Maartje, Eelco, Rick, Kaat & Duuk

I am so beautiful!

Tiring business though, being a princess

So it has been a tumultuous two weeks without Eelco. Only 7 days of school, way too much rain, a whirlwind trip for me to Dubai, leaving the kids 2x 1/2 night with one of the nannies, hindu festivals, new art and sports classes for Rick, Duuk who wants to get his teeth through so much but is not quite there, missing ladders, new neighbors, 2 jobs for me and a few very long work days and many more adventures. But honey - no worries - the kids are and were totally ok.

Kaat & Duuk refused to sleep almost every day and often lasted longer then me, Rick turned Eelco's side of the bed into a sauna for the past 2 weeks, Duuk pulled out some hair from all of us, we had a very socialist bath routine - either all or none - and Duuk tries to escape from his bath bucket by pulling himself up and out.

We have fabulous nannies who took such good care of them they did not even realize they were 'home alone in India' for 24 hours and Rick now actually encourages me to go to work every morning as he believes that I don't have enough 'centjes' (money) to buy him a ticket to go and see Roddy in Houston, and at work I can go and get more centjes (although he also enquired if I could not just go out and buy more centjes -:). We also started doing arts & crafts at the house and made some lovely stone-bugs.

and Duuk is starting to 'talk' and wiggle like crazy! Het gets out of his seats and does endless 360's in the playpen or in bed getting angry when he ends up tangles up in toys or blankets or clothes.

We even managed shopping with all kids, except the card machine in the shop broke down so we had a 20 minute wait. By then Duuk had woken up and was doing a sightseeing trip through the parking garage whilst trying to pull out Anbu's mustache.

Me, I had 2x 3hr nights in an Airplane with a huge workshop to facilitate in between. I tripped on the steps in front of the house and did my leg in as well as my knee and hands. I have had some fabulous fun with the kids, realize I do have some great friends already here in Bangalore, but am probably behind on everything else in life.

Actually - Duuk must have sensed there were a few moments I really wanted a little break. Like a monkey he was mimicking my behavior -;)

12 more hours and Eelco should be home. Kaatje and I really missed papa - Rick just wanted Roddy. Next time 1 week is more then enough! Especially if there is no Skype and phones and all that.

Waterflood School

The past weeks we have had some very heavy Monsoon rains, and it has been getting gradually worse every day. Yesterday the kids went to school but were home again within hours. The whole school complex is flooded, to the extend that the grounds are not accessible, and the plumbing is not functioning anymore (toilets etc). Also water like this attracts lots of bugs and poisonous water snakes etc etc. So it was considered unsafe for the kids to stay. School closed till after the weekend.

The issue is though that the rain is still getting worse, and after last nigh I cannot imagine the water has subsided at all. The plots adjacent to the school are also flooded and so the water has no place to go. School is in the lowest point in the area and the fields have been soggy for weeks, they cannot absorb anymore. I am betting on not back to school before Thursday, Anbu our optimistic driver thinks Wednesday.

Kaat's classroom is not actually in the main building - which is sitting slightly higher up, and this is what it looked like yesterday some 8 hours after all the rainfall. Unless they built up a dyke around it I suspect after last night's endless downpour it now also actually has flooded inside. The pool in the background is, like ours at home, filled to the edge. Everyone in Bangalore has an infinity pool -;)

Seeing all this playground stuff standing in the water is actually quite sad. But nothing to worry about when you realize that right behind this wall is a slum of about 50 houses made out of sticks, plastic and corrugated iron (golfplaten). I imagine that the families there have not had dry feet in over a week now.....!!!

In the background you see the red clay roads, which make up a significant amount of the smaller streets we use on a daily basis. As you can imagine not many are accessible at the moment, not even with our SUV, or they are in very dire states. Safe to say also we are not holding our breath on how long it will take before any repairs to the roads are done after the rain subsides somewhere next month.

Back in Sakhalin

Eelco is back in Sakhalin for 2 weeks. The bulk of him time there he has spend offshore, as he was doing an asset integrity review. The few days before and after he is also trying to meet up with the friends that still live there. Communication with the platform is complex. Eelco can only call us and not use skype etc. In Yuzhno (the 'city') it is a little better but we have barely had daily voice contact. Only a few more days and he is finally back and we can hear all his stories and see all his pictures. In the meantime we make do with a few snapshots from offshore and a picture posted by my friends. Yes Anna, Maria & Ira had Eelco over for dinner. It looked like good fun. A little jealous I am of course that he got to see them and I did not, as well as some of their kids.

Finding Ganesha in Pottery Town

September 9th is Ganesh Charturthi which is a big Hindu feast or holiday, celebrating the day Shiva, Ganesha's father and the primary out of the 36,000 Hindu gods declared Ganesha the superior god of all.

The occasion is celebrated by putting up statues of Ganesha everywhere, which on the day itself will be subjected to a pooja (ceremony). Then 3, 5, 7 or 10 days later the Ganesha statue taken in procession to a bath and immersed in water, returning to mud, re-used on the land or in the garden. On Saturday morning we went to Pottery town where all these Ganesha's are made,

to pick the best Ganesha for us.

And there was certainly a LOT to choose from.

As usual the boys were pretty clear about what they wanted:

Both of them.

Fortunately we went with my friend, her 3 kids and her husband who was really good at helping me keep the herd together. As the Ghanesha's where everywhere, and big enough to obscure the kids.

Some off the big ones, that get sold to public places and big temples are really elaborate.

And looked close to impossible to survive their transport in the little 'cargo riskja's'. We learned later though they travel in a lush bed of hay.

