1 Week Back

I've been home for 1 week and am finally sleeping to a normal hour in the mornings.  Repeatedly waking up at 3:30 am day after day is one of the tough adjustments of working through jet lag.

So how does it feel to be home?  Weird.  It's weird knowing that I put the suitcases away and don't need to pull them out again for the foreseeable future.  Weird that I look around my house and although it's familiar, it doesn't feel quite right.  I don't feel quite right.

In India, we really had only what we needed.  Here, I just can't believe how much stuff there is.  I'm used to clear kitchen counter-tops, not clutter.  My closet was laughable: it was as if a totally different person returned from India; someone with no interest in anything that was still hanging up.  So this past week has been about cleaning out, throwing away, and making room for the things I brought with me and for the 64 boxes that will arrive in 6-8 weeks from my sea shipment.  10 bags of clothes and shoes have been donated to Goodwill, piles and piles of papers, old medicines, and toiletries have been tossed.  (I found some NyQuil that expired in 2005!!).  It's as if I need to reintroduce myself to my own home and basically say "This is your new master now...deal with it!"

Am I happy to be back driving?  I guess.  I feel like I've been spending too much time in the car lately.  Day 1 Back involved getting a new battery for my car.  Last summer I bought a portable jump-starter and had to jump my car EVERY time I started it up.  So a new battery was necessary.  When I went to pick the car back up, the girl at the shop said to me "Just so you know, we had a police officer here earlier and he wanted me to let you know that your tags (registration) has been expired since September 2011.  I told him you had been out of town..."  Whoops.  I thought I renewed that online, but no.  Day #2: go to DMV to renew registration.  Notes to self: make sure you drive on the RIGHT side of the road.  Consciously make WIDE left hand turns!!  Yes, once last summer I was alone, at night and yes, drove on the left...saw a car coming at me and thought "What's this idiot doing?  Oh Sh--!! I'm the idiot! Screech"  Scared the crap out of me!  So I really pay attention now.

How are the girls adjusting?  Ummm...they are frequently at each other's throats.  Fun times.

Which do you like better: India or Virginia? Short answer: there are good parts of each.

High points of being home:  Birthday dinner at Fossets at Keswick Hall with Bill.  Excellent food, wine and atmosphere.  5 Guys Burgers and Fries...Bacon Cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, grilled mushrooms, mayo, ketchup, with a side of regular fries.  YUM.

Low points of being home: Man I miss having a maid.  Even with a dishwasher, I still don't like washing dishes.

So now let's see what week #2 brings.

The Ending of an Era, the Turning of a Page

I've been flooded with emotions over the past few weeks.  First there was frustration at the process of extending our visas, which due to our (putting it very nicely) less than competent agent, was not as smooth nor as quick as it should have been.  Then there was the thought "maybe this is a sign, our visas are expiring soon...maybe it's time for us to just go."  We asked the girls what they thought about going home in a matter of weeks: "Yeah! Yeah!" was their enthusiastic response.  I on the other hand, was tearing up at the thought.  I've had a wonderful time here.  I have friends who are like family, whom I love unconditionally and will do anything for and not hesitate to ask anything of.  That kind of love is hard to leave.

With the exception of one, all of my goodbyes have been made.  In an hour I will be on my way to the airport heading for home.  Home.  I feel as though I have 2 homes.  Once, after making the 30 hour door to door journey from Virginia to India,  I remember thinking "I just left home, spent 30 hours traveling 9000 miles, walked in the door, sat down and was home again."  Incredible.

So Thank you, India.  You really are incredible.  Your madness, your joys, your modernity, your antiquity, your Porsche Cayennes driving past bulls & carts.  I reached out to you with both hands and you bear-hugged me in return.  You are in my brain and you are in my blood.  My memories of you will stay with me and shape my thoughts forever.  We will meet again someday.

Bye for now.

It ain't easy being me: The Boss's wife

Capgemini sent us to India so that Bill could create a Hyderabad based research and analysis group for the company.  Bill is in charge of 30+ people who are typically in their mid to late 20s.  They're young, getting married (typically arranged), having kids, buying apartments and cars.  For all of these life events there are carefully scheduled ceremonies to celebrate.  To shed even more good fortune on these events, the boss gets invited too.

Thursday night we went to a Housewarming party.  There was a dinner first (buffet style) and there was a Puja afterwards.  A Puja is a prayer ceremony done to bless (in this case) the home, and is done before sleeping there.  If you're interested in more details, here's a link:  http://www.indiaparenting.com/home-and-decor/59_828/hindu-house-warming-ceremonygriha-pravesh.html

Last night's dinner was scheduled to start at 7pm last night.  We wisely left the house at 7:10pm and arrived at about 7:45.  Apart from family, we were the first ones there.  Bill and I were greeted by our host, who introduced us to his wife and his father.  We were not introduced to his mother or any of the 5 older ladies there.  Odd.  I did the small talk with his wife explaining why the girls didn't come (umm...your event starts at their bedtime and goes until 10pm AND they have school tomorrow).  Then I moved on to the next round of small talk with the father, when he strongly encouraged me to "Eat.  EAT".  Sigh.

As a side note, Bill and I are doing great with our New Year's Resolutions and are eating very "low-carb" at the moment.  South Indian food does not give many low-carb choices: rice is a staple here.  By staple I mean that on a buffet there will be multiple rice dishes.  This buffet was vegetarian, so I made the best choices I could:  "salad" (which is really slices of cucumber, carrot, and tomato), mixed vegetables (cooked in oil and spices), and Dal Makhani.  Makhani is the Hindi word for "buttery", and Dal Makhani is full of butter and cream...not found on many approved diets, but hey, I was hungry (I didn't have time to eat before leaving home).

I took my small helpings and proceeded to eat, and proclaim how good everything was (which was true) to Wife & Father.  I had finished my dal when Father came over again...he insisted that I have more.  Without waiting for me to politely decline, he,( himself, Father of the host, most senior man there) went over to the buffet, grabbed the serving spoon, filled it up with dal, grabbed a napkin to hold under it and walked across the room to serve ME!  That was a first.  I can't imagine the look on my face watching him walk toward me with a big spoon full of dal.  I must have looked  something like this:

Once finished, the wife took my plate, not one of the servers (whose sole job was to take empty plates).  Wow, talk about uncomfortable.  I apparently have very high status: the Boss's Wife!

Go figure

So Forbes magazine has come out with a ranking of the friendliest countries, and HSBC has recently done a survey about which countries are the best for expats.  Wouldn't you know...India came in dead last.  Here's a little excerpt:

The least friendly country for expats, according to the Forbes formula, was the United Arab Emirates. And among the countries most challenging for expats overall were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia and India, according to this year’s HSBC survey results. India ranked in last place for the second year in a row.
“India is simply a minefield of relentless mental, emotional and practical daily challenges for most non-Indians,” according to Denmark native Pia Mollback-Verbic, the director of a Mumbai-based qualitative market research firm who relocated there via the U.S. in 2007. “It’s nothing less than a riddling obstacle course, which only can be navigated with a healthy dose of humor, expansive capacity for patience, and tolerance for the illogical.”

Amen my friend.  Amen.

Here's the full article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethgreenfield/2012/01/06/the-worlds-friendliest-countries-2/