One Day Maybe I'll learn some Tamil

When Savannah and I first arrived in Chennai, I said I was going to learn a new word or phrase in Tamil every day... then it changed to one a week.  We've been here a little over six months and I probably know six.  Guess that brings my average down to one a month.  Not very good.  I should get on that.  Here's what I know off the top of my head, without cheating:

Venakkam - Hello
Nandri - Thank you 

Inga va - Come here
Po - Go
Mean - fish 
Amma - Mom
Ama - slang for OK – does slang count?  I think so.
Da - slang for dude/guy

And Here are the ones I know if I hear them but had to look them up to confirm: 
Nalvaravu - Welcome
Naḷai - Tomorrow
Valttukkaḷ - Wishes (birthday, etc)

Just for fun, here are some of the areas in Chennai:  Our office is in Kottivakkam near Kandanchavadi.  Between Padur, where we live, and the office a couple of the areas I know are Navalur and Sholinganallur.  We looked for an apartment and live very near a complex called Hiranandani.  We have a couple friends who live in Thiruvanmiyur.  Savannah's friend lives in Palavakkam.  We had to go to Kanchepuram to get registered with the foreign resident's office. These names are all awesome for a couple reasons.  One being that I am super proud when I can actually pronounce something.  I enunciate every letter.  Nobody can understand me.  I still have my southern drawl.  People can't even understand when I say i live in Padur.  Puh-derr.  Not that hard, right?  Well, they say something like Puh-do.  And when I try to sound like that, they still give me the blank stare.   
Last weekend we went shopping in Kottivakkam and got Savannah's first full Indian outfit. She got a bright pink kurta (long shirt, similar to this) and some patiala pants (baggy- here, and remind me MC Hammer pants) and I got a pretty orange-ish kurta to wear with brown leggings.  Next weekend we are going shopping with a couple girls from the office and I am thinking it's time for me to pick up a sari (like this).  And Savannah wants a full salwar (see this).  We are finally getting her shirt stitched for the sari I got her when I came to work here in the spring.  Now we just need to invite ourselves to a wedding (don't think I haven't been trying!) so we can get dressed up and wear them...
What else?  Names.  Our driver, who's name I can still not pronounce, is Murugesan.  (He still asks Savannah what I say when I tell him where we are going - unless it's Nilgri's, which is our staple weekend spot.)  My co-manager is Mohamed Asif.  But he goes by Asif, his last name.  Most of the time.   The NAM peeps call him Mohamed.  I call him Asif unless we are on a call with the front office, and then I have to make a conscious effort to refer to him as Mohamed.  We have a team of almost 20 handling Imports for the US and Canada.  I still can't pronounce some of these guys' names.  I try.  Asif laughs a lot.  I am sure eventually he will get tired of me and not finish the names when I start and stare blankly at him.  But for now, we've got an understanding and it works out well for me.  I tried to find some rhyme or reason on how to tell if a name is for a guy or a girl, since much of my communication is via e mail or instant messages.  I often have no idea if I am communicating with a man or woman, so I think from now on I will use the trusty Google search and see if I can figure it out from there.  If you don't have anything better to do, spend a few minutes and click here to look up some Indian (Hindu) names.  And then try to pronounce them.  But say it quickly.  Because that's how the locals do it.
We're still planning on our May trip, but not sure if Robert will be able to make it or not, due to his schedule at work.  We are sure hoping he can, but need to be firming up airline tickets and stuff soon.  Michael will come for sure and my parents will meet us.  I think we will wind up on a Malaysia and Singapore trip, and then Michael (and Robert, if he gets to come) will spend a little bit of time here in Chennai as well.  Everyone tells me May is hot, hot, hot here.  I am thinking it must be similar to August/September in Houston.  Hot and humid.  Doesn't sound like much fun for outside, and add in the two hours a day power outage when we only have fans and no AC, I might get back into grumpy American mode.  I am hoping it's not thattttttttt bad.  Guess we'll wait and see.
As you can probably tell, not a lot going on here, so writing about much of nothing.  Just figured I would check in.  Hope everyone is doing well and please keep us in your prayers.  Savannah's still adjusting back, missing home, etc and being an all-around teenager (hence the need for prayers for Mom).  Sending love and hugs from Chennai. 

Happy Pongal!

