3 weeks? That's nothing!

If it's been three weeks since Pam posted, it must be close to six months for me. And we have friends coming over for dinner in 20 minutes, so this post won't be long, either.

But what I will say is that we're starting to get excited about coming home for a few weeks. I'm not sure we know why. We've become so accustomed to Indian ways that I'm not sure we remember just how different it is. I suspect the reverse culture shock will be significant. But we're definitely looking forward to seeing friends and family, and of course to having a few weeks off work.

I think the most interesting thing will be seeing how Sarwari does. Will she be as much work as the kids? Will she adjust easily? Will she be too nervous to leave the house? Heck, we have to teach her to do simple things like cross the street - there are no walk/don't walk signs here. We did get her a whole pile of Hindi and Telugu movies to help her while away her hours in PA and TX when she's not technically working. Which will be another interesting thing - will she be able to understand that she can be around us and not working? Is it worth the effort to try to get her to understand? She'll be treated like a real person in the US, not just a servant, and I think that will be a shock for her at times.

Updates to come, hopefully less than six months later.

The Bid List

I can't believe it's been almost three weeks since I've posted. I've had drafts of three posts ... but some how between William and Patrick I just never finished them. So they will be relegated to the trash and I'm just going to start afresh.

We have two-fold excitement in the house this week: leaving for the US in a few days and bidding on our next post. I don't think I need to say much more about getting on a plane for 30 hours ... so I'll tell a little bit about the bidding process.

As untenured officers, our assignments are "directed" - that is, they give us a list of jobs, we rank 20 of them, then they assign. As a tenured officer, the process is much more like finding a normal job -- you see what positions each bureau has available, you send in your resume and "lobby" (aka network), and then a "handshake" is offered. That's for later, though. For now we're still being directed.

The Winter 2010 bid list was just issued on Friday (after the first tranche of people in difficult places like Af-Pak-Iraq were given their jobs). For us, the revised list didn't matter so much. Some of our colleagues were upset that Berlin and Auckland were gone, but those were never options for us to begin with.

Even though the list contained about 300 jobs, realistically, we only had 4 (or maybe 8) cities to choose from. Our criteria: (1) two jobs together where we can take kids (and hopefully Bagwelle!) and (2) jobs with training requirements that fit the rules. Because we had a year of training before coming here (all that Telugu!), we are only eligible for an additional 6 months of training before our next post, which basically rules out learning another language - and rules out a significant number of potential jobs.

This has left us with jobs in Manila and Washington as "perfect" fits (meaning, we leave Hyderabad in January, as scheduled) and Kingston (Jamaica) and Kampala (Uganda) as "imperfect fits (meaning, we leave sometime between December and March). That's the whole kit and kaboodle. Not very much considering the list had 300 positions on it!

Now, we're not complaining; we're mostly just surprised at how short the options are. Both Manila and Kampala are reportedly good places for families. And we have a lot of friends in DC (not to mention family in the US) - though I would prefer not to have to pay for two kids full time in day care! Kingston is less appealing because of the significant crime and the difficulty of consular work there (no, we would not be living on an all-inclusive island resort!).

For awhile we thought we might be able to swing some bids on jobs in Tunis, Singapore and Frankfurt. Tunis and Frankfurt if they bent the time-in-training for one of us (Greg would learn French or me German). Singapore if they let one of us arrive early. But, as it turns out, the training rule is hard and fast. And if we ask for an exception for Singapore, we'd also have to add Lagos and Abuja (both in Nigeria) to the list ... a risk we're not so thrilled to take.

Assignments will likely happen the end of March or early April. Stay tuned ...

Risk and Reward

We have a big dilemna at our house: should we encourage sarwary to
apply for the cleaning position at the consulate? Obviously, for us
this would be a huge loss. I have no idea if we would be able to find
someone as cabable as she whose personality also fits so well with our
family.

