A typical day....

WARNING: If you don’t like tedious, drawn-out stories, you might want to skip this one…

Today, I rolled out of bed around 8:45 am, after having re-set the alarm when it went off at 8:15 am.   I have a strong desire to awaken before 9:00 am each day for the simple reason that Lady S, our maid/cook, arrives between 9:00 and 9:15 am.  It is probably silly of me, but I feel lazy if she is up and washing my dishes and watering our plants while I’m just lying about in bed.  

This feeling that I must be occupying myself continues until she leaves around 12:30-1:00 pm.   As a result, I am quite productive during those morning hours.  Today, I discussed what she would make for dinner (we had massaman curry), showered, and made two days worth of lesson plans for my students.  

My husband is home this week, which is nice. Even nicer for him, he is in town with a much lower workload! I find this refreshing after his 100++ work hours of last week.  So he rolled out of bed and went to Gold’s Gym.  Yes, you can get anything in India!  My excuse for not going with him is that I’m still recovering from my cold. Plus I feel guilty because we haven’t actually paid Gold’s anything yet.  We keep telling them that we will, and they have let us (read ‘us’ as ‘him’ since I have yet to go) in all week….  And we WILL pay them! We just don’t have money in our Indian bank account yet.

Anyhow, back to my day.  Our kitchen is galley-style, with one end facing the living room.  The table is attached to the kitchen island, and protrudes into the living room.  So I grab a bowl of cereal (and a cipro, the drug I am taking for my sore throat), and sit at that table and read the news (The Times of India cracks me up.  The other day they used the word ‘peon’ to describe someone!).  I sent a happy birthday e-mail to my mommy!  I send some words of visa advice to my friend H, who will be visiting in April.  I personally thought she was playing an April Fool’s Day joke, since that is her arrival day, but she has convinced me it is a true trip.

Eventually, with the help of Wikipedia and other possibly useful websites, I got to work and wrote a short story on the snakes of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka for my students.  I figured all kids like snakes, or at least are terrified of them, so maybe they will remember something from it.  I also made a lovely worksheet comparing digital time to the good old-school style clocks.  Lovely work.   And a lot of other stuff that they will only half-pay attention to while in class.

I chatted with Lady S about how she will have some days off during Holi, the upcoming Indian festival of colors.  My husband and I are going away to a wedding that weekend. Then Lady S tells me about a wedding she is going to in March.  General chitchat.   She notices a magazine, and points out the cover to me.  The woman on the cover is from the same caste as her, a fishing family caste.  The woman is wearing a bright blue and pink sari, tied in an unfamiliar manner.  Lady S told me that the sari is 12 METERS LONG (most are 6 meters).   They buy two saris, and sew them together!  Can you believe that?  I trip and struggle over my six meters of fabric, and these women double it!  So now I will be on the lookout and see if I notice women wearing their saris in that particular fashion.

My husband eventually returns from the gym, and has brought me color ink so I can use our printer.  Despite printing my work in black and white, it refused to print until I had that color cartridge. 

Eventually Lady S heads home, and my husband and I dive into the curry that was supposed to be for dinner.  We microwave it, and plop in front of the TV to catch Two and a Half Men and Friends (yes, we are still in India).  I also watched an interesting show on the trains of Mumbai.  Did you know that, each day, over 3000 train runs occur?  And I think it was 8 million people that ride the trains each day. In MUMBAI alone.  AND there has never been a train accident ‘in living memory’.  Of course, the city also averages about 10 deaths from trains each day.  The trains run every three minutes, so when people are running to cross the tracks, they get hit.  Or try to jump from platforms. Or people get pushed off of the platform because there is so much congestion that you just fall off. Robbers will also ‘pole rob’, and snatch at the people (well, their watches, etc) who are hanging out of the train doors.  So if they snatch you, you could fall off and die.  So that is a bit scary. 

Anyhow, back to relaxing on the couch- it is a point of dispute for the pair of us.  I swear it is blue, he says green.  So anyone who visits- please offer your opinion!  He points out that my dad is red-green colorblind, and thus I am genetically predisposition to be wrong.  I point out that the pillows adorning it are blue.

I head to work at 2:40 pm.  By heading to work, I mean I take my fitflops (I love those shoes) from their designated space on the hardwood shoe shelf next to the door, and head down the elevator to the lobby.  Our driver, Driver A, spots me, and pulls the car up.  Every single day I forget to wait for the car.  People just don’t pull a car up for you in the US.  You walk to the car and get into it.   So each day I mess up his perfect pull up and he has to wait for me to get out of the way of the car. 