Hey, check it out... two posts in a week!  Well, I had a couple funny conversations lately and thought I would share with the world.  I figure you guys could use a laugh, too.  I'll start with this week's celebration: Pongal.  This is a Hindu festival observed in South India (where we are!) and marks the end of the harvest season and this link explains: The festival is celebrated for four days. On, the first day, Bhogi, the old clothes and materials are thrown away and fired, marking the beginning of a new life. The second day, the Pongal day, is celebrated by boiling fresh milk early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel - a tradition that is the literal translation for Pongal. People also prepare savories and sweets, visit each other's homes, and exchange greetings. The third day, Mattu Pongal, is meant to offer thanks to the cows and buffaloes, as they are used to plough the lands. On the last day, Kanum Pongal, people go out to picnic. I am a bit behind in my Pongal celebration, and did not do any of these things.  Next year I'll get it right! I am most intrigued by the third day, where the Hindu folks offer thanks to cows and buffaloes.  One of my friends at the office told me that these animals will be painted and hung with flowers in the villages.  I was anxiously watching my street today (keep in mind we live in cow-central) to see if any cows were decorated for the festival.  Much to my dismay, I saw no costumed cows.  So I had to Google this and see how they looked... 

Pongal Festivities Moooooooooooo!

Tonight in the office I told my friend I was sad I didn't see any Pongal'd up cows in person and she laughed and said she told me they would only be in the villages.  Then my co-manager joined in and said that the economy has severely impacted this festival, as the cost of buying a cow is about 13,000 Rupees (appx $250) and who has that just laying around to paint for a day?  I think that's a grand idea and maybe I'll take a collection for next year.  I want to see a decorated cow, dang it!
More funny conversations:
- Same friend and me talking about her sister (lives in Colorado) coming next month and she kindly offered to bring any provisions Savannah or I might need.  One thing I forgot in the US when I was home are the replacement heads for our electric toothbrush.  So the American is now trying to explain why we need an electric toothbrush.  We laughed and laughed, but at the the of our conversation, she was convinced it was the best invention ever and was e mailing her sister to pick one up!  (Should I be in sales? You're welcome, Oral-B!)  So she asks, "How do you use it?" And I am doing brushing motions with my hand and laughing and explaining it's the same as a regular, but does a better job and my teeth are whiter, etc etc.  Then she comes back the next day and tells me her sister asked her if she was really so lazy that she needed and electric toothbrush!  haha!  So then SHE had to explain all the great benefits I had previously explained.  Oh, so funny.
- The drivers and me have some terrific conversations.  They generally don't include more than about 3-4 words, because less is more when you have a Texas twang and don't speak Tamil.  So in the evenings on my way to the office, the driver calls to say he is here, "Hello, madam.  Car park waiting."  I reply, "OK, thank you.  Five minutes."  "OK thank you."  Then, I walk to the car and he opens the door for me and I say, "Thank you.  How are you?"  He replies, "Fine, madam.  Thank you."  Every night.  I could record it and play it five days a week. Then the morning driver that takes me home from work tells me, "Good morning, madam."  "Good morning, how are you?"  "Fine, madam.  Straight to house?"  "Yes, straight to house, thank you."  Sometimes this little guy tries to have a conversation.  Poor thing, I imagine one day he thinks we can really communicate.  The first morning I was back in the office after our holiday, he asked, "One month leave?"  I told him, "Almost!  Three week holiday in US." (This is the same driver that picked up Mom & Dad from the airport when they came in October.)  He said, "Oh, America?"  I told him, "Yes, America.  Family.  Christmas. New year."  He asked, "Mother?"  "Yes."  "Father?" "Yes." "Sister?" (umm easier to say yes, for sister in law) "Yes, and brother and babies."  He was on a roll.  "Oh, husband?"  "No, no husband."  "Ohhhhhhh, no husband?"  Me, "No, (I chuckle a little), no husband."  Driver - "Oh, sorry, sorry."  Um, it's ok, buddy.  I am happier, now, thanks.  LOL  
So I thought that was pretty funny and then over the weekend I was walking Dynamo and a young man in his early 20s or so was asking about him - breed, where he came from, how much did he cost, what does he eat, and then, "Are you here studying?"  Me, "No, I am working."  Him, "Oh, what company?  For how long?  What do you do?"  Me, "Maersk Line.  Ocean freight customer service manager.  For 2 years and we came in July."  Him, "Oh, your husband is working, too?"  Me, "No, no husband.  My daughter and me.  And Dynamo."  His eyes almost popped out of his head in shock.  "Your husband is back in the US?"  Ummm let's make this easy. "Yes, he's working there."  So what I have learned already is that women here don't live alone.  They live in ladies' hostels or with their parents or with their husband.  But Savannah and me living by ourselves is just unheard of.  We are quite the rebels, apparently!  As time goes on, I learn more... that even though I am a strong, independent western woman, I still need a husband in the eyes of this culture. Savannah has said it's easier at school to tell people her dad is in the US working, too, and not even mention divorce or anything else.  
The pressures of society to conform to marriage is amazing to me.  Most girls are married by 25, and majority of those marriages are arranged.  One of the young girls in the office had her birthday a couple months back and she was passing out chocolates.  She was dressed in bright pink and blue colors, looking very pretty.  I complimented her and wished her a very happy birthday.  She became very serious and said she did not want be getting older.  I laughed and said, "You are SO young - why are you worried about it?! How old ARE you?" "I am already 22 now.  My family is saying it is time to begin to search for a husband and get married."  Can you imagine??  
I have learned lots of about arranged marriages versus love marriages.  The younger generation is more outspoken and challenging some traditional ways of thinking.  It seems, at least here in southern India, that the older generations do not appreciate it very much, but many figure it's not worth fighting, so they are allowing love marriages.  The majority of marriages are still arranged.  But love marriages are sneaking up in percentages.  There is a young lady in our team who is leaving the company at the end of this month to prepare for her arranged marriage.  She is marrying a distant cousin or distant uncle (I can't remember which), which is not uncommon, because the family can then keep the land and property belonging to the family.  When a girl gets married, her family must offer a dowry to the groom's family (this was outlawed in 1961 but still happens all the time).  So if you marry within the family, then no dowry is required.  Makes economical sense, but logical?  Guess it depends on who you ask...  Lots of interesting thoughts around all this, and I'll save that for another time.
We still appreciate your prayers for Savannah, who is still missing her friends from the visit home.  And her three day break from school this week probably didn't help, as she was bored while I slept since I am on NAM schedule and don't take Indian holidays.  Too much time to think and not enough to keep her busy.  Fortunately, we were able to make plans with our friend Courtney for Savannah to get out of the house tomorrow.  She won't be forced to watch the reruns of Two and a Half Men. Again. LOL
Hope everyone is doing well and sending much love from India!
 
