3 months!

October 10, 2012. 

3 Months since the day Savannah and I left Spring, Texas, and started our new life in India.  It hasn't been easy.  My need-to-control-everything-around-me-personality did not mesh well with the moving to India experience that God had in store for us.  That hurry-up-and-get-it-done persona of mine has faced more than a few challenges here in this land of cattle in the road but not on our plate. Missing our family & friends was excruciating at first. It has lessened enough that I don't randomly burst into tears, but it is still real & present enough that if I think about it (y'all) too much, I'll get teary-eyed. And it doesn’t matter if I am at work or not.  I imagine my neighbors think I am a pretty big cry-baby.  I still get choked up when I end a phone call & try to get "love you & miss you" out. It's rough. But it’s manageable. Probably more manageable these days because there are a lot of distractions. 

Here are some adjustments to date:

·         Dynamo had to become accustomed to walking on a leash and not having free-reign of a yard to run around, while Savannah and I had to grow accustomed to walking him several times a day instead of just shooing him out the back door. 

Dy in the lift, itching to get out

·         We thought we were ready to leave the hotel after nearly a month, but then reality set in when we made it to the flat and had to handle things on our own.  ie: bed linens (landlord handled furniture, sheets were on the ocean in a container...), groceries (hotel offered room service or breakfast), communication with our driver (hotel drivers spoke pretty good American-English), wine (hotel had some and a glass every few nights helped with our transition), coffee (hotel made this and our coffee machine was in a container...), adjusting to full night shift (worked only 5 ish hours/night when we were at the hotel), and so much more that I can't think of right now.

Savannah with her hotel-made lunch

·         We had some interesting, sometimes humorous, sometimes frustrating, conversations and shopping trips to purchase our basic necessities while we waited on our ocean freight.  I counted the days until it arrived.  First countdown was for Aug. 24.  Then Sept. 4.  Then Oct. 1.  We had it delivered Oct. 9.  One day before our 3 month mark here. 

Some of the food we unloaded from our ocean freight

·         We learned to live minimally. The kitchen had only 4 plates, 3 bowls, 6 forks & spoons, 2 pots and 2 skillets.  We had one sheet per bed and one blanket that we brought on the planes with us.  After a couple weeks, we bought Savannah another blanket and I took both of the carry-ons in my room.

·         Although I still complain about it - and I probably always will - we've pretty much adjusted to the power being out for hours at a time and using generator-only things (this means no AC, clothes washer, microwave, or geyser, AKA: water heater). 

·         Savannah is now an official dishwasher (much to her chagrin), as the flat did not include an automatic dishwasher and they are quite expensive. 

·         Our clothes air dry, as dryers are very uncommon here. About once a week our dining room looks like a US-ladies' store exploded as we dry more than one load at a time.

·         We have a convection-microwave oven but no "real" oven.  None of my baking sheets will fit... still unexplored territory there.  We will figure out how to use it before we leave.  I hope.

·         Beef is available at limited locations here.  It's not like "our beef" from the USA, though, so we pretty much stick with chicken. No pork. No turkey. We've eaten mutton (depending on who you ask, it might be sheep, it might be goat.  I sometimes wonder if it's just whatever was wandering down the closest street and convenient at the time they needed it), but we don't love it.  We've eaten some pretty yummy prawns (shrimp).  We've eaten fish a couple times but don’t enjoy it enough to make it a staple.  We eat chicken just about daily.  And fresh cucumbers and tomatoes.  And rice.  Sometimes pasta.  Savannah likes when Lakshmi puts masala sauce on the chicken and is pretty tired of my salt, pepper, garlic powder, diced onion, skillet chicken.  We can have some variety now that our container is here, though.  We have some gravy mixes, cream of mushroom soups, various spices, and more to make that chicken not quite so boring.  We really enjoyed our Zatarain's red beans and rice, a-la container, tonight for dinner along with the staple tomato and cucumber salad.  Who knew we'd miss dried beans so much? 

·         Savannah has done very well adjusting to her new school.  She went from 900+ kids in her 9th grade at ORHS to less than a dozen in 9-12... Quite a change, but she never ceases to amaze me.  She has made friends with just about everyone and has her India-BFF, Ila.  She has made friends with the "Padur girls," some younger girls who live in an orphanage and attend her school, painting their nails on occasion. 

·         Overall, she doesn't complain that we do not get to just up and go like we did in Texas.  On the other hand, I am still getting adjusted to not being able to drive anywhere I want, anytime I want. 

We both still face communication challenges and I haven't made time to learn the language, but Savannah got a 98% on her Tamil exam last week!  At least I can count on her to read me something or write her name in Tamil should we have a reading and writing emergency. LOL I am a firm believer that a smile goes farther than words, anyway, and most people understand "Thank you," so what else does this Texan really need to know? 

Now that my phone is equipped with 3G (although much slower connection than in the US, it does the job), we can use some apps to find things and venture out more confidently.  We are talking about travel around the county.  Delhi to see the Taj Mahal.  “God’s Own Country,” Kerala.  And mountainous, Ladakh.  Around Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and more, but I don't know where else just yet. I would like to plan some travel for the upcoming US Thanksgiving 4-day weekend but we will see how that goes.  And then shortly after that, we will head home for our 2 weeks of the holidays!  Yay!!!!  Next weekend my parents come in for 10 days, so I will take a few days off from work and Savannah is (hopefully... probably should check on this) out from school one of the weeks.  We are really excited to have them come.  Can't wait to give them both big hugs!  And we probably won't want to let them go, but it might be a little easier knowing our trip home will be less than 2 months away.  And then, by that time, as my mom reminded me, we will be about a quarter of the way through our stint here.

You’ve probably already read most of this if you’ve been keeping up with our blog throughout this adventure.  But it helps me realize how far we’ve come in just a little amount of time, so I shared my thoughts. And we still appreciate all your thoughts and prayers.  Each day does bring something new and we never know exactly what to expect.  Here’s to a less stressful next three months, with family visits and travel interspersed I am sure it will fly by.  Love and hugs!