Setting Up House

I have all the respect in the world for our household help. Philomena, our ayah (nanny), and Pratap, our driver, have done a great job showing me the ropes while I set up house.

On Sunday, I fixed the Little Guy some lunch of Easy Mac while we waited for the workers to install our window treatments. (They didn't show up as promised.) The trouble was, I didn't have any dish soap for the dirty bowl and spoon. I wasn't thrilled, but I left it on the counter dirty anyway. That's a big mistake in India! I found out how big a mistake that was the next day when Philomena, the Little Guy and I came to the flat. I went to the kitchen and noticed a swarm of tiny ants all over the dish. Of course, I freaked out and Philomena came to my rescue by drowning the ants in water. We quickly decided it was time to go to the fixed-price food market for some household supplies.

While at the market, Philomena was terrific. While I was intimidated shopping for necessities where shopkeep generally have little command of proper English, she managed the Little Guy while translating my needs into Bengali and introducing me to local brand names.

Meanwhile, Pratap was equally great in his own way. It was Pratap who immediately got on the phone with the window treatment people to figure out what happened and how to fix it. He managed to get them to install the curtains at 7:00 Monday evening.

Today, Tuesday, Pratap got people to come to install our phone. When they got to the flat at 1:00, they told us that we would need a phone to install, which we didn't have. No problem. Pratap negotiated and they agreed to return at 4:00, assuming we had a phone by then. Pratap then drove me to a store that had the right phone. (Apparently, in India the land line phone you buy must correspond with the phone company who provides your service.) There was a small problem on my end, though. The store was cash only, and I was running too low on cash! Pratap came to my rescue and drove me to an ATM.

Thank goodness Philomena was back at the flat watching the Little Guy so I didn't have to drag him on our little wild goose chase.

In a country where nothing is handed to you, our help had no problem negotiating well enough to get what we need at a decent price. I'd like to think of myself as independent, but I really do depend on these two amazing people.

Travel Abroad vs. Living Abroad

While intellectually I knew they were different, I'm starting to learn from experience that traveling abroad and living abroad are not the same animal. Sure there are some similarities. I still had the jet lag. I'm learning about India at a greater depth than I ever thought I'd care about in my younger years. We struggled with a two-year old who got his days and nights mixed up. (You can't explain time to the Little Guy, let alone time zones and jet lag.) We went endless rounds of "Finding Nemo", "Blues Clues", and "Curious George" thanks to our portable DVD player. You get all of that when you travel long distances with a young child.

The major difference between the two, is that living abroad isn't a vacation, it's living. It's moving on a grander scale, complete with culture shock. With a vacation, you don't sweat the details too much because you know you'll be home in a week or two, if that. When you move abroad, you are home. There's no butler service at our flat like there is at the Taj hotel that you can call in case anything goes wrong. I have to figure out how to set up our flat in a place where the rules are all different. I think I'm playing Monopoly while everyone else is playing the Mad Magazine Game. Plus, Hubby is off to another city on a business trip, so it's all on me.

I'm not saying it's all bad. It's just harder our honeymoon we took in Ipanema.

The Little Guy did have some fun this morning. We were waiting to meet some people on Chowringhee Road when some teenage boys walked by. One of them was carrying a soccer ball. Well, the Little Guy loves soccer, and is pretty good at it, too. He decided he wanted to play a little ball, right there on the sidewalk. Of course, those boys couldn't resist a fair-haired toddler, especially if he could kick a ball, and were happy to oblige. Suddenly, a huge crowd gathered around to watch those boys playing ball with the Little Guy. It all went great until some salesperson tried to sell the Little Guy a soccer ball, and the Little Guy threw a tantrum over it. Still, he had fun while it lasted.