 

Happy New Year!

Jeez, where has the time gone?  Looks like the last thing I blogged about was Thanksgiving and prepping for our trip home.  As you can probably guess, or if you are a FB friend, you know the trip has come and gone and we spent lots of great time with family, friends, and Mexican food.  Savannah spent a lot of time with her friends from church and school, intermingling with some family time in between her social hours, while I spent as much time as my Fab 5’s schedule would allow with them, with lots of other friends, Mom & Dad, the nieces, and Michael. (When we were home, we decided to try and give this long-distance thing another go... anyone who said this love stuff is easy is lying!)  I spent a day at the office for meetings and got to meet up with some work folks for a local happy hour.  That was lots of fun and good to see their familiar faces.  I spent my birthday losing money in Lake Charles, but had fun while doing it so I guess that’s all that matters, huh?  Robert came into town for Christmas and stayed for the long weekend.  It was great to catch up with him and hang out.  We are working on a big trip in May to celebrate his 28^th birthday, Savannah’s 16^th birthday, and explore Asia together.  Any suggestions are welcome – we are in the planning stage but I need to get it in gear.  It’s already mid-January!!  We are thinking of places like Thailand, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sri Lanka, or Malaysia… where else??  

While we were in Houston we were spoiled and got fresh hair do’s from the fabulous Aunt Lauri, gifted with enough product to bring back with us and last for the next year at least (let’s see how this doing our hair ourselves thing works out…), treated to homemade lasagna and cupcakes from Kent, enjoyed a big girls’ slumber party complete with a taco bar and array of wines, celebrated Christmas and had a few dinners with my brother and his family, went on a hayride with the kids to look at Christmas lights, had a welcome home party complete with Apple Pie Moonshine, were treated to manis and pedis, took family pictures courtesy of the fabulous team at  Allen Owen Photography, and oh, so much more I can't even think of right now.  We enjoyed everyone's time and talents, knowing it's a very busy season and sometimes hard to get away for a few hours.  I ate Mexican food almost every day while we were home and I loved every bite of it!  It was probably a good thing to get back here and start back with our chicken dinners, because all that food could have started making the pants tight again quick!  While it was good to see everyone and enjoy our old haunts, it wasn't really difficult for me to come back.  Maybe because I knew what to expect, had a routine going, felt more acclimated before we left.  It has, however, been difficult for Savannah this time.  She misses her friends a little more.  Misses sweet tea and Red Robin burgers more than before.  Misses her sweet cousin, who she did spend quite a bit of time with...  It's rough.  Please keep her in your prayers. 

