One Week in Our House

One Week in Our House
August 17, 2006

After almost one week in our house, here’s the scoop:

We have no stove. The first one was tooooooooooo small (20 in!) the second one was tooooooooooo big (35 in) and we’re hoping the third one is juuuuuuuuuuuust right!!! Especially because if I serve one more bowl of porridge---I mean, ramen noodles, I think the kids will throw it at me J

Our washer is probably half capacity of what we’re used to, so I’m washing 2 sheets or 4 large towels maximum, which on a medium cycle takes about 2 hours!!!!!!!! Then since our dryer has not been vented yet (they don’t use them here much and the contractor acts like he is reinventing the wheel) I hang them on a drying rack in the spare bedroom which is nice and toasty since we cannot run all AC or we’ll have power overload---which happens multiple times a day. (I am beginning to understand the need for a maid here now.) The houses are not weatherproofed by any stretch of the imagination and it’s pretty dusty all the time---part of that is due to this being a new house I guess, and there’s still a lot of yardwork going on. Since it’s tropical most houses run fans and open all the windows. We requested screens and what we got is velcroed sheets that are stapled around each window. To open or close a window you have to peel off the screen, reach through the iron grates, unbolt a top and bottom lock for each side of the window and push it open. However whenever windows have been opened, we have found lizards in the house---gray, tan, brown, red---depending on what camouflage color they need and what part of the wall or floor they are on. I don’t think Emma has seen one yet, but Zach has had a couple in his room and they didn’t freak him out. Someone told us, “Actually the lizards are quite helpful because they are eating your mosquitoes!” J

Okay, even though I could go on and on about the “challenges” we are having, I should tell you about the positives here. The main one being the people. They are so open, friendly, helpful. I’ve heard “Welcome to India, ma’am!” so many times. They are very patient people. They seem to have mastered the art of waiting. Waiting for buses, waiting for traffic, waiting for people to arrive. Time is not all that important. When you need to get things done it’s so frustrating but I think when you’re settled down here, it will be freeing to not feel that the clock is always ticking. I was telling my neighbor –who is also American--- that that we had called some service company about coming to hook up our stove and had told them they needed to take care of it immediately and she just looked at me and said, “ You used the word “immediately” in India????” We both had a good laugh. And trust me, we need to do lots of laughing here because there’s not much else we can do sometimes!

I’m attaching some photos from resort, from our house, from the street and the last one is of our driver..

With love from India,
Donna