifed professional evaluation, but it will also be dirt cheap and we won't have to undergo the long, arduous insurance approval process.

The general attitude and environment for children in India is so much better for children. Yes, people kill their girls - but there are also parents who cherish them dearly. Yes, child labor is a huge problem - you can go into almost any store and find someone who looks too young to be working. But education is also stressed heavily. Yes, you see naked children on the street occasionally, and beggars drag their babies over to your stopped car claiming they are hungry - but the majority of children are clothed and are loved. There is just a lot more contrast in India than in America.

Overall, they are much more tolerant of children, and their approach to children with behavioural problems is more of a wholistic one than that of the American system. So instead of constant censure, L gets a much more positive image of himself. So does J - just not from her former teacher.

The entire thing reminded me of President Monson's talk some years ago about the influence of a good teacher on a child's life. (http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=5ec79aafed472110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1)Truly, this cannot be overlooked or understated. I hope that J learns that she is a strong girl who can handle difficult people in her life, but I also pray that her new teacher is much more confidence-instilling and kind. Otherwise, I shall be seriously considering homeschooling her. What a shame, as she is such a gregarious child. We shall see.

Yes, it's true. After half a dozen or so tries, Madame may have the tea dilemma solved.

The problem in brief:

1. Indians drink tea. Indians who guard people's houses for them and have to stay awake for 12 hours straight especially like to drink tea. Regularly.
2. Madame does not drink tea, has never drunk tea, does not know how to make tea (or coffee), even in her own country, much less India.
3. Madame's Tamil is currently limited to half a dozen words; the staff's English is limited to, oh, maybe 2 dozen words. None of them involved "tea". Tea is like breathing; no words are necessary to describe the necessity of it.

The tea soap opera:

First madame thought that the guards wanted a cooler. "Oh great!", she said. "We have this massive old cooler that came with the house you can use!"

They didn't want a cooler.

Then madame was informed that Sudhakar, the driver who lives behind the garage, was providing everyone with tea, several times a day. 6 guards + 1 driver X 3 times a day....hmmmm. Madame begins to wonder how Sudhakar is affording this, or if there is some system of recompense.

Sudhakar insists that it is no problem to have his wife or auntie make tea for all of these people three times a day. Auntie and wife are silent on the issue. Hmmmmmmm, thinks Madame.

Madame checks with her expat friends, and finds out that they are providing everything from mosquito repellant to mini fridges. It depends on the house. Nearly everyone is providing some form of tea.

Meanwhile, guards are mentioning the tea issue to everyone who comes to our house - including the relief driver that Madame had yesterday, because her driver needed the day off. The relief driver, whose English was excellent, somewhat embarrassingly informed Madame that the guards are begging him for tea. It seems that Sudhakar's wife and Auntie are on a tea-making strike.

Hmmmmmmm......

Madame decides she'd better take action. After all, no one informed her that the guard shack had no light bulbs for weeks, but tea has now come up at least half a dozen times. It must be important.

The solution:

Madame tells Arul (regular driver) that we are going out in the 110 degree heat to buy tea things. Whatever they are. Arul is very, very happy since he also likes tea.

An entire day of off-and-on discussion about what the guards need ensues. Madame is never quite getting the picture. What do they want? An expresso machine? A stove? A tea kettle? Tea cups with little pink flowers on them? Tea cozies? What kind of tea do they want? How many kinds are there? (How well she remembers the confusion of the hundreds of teas in Japan!) A flask? How on earth can anyone drink hot tea in this heat anyway? ye Gods!

Finally, madame is saved by the lawn mower man. Yes, the lawn mower man. He calls Arul to tell him that he's been waiting for hours to show the gardener how to use the new lawn mower, but the gardener (who marches to his own drum) refuses to watch unless Madame is present. (This is a clever ploy not to learn how to use it so he doesn't have to do it.) Lawn mower man is now leaving and will be back at some unspecified time in the future. (He's not coming back.)

Madame, somewhat exasperated after a couple of hours of shopping in the horrid heat, with L in tow, no less, informs the driver that she's been mowing lawns since she was 11, and can probably handle the lawn mower, especially since she witnessed the first demonstration last night. "HOWEVER," she says, "What I need is a TEA DEMONSTRATION!".

Driver begins laughing uncontrollably. Thankfully, there isn't a lot of traffic.

He then explains EXACTLY how you make tea. You boil the milk; add the tea (something about a strainer at this point, but whether you strain it before or after you add the tea is up in the air); add the sugar; pour the tea.

"OH", says Madame. "I GOT IT."

Madame buys a hot plate and agrees to provide cups ("old", says her driver, not realizing that the old ones are reserved for the children, ha ha) and a pan.

The security company is supposed to purchase the actual tea, milk, and sugar. We shall see. Don't worry, madame has no intention of leaving it up to them. She has already asked Arul to pick up the necessities tomorrow morning.

Let this be the end of the tea saga, please.

Other than that, the day was good. We got a lot of unpacking and cleaning done - it's amazing what two maids, a guard, and a driver can do with a little direction - and you can now safely walk through L's room. L was so excited to see his cars that he got up sometime in the wee hours of the morning to play with them, and consequently fell asleep during school. That made for a peaceful day for everyone.

J made it through school, her first day without crying and screaming (although she still had to be pried off of mommy's shirt). It's book week and she's enjoying it. Thankfully, one of the first things that I unearthed today was the frog costume that she wants to wear to the book character parade. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I so dread costumes.

I got some shopping done, although my driver, in an effort to save us some money, once again dropped me off at an un-air conditioned department store. (I refused to go back to the original one, so he found another version of the same thing.) He is so like a man - "Everything in one spot, madame! And cheap!" I took one look and insisted that he park the car and go in with me (this was for the tea supplies; I definitely needed professional help). This time, we escaped with all of our belongings. (No doubt because he was along.)

I also bought some hair clippers, thinking that I would give L a trim. (I have a pathological fear of lice, so I refuse to send him anywhere except the 5-star hotels for a haircut, and they are too far away now.) Unfortunately, the directions were in every language imaginable except English. After a fairly fruitless attempt to translate the ones in Spanish, I gave up and just decided to go with it.

Sadly, for L, the trimmers must need to be charged for several hours because they refused to work (even when plugged in) for more than 5 minutes. So he got a partial haircut. It wasn't my best mothering moment. I tried three different times, with very little luck. He looks OK....maybe....well, he looks funny. I will try again tomorrow before school if we have time, but I greatly fear that he's going to look funny for a day or two. More if I can't get the trimmers to ever work.

One of my mommy-pride things: my kids have neat hair. Or did have neat hair. Now I have to swallow my pride.

But I did find some tinned ham for dinner.

Such is life in India.

Today's Happy Homemaker Hint:

Bring your own mop. Or two. I have now joined the Broken Mop Club. The mops here not only have short handles (for either very short Indian maids or Indians who like to mop bent over); they also have really crummy, cheap plastic or aluminum handles that break at the slightest pressure.

Funny story of the day:

Arul fell asleep waiting for us in the car at one point, while we shopped. (This is not unexpected, the man sleeps every chance he can get. I would too if I had his job.) Unfortunately, he neglected to turn on his cell phone, and I got stranded in the hot store for a bit until I got up the courage to go walking the streets looking for him.

I got mine back though. I told L to wake him up.

L being L, he strode up to the car, and hit the driver's side window as hard as he could with his fist.

You should have seen Arul's face as he lept out of the seat. I don't think he'll forget to turn his cell phone on for a while.

I knew L would come in handy someday. My secret weapon......