Ruff around the edges to start; but getting easier every day

April 21, 2016

We arrived at the house a little early but the owner’s relative was there to greet us. He speaks very limited English. He showed us a few things that didn’t require much explanation then we waited for the broker, Anurag, to arrive to fine tune the details. It turns out the owner had not taken care of the water problem and they waited until we unloaded all our things to tell us. Folks it is 107 degrees here and parts of the house have no AC: the kitchen, the bathrooms, the hall, landing and stairs. Ron and I worked to get things unpacked then decided around 2:00 he needed to go to work and I needed to shop for groceries and other household items. We tried calling a cab which is ordinarily an easy task…however when you don’t speak the language and cannot describe your location ...well it was a bust. We started walking into the little commercial area to catch a auto rickshaw. The driver dropped me off at a hi end mall and Ron went onto work.

I went to my first store and discovered I was incapable of making simple decisions like choosing a bath mat. It dawned on me it was now 2:30 and I had not eaten since breakfast. Low blood sugar had seized me. I then went to the food court and couldn’t make a decision. When I finally did the cashier waved me on. I had no idea why. When I approached another counter I was informed I had to buy a food court card and use that to pay for anything I ordered. I ordered a spring roll. The only choice for water was a liter bottle. Since I had a lot of shopping I passed on it as I didn’t want to have to be carrying it around. It took me two hours to buy a few groceries and household items like plastic garbage bags, resealable bags, door mats, a bucket, etc. I was exhausted. Okay, so now I had to carry a bucket filled to the brim with items and three bags which turned out to be heavy. I mistakenly took an up escalator designed for grocery carts thinking I would arrive near the auto rickshaw station. Nope. I ended up at a motorcycle parking lot. So I arranged my bags and bucket in my arms, walked up about eight steps and started walking to my goal. About every twenty paces, I had to stop, rest and rearrange the bags. On my forth or fifth time doing this a driver spied me and came onto the property honking his horn to let me know he was coming to my rescue. I could have kissed him I was so relieved. Remember it is now the hottest part of the day. I tipped him well as I was so appreciative. He was so pleased he helped me carry things to the door.

I started unpacking and removing the packaging on the items I had gotten. All the kitchen items need to be washed. That won’t happen today. BTW, we've been told you can wash the dishes in the faucet water but they must be rinsed in filtered water. The relative returned at 5:00 giving me hope for a shower tonight. He worked with another guy for about 30 minutes. By now I was in the AC in our bedroom putting shirts on hangers I had gotten. My feet were killing me and I was dehydrated and sweaty from working in the kitchen and getting way dehydrated and grumpy. The relative left saying no water until tomorrow. I have decided that maybe Indians are like people from the Rep of Georgia. They don’t do anything requiring spending money until they absolutely have to. From my perspective, the owner has known for awhile he had a water issue. Due to the signing delays he had more that adequate time to get it fixed. If it isn’t fixed tomorrow I am gong back to the hotel and tell the owner he can pay my bill until his house is livable. We can’t flush toilets, can’t bath, can’t cook or set up the kitchen or clean. That’s another thing, everything has a fine layer of dust, so before I could put anything away like clothes in drawers, I had to wipe out the drawers and shelves with the water the guy had drawn for us and placed in two buckets.

Ron got home around 6:30 and we rested for a short while. I could hardly move. We again found a rickshaw driver at the front gate and went off to dinner. We sponged off and now are relaxing in bed in the AC with an overhead fan. Surely tomorrow will be easier.

House pictures:

View of one ark from our driveway

Our House

The house we rented is a development built about 15 years ago called Asopalav Bungalows.  There are 56 houses in the development and the society operates a swimming pool and two parks. Click on the pictures to make them larger. There are 3 bedrooms, each with king beds  (and hard Indian mattresses that are about 3 inches thick). The media room is not yet operational as we don't have satellite connection yet and the projector is out for repair.  Internet at the house is a work in progress.

Front porch where we enjoy coffee in the morning

Living Room

Dining Room

Miss Tricia in the Kitchen

Basement media room

Downstairs bedroom

2nd floor landing/office

2nd floor landing

Our room

2nd floor guest bedroom

April 22, 2016

 Sorry about the rant from yesterday. We were let down and irritated not to mention exhausted. Today, I poured water from the buckets over Ron so he could bathe and go to work, sort of clean. We opted not to eat breakfast because there was no way to wash utensils, bowls or plates to eat on. I waited and a little after 9:00 the owner’s father, Dashrath, came by and got the water working. He brought one of the two housekeepers with him. Shankar and his wife Hasha (pronounced Ah-shah) will work for us M-Sat from 9-12 and I think Shankar returns in the evening to do kitchen clean up. I am not sure how necessary that will be, but will wait before changing his schedule. He said their cost would be 8,000 rupees. I was glad because it was higher than what I had been told housekeepers charged. Eight thousand rupees is about$120. Dashrath took me on his motorcycle and Shankar followed us on his bike to the near by grocery store to get the supplies he would need for cleaning. It may seem strange to you to have someone come daily but if you saw the effects of bad air pollution, and the general diry environment, you would see it is necessary. It is awful. The house was spick and span when we viewed it two weeks ago and now if is so dirty with a film of girt on every surface. We may not need that washing machine because Shankar told me he did the washing and showed me the area where he did it.

