My Laundry Room

Freshly scrubbed Crocs in my sink. These are basically the only shoes
my kids wear. They are both awesome and disgusting. 

I think you can tell a lot about a person's daily life by what's in her laundry room. Swim moms have gobs of towels, soccer moms have dirt clumps from the cleats, empty-nesters always seem to have collared shirts hanging to dry (maybe the slower pace of laundry lets them give the dryer a rest). When I was single, my roommate and I let our jeans hang to dry, as to not let them shrink. But somehow that didn't work because I no longer fit into those jeans of my twenties. Hmmm.





So, here's the meat of this blog post: Do you want to see inside my laundry room? 

I actually didn't take a picture of the obvious parts. So, let me fill that in first. I have a washer. It's capacity is exactly one pair of jeans, 2 shirts and five pairs of (children-size) underwear. Maybe a pair of socks if you wanted to live dangerously.

Plants and princesses (and I think that's Manuel, our Little People contractor)!
The girls each picked a plant for the room (added perk of outdoor laundry).
The princesses (and Manuel) had been playing in the bath with a certain two-year-old
who...well, did something in the bath which meant the toys needed another
bath (with bleach this time). Ahem. 

I do not have a dryer. And, I'm gonna be honest here, I'm OK with it. We have a few balconies rigged for air drying. It's hot here, so stuff dries fast. And, there ain't no room. Joanna Gaines cannot find an inch of space (or shiplap) on my balcony. No redesign could make this work.

Coconuts! These are "tender coconuts" for drinking.
Except, one small detail: you have to open them with
a machete. I have no machete. So, when donated
coconuts come to my door (from our building's tree)
I put them in the laundry room and think wistfully about
machete-bearing people showing up to help....well,
not too wistfully. 

Oh, yes, I did say balcony. My laundry room is not so much a room (like with walls and stuff) but a balcony (with monkey bars and stuff). At first I thought this was barbaric...keeping the poor washing machine outdoors, indeed! But, then, it's never complained...except to overflow a few times (which made me glad it was outside). Why not spend a few minutes in the fresh (diesel fumes/burning trash) air to reflect as you load your washer?
















I have a sink! (No, it doesn't have hot water...let's not get crazy) This is a big deal, I know, because people pay big money to have redesigned laundry rooms with a sink...for accidentally dropping your detergent in and stuff. I have to say I don't use it much aside from Croc-washing.

Now you can rest easy. You have seen my laundry room. You probably know me a little better now. Until you read my next blog-post...about my box of mushrooms I'm growing out there now. I'm just trying to keep you on your toes.

Travel Bingo

We recently received this awesome care package. If you have ever wondered what's in an awesome care package, here are a few gems of awesomeness: books on cd, books not on cd, one of those reusable sticker princess scene things that end up with reusable stickers stuck to my foot (but I really do love them), matching t-shirts for my girls, wooden magnetic bagel tongs...yes, and travel bingo cards. 

Travel bingo cards. They give you things to spot as you drive. "Dump truck! Stop light!" Thought we'd give 'em a go on our way to church. 

Things I didn't account for in our travel bingo expedition: 

1) Living in a congested city of 10 billion. 

2) The immediately obvious cultural differences.

3) Incredibly observant kids.

Overlooking these three things meant the bingo game didn't last much past a few city blocks and most of our car-time was travel-cultural-diversity conversation. From the backseat we heard a happy chorus of "Car! Motorcycle! Another Motorcycle! Cow! Baby Cow! Street Dog! Bingo! Another Bingo! No, I got a bingo too!" and then "What's this sign with the deer on it?" "Do we have stop signs here?" "Oh! There's a church on mine! I'll wait till we get to our church and then I'll have a bingo!"

We had to make some amendments to our cards. I'm wondering if I can publish this for all those children just itching to get 5 in a row. 

Here's my cultural/city adaptation:

Car = car with at least 7 people in it.

Cow = cow...easy one!

Horse = horse-drawn cart

Traffic Cone = tree branch sticking out of a pot hole (it's a warning people!...or maybe a branch just is in a hole?)

