My Family Moves to India

And take the strep with you!

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You know Bob Vila? I need him. Right now. I am living in the fixer-upper from he**.

Last week in the middle of a spectacular lightening and thunderstorm, our generator went on the fritz. Partly. It used to power the entire house, but now it only powers about a third of it.

Sadly, that third does not include the water pump. So after a few hours on generator power, we have no water for washing or flushing toilets. (Remember, drinking water comes in a bottle.) We discovered this as we were attempting to get ready for church this morning.

This in addition to the fact that the water pump sits on a rotted base that needs replaced, causing it to vibrate and create tremendous wear on its belt. While we are "out of station" next month, that is all supposed to be fixed. In the meantime, we keep extra belts on hand, and Mr. Fixit has to run out and put a new on one now and then, else we go dirty.

The electric to J's room has been out for a month. Some problem with the switches, or the circuit breaker; even Mr. Fixit can't figure it out. Time for a real electrician, one who can charge me to tell me that he can't figure it out. I would have taken care of this by now, only more pressing things keep breaking.

Tonight I took a cold shower, since apparently our hot water heater is no longer working.

The exterior was re-painted right before we moved in 6 months ago, but since no one bothered to remove the dirt and mildew before they painted, we can now watch the flakes fall when it rains. S is talking about power washing the outside and re-painting it. Truly I don't care. It's nominally amusing to watch the paint fall with the rain.....

Except I DO care when the rain comes in the house, so we had to double-time it to fix the leaking windows in E's room.

This list does not even begin to cover the small things: replaced lights, iffy plumbing, repaired caulking, and on and on and on....

All this in a country where they still carry the cement for building in little tin plates on their heads.....get the picture? NOTHING gets fixed quickly and NOTHING gets fixed correctly the first time. Or the second time, or the third time.....construction sites remind me of scenes from "The Flintstones". I keep waiting for a dinosaur to pop out.

I feel like I'm on some sort of reality TV show......"survivor" of the homemaker in India, maybe?

S has been in Russia for the last week, so I have not had much time to blog. Being a single parent keeps you waaay too busy. I honestly don't know how people do it.

At any rate, he is home now. We are all healthy and the kids are enjoying school. I am enjoying having them in school; it gives me time to do things like sew or shop. My current shopping mission is to get a curio cabinet so that I can finish unpacking the last few boxes. I've been scouring the city, looking at all the furniture shops that I can find (no easy task in a place where there seems to be no centralized listing of anything), trying to find a bargain. Hopefully S and I will get out next week together and we can find one that we both like.

L did really well while his dad was gone; he didn't start to break down until about day 6. I think it helped that he had a nasty head cold - he didn't have the energy to plot.

Of course since S was gone the stove had to go out (actually it developed a gas leak and we couldn't use it until it was repaired - which took all week and several people coming out to the house, this being India). Thankfully they did finally find the leak - it was the pipe that runs through the wall (our gas cylinder is stored outside and the gas is piped to the stove through the wall). I nixed the idea of having the gas hooked up inside the house - which is normal for India - because a. I have always been nervous about gas stoves, and having the cylinder inside makes me even more worried; and b. a large red cylinder with amusing handles on it would be irresistable to L. But, we are back in business now. Thank goodness - it's difficult to eat out here with the children, as for safety's sake you have to go to a nice restaurant, and they don't serve until 7 or 7:30 p.m. So you wind up being out until 9-10 p.m., which is bad on a school night.

Our next home repair project is fixing the leaking window in one of the bedrooms. I came home one day after a storm and there was water all over the floor (images of the church came flashing back into my mind). After much deliberation, Mr. Fixit and I (and the two gas repairmen, who happened to be at the house, so, of course, had to get involved) determined that the outside caulking around the window was falling out and needed to be replaced. I haven't managed to get anyone working on this yet as we are having almost daily rain, but it's at the top of my list. The wind has to blow from a certain quarter for this to be a real problem - it has to drive the water in the cracks - but eventually it will happen again, so we'll get it done. Thank goodness I brought a supply of caulk.

And the other flood, at the church? Well, it was dry on Sunday. You can't imagine a happier primary music leader. I was ecstatic, just to see dry floors. Plus they got some of the rubble piles cleared out. And then some kind soul set the primary room up (I hadn't been able to get there on Saturday to do so because one of our vehicles broke down), so I was even happier not to have to miss part of sacrament to set up chairs and the keyboard. Maybe they even informed the custodians so it will be done again this week. Who knows. I would try and go out this Saturday, only we are having a big singles activity at our house and I will be needed to coordinate the food, etc.

