Pouches

Food packaging is different here. They seem to like to put things into pouches. Even things that you wouldn't think would go in a pouch. We get laundry soap in a pouch (powdered) our spices are in pouches and even our milk comes in one. Then the other day, Jason was visiting a construction site for a project that he was working on and they handed out little pouches of water. We thought that was funny.

The interesting thing about the milk is that we have a milk man of sorts. We buy milk coupons and leave them right outside our door at night, one coupon for each milk pouch we want and in the morning, there is milk on the doorstep. I don't know how much the milk costs in the store but we can buy 10 coupons for 110 rupees (about $2) and we go through about 2 pouches in three days.

At first we tried to close the pouch with a clothes pin after opening it (I love clothes pins for kitchen things like closing chip bags and stuff). That worked pretty well but then I found a little pitcher that the milk fits in so perfectly that I would have thought it was made for it.

Another funny thing about the milk is that while it is pasteurized, it is not homogenized. So, after it has been sitting in the pitcher for a little bit, there is a cream line and we have to stir it up so we don't get cream chunks in our cereal.

Food

I thought I would take a little bit of time and talk about the food here. I'm a little ashamed to admit that we never had Indian food before we came. I know, we knew we were coming, there are good Indian places in Philly but somehow it never quite happened. I guess we thought that we would have Indian food once we got here so what's the rush? So now we have had Indian food and we like it.

For those of you who know, we have never been big fans of spicy food. My example has always been that we eat mild salsa. Naturally I was a little bit wary of coming to a place that is known for some of the spiciest food anywhere. In fact, a lot of people asked us when we first came how we like spicy food. We have found, though that spicy doesn't just mean hot, it means with spices. They use more spices here than anywhere else I know and they aren't just herbs. They are more like powdered stuff that I don't even know what they are. We are adjusting to the spiciness. It's not as bad as I had feared and I find it doesn't hinder the flavor too much. We are worried about going to London after this. The British are not known for their exciting cuisine. We'll probably spend the first while just eating Indian take-out.

A couple of idiosyncrasies about where we are. The state of Gujarat where we are is a vegetarian and dry state. The dry part doesn't really apply to us but the meat is a little tricky. It is possible to get meat in the Muslim part of town but even there it's just chicken and fish and there is a guy that I have heard about who sells eggs. We haven't gotten to either of these places yet so really the only meat that we have has is when we order out.

My cooking at home has been western food. Mostly because I don't know how to make Indian food. So we have a lot of pasta. I made an Alfredo sauce yesterday and the other day put together a marinara of a sorts with fresh tomatoes. I was so proud of myself. I even put together a stir fry with veggies and tofu. Jason especially liked it because it wasn't Indian or pasta. I'm going to see if I can find some Indian recipes online and try to make those partly so I can make it here and so that when we leave, I can make it when we are back in the states and missing it.

For lunch, Jason has his food brought to him. A couple of guys in the office have cooks who make their lunch and bring it in and they share it with him. So he is really getting used to the Indian food. I tend to have left-overs from the night before. We are both getting used to the spice and Anna doesn't seem to be bothered by it. In fact, yesterday Jason decided that she needed to taste it and I decided to let him. So he gave her a taste. At first, she wasn't so sure but then she decided that she liked it.

Should have seen that one coming

Man, I don't blog for one day and I feel so cut off from everybody. I'll have to remember not to do that again.

So when we came here, we had every intention of bringing Anna's crib. I packed it up and it was with the rest of our luggage when we went to pick it up after the week with my brother. Unfortunately, we were thinking of other things and had forgotten completely about the port-a-crib in a box next to our suitcases. I remembered when we were on our way to NY and we didn't have time to go back and get it. We said we would just get one here.

Well we got here and as Anna wasn't rolling over from back to front yet, we decided to just have her sleep in the middle of the queen size bed that is in her room. Even when she did start to roll and would move around, I didn't think anything of it because there was a lot of crap on her bed that served as a bumper. Unfortunately, it also looked messy and un-moved in and I have been wanting to finish getting her room put together.

Then two nights ago I did. I pulled off the dirty sheets to wash, put down the blanket, moved her books to the little table and put her dirty clothes in a hamper. I felt so good to have that finally done, like in The Incredibles where she finally unpacks the last box. Then yesterday morning, we woke up to her on the floor.

Her cry was different and I could tell that something was wrong. When I went in her room and she wasn't on the bed, I knew what had happened and while walking around to the other side of the bed, I was so afraid there would be blood (we have tile floors). There wasn't. I scooped her up and took her to my room to check things out. She calmed down easily with her binkie and I gently checked out the back of her head. It seemed a little sore but definitely still intact. I checked our book What to Expect the First Year in the first aid section under head injuries. They mentioned things to look out for and to monitor her for 6 hours. I also compared the height of the bed to her height and the ledge around the bed only comes up to her chest so it's not as tall as I had feared.

After that, she had a great day. She was happy and took good naps but still woke up after a reasonable length of time. There weren't any problems that the book said to look out for and while I was quite shaken up, she has probably forgotten that it happened.

So now we really need to look for a crib. I asked Jason to ask at work where we could get one but he didn't get a chance. I'll remind him again on Monday. Rather than make her bed messy again, I got pillows and blankets and made a bumper all around her bed. So naturally she hasn't moved in her sleep since then but as I have now learned, it doesn't take much. Now I just have to hope she doesn't smother in her bumper.