When we got back, I was excited to get home to our little Dynamo and see all the fresh fixes the landlord was to have put in place at our flat while we were gone.  I was ready to see our new TV stand, have the DVD player, computer and Keurig all hooked up and ready to go, have the few small issues with kitchen drawers and cabinets fixed and even get rid of the small ant issue we had before we left.  I had been in contact with the landlord via e mail and he had the list ready to go.  On the way home from the airport (oh, without our luggage, by the way... because the flight was late leaving Houston and the layover in Frankfurt wound up being less than 45 minutes so we had to RUN from our plane to the departing plane for Chennai which was completely boarded by this time, and although we made it, our luggage did not!) Savannah asked if I thought our flat would be all fixed.  I told her of course it would - I had talked to the landlord the night we were leaving, showed him everything from the list, followed up in e mail , etc.  She doubted it.  The little brat was right.  We walked in and NOTHING had been done.  Ants still in the same spots and then some :(  No TV stand.  I was soooooooooooo annoyed.  No luggage.  No fixes at the house.  Dynamo wasn't coming home until the next afternoon.  And we had just traveled for 20+ hours.  Yeah, cranky Nikki.  Poor Savannah was all messed up from the time change, which didn't affect me since I am backwards over here, anyway... but she stayed home from school on Thursday.  I forced her back on Friday but she was still pretty off the clock over the weekend, but I've made her go back this week.  No excuses.  Back to the routine.  Last weekend was our "Annual Day Party" at work and we were going to try and attend, but between her jet leg, both of us not feeling 100% and me just being tired, we decided to pass and just stayed home.  Not to unpack, though, since the ants were still around, but we did get our luggage around 6 AM on Friday, special delivery, thank goodness!  Back to the story...  I went back and forth with the landlord via text asking what happened and he said "I thought you were going to be gone for three weeks, we were going to start today."  Uh yeah.  It was three weeks and no, you weren't.  Grrrr.  No change over the weekend... So Tuesday morning when I got home from work and ants were in the package of rice I was cooking for breakfast (we have an odd diet over here, especially me and my schedule..) and some ants poured out with it into the pot.  Let me tell you.  O M G!  I was PISSED!  We brought back over 2 suitcases full of the US foods we wanted and knew would keep (this might or might not have included 6 blocks of Velveeta cheese, which Michael still does not understand... but we will have lots of queso and grilled cheeses and other good stuff - thanks for the idea Brandy!)  and there were ANTS in my rice!  So, I picked them out.  One by one.  All ten of them.  Cooked the rice and texted the landlord at 5:45 AM.  I have been a pretty nice American up to this point.  There are lots of things undone around here since we moved in.  We still don't have our TV stand, a mirror in the hall bath, one socket working, etc.  But it's not a big issue so I don't make a fuss.  ANTS IN MY US FOOD IS A BIG ISSUE.  So I made a fuss.  Within six hours he had the pest control folks over here spraying our place and apologizing up and down.  I told him I was still annoyed, should not have had to let it get to that point, and let's get the other stuff fixed.  Three days later and the other stuff isn't started yet, but the ants are gone and I guess that's good enough for now.  I chalk most of it up to what my coworkers tell me is our time zone… IST - Indian Stretchable Time.  That's ok every now and then, but come on, already!  So this weekend I'll blow up his phone again and hope some other fixes get crossed off the list.  We'll see... always an adventure over here, that's for sure.

Today marks our six month mark in India.  In the beginning it felt like every day was soooooooooo long and every issue was insurmountable.  Now, I can't believe SIX MONTHS have passed and we only have a year and a half left!  I feel like I need to hurry up and do and see all the great stuff this country and continent has to offer.  That being said, 2013 will include some travel plans!  And visitors are welcome J  Come see us!  Savannah and I are also trying to plan to visit a friend and her family for a long weekend in Singapore next month, maybe, if we can get our schedules to jive.  That would be super fun and I hope it works out.  And we are planning a long weekend trip to the neighboring state, Kerala, for a backwater boat ride to see elephants in the wild, some natural beauty (I am still telling these folks in the office I haven’t seen the natural beauty of India yet and they keep telling me it exists… just have to get out of Chennai to find it…), and enjoy some local cuisine.  I hear the food is great and they are famous for the banana chips.  I’ve had them.  Yum.  Of course YUM, they are fried.  LOL  Oh, well.  I am lucky to have some of the best resources here in the office, as many guys are from Kerala and know the ins and outs for us to plan a great trip.  Should be fun. We will see the Taj Majal for sure before we leave, too.  Don't know if it will be in 2013, but it will happen.  I am still trying to finagle my way into a wedding while we are here.  There seem to be quite a few opportunities, so I am fairly confident that will happen.  Sometime soon I will talk about some more cultural stuff.  Like weddings.  And the recently highly publicized assaults against women.  And the not-so-highly publicized assaults against women.  And the treatment of women in general.  And drinking.  I am sure there are more items, but this will just be a few I'll touch on.  For now, this has become more of a novella than a blog post.  If you want to see our family pics, feel free to take a look and if you're in the Houston area, may I recommend my friends Craig & Becky at Allen Owen Photography!  Can't say enough good things about them and the pics turned out great!  Also posted some candid shots from our time in Houston. Click here to view them.

Wishing everyone a very happy 2013, filled with God's grace, laughter, love, family and friends.  Looking forward to a great year here in Chennai making awesome memories with my kiddo and new friends!