But for her, the benefits are tremendous, if she were offered the
position. First, medical care. If any of her immediate family had to
be hospitalized, most - if not all - of the cost would be covered,
avoiding significant potential source of debt. Second, job stability.
She wouldn't have to worry about finding a new employer every 2 years
and how the new family might treat her. Third, retirement fund. I
haven't looked into the details fully, but she would be eligible for
the "provident fund" sponsored by the indian gvt.

True, she'd be back to being a "cleaning lady" and not treated
practically like a member of our household. No one would be there to
buy an extra present for her kids at their birthdays or give her
unused household items (eg, her son gets a lot of hand me downs from
william). And she'd give up the chance that maybe some family in the
future would take her to the US for a posting, enabling her to earn in
two years what would take 10+ years to earn here.

A classic case of risk vs. reward!

From an american citizen perspective, it's interesting to see how my
government can make such a difference in a local person's life by
applying US employment standards across the world. True, it costs more
-- but at some level, it's applying American ideals and not being
hypocritical. Maybe the difference isn't so great for our local
professional staff, but after reading about how even the "labor" staff
get the same privlages and benefits, I was very happy with our
standards. A job like this in india can make a huge difference in
someone's life - even if she would be "just a cleaning lady."

Wish us luck!

We had a fun adventure with Beth through Madhya Pradesh, from Delhi to Khajuraho. It was supposed to be a train journey, but, well, fog in Delhi delayed trains upwards of six hours and with our limited time we ended up just hiring a car and driver. More pricey, yes, but we're talking India prices, thankfully.

I was slightly disappointed by lack of train rides ... which is perhaps why Greg and I decided not to cancel our weekend excursion this weekend. It originally started out as a big group trip - 14 people! Then some international visitors had their flights change, so three people dropped out. Then another couple decided to take the four day weekend (Mahashivaratri + President's Day. Hooray for double holidays!) to fly north to Amritsar and Dharamsala. Then others got spooked by the (real) rail roko potential (i.e., protesters camping out on the tracks) because of the Telangana unrest. So we were down to six -- us four plus another couple.

Tuesday, one person of the couple got sick. It unfortunately happens in India with some regularity, but the timing was quite unfortunate! Especially since between their trip back to the US in Feb-March, and ours in March-April, and our impending departure at the end of the year, the chance to take this trip together was essentially shot.

Not seeing another good weekend, Greg and I opted to just go it alone, so to speak. We will be taking an overnight train to Hampi and back again. We have absolutely no idea what to expect of the train (our only India train experience being the Shatabdi Express - and on this trip will be in 2nd AC class, the best this train has) and we have absolutely no idea what to expect from the two boys. The next three days are a black hole, but hopefully we'll emerge safe, sound, and happy!

A General Mellowing

On vacation last week (blog report post due!) and back at work full time this week, I had two instances where I realized I've mellowed out a lot when it comes to parenting. I'm not sure if it's because I have to under my current circumstances, or simply because I've already had one baby - probably a combination of both - but my outlook is definitely more relaxed.

1. At a Bengali "restaurant" in Khajuraho. We were sitting at our table, waiting for our thali (set meal). The place was well swept, all plastic chairs were in tact, metal tables weren't rusted, and Beth's chai was even served in a china cup with match saucer. For a $1 per person meal, in the middle of a small Indian town, it was clean.

Then, as Patrick reached out and touched the table ... and a few seconds later a stray dog wandered by our outside table ... I all of the sudden envisioned all the mothers who vigorously disinfect mall food court tables with disposable Clorox wipes. The reality of being here - and my adjustment to accept a general state of dirtiness - even to the point of having considered the restaurant clean - hit home. I'm now, by default, subscribing to the "let kids eat dirt" method of building immunities.

2. At home, with Sarwary. As I've mentioned, as smart as she may appear, she's illiterate. Thus, all communication is verbal by necessity. There's no way I'd get a "daily report" like William's day care did - what time he ate and how many ounces; what time wet and poopy diapers were changed; how many 15 minute segments of tummy time. Instead, I just check how many bottles are gone off of the shelf. She tells me if it was a good nap day (seems to be defined by naps of at least one hour) or a bad nap day (only dozing; no long stints) and how many poops. And, to my surprise, I'm Ok with that. Patch and Wm are both all smiles when I come home -- what better way to judge how their day was?