During the drive, Driver A and I chat about politics and food.  His wife made us dinner last night, a chicken biryani.  The flavoring of it was quite good, but she made us SO much food.  Plus, the chicken still had bones in it, so it was tough to eat because we are both wimps who dislike bones.  But Driver A assured me that it was the signature dish of the Maharashtrian Muslims, so it was good to get it from him.  Maharashtra is the name of the state that we are currently residing in for the year. 

We drove along, and a car tire exploded right behind us.  It scared me half to death.  I certainly jumped clear out of my seat.  Driver A and half a dozen others pulled to the side of the street to gawk at whomever was unfortunate enough to have the tire blow.  So at least we know gawking is a universal human trait.   I was certainly peeking along with everyone else. 

I got dropped off at the beautiful fancy school where my students meet and sat in the green plastic lawn chair by security.  I usually sit and play brickbreaker on my blackberry for a few minutes.  Today I finally broke my high score.  So that was exciting. 

We aren’t allowed in the building until 3:15 pm.  Fortunately, their clock in the security office is fast, so we can go inside at 3:11 pm.  Class starts at 3:30 pm. This is India, so before you go in any building you must be checked by security.  So I unzipped my bag and a female security person (must be female since I am female) half-heartedly pokes around inside. She is uncomfortable with the front pocket, which has tampons and pads, so she doesn’t unzip that one anymore.  Well, actually, they point to the zipper and I unzip. I guess they can’t touch the bags?  She is also uncomfortable with the top zipper, because that is where I keep my toilet paper.  I’m pretty sure there is no toilet paper in the entire school…. Each day she asks, “no computer?” and I answer, “no”.  She gives me a smile, and I throw on a visitor’s badge and sign my name.  I go to the elevator, and the guy inside, who sits on a tall stool, smiles and pushes ‘6’ for me.   I smile and say thanks when I get off. 

I immediately go down a flight of stairs to the bathroom.  I know I should just TELL the elevator guy I like to go to the bathroom first, but he is nice, and I like that he knows me, and I don’t think his English is very good.  So it is just easier to go up and down the stairs each day.   The bathroom usually has a nice woman sitting on a bucket who smiles when I come in.  For some reason, there is a stack of cut-up newspaper in each bathroom stall.  Since there is no toilet paper, I have a suspicion as to what it is used for.  Hence my daily backpack supply of toilet paper.

Once back up the stairs, I clean up the random sheets of papers left scattered about the room, and then write the daily agenda on the board. I put out dittos to be copied, re-arrange the chairs, and wait for my students.  

The students walk to school, and once they are on the sixth floor, they first take off all of their shoes, and then assemble to say a prayer.  Personally, I find this hilarious, as it is so against the rules in the US.  Once they say their prayer, the dash to the classroom.  Fortunately, Mommy M is already at the door, admitting them by fours.  They race to get seats because there are often not enough chairs for all of the students.

Today we learned about angles and snakes.  I thought snakes would be fun, but no one had heard of a python or boa, and they were completely confused.  The concept of species was difficult, too.  They didn’t know the different breeds of dogs.  I tried asking ‘African vs. Asian elephant.’ Nothing.  So that took awhile to be sorted out.  Eventually another teacher told them the word in Hindi, just so they would know.

I wrote one student’s name on the board for being good, and ten students for being bad.  Of those ten, four got extra checkmarks of badness. I need to be sterner when disciplining, I know.  My volunteers told me today that I need to raise my voice more.  I honestly do try to raise it.   I know that, as a kid, I had the most shrill, loudest voice imaginable.  But shrill doesn’t really equal stern, and I still sound squeaky shrill when I try to be serious.  I think it just backfires on me. 

I did (FINALLY!) figure out one issue today.  My class loves to laugh at my accent, and would always particularly laugh when I pronounce one student’s name.  I, of course, have not been writing names in this blog, so I’m going to make up a name with the same problem.  Her name is Orta. 

Now, I am from the Midwest.  Please, anyone from the Midwest, tell me how you pronounce the word ‘water’.   Yep.  That t sounds an awful lot like a ‘d’ right there in the middle.    I didn’t even realize I was (to their ears) pronouncing it Orda.   I had previously tried making the ‘O’ longer, or rolling the ‘r’ a bit more.  Nothing.  They still would laugh.  I’m so happy to know what was wrong.  I’m not entirely convinced that they believe me that I have an accent and am not just dumb. 

