Life here has gotten to feel less exotic and more daily-grind, real life, which is good. I've become more active in the Overseas Women's Club, like selling tickets to lunches out and a horse race a few weekends ago. It gives me something to do and I meet a lot of new people. I've also been working really hard at making friends our own age here. I've been so spoiled at home with my good group of close friends that I forgot you have to actually work and put in time, and phone calls, and put yourself out there a little to make it happen. I've met ladies I really click with, expats from all over. We go to the overwhelming veggie, fruit, and flower markets, meet for lunches, pool-lounging, mani-pedis, and FINALLY I've got young people to meet on the weekends with Charles! We've also joined the Bangalore Expat Club, which is another social club to bring together expats, but I think it's more our scene, and they have a lot of guys there too, which obv the OWC does not. Nothing against the OWC, but the BEC just has more frequent activities that can and do include the guys. I've been reading a ton, everything I can get my hands on basically. I've started a book swap with a few ladies from the OWC, and I hope I can find someone to take over when we come back home. It's silly for us all to keep buying books that we'll just leave here since books are so heavy in the luggage. And I was offered the VP of Events for the OWC, but had to turn it down because we won't be here for long enough for me to get settled in the role and actually DO something and make connections within the community. It was flattering to be asked though. I've been doing a good job of my volunteering for the committee, good enough for them to ask me to take a leadership position. That would have been nice. I'd get to use my skills at making shit happen.
I haven't been volunteering, which I do feel guilty about, but the locations for the reputable places are an hour by car (still within Bangalore, but this place is huge). That doesn't seem so bad, but when the driver has to come in from the office, which is an hour, drive CW to work for another hour, drive back to our flat for another hour, drive me somewhere for an hour...you get the idea. Traffic here is a bitch and you can't get anywhere fast. I just feel like it isn't worth it. Plus, traffic is so stop and start that for the first time in my life I'm experiencing car sickness. Deepak can't help it, it's just traffic and driving with a stick shift. I get really cranky if I'm in the car for more than 30 min.
Long Hours
The hardest part about being here is that Charles is working ridiculously long hours. Work alone has him out of the house 10 hours, and a few times a week (or more sometimes :-( ) he has calls with the US which have him on the phone from 8-10 pm. I know in my head that "the reason we're here is for his work, so don't resent it," but it's hard to deal with. I also know that it's not how he'd like to spend his time either. We just try and make the most of the weekends, and it's so important for me to keep myself busy during the weekdays. That part is still hard and I do get bored. I'm trying to embrace it though and just remind myself that I should be taking advantage of this short time, like a vacation. I'm so fortunate to have this whole experience that my sometimes boredom is a small price to pay. It just renews my thought that being a stay at home, job-less, kid-less lady is not a good life-plan for me.
Charles is good. He works too much, but he knew that this return trip would be full of long days while he trains in all his new hires. He sees the light at the end of the tunnel though, they're learning fast. He's been good about only taking 2 days a week as his "long days" where he makes evening calls to the US. Today, for example, he got up early to go to the gym, left here at 10:30, and I'll see him around 8:30 or 9 tonight. Tuesdays and Thursdays are like that. It's hard, because usually we try and have breakfast together and I leave for my spinning or BodyPump classes when he leaves for work. These long days are brutal on him and hard on me too. I just try and do as much as I can in the morning to keep busy. So today was spinning, lifting, walking home for lunch and a shower, walking to MG Road (about 1 km of death-defying free-style walking through insane traffic away) for some new magazines and a few cleaning items the housekeeper asked me to get (you know, we've all got our cleaning product preferences!), made chapatis, and now writing! I'll make dinner around 7 and make a plate for Charles. We usually eat together, but with my killer workout this morning and his not getting home until 9, I'd die.
Enter Margaret
I'm writing as the NEW housekeeper cleans the bathroom. I knew Kavitha was looking for a second full-time (ok, like 5 hours a day, M-Sat) gig, and wasn't surprised when she told me she had found something else. The new lady, Margaret, works for my friend Jodi and her husband Brian in the mornings/early afternoon, and they live just down the street. Margaret comes to us Tues and Thurs from 3-5 for cleaning, and she's really excited that I'd like to learn to cook from her. She and her husband just moved to a newer and nicer apt and had to take out a loan to do it, so our part-time gig is how she's making the payments. I feel like she'll stick around longer because it's such an ideal set-up. It's close, it's just a few hours, and she still gets home at a good time. Today she showed me how Indian moms make chapati! I think chapati is my least favorite bread here (bread is roti), but this kind is the literal daily bread of Indians. It's not a local specialty bread, like parathas and naan and dosa. People eat it with honey or jam for breakfast, with lentils and rice for lunch, and all kinds of curries for dinner. The housekeeper thing is kind of hard though, because now 2 afternoons a week are taken up by the cleaning, and I have to make myself busy for that time, and I can't leave or make plans on those 2 afternoons. However, it is a great Indian luxury, which I'm thankful for.