Tree = tree with no trash around it

Dump Truck = dump truck full of people

Deer Crossing Sign = actual herd of goats crossing road (although I did see a jaguar crossing sign once)

Stop sign = jay walker

Bus = bus that has working brake lights

Dog (peering happily out a car window) = street dog sleeping

Fire Hydrant = fire...also, fairly easy one

Motorcycle = motorcycle with family of 5 or 3 men (bonus points for carrying something odd like a car hood or 10 foot sugar cane)

and my favorite...albeit another easy one

Port-a-potty = guy peeing in public

BINGO!

Demonetization: The financial crisis you haven't heard of

Never thought I'd write a post with this title!


The financial crisis that most of you have never heard of is going on right now in this country of 1.3 billion people. It's a move to root out "black money": tax evaders and bribes. I won't comment on the politics or financial reasons behind this. But I will tell you what I see.

The night after my home country's election, my other-home country's Prime Minister announced that from tonight the two most-used bills will no longer be legal tender. 500s and 1000s (roughly $10 and $20) were to be no longer taken at any place of business.

And by the way, the ATMs and banks will be closed for the next two days.

And by the way, this is a cash-based economy.

And by the way, there are 1.3 billion people.

So, Friday comes. The banks open and they run out of cash. ATMs are not restocked with the new bills. People wait hours to simply exchange money or withdraw from their accounts. The newspaper reports on the daily deaths occurring in ATM lines.

The autos mostly sit empty. Fruit vendors disappear from the streets. Our building watchmen cannot buy their daily groceries because their cash is now useless.

Some, like us, have credit cards. And while it is inconvenient to find a place that takes a foreign card, we can still buy food. Many do not have this luxury...and how I forget it's a luxury! Over 40% of this country do not have bank accounts, let alone Visas or Mastercards.

The demonetization of these cash notes threw (is throwing!) our economy into a whirlwind. We are figuring it out. We are readjusting. This country is resilient if nothing else.

The uncertainty is constantly hitting us here. I know, I know...everyone was surprised by the election. And that Clemson lost a football game. (Ok, that was just me.) I'm not trying to say we have it worse, but I see people that do. I am face to face with them, buying tomatoes and onions for them with my credit card, wishing I had cash to support their business, standing in line with them for temporary security. 

What It Feels Like

If you have read my last four posts, you'll know I have taken on the small (yet challenging) project of relating what it is like here through our five senses. It was Lydia's idea. I'm sure she didn't know how cathartic this would be. Especially this one: the sense of touch. Forgive me, dear blog-reader, but I'm going to have to go a bit metaphorical here.

What does it feel like here, to live here? I fear I may not be skilled enough to detect it, explain it and make it interesting. Who could? Marilyn Robinson? In a way that would have you weeping and rejoicing over what seemed like just words. Ann Voskamp? Emphatically poetic and raw and without proper punctuation. The Pioneer Woman? With step-by-step pictures and self-deprecation and Rotel-void desperation.

I am none of these women. So, here in a completion of my daughter's challenge, I'll tell you how it feels here. How I feel. 

I feel like I am part of something (a people, a country, a community) but never really fitting in.

I feel proud to be where I'm from, patriotic even. I also feel ashamed of my country, the (usually right) stereotypes and things we take for granted.

I feel despair and I feel hope. For my friends, for this country and for myself.

I feel lonely and isolated.

I feel loved.

I feel frustrated and impatient. I feel entitled.

I feel busy and purposeful, but also caught in a cycle sometimes. Overwhelmed and sometimes under-whelmed.

I feel normal. Like a normal house-wife, an ordinary mom.

I feel everything is different and to explain the difference is exhausting and difficult.

I feel grace working in me and through me. I feel God's assurance and peace and power all right here.

A Taste of "Home"

Three senses down, two to go. Now I've got the job of a Food Network host: conveying taste through media.

So many people have had "curry" (at some ethnic food fair), "chai" (at Starbucks) and "naan" (reheated from a package at Publix). Some even LOVE this country's food. They've tried butter chicken....and uh, "some other saucy thing" with rice. I'm not looking down from my elitist foodie knowledge here. I'm trying to say what we taste of a culture may not be authentic or even the best sampling of what a place as diverse as this has to offer. And it's certainly not comprehensive.