At 6:15 pm, I walked out of the building.  Driver A pulled up and I sat back in the nice AC and waved to all my students as they walked to their homes.  They all smile and wave back, and shouted hi to Driver A.  But I still felt guilty, driving off in a car that cost much more than their homes. 

Driver A and I drove past some slums, with the haphazard walls and roofs made of tarps or corrugated metal, and I noticed that most had satellite dishes, despite being incredibly poor.  This makes more sense to me now than it had before.   My husband and I just paid 6000 rupees (about $133) for an entire year’s worth of cable TV.   So, in a working family, that is about what the wife, as a cook or maid, would earn in one month.   If you have the husband and a couple of working kids to buy food and pay rent, I guess it is manageable…   Still, Mommy M and Student M didn’t have a TV, despite living in what you could call an apartment building, with real walls and roofs. 

We continued to drive along, passing tons of law-abiding dogs that only cross when humans cross, and plenty of cricket games.  I really hope to learn to play cricket at some point while here. 

Because Driver A’s wife made us dinner, I wanted to make something for his family.  I, of course, settled on no-bake cookies, the most delightful thing to eat on the entire earth.  So driver A and I stopped at the nice grocery store.  I found no vanilla extract, but I did find cocoa powder (for drinking), and oats, so I figured that was close enough. 

My husband called and asked for batteries, so Driver A stopped at a shack (most stores are tiny shacks that resemble the slum housing) that had bags of chips hanging from the awning.  He argued with the four people standing around, pushing to be in front, and shortly came back to the car, triumphant, with four AAA batteries for only 50 rupees (about $1).  I honestly didn’t believe him that batteries could be that cheap.   We’ll see how long they last, I suppose.  I guess cheap batteries sort of make up for the $13 ice cream we bought while I was sick.   At least, I can pretend that it evens out the ice cream price. 

After many twists and turns down uneven roads, Driver A dropped me off at home.  I honestly have no idea how to reach our home.  I can point it out on a map, but would be lost if you dropped me on the street and told me to walk.  I can point out where all of his friends work, however. 

Once at home, my husband re-heated the curry for dinner.  I turned on the computer and got ready to Skype my mom for her birthday.  We sat at our respective computers; my husband put the batteries in the remote (it sort of worked), and ate together, just like in the States.  I had a nice conversation with my mom, and then went to work on the no-bakes.

Our gas stove is slightly different from the US gas stoves.    There, they light automatically, although you do have that sort of pause before it lights.  But here, you have to (usually) provide a spark of light.  I think ours is newer, because it has a knob to turn to produce the spark, rather that a lighter held to the burner.   Other than that, it seems about the same.  

I sincerely hope my sister and AEI will forgive me for making the no-bakes with a metal spoon.  I know it is completely against our rules to use anything other than a long wooden spoon, but supplies are short.   I guess it is also against our rules for me to actually make them…my job was always to watch.   So send me a wooden spoon and yourselves it won’t happen again.  The no-bakes turned out quite yummy, which was nice.  I packed them into an empty Baskin-Robbins bucket, and will see how Lady S and Driver A think they taste tomorrow.   And of course, their children. They will be the real judge!

After making the cookies, my husband surprised me by saying he was going to start his own blog.  I teased him that it would be boring, because he doesn’t like to tell me about his own day in detail.  Of course, I know that the level of detail and tedium in my blog today would bore him to death, so to each their own.  But be on the lookout for his blog!  It should be coming soon…

I have been writing this particular entry for the past hour or so, and it has been quite cute to watch my husband reading over my shoulder and laughing at the unnecessary level of details I provide.  I assured him that some people like the daily boring everyday story, but I’m not 100% sure he believes me. 

He ha been entertaining himself by watching Top Gun (yes, friends of my husband- he managed to find it on TV already) and laughing at the poor job someone did at the subtitling. We find it amusing that the movies on TV are all played in English, with English subtitles.  But the American accent is quite different from the British or Indian, so I’m pretty sure most people can’t understand a word of what we are saying.  I guess that translates to the movies.  

Well, that has been my day so far….   Pretty typical, probably boring.  But there you have it.  

Upon asking my husband if he wanted to read it from the start (rather than over my shoulder, as he has been peeking for the past hour) he looked, started, and declared two minutes later, “it is boring!” before setting the computer back down and going back to watching Maverick in his F-14 fight the Migs.  Hence the warning at the beginning of the entry!