The Battle of the Bulge: India Style
Charles and I are always talking about how socioeconomic status effects/affects weight both here and at home. Here it is STRIKING, the difference. The dirt poor here are malnourished and skeletal, but more healthy than the middle class. The laborers eat the good stuff, because here it's cheap. Rice, veg and fruit, nothing processed because they can't afford it, and meat as a side-dish more than the center of the meal. It's amazing how inexpensive produce is here. Canned, packaged, specialty foods are outrageously overpriced because they know that we foreigners will pay a "normal" to us price for the stuff. Balsamic vinegar was $5, where as $2 got me about 8 lbs of vegetables. I dread returning to my $200 a week grocery trips to TJs, Beyerley's, and Whole Foods. Bt I know that to shop the perimeter takes more money, but is so much better for us! Also, I'm really going to miss the CSA weekly drop. Anyway, the working class here gets FAT from eating out a lot and eating the processed crap they can afford, and sitting behind a desk all day. And Indians are like little kids, they frickin love sugar! Chocolates and cookies are huge here. HUGE! The true middle, and upper class can then afford to go to the gym and hire a trainer, so they are skinny again, or not. The really wealthy are skinny and dedicated to working out because they learned it from being more Westernized and probably studying in the US. (Also, basic nutrition and exercise information is not available and not taught in schools. Deepak recently told us that ghee (clarified butter) is good for you, will make you strong, and has no fat in it. P.S. I REALLY miss my fitness magazines and cooking.) Apparently our gym has some local stars, and I see only fancy cars parked outside, because what CW and I see as a necessity (gym membership) is a huge luxury and only the rich can afford it. For the two of us to join, and to add group fitness classes for me, for a year, was about $1000. That's what we would pay at the YMCA at home, so it was a no brainer. But here, that's so expensive that only the really ok financially can do it. In the US it's so much less expensive to buy a can of peaches in sugar syrup than a pound of peaches, that no wonder people are so fat! And Walmart brand Doritos and full calorie soda are also a steal! Plus, in the US we have to get over the "I'm too busy to cook" excuse. Turn off the TV for one of the 5 hours the average adult watches it, and voila! You'll have time! It gets me all riled up.
Go-Go Goa (March 12-16, 2010)
Goa is an old Portugese settlement on the West side of southern India. It's a much more liberal city than the rest of the subcontinent. It's actually a whole small state with lots of beach towns, but just "Goa" is how it's referred to. It's just an hour by plane, and our resort is in the southern half so it'll take about 35 min by taxi to get there. The trip itself was super relaxing. The hotel was on a huge spread of land just 40 min south of the Goa airport. The hotel arranged to pick us up, so it was stress-free from the first moment. We drove near the coast and through rice fields with water buffalo grazing, and crazy sunburnt Russian tourists weaving in and out of the windy and dangerous roads on 2 wheelers, and signs in every shape and color advertising resorts. The drive down was kind of scary, now that I think about it. Indians do not follow safe driving rules. Once we got there, we were lazy bums, enjoying the bath-water temp Arabian Sea, and sunning ourselves. We walked the beach, sat on the beach, swam, enjoyed the pool, played tourist, people watched, and ate some amazing Goan seafood! I absolutely love the food in Goa! I think the food here in the south of India is actually my least favorite, so it was nice to go somewhere where we could eat the catch of the day in a really spicy masala. We spent a lot of our time off the resort because it was nice to walk the beach, and you could get amazing meals at these beach shacks. The seafood was caught just meters from the shore and the beer was cold, refreshing, and under a dollar! Lunch one day was naan that we watched being made in the outdoor tandoor (kind of like an oven), fresh fish steaks, fresh prawns, and lots of cold Kingfisher. All for under $20, tip included. Gotta love the beach shacks. Plus, we didn't get sick. I think there is something so decadent about having a nice lunch and a few drinks on the beach. This was also a great kind of vacation for some quality time with Charles. We just chilled together. I know it sounds unbelievable, but we don't see each other that much during the week, so this was some good, no distractions or stress, time together. Nothing like the 2 hours in the evening when CW is thinking about work and I have my nose tucked in a book or I'm zoned out to the stupid American TV shows they play here. Can you believe that I'm watching dumb shit like Three and a Half Men? I hate that show, but it's the slice of normalcy I need, I guess. I digress. We had a great time. I knew this would happen, but now I'm travel greedy. We only have a short bit of time left and soon it gets too hot to do much traveling to the northern part of the country. I still want go to Delhi and Aggra to see the Taj Mahal, take the train to either Hampi or Pundicherry, and do a houseboat tour of this other southern city called Kerella. If only time and money weren't an issue. Oh yeah, and if only Charles weren't here to actually work, not vacation.