Police Station

Working on her pout

So yesterday I casually mentioned that Jason had to go to the Police Station. I guess I should explain that one a little bit. For Jason's Visa he got a year long one (I don't know why it wasn't just 6 months like ours but oh well) and the India government requires people who will be in the country longer than 180 days to register with them within a certain amount of time of coming into the country. Quick mental math will tell you that 180 days is about 6 months and we are only going to be here for 3 so surely that's not us. Well, yes and no. Jason asked about it at work and they said that while he technically does not have to register with the government, it would be a good idea to contact the police station and let them know what is going on and that he is here. So he went the other day but they said there that he needs to go to the main station and talk to the police commissioner so that is what he was wanting to do yesterday. Unfortunately, he was never able to go so I think they'll try today.

Natually a hit

This was at Josh and Megan's house. We got out of the shower and Anna had pulled her arm out of her sleeve and was playing with/chewing on the sleeve. It was hilarious.

Today I took Anna to Jason's work for a little bit. People in the office (particularly the girls) have been wanting to see her and I had to go there to get more money from Jason to pay the cab driver so we went up. I was a little bit nervous because she was a sleep when we went up so I was worried that she would be cranky. Fortunately she is a really curious girl and was very interested in the new place and people. In fact, she barely made a sound and was happy to be passed around and admired.

Grace was really funny with her. She made sure that everyone knew that she was there. There are two different work areas. The larger one is where Jason works and we spent more time in there. Then we went over to the second area and spent a little bit of time in there. After that we sat on the bench in the lobby and waited for Jason to get us a ride home (he had to go to the police station anyway and we figured they could drop us off on the way). While we were waiting, Grace came and took Anna and showed her to the second work area again but this time, she took her to each person individually and showed her off as if she was her own granddaughter. It was very cute.

People always seem to point out her cheeks which are getting to be a respectable size. They even like to squeeze them a little bit. One thing that I have noticed that's different then in the US is that in the US, everyone would comment on her hair. Here, people don't, that I know of. Also, in the US people would ask how old she is while here people ask what her name is.

Monkeys

Yesterday while Jason and I were out walking, we saw our first monkeys (not this one, we didn't have our camera with us at the time). They were sitting on a house on the side of the road, abut 4-5 of them. They were bigger than I was expecting and not particularly cute. Then, last night when Jason went out for something, he said they were outside our building. This would all be just mildly interesting except for something that Grace said a few days ago. She was commenting on the nice breeze (strong wind) that blows through our house when the doors are open but gave us a warning. She said that we have to be careful that monkeys don't come into the apartment! When she said it, we hadn't even seen a single monkey anywhere, let alone anywhere near our open doors to worry that they would climb inside. I must admit it, we even kind of chuckled and joked that maybe it was just something she said to new people to freak them out rather then the sage advice of a local who knows what she is talking about. So after seeing the monkeys yesterday, I guess it is sage advice after all. Of course, I have no intention of closing my doors during the day, the wind is the only thing that keeps this place relatively cool. So I guess all we can do is keep closing the doors at night and hope that there is nothing particularly interesting about the inside of our apartment to entice monkeys to enter.

Look at me and my bad self

Today I was forced to be rough and tough and go out on my own. It all started when we realized that we were running dangerously low on diapers. In the grand tradition of me, I put off getting more as long as was humanly possible because 1. I always put things like that off and 2. the store where we knew they would have some is too far away to walk so we would then have to arrange a car. There is a car service that a number of the expats from the office have used before but the number that he got for them yesterday didn't work and we couldn't find their web site. We do have a grocery store closer to us but we didn't know if they sell diapers in the grocery stores over here.

So this morning, Jason asked about a work driver but they weren't too keen on the idea so we didn't push it. I thought I would then have to walk to the grocery store that was rumored as being near us (we have driven past it but that's not always a reliable way to judge distance) and hope that they sell diapers. So I put Anna in her wrap and was getting ready to go out the door when Jason called again with information. He had the right number for the cab company and the web site. He also had been talking to a girl that he sits near and she said that drug stores carry diapers (or nappies as they call them here) and we had seen one when we took a walk around our neighborhood the other day. So there were two options for getting what I now desperately needed as Anna was wearing the last diaper and had pooped.

So, since she was already happily in the wrap, I decided to "go with what you know" (our motto of a sorts) and walk to the drug store. So we took off down the street, just the two of us. The funny thing about walking here is that we are shamelessly stared at. People will ride by on bikes and just turn around and stare as they pass and quite a while after that. There are also a number of produce carts along the way and the people there stare at us as we go by too.

After feeling like I had a spotlight on me (maybe that's how I looked as the only blond out there) I got to the store. It was a little farther than I had remembered it but not bad. They had a few grocery items along with other household things. It wasn't really a drug store as just a little convenience store. I found the diapers and they even had recognizable brands like Pampers and Huggies. Yeah! Then I had to choose her size. At her last doctor's appointment, she weighed 13 lbs 11 oz and was wearing size 2. Unfortunately, neither of those numbers was helpful to me as the weights were only in kg and the sizes were more like S, M, L. I stared dumbly at the different packages for a while and decided to go with the medium Pampers as they had a little picture of a baby crawling on them and while Anna doesn't crawl yet she is closer to that then not. The weight range was 6-11 kg and that sounded better than 3-8 kg or 9-14kg. I then wandered the store for a little but more trying to decide if I wanted to get anything else that we could use or just wait until we go to the store again in about 12 diapers. I decided to wait although I did get myself an ice cream bar for the walk back.

By the time we got home, we were both very sweaty and Anna had started to get a little fussy. I couldn't blame her at all considering the circumstances and the fact that she had a really short morning nap. I changed her right away (no one should have to put up with poop for that long) and they were the right size. Yeah! They are not, however, the same as they ones in the states but I'm sure they will still work. Now, we are both pooped and that's probably as productive as I am going to be today.