Bangalore and Settling In

Blogging more than once a year is an accomplishment for me.  At some point I will write something substantive, but I can't really be substantive after midnight, and it isn't happening tonight.

So.  Vellore.  We’ve now been here basically 3 weeks, and I think it is safe to say that we are sort of, kind of, used to it.  Naomi is loving her new school, and is angry with us whenever we bring up the idea of going home.  Her favorite thing here seems to be the plethora of good-climbing-trees, lots of nature in general to play in, the novelty of a new school, and lots of free time spent at busy playgrounds.  I guess that was more than one thing.  

Sage has had a harder time in school from the beginning, as I think I’ve mentioned before.  But she is less commonly upset about going to school in the morning, and she is generally happy when we pick her up.  

Nora is having a great time.  Her "creche" is great--lots of individual attention, lots of toys, some other babies to toddle around with.  

The food situation is still an issue (the kids are not eating well balanced diets with plenty of protein, fruits, vegetables and dairy; Sage is mostly eating chapathi, and I have begun to consider ice cream a "serving of dairy").  But the all sleeping in one room situation is not.  And for some reason our hostel has suddenly virtually emptied out such that it feels like we have much more than the one bedroom for hanging-out space.  

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Bangalore by 4 hour first-class train.  The train station was full of adventurous monkeys swinging from all the various lines and stealing everyone's food.  The train was fun.  And Bangalore itself was a great escape.  I had read a bunch about Bangalore having terrible congested traffic, and feared that it would be insanely overcrowded and perhaps overrated.  But it was actually really a nice break, and since they have lots of one-way streets in Bangalore, as well as railings in the middle of the streets, I felt a lot safer walking around than I do in Vellore.  In Vellore one is theoretically supposed to drive ont he left side of the road, but in reality drivers are constantly crossing over to the wrong side of the road to pass someone.  There are rarely any seatbelts in the cars that you can hire here, there are no street lights at night, few traffic lights (which one can ignore by honking one's horn and blinking one's light while charging through a red light full speed), and all in all the bottom line is that driving here is by FAR the most dangerous aspect of India.  I assume.  

So anyway, Bangalore.  Did I mention men wear motorcycle helmets in Bangalore?  The women and children riding behind them don't, but still.  I have yet to see a helmet in Vellore, even among all the physicians who live on Bagayam college campus.

We stayed in a nice hotel in Bangalore with amazing buffets of mostly delicious Indian food, with some western food as well.  The first day we went to see the Bangalore Palace, then ate room service (steak and pasta) while watching a bollywood show and then The Sound of Music on TV.  The second day we went to Cubbon Park (an amazing Central Park-like oasis in the middle of the city with absolutely stunning trees--see below), and Industrial and Technology Museum, an Art Museum, another small palace, temple, and parliament house.  Then we drove home.

 Sage swinging from an enormous Banyan vine/future root.

 Evidence that these two occasionally do get along

 Cubbon Park

 Haagen Daz!

 Naomi's classroom

 One of Sage's classrooms

 Sage's classroom

 Naomi's hindi classroom

 My lunch almost every day at the hospital canteen.  There are some other options, and all are good, the only downside is I wish there were a little more variety.  That said in the US we will often go for long periods of time eating PB&J every day for lunch, so what really is the difference?  Nothing, I admit.

 Across the street from the hospital.

 The road leading to the Bergen House (where we are now staying) at Bagayam college campus

 Chinese food with some friends we met from Australia, who were also crazy enough to come here with a toddler.

 Train station in Vellore

 Train!

 Train station in Bangalore

 The quiet streets of Bangalore

 McDonalds' no-beef menu.  :(

Bangalore Palace, with preparations underway for a grand wedding.

Tomorrow (hopefully) I will write some thoughts about CMC hospital, medicine here in general, etc.  For the time being, this will suffice.  

Adjusting

As I think I mentioned last time, this trip has felt "hard" in some ways, while being great in others.  One tricky aspect has been learning to live with three kids all in one room.  Initially here at bagayam we were given a family guest room with three single beds.  That room was only available briefly, however, so we are now in a different guest room with 1 bed.  We ere able to again rent mattresses for the girls, and this is totally fine (and yes, believe me, I recognize that many, many, many people live in one room with more children and adults than we have, and fewer beds, and no running water' flushing toilet, etc).  But, it is still an adjustment, and for me, because I am not that great at parenting to begin with (ie, I am not particularly patient), it has seemed to amplify the difficulties of parenting significantly--in part because the conditions are different, and probably also in part because the kids have been acting out to some extent.

Other tricky things here have included the lack of a kitchen (although now that we've moved to Bergen House we do have a community fridge and microwave, so we can microwave frozen veggies from the college