In turns all kids got to count the arms

As this weekend was also St Mary's (a feast for the Christians) the local politicians had gone all out with a banner, combining independence day 2.5 weeks ago and this weekends festivities catching almost all Indians in one sweep. Banners like this are everywhere in Bangalore year round. Mugshot after mugshot.

We found a place where a guy was kneading the clay with his feet to great excitement of Rick & Keanan.

It was harder at the early hour a place where the Ganesha making was in progress or where we could buy unpainted ones for the kids to paint. When we did, we ended up in someone's living room, a very old couple, in love with Duuk and elated about having us over, but slow and meticulous. So whilst the moms tried to get some statues, the kids played in the adjacent slum. Just happy with the adventure, completely unaware of the situation and the attention Paul was getting with 2 ladies and 6 blond and blue eyed kids.

Coexistence does actually work in India, of course there are incidents but considering how mixed things are and how many people live together with so little privacy - it works pretty well. We are reminded every dat by stickers like these next to for instance a Ganesha here.

The big Ganesha's were all lined up ext to the road, covered in plastic. As they are all intended to dissolve somewhat in water eventually they need the plastic cover in the Monsoon. Next to the Ganesha's a typical seen with a group of guys on the street with at least 1 scratching his private parts. (there are even commercials on tv for itch reliever for men....)

We were quite pleased with the Ganesha we picked, and managed to avoid an overload of fluorescent colors.

This morning it was time for the Pooja. We had no guidance as Sarala is Christian, and hence was willing to help me out today as she had her St Mary's celebration yesterday. She told us she loves Ganesha, but also was uncertain what to do Pooja wise exacty. We improvised with flowers, candles, play doh snakes (klei), Rick's treasure chest, fruit (uncut as is probably needed to avoid the fruit flies), Rick's special mini coconuts, drawings & a happy birthday song (instigated by Kaat).

It was Rick's duty all day to make sure we replaced the candles on time, and he replenished the flowers a few times also. Kaat just gave Ganesha lots of compliments about his beauty. Hinduism is quite a flexible religion so we stand a chance that our well intended efforts are good enough.

Sarala already promised to bring 'the better flowers tomorrow', such that our Hindu nanny can do the proper pooja with the kids tomorrow and she and the driver will take the kids on Wednesday or Thursday to one of the compounds where Ganehsa is indeed taken on a procession and then put into a bath. I am pretty sure our Hindu Nanny will make sure our Ganesha is undergoing the proper procedures somewhere in the next 10 days too. Probably mainly all for Duuk who is completely oblivious to it all -:)

Favorite book day

As some of you may be aware I am home alone with the kids for a few weeks. This at a time that work also is peaking and Duuk has reached the phase in which he wants a lot, apart from sleeping, and is cute & happy but not capable of much and hence keeping our hands tied and our nights short.

The school however has started the year with renewed energy and after a calm August we now have reached super September it appears. Great they are doing do many things with the kids, but it is somewhat of a problem by now for us that for each and every activity they want to home front to do something. In itself not bad as it keeps us involved, but problematic if we find out the evening before or 36 hr notice and the frequency is also high. Kaat has done salad making in class without her carrots and Rick has already been to school with half completed homework on a Monday morning and despite me putting it in his bag his homework folder is now missing all together.

With Rick there is no space to mess up as he fully realizes mommy forgot and will tell me in no uncertain terms - making me feel guilty for days. So apart from snacks and spare clothes and art supplies and art bibs and diapers, and then the next day again a different kind of diapers because Kaat (or the teacher?) did not like the other ones much, and sleep gear etc I am now also very much on the look out for any special messages that may have been issued by school through somewhat unpredictable channels.

I manipulated Rick into changing his favorite color on - wear your favorite color day - as the washing was not all done and choice was limited. I baked pancakes with Rick for 'bring your favorite food day' in 30 minutes after a loooong work day before our first date night in months with eggs from the neighbors and flour from a hotel shop (!?!? - the only shop type place I passed yes at 3x the normal price and our flour is not used here much) and on bring your favorite toy I am not entirely sure what he took to school and if it came back but he had 'treasures' in his trouser pockets so was just fine.

Last friday was 'come dressed as your favorite book character day' and bring the book. Well as we have very few books in English and as I have no 'gruffalo' costume at the house I got one of Rick's more favorite books out which is in English, put it on the couch next to me and asked him what his favorite book was and how he wanted to be dressed up. "The night pirates' he proclaimed......pfew! I felt bad a relieved at the same time.

So somewhere between waking up, getting dressed and prepared, getting the kids up, washed & dressed and needing to leave for work early I managed to get Rick into pirate costume. And managed to improvise a pink girl pirate costume too. His cup had just started leaking in his bag and I ran out of time so stuffed the book in his bag in the nearest plastic bag I could find - of course it had to be one from the liquor store.

Not sure about the other parents of course but part of why my kids, who don't have an age yet to be obliged to go to school, are at school every day is because I work and am busy. Love to do things for them and with them - but don't need more deadlines and more opportunities to let my kids down.

Sleepy heads

On Friday night we had friends over - 3 other couples who all have little kids themselves. The eveing with these people starts at 8pm which is for all of them an appropriate time so they can take their kids to bed before they leave. Well not in our house.....by then time our friends arrived the 2 big kids where in a bedroom,...but far from sleeping. Kaat never gave up till 11pm and Duuk stayed awake until the party was over. Yesterday however, before Eelco had a chance to say goodbye (he is off to Sakhalin for 2 weeks), the kids all had crashed.

Literally on top of each other.