Neither is this blog post...because neither is my knowledge, my palette or even my food-adventure-spirit. Mine is more of a don't-get-sick, it's-probably-too-spicy, but-i'll-try-a-bite-if-you-offer-it mentality. I know you can tell so much about a culture by its food; and maybe so much about a food by its culture. I'm still a very early student of both here. Yet, a girl's gotta eat. So, here are my elementary culinary findings.

The trinity seems to be onion, tomato and coriander (cilantro). Add in cardamom and cinnamon and ginger-garlic paste for the next level of flavor. Mustard seed joins most parties, though I don't think I notice. Of course curry leaf...not curry powder, mind you, but fresh green leaves. Mint is there for savory dishes, but not delicately...and giving chutney a green color. I love when coconut milk is used, and I won't say I mind generous portions of ghee and salt. So much is fried. Vegetables are cooked to an unrecognizable orange-ish gravy. Potatoes are usually yellowed with turmeric. Rice is always (ALWAYS!) better than any rice I have ever made, eaten or seen in any other non-Asian country. And, by the way, it's always there. So much rice. Coffee is instant and sweet (yuck!) and chai is nothing like that mix you get at Christmas....no vanilla, no cinnamon...spiced with ginger and cardamom.

This place is full of good food, complex with levels of flavor. There is something about fresh ingredients, local specialties and people that just know how to cook! Yes, a lot is spicy. Some has made me sick. And I don't venture out too much. But even this limited category added to my menu has probably made me a food snob (in this category!) forever. 

What it Smells Like Here

I bet you are wondering two things:
1. What does it really smell like here? and
2. How am I going to blog about that?

I'll start with an answer to the latter.

Ahem. I have no idea.

But here I am on my self-imposed journey conveying of this place and life here via the five senses. Joyfully on the journey. It is a rather freeing thing writing because I like to and not because I have to. I'm up for the challenge. If I succeed, we may never have another visitor here again. And even if I fail, I don't think that changes most of your plans.

So imagine the smell of nothing, like just ordinary odorless wind and the laundry-detergent you are so used to you can't really detect it.It's probably what you are smelling now.  Got it? Ok, now add to that smell-less-ness this:

 and a little of this...but closer to your nose.

See, I had pictures. But now, because I frankly do not want to go around my house snapping pictures of household things and then out in the streets again (I just exchanged my kurta and jeans for t-shirt and shorts...I'm staying in!), you'll have to imagine without visuals.

Ok, so we have the garbage...rotting in piles, eaten by cows. Add jasmine flowers women wear in their hair, glycerin soap, all the spices (cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, mustard seed). Plus the almost-fermented smell of dal and rice, the sweet smell of chai, the heavy lingering cooking oil. Mix with dust, diesel fumes and every so often cigarettes. Then, particular to my nose: crayons, baby shampoo, tide and coffee. One friend's house smells like her fabric softener, another's like wood from the table her husband built, another's always of floor cleaner and metal pots on the stove.

It's truly an assault on the senses. And they say your sense of smell is the strongest link to memory. I can look ahead to one day if and when we leave here....I'll have so many smells to remind me of this season's home. 

What it Looks Like

Forgive me, dear reader. I have not posted in some time. I went to Bali for a week. The kids got sick and sick again. Brian got worms. You know...life. Anyways, before we begin, here's Bali:

Take a moment....

Forgive me, again dear reader. I am not a photographer, neither artsy or skilled in this area. But to forge the way in my feeble series of the five senses, I must show you what it looks like here. Caveats: 1) the above disclaimer, 2) this is only my city, the everyday life and 3) most pictures shot on an iPhone...nothing like the advertisements.

I see cows and parrots. I see dirt and potholes and piles of trash. I see the most beautiful flowers and fruit. I see people...all the time.

 The streets are not the best...

But you can get away with just about anything on them.

I find the oddest things (these guys were next to where I bought my coffee pot).

Some genius made a coffee table book of people carrying strange things on motorcycles. I could have added a couple of volumes, but I forget to take pictures....or I'm driving carefully around the loaded bikes.