After Shankar and Dashrath left I started working on the kitchen. First I worked on getting some clean water. As an environmentalist, I am horrified at the waste of water to get clean, safe, potable water. Our filtration/reverse osmosis system gains one liter of water for every six liters of waste water that cannot be used because it is toxic. Then the clean water goes through a series of 3 filters. I was told you can’t even water plants with it. So, I started the system and it comes out in a slow flow. I had the clean water go into a new bucket I bought to use as a rinse bucket for dishes as I have yet to see a dish pan. Since this process is slow I unwrapped items and removed labels etc. The washing area is just outside the kitchen so I used straight faucet water to wash kitchen items, rinsed the soap off then did a second rinse in the clean water, dipping items into the bucket. I placed things on a tea towel then put another load in the sink to soak while I dried and put things away. I repeated this until I couldn’t stand anymore. It was 12:30 and I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night. I showered (it took five minutes for me to figure out how it worked) then ate last night’s leftovers for lunch.

I walked up to the street, found an auto rickshaw and returned to the shopping center and got more needed items. Too much to carry again but the store had an employee take it for me all the way to the rickshaw. I gave him a good tip. Once I got home I repeated the morning activities until I had exhausted myself. I called Ron and he told me not to work so hard. I laughed and said ‘good luck with that’. I reminded him of how he had set up the condo within a few days of moving in, including have hung wall hangings and artwork. I went upstairs to rest but couldn’t nap so after a bit went downstairs and made more water for rinsing dishes and washed, rinsed and dried the last of the dishes. I met Ron at CEPT as we wanted to attend a lecture on a proposal to modify the state's caste quota system to include the Patel caste, a significant caste in Gujarat. It was give by a French academic and went too long for two tied puppies. We left after the lecture and before Q & A. It was after 8:00 so we headed to a big restaurant near our neighborhood and had a salad, went shopping and got an ironing board and some coffee mugs (tomorrow will be our first day making coffee at home) and came home. We headed upstairs immediately and prepared for bed. It is now 11:00 so that is enough. It was a much better day. Tomorrow is Saturday, our housekeepers will arrive at 9:00 and we can relax.

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April 23, 2016

Since we are not quite set up for cooking both in terms of cookware and food, we had a scrambled egg sandwich for lunch, using a saucepan, as we have yet to get a fry pan. It is all part of the adventure, folks. In the afternoon we returned to the mall and got a lot of needed items at the grocery store. It was a lot to carry so we opted out of going to the housewares store until today. We came home and put things away and rested in the AC. Around 6:00 Sankar’s wife, Hasha, arrived and started touch up cleaning of the floors and washing dishes that had accumulated. She is quite pretty and wears sparkly clothes. Around 7:00 Sankar was back and started cleaning the catch basin at the head of the driveway. It had a lot of leaf litter in it . He is very thorough and proud of his work. He also likes recognition.

We made our first dinner: boiled potatoes, carrots and cauliflower. We have heard that night soil is used here in produce production. I have no way of knowing when it is used and not used so we have to be cautious about peeling food and soaking food. For those who don’t know, night soil is the use of human feces for fertilizer. Just as we were ready to serve our meal another man came in. He is the brother of the owner…we think. He brought two more gas canisters for the hot water. We hope to have hot water by Monday but like everything else we will see how that goes.

Our gardener, Malee, who came with the house comes by in the evening to water and not much else. He cuts the grass with a push mower since it is a small plot. He is handsome and appears to speak no English but he let us know he expects us to get some plants to fill in. On the corner of the property is a shrub and has been partially pruned and the rest appears to have had limbs just broken off…it is a travesty. I don’t know who did it but it isn’t my idea of plant care! See photo.

April 24, 2016

 It’s Sunday. Yesterday Sankar, one of the housekeepers, arrived a little after 9:00 and worked his hinny off. The entire house was quite dirty due to air pollution and dirt here. Be thankful for the air you breathe in the US. At 11:50 Sankar came into the living room and a look of panic came over his face when he saw the clock. He must have another client. I told him to go, that it was not a problem. He speaks little English but I could tell he was worried either way: that I would be upset or his other obligation would be. Since he works a split shift here, it made no difference to me if he was not finished at noon. He said he would return at 6:00. I again reassured him it was no problem. We still have no hot water in the showers. Homes here, like Thailand, do not have hot water in general and not in the kitchen. Around 11:40 a man showed up to check the AC and got it working; then another man came and the two of them carried a gas canister to the roof After working a while they came down and let us know they could not get the hot water heater to work but had called a plumber who would come on Monday. We are fortunate because water is delivered via pipe to a water storage tank on the roof three hours a day. The tank is large, maybe 500 gallons, so water sits there a while absorbing the heat before you use it. So our showers are not bitter cold but not warm.

Ron found a dry cleaner a few blocks away and took a pair of wool pants to be cleaned for 40 rupees, about 65 cents US. Eat your heart out!

Today was grand. We got up a little after 7:00 and did three laps of brisk walking around the development with its 56 homes. There appears to be resident peacocks and hens here, around 8-10. Almost all of the homes are the same light terra cotta color and a few are white. So we got almost 40 minutes of walking in. We will aim for four laps tomorrow. We need to complete our exercise before 8:00 or we might die from the heat. Just kidding. We showered and had our breakfast: oj, granola, and coffee. After breakfast we took our coffee outside and sat on the veranda, watched and listening to a jillion birds that were singing, chirping and squawking. It was such a delightful experience. 

There are still a few ruff spots but we are inching our way to a routine that gets easier daily. Next week we hopefully will have reliable internet where we can Skype, download stuff and communicates anytime. We may even consider having cable which we have never had at home.

Ron has figured out a way to connect to the internet via our cell phones; although its kind of slow.  But we were able to make some purchases on Amazon.in for an iron, a fry pan and a coffee maker.  They will arrive on Monday, except for the fry pan which will come later int he week.

After Sankar left at noon, we headed to the mall to finish up the shopping for house wares. We ate at the food court. OMG the racket is horrendous, the food…well it is a food court, Indian fast food. Need I say more?

We came home from a big shopping and rested.  Then we ate cold leftovers for dinner. Not a bad day at all.