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.

Dealing (again) with moving and "home"

As I've said multiple times on this blog, little things catch me off guard. Today, I experienced it when packing up Christmas decorations. Until today, I had always used two Moravian Bookshop bags to pack up my decorations, which didn't consist of more than a tree topper and tree decorations. After a few years of various gifts from family, however, I now have more home decorative items, too -- and as a result, this year I realized that the Bookshop bags just weren't big enough. Plus, with all the moving in my future, boxes would be much more logical.

Most of you are probably not familiar with the Moravian Bookshop (http://www.moravianbookshop.com/ ), the oldest continuously operational bookshop in the US (since 1745). It is intimately tied in my mind to Christmas; the majority of my Christmases have been spent in Bethlehem, PA with my grandparents. We would always have a trip downtown to see the "old city" lit up and a browse through the bookshop. I have annual ornaments from the bookshop through 2001 when they stopped making them for some reason. Thus, packing away my Christmas ornaments in a Bookshop bag seemed seasonally and sentimentally appropriate.

As I packed my ornaments and other knick knacks away in two Pampers Cruisers Size 4 boxes, I actually teared up a bit. Then I packed - and unpacked - and packed again - and unpacked again - the two Bookshop bags which I think must be at least six years old and have served me well all these years. In the end, I decided to put the bags in my "nice bag" pile, perhaps to use to bring a pie over to a friend's house at a later date (they have really nice, big, flat cardboard-reinforced bottoms; great for a pie plate).

Logically, I know this makes sense. It would be quite ridiculous to have two bags packed into boxes and shipped around the world, only to be unpacked for a few short weeks each year - and even then, when I unpacked them, what would I do with them? And it provided me with yet another example as to how, in this transitory lifestyle we've chosen, I have to make decisions between logic and sentiment. Logic doesn't always win out, just by the way :)

A general note

Between lots of visitors and the holidays (not to mention the new baby!), I've been too busy to post. In the meantime, what has happened? A Christmas eve service like no other I've been to, a three day trip to Jaipur, showing favorite HYD spots to Greg's family, New Year's brunch with friends (we're not quite up for a big NYE bash these days). And some how I've found myself with only one month of leave left, but still with many things I'd like to know. You would have thought I'd know better than to make a "to do" list while on maternity leave.

Patrick is doing great - last night he actually slept from 9PM to 6:30AM. Needless to say, after about 3AM, I didn't sleep well and kept tip-toeing over to his crib (2 feet away) to check if he was still breathing. Maybe tonight, if I'm lucky enough to have a repeat, I'll sleep, too. He's generally a pretty chill baby, which is good since William still requires a lot of attention. Wm just talks so much and runs so much - it takes a ton of energy to keep up with him! Wm loves "Patch" (an occasional nickname, since he pronounces his little brother's name as "Patch-ick") and, if I'm not watching closely, Wm will hug him a little too vigorously. The little one doesn't have much of a memory yet, so I'm hoping the small bonks from intended hugs aren't damaging their future relationship.

Amongst the various Christmas presents, Wm has latched on most to his new work bench and a Thomas puzzle. He will spend a good hour hammering and screwing; he takes after his great-grandpa. We even had to pack up a subset of the tools to bring to Jaipur, which caused some confusion in the security lane as Wm was adamant they be packed in his carry on. Luckily, engineers are well respected in India, so the security guard took one look at the wooden tools, looked at me and Greg and just said, "Engineer, ahh?" He thought we must be crazy pushy parents, trying to get our son hooked early on studying engineering!

Karen and I have been surprised how quickly Wm picked up on the puzzle. It's a big 24 piece puzzle, and so far Wm has put it together at least five times each day. By now, he really understands how it works and is getting much better at putting the pieces together by himself. I was surprised because we have some of the wooden puzzles where you are supposed to put the animal in the correct hole - but Wm never seemed too interested in them. This "regular" puzzle, though, fascinates him, and he'll continue to play with it until it is complete. Now if we could only find an airplane puzzle ...

That's the general update - Wm is still playing full steam ahead, and Patrick is still growing (13 lbs, last weigh-in). I'm sleeping as well as I could hope, Greg is doing whatever Greg does :) All seems to be starting well for 2010, and I'm trying not to think about the fact that we'll get our "bid list" in mid to late February.

Christmas shopping

Greg and I found a half-decent looking artificial tree at the newest "hypermarket" in Hyderabad. It was pricey, but, well, it was either that or decorating our "Budda bamboo" tree. We decided with Greg's family in town for the holidays, we better not make it too different of a Christmas. After all, I have yet to find a church with a Christmas Eve service (most are Christmas morning), and it is 80 degrees during the day. Couple that with stores not having all the decorations or Christmas music blaring and, well, it doesn't really "feel" like Christmas. Hence the artificial tree.

I was unfolding it this morning and realized my lights are all 110V. The options were to (a) figure out how to move the tree close to the transformer or (b) see if local stores had Christmas tree lights. A coworker told me to go to Begum Bazaar -- an area of town where people sell wholesale and retail -- that if it weren't available there, it wouldn't be available in Hyderabad. After Greg's sister got settled and had lunch, we adventured out.