Wish U Happy Pongal

Pongal - the Telugu harvest festival - was actually on Jan 14 this year. I enjoy it mostly because it marks our one year anniversary here! We arrived Jan 9, 2009 ... with Pongal shortly after ... so it was my first local festival. Last year, I really only experienced it with the "rangoli" (color chalk drawings in front of people's thresholds). This year, we also attempted to fly a kite and visited our neighbor's doll display.

I say attempted because William wanted to "do himself"... so the kite didn't go very far :) A guy we know in the neighboring building, though, was doing a fantastic job with his family. In the evening, he even got a kite up in the air with three candle boxes hanging on the string. Beautiful! Now that our terrace has plants and is pleasant to sit out on, we had quite a fun evening watching all the kites from the roof tops around us.

The doll display is sort of like the Japanese hinasama put out on March 3, especially since it sounds like only families with girls put out the display. The Japanese display is with the various people of the imperial court. The Telugu display is more religious oriented -- they had the goddess Laxmi on top, Krishna and his 10 avatars next, then people in the nine traditional professions (weaving cotton, potting, weaving saris, hmm... I can't remember the other six...), then some other dolls they had collected that they liked (including an English shepherdess who was selling beer!), and then animals at the bottom. I got the feeling that you could have any dolls you wanted out; the order or content wasn't that important.

They also did some ceremony for the unmarried girls - like most Hindu ceremonies I've seen, it involved sprinkling of flower petals and swirling of an oil flame. No one could really tell me much about it except it was a blessing .... so I can't really tell you much! One person also thought it was funny that we came, since William is not a girl (though he didn't get the blessing; we just observed). Thankfully, though, my neighbor pointed out that we don't have much time left in India, so she invited us so we could have the experience.

It all ended with copious amounts of food and the grandmas trying to force me to eat more. This is an absolute staple at any Indian function I have attended!

(sorry for the ugly prose; I'm a little tired and not writing well, but I thought I should write something!)

What is our routine?

As I was preparing tonight to go back to work, I started thinking about our "routine." All the parenting books say it's best to find a routine and stick to it. A regular rhythm helps everyone know what to expect -- and from us, to William, to Patrick, to Sarwary and Shabu, there are many people in the house who could benefit. With many parenting advice topics, from bedtime to potty training, one can find someone who says what one wants to hear. But try and look for a proponent of irregular schedules, and you'll be short on luck.

At the moment, though, I can't think of what our routine will possibly be like for the next twelve months. I will be at work part time for two weeks, and then we take a vacation for a week with Beth - and January is done. The first week of Feb, Beth will be here (hooray!), and after that we'll have about six weeks of normalcy - just enough to settle into a routine - before we (hopefully!) jet back to the US for three weeks. Now March is done and April is off to a good start.

But then, from April 10, William's school is out for summer, so the next eight weeks (until June 10), will have a distinct feel with two boys at home all day. It will likely not be until July - half way into 2010 - that we really start to feel comfortable in a routine. At which point we'll be in the last six months of our time here and starting to prepare to move again. All of this ignores, of course, the fact that babies are unpredictable and change immensely the first year of life. Patrick is a wild card :)

Morals of the musings? (1) Ignore the advice, take a deep breath at the end of each day, and think about what needs to happen the next day. (2) If you only have 24 months to live in a place, it truly is important to "live in the moment" and not think too much about what's around the corner. Maybe it's time to listen to my yoga teacher and actually do the pranayama (breathing meditation) every day, even if I can't do the asana (stretches).

Cultural note: most schools in Hyderabad close mid-April to mid-June during the hot season. Air conditioning is not common, and so the schools need the natural cooling that comes with the monsoons before they can reopen.