 But most of what I see looks like this. It's a pretty good view. 

What I see, more than these pictures can convey is the beauty of God's creation tainted with our destructive-rebelling against Him. I see color and dirt. I see creativity and joy, despair and filth.

If we could pray for eyes to see what God sees, not just the beauty in the brokenness...but the redemption to come, His kingdom breaking through, what a glorious sight that would be. Better than any billboard or Bali vacation. Oh, grace my eyes!

What it Sounds Like Here [or "blahBEEPpsshtOMahhhhhhh"]

How do you convey sound through a blog post?

No, stop. That was a rhetorical question. I'm sure there is some audio link fancy thing I could put here. But why? Why go through all that if you could have me, an expert hearer-of-things-here, explain it to you?

This whole thing was Lydia's idea. While in the States, we had a few opportunities to share "What it's like" here with school-age kids. Lydia, being an expert school-age-kid, suggested we use our five senses. It was a big hit! If you get kids making crazy noises (cow, pressure cooker!) and tasting spicy chickpeas you are sure to have a (semi) captive audience for at least 7 minutes.

You, dear reader, are not a school-age-kid (I think) and thus I will not keep you for 7 minutes. Here's, to the best of my typing ability, what it sounds like here. You could probably get this read in a minute. Three if you try out all the sounds as you go.

Think in layers.

People. Talking in different languages. One sounds like "blblblBLAHblblb" and another I'm learning so I pick up a few words "blah blah blah A HOUSE blah blah hai". And English...so much English and so different (still) to my ears.

Cars. BEEP! (The horn is a non-negotiable here). beep. beep. beeeeeeeep. A car alarm, "weeooweeoo". Trucks rumbling over potholes. The grinding go-cart motors of auto-rickshaws. A musical backing-up sound (some cars have this feature when you put them in reverse)....my washing machine has the same tune when the cycle is over. A constant hum of traffic.

Pressure Cookers. PSSSSSSHHHHHHT. (repeat) Always at 5:45 am followed by an incessant search for the right pot: clang, bang, clang. Scraping of metal plates.

Worship. Chanting...a low repetitive hum. The call to prayer...a lyrical loud-speaker song. Drums. Bollywood music...always a nasal-voiced woman singer.

"The wake-up bird".....oooooo-oooooo-eeee-e-e-e. He's actually an Asian Koel who lives in the mango tree 3 inches from our bedroom windows. Please google his mating call. You'll get why we gave him this nick-name. Parrots make a squeaky toy noise. Pigeons. CoooCooo.

So, that's the usual. It's a noisy city and our windows are always open. But it's really not that bad. You get used to it and pretty soon I am off to sleep with the sounds of here...for at least 7 minutes.

Small (open) Hands: Crafts to Masala Chana

You might have been a part of this.

Lydia and Molly's "store" was traveling, ever-growing, and relentlessly-marketed by girls hard to say no to.

They made crayons, bead necklaces, intricate (and sometimes not-so-intricate) drawings, pot holders and binder clips. Basically, anything you needed.

Lydia and Molly decided these crafts would be for sale. They came to me with several petitions. Here's their final accepted proposal:
 1. They could not set the prices. Patrons could pay what they want. ("But, if someone offers like a nickel on my pot holder, I might wait a little bit until they give at least a dollar. I mean, I worked really hard on this Mommy.")
 2. All the money was to go to "poor people in India."

I was OK with my children badgering friends, house guests and total strangers for money as long as they stuck to the original covenant. They wholeheartedly did. In the end, they raised over $80. And what plans they had for this money! Half went straight to our friend Neetu who does a school program for children in the slums. She bought notebooks for 100 children.

The other half was spent on food for beggars. We encounter beggars daily. We try to keep bags of rice or non-perishable snacks in the car and stroller to hand out. It's amazing what $40 can buy in a country with so many foods packaged in 10 rupee (15 cents) bags. Here they are ready to pack individual bags of oatmeal, chips, rice and chana (chick peas) into our car and stroller boxes. The girls love handing food out and saying "God bless you" to the poor.