The Bazaar is what one might imagine third world shopping districts as: lots of small lanes with lots of small shops and shops selling the same thing all clustered together. Our car could barely make its way through the narrow streets clogged with merchandise flowing out of the shops, people, autos, bicylces, cycle-rickshaws (!), and the occasional stray animal of various sorts. Given that my office and home are in posh parts of town, I rarely have this kind of shopping experience.

First, we had to figure out which lane the Christmas stuff was on. My driver was hesitant, but I asked him to just venture in and ask around. After driving first through the plastic bucket lane and then past the tricylce/bicycle lane, he stopped at a ribbon store (so many options for trimming a sari!) to ask. They pointed us further down the street we were on and told us to turn left "at the stars." We weren't exactly sure what that meant, but we went with the flow. (note: sadly, mostly Hindi/Urdu was spoken in this area ... only about half the people spoke Telugu, so I needed my driver's help!)

After passing by more ribbon stores and some garden pot stores, we saw some Christmas garland hanging from a store and - sure enough - there were large paper stars hung on wires across the lane. We looked down the lane and saw three or four stores with Christmas stuff and decided we were in the right place. Tracy, Patrick and I hopped out while Krishna drove off to see if he could find some place large enough to pull the Xylo off the side of the road.

Our purchases: garland for the front porch and ornaments to decorate it; a large gold paper star to put over our front light bulb (note: 10 Rs and a call by Sarwary to the building electrician dropped the light bulb one foot so the star cover could be put over the bulb); ribbon to decorate the recently sewn Christmas stockings; and - hooray! - Christmas tree lights!

Pickings were slim and not "export quality" per se, but it was fun to comb through tiny stores to see what was available. We passed on the styrofoam Christmas cut outs, the 10 year old Santa suit, and the really gaudy garland and decorations. It might have been fun to have a "tacky Christmas," but as already mentioned, we had decided to try and be somewhat traditional this year.

Since Patrick was still asleep in the sling, we poked around the lane a little bit and found a bonus store: one selling tin baking items. It had all kinds of cake pans and molds; many reminded me of the old jello molds in my grandma's kitchen. I was tempted to buy a snowman or santa, but opted instead for an airplane for William's birthday next year. Then, we noticed they had a few cookie cutters out ... the guy poked around a bit for us, and finally found a Christmas-themed set. So, I now have a snowman, Christmas tree, candy cane, and holly leaf - all of which I realized I lacked when I baked sugar cookies on Monday. Score!

On the way home, we drove past a tea stall and I asked Krishna why only men were ever in the tea houses. He said it was because they were Irani tea houses (as if that explained everything?). Tracy and I were still perplexed, so I asked if women can't drink Irani tea. He said they could, but only in their cars or auto - not in the tea house. As you can expect, we then asked him to go get us two teas! It was sweet and milky and accompanied by Osmania biscuits, a famous local sugar-shortbread cookie. Quite a tasty treat (especially for Rs. 16 for the two of us) after a busy shopping experience.

Hathi meera sathi!

I don't know many phrases in Hindi. Those that I do know tend to be limited to the same ten questions commonly asked at work. Though I could probably conduct the interview questions in Hindi by this point, I still don't understand the answers - so I'll stick to Telugu.

William, however, is starting to pick up quite a bit of Hindi because (a) Greg has been telling Sarwary and Shabana he really does want them to speak Hinid with him (they didn't believe him at first) and (b) his new school is much more multi-lingual (English, Telugu and Hindi).

Over the weekend, a friend brought a pillow with an elephant on it for Patrick. It has various words for elephant printed on it, and she taught William the phrase "hathi meera sathi" (the elephant is my friend). Visitors and webcam chatters have told us William has an Indian accent when speaking English. I have no idea how his Hindi accent is, but I can't help but smile every time I hear him say "hathi meera sathi;" he adds a little sing-song to make it poem-like. This is one Hindi phrase I'll always remember!

Cloth Diapers

We're using cloth diapers with Patrick. Technology on this front has progressed a lot in 22 years since my youngest sister wore them; just google "BumGenius 3.0" and you can see for yourself. It's as simple as putting on Pampers, thanks to velcro. Spraying the solids off the diaper takes a little extra effort, but thankfully all our toilets here have a little sprayer next to them.

My initial impetus to use cloth diapers was that I didn't want to have to remember to continually order diapers online - the local brands aren't very good and the import Pampers and Huggies are super expensive. So, cloth seemed an easy alternative, especially since we have Sarwary and Shabu to help with the washing! I did the math (no surprise) and figure the break-even point was between 6 and 9 months, depending how many vacations we took where we would use disposables. Given that William wasn't potty trained until after two years, a financial incentive also presented itself.

This week, the main benefit of using cloth dawned on me. Our garbage removal service at the apartment building has, for some reason unknown to me or anyone I've asked, stopped. Thus, all the household help now must take the garbage out. And, with lack of municipal garbage collection service, all the trash is now flung over the fence of the empty plot at the end of our block. I'm now quite happy we have cloth, because otherwise every time I turned onto our lane, I'd have to think of all the rotting poopy diapers of Patrick's. Super gross.