First dispatch

This is from about two weeks ago, about a week after we arrived:

We've been having very full days here. Zazie has been asleep by 5pm each day (poor thing, no dinners for her) and she wakes at around 430am each morning.

I've made two sweet friends. One my age with a very cheeky 10 month old, named Usha. She is a painter. She wants to make a children's book about Baby Num. This, I think, we can really do. I think we are the only Moms that will be around the campus. There may be one other with a four year old, but we haven't met her yet.

The other friend is the vice chancellor's wife, named Reenuji, who is in her 60s. Very practical and sweet, of Indian origin, but lived in Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong for the last thirty years. So she is adjusting as much as we are. I imagine that she is having the experience that Vik's parents would have if they moved back to India. Really, everyone involved with the school is very nice and interesting. But these two are making things feel a little lighter and easier for me.

Today we made it to Big Bazaar, which is like the Indian Wal-Mart. Imagine the same amount of stuff with twice as many people, stuffed in a space a third of the size. Still, everything was very cheap. They have outfitted the house pretty well, providing everything from dishes to hand soap, but we still need a few things.

We finally visited our temporary housing. We will move to the campus around January 1. Until then, we will be in Sushant City. The house/villa is actually just one story, but we can go onto the roof. Everything is granite and ceramic tile, new and nice. They have rented furniture and have bought everything else that we need. It is two bedrooms. We'll move on Sunday (around September 7th) I think. We are just waiting for the gas connections and everything to be finalized.

While the house is extremely nice (outrageously nice by Indian standards), the area it is in is very remote. There is nothing near the little development and we (8-10 families) will be its sole occupants. Even the little town of Sonipat is a twenty minute drive. Delhi is about an hour and a half away (much longer with traffic) and not reasonable with Zazie too often. So we have to make good friends with each other because there is nothing else.

Vik is so sweet and optimistic. He is saying things like, well you are living in the country, and in a city of 17 million, so much grass and fresh air comes at a premium. Or that at least we wont be tempted to become ardent consumers beholden to the unrelenting materialism so rampant in the Delhi and so on. I have to admit, reframing helps. We'll see. I figure if it is too bad, we'll all mutiny and make the professors commute.

Up to now, we have been staying in one of the Jindal guesthouses. It is very nice. They have a common dining area where they serve all of our meals. Dinners have become lively affairs with lots of fun conversation. Everyone totally adores Zazie and where ever we go, people stare at her a lot. We keep being told that she has very exotic looks, with her little Indian doll face and her Parsi coloring.

She is in imagination overdrive. She has made up a new friend: Pinchu. She is worse than baby num, The funny thing about this friend is that the morning when she was making her up, she said, Pinchu bites. And she hits. And she pinches." and then she pointed to a book Vik had in his hand and said, "she grows up to be this guy when she is old." And it was a picture of Gandhi! So we've been getting a lot of mileage about this unknown origin myth of Gandhiji. In a room full of Indian International Law scholars, a joke like this can go pretty far. Anyhow, now everyone in the house is asking about Pinchu and spotting baby num all over. It is very sweet.

This afternoon, I went to see if the car had come to take us to the mall and Reenuji was watching Zazie for a moment. When I came back, Zazie was putting stickers all over Zazie's back. When she was done, she had placed no less than 40 stickers on her back. The conversationa bout ti went like this:

Zazie: "Reenu auntie is an aquarium!"

Reenu: "Oh good, can I be a dolphin?"

Zazie: "Can you spy hop?"

Reenu: "No."

Zazie: "No, you can't be."

Then after a pause, she scrunched up some of the sticker backing (basically the bit leftover after you have removed all the stickers) and handed it to Reenu.

Zazie: "Well, then, you can be the coral reef."

I hope the weather breaks soon so we can get outside a bit more soon. She is going a little stir crazy. If you imagine we have been plying her with sweets and presents to compensate for keeping her locked up in this cold little room.

We did take an auto-rickshaw the other day. She was scared to go on it, so I told her that if she didn't like we wouldn't take them again. Well, for the whole ride, she kept saying she didn't like it and that we should never go on one again. Of course when we got back, she immediately announced that she wanted to be a rickshaw driver when she grew up! Then, after a few minutes pause, she very seriously said, I think I could drive it now. Vik and I talked about it later and while we think that yes, she probably could drive one, we probably will wait until she at least four before she can drive the rickshaw.

At least three different people have said that they think Zazie might have been a formula one race car driver in a previous life.

We had to hire a cook and a househelper (um, the term they use is houseboy). So now we have Geeta and Jyoti on our "staff." Jindal pays for Jyoti and we pay for Geeta to come to our house twice a day for food. I dont know how that will work out (it may be more trouble than it is worth, we'll see).

Also, everyone has terrified me about abductions. Usha said, Do not leave Zazie even for five minutes with these girls. You never know. And today, in the Big Bazaar, the power went out while Zazie was sleeping in her stroller, Reenuji said, "Quick hold onto Zazie." Malaria and Delhi Belly I am prepared for. Kidnapping, less so.

Wow, it is suddenly raining very hard, like Florida rainstorms!