Also on Saturday I am meeting my driver's wife and family. His wife is catering the activity, and his family is coming to officially deliver a wedding invitation. I'm not sure how big a deal it is to deliver the invitation (or "card", as they call them here), but he was insistent that "sir" be there, so it's probably pretty formal. I am excited to go to the wedding and have even bought a new silk salwar kameez outfit for the occasion. I can't quite get up the nerve to wear a sari.

So the kids and I are all set for the affair (the kids both have formal Tamil outfits), but "sir" has nothing except western business attire. We are teasing him and telling him that he has to wear a lunghi (little towel-like skirt that men here wear), but he is having nothing to do with it. I think he would look nice in the more western-looking knee-length, collared shirt that men here sometimes wear, but he is resisting that too. His last option is the long, white shirt that Muslim men wear. That would really confuse everyone. Knowing him, we will have to buy him something on the sly and then present it to him as the only option. He certainly doesn't have any time to shop for himself.

Sadly, my driver took out a large loan to finance this wedding (it's his brother's wedding). He did not ask us for money (that's why he's worth his weight in gold), but he did ask a few questions about interest and how it works. It's sickening to me to find out that the money lender is charging him almost 100% interest over three years. The amount he borrowed is about 6 month's salary, too. I had to fight within myself not to offer to loan him the money, but I know if I start that all the staff will begin asking for loans - it's a very slippery slope. I already have one maid who asks for money for something on a weekly basis (and gets a "no" on a weekly basis) - everything from medical bills to school supplies. I struggled not to be his saviour, but eventually I decided that there were two things that I could do to help him: 1. try and teach him about interest and some basic loan management principles - like paying the loan back early, if possible, to save on overall cost; and b. offer him extra payment for painting the rest of the house. Or, possibly, hire his wife to cook, since my Indian friends tell me that my maids are terrible cooks (although I like their food, personally. ) We shall see what works out.

So as you can see, managing the house and staff, plus the kids, does take some time. But I still get my exercise and my naps in, so I'm not complaining. I also was able to meet two new expatriate wives this week - one of whom had me speaking Spanish again. How wonderful to hear that melodic language! Spanish will always be music to my ears. (Whereas Tamil sounds more like gargling to me, ha ha.)

And that's all our news from Chennai, folks.

Hot Rod Guy died in his sleep last night. I was very sad when I found his little cold, stiff body. L was sad also, and had lots of questions. Poor Hot Rod Guy. He was the sickest, by far.

So today I called another vet and we took the remaining two kittens in for a checkup. This vet seemed pretty good - his card says that he works as an assistant professor at the Madras Veterinary College, and also as an ER vet. He sure covered all his bases - IV fluids (subcutaneous, since the kittens are so tiny that finding a vein would be impossible); anti-emetic shots; antibiotic shot; and some iodine for the skin condition that Marmalade has on her head. He said that the kittens are very weak, anemic, and probably full of worms (big surprise.) Then he prescribed three different kinds of liquid vitamin and mineral supplements, an iron supplement, more antibiotics for 2 days, and a wormer. Hopefully, the kittens will begin to thrive now. They are the most pitiful things at the moment - hunching silently on their hot water bottle, covered in various colorful medicines (red, orange, pink, black.....each tonic has its own distinctive hue), not eating or playing. At least I feel like I did my best for them, which does make a difference.

So that's the saga of our kitties. I'm praying for the day when they are healthy enough to be a nuisance.

Yesterday was also a day for the house to get a check-up. The landlord sent out two men to work on the AC units (one was leaking water on the floor); another man to check on the generator; and still another to fix the old water pump, which is about to fail. In the meantime, I had already called the manufacturer about the leaking AC unit, so they sent out a repairman too. Only 4 days late, and ironically, at the very same time the landlord's repairment were here. So funny. We had three different guys from two different companies out repairing the same unit! Maybe this is why it seems to work correctly now?

After looking at all the AC units, the repairmen decided that I was correct and that the stabilizer unit for one was broken. (Pretty obvious since it makes a loud, incessant clicking noise every time you turn it on.) I had solved the problem by never turning it on - it's in the kids room and they like their room very warm anyway. So now we have a stabilizer guy coming out. Whew. If only I could get more curtain men out here!

For the moment, that leaves us with only a clogged drain in the backyard (standing water for mosquitos to breed in), small water leaks around L's windows, and a broken sink in my bathroom. Neither are on the hot list....so we'll just live with them. You gotta pick your battles here, or you spend your life arguing with tradesmen and waiting for them to come.