What a joy to see their hard work become a blessing to our community. Oh, let me be so generous as these little hearts and open as these small hands!

Back in the Saddle Again (with a chicken-delivery app!)

Jet lag and stomach bug behind me, I feel like I can get back to normal. New normal, that is...with more apps, shorter nap time for my kids and much more dust than I remember from 6 months ago.

People often ask what my daily life is like. Well, today I had an extra-productive homemaker kind of day (again, calibrated to my new normal standards).

Today I: 
1) checked out a new crossfit gym. My weight in kgs always makes me happier than in pounds.
2) procured sausage, bacon and pork roast from the pork shop. Yes, they butcher it on a stump. Yes, we saw a "really cool beetle" (cockroach) outside the door. Yes, I had to walk behind my children single-file on a concrete plank spanning the 3-foot-deep gutter to get to the shop. But I take pride in the fact that they have refrigerators.
3) ordered (and was delivered!) chicken from a new app called "licious". No, I do not like the name. But the chicken came in a cooler! (and yes, this deserves exclamation).
4) washed a bushel's worth of fruit and veggies. Bleach + filtered water = no worms!
5) laundered 4 loads of clothes (although, my washing machine is tiny so it's like 1.5 loads in an American front-loader).
6) installed a new ceiling fan. Ok. I watched the electrician install it. But I cleaned the blades (oh. my. so much dust!) and responded to "Madam?" 13 times while home-schooling. "Yes, I see the fan is a little slower." "No, sweetie. Start from the dotted line and then make a loop." "So, the fan works now?" "Right. Good. No...wait a second. Your "b" is backwards."
7) hired a new house-helper. In this culture, you have a helper to mop, wash dishes and occasionally make chai for 20 people. It's incredibly...well, helpful. In broken English and Hindi, Saraswarthi and I embarked on a what could be a beautiful friendship!


Absent are the keeping-the-children-alive things, cooking wholesome meals and living to blog about it. But I am back to what normal life for me is here. See that (brought over in my suitcase) candle there? It's "home sweet home" scent. I'm feeling it, apps and all.

Jet Lag: Wake Me When It's Over

This is no joke.

For the fourth time, I have left my home-passport country and traveled the grueling 20-something hour flight to this foreign land. Brian always says the flight is going to be "bad or really bad." He's a realist.

This trip wasn't all that bad. Three kids slept an appropriate amount. Everyone's in-flight headphones worked. We had enough diapers, melatonin and snacks. Our lay-over in London put us at a gate next door to a comfy Starbucks! John picked us up for the airport, where we got ALL our bags and enjoyed weather cooler than Atlanta.

We got home Thursday morning, dusted off the forgotten toys, made everyone scrambled eggs and took a recovery 3-hour nap.

7 hours later...we woke up. Hey, no guilt in that. First day is survivor mode. Don't you know, "East is beast, west is best?" And we just traveled significantly east. We ate dinner (lunch?) and went to bed again at 8pm.

Let me not bore you with a detailed timeline of the continued-stubborn-wakefulness and irresistible slumber that plagued the five of us (seemingly at five completely different circadian rhythms) for the next week. Not that I could accurately recount it. But let me say it always involved someone "hung-y", someone singing to her stuffed animals, someone yelling "stop it!" and much ignorance of our doorbell.

On day 4, I went down with a welcome-back stomach bug. (I was wondering how I would lose my American comfort-food happy pounds.) I meekly sipped Gatorade and a battled the bug with a Z-pack. I awoke 24 hours later..... to Brian sleeping beside me and the house quiet. It was 3pm. Where are the kids? I hear a text on my phone and scroll past the many "How are you feeling now?"s to see "Tell Brian I can keep the kids longer. They are doing great!" from
Maggie. Well, (seriously!) praise the Lord! Because I don't think Brian could have actually awoke to get them unless he had a good 2-hour warning.

Spoiler alert: This post has no moral. I'm not doling out advice on jet lag recovery. Simply recounting the "beastliness" of it all. Today, day 8, we are doing almost normal. Ok, Brian took a nap and went to bed at 8:59 (almost made it to 9!). I'm doing great. At least that's what my 2-hour-ago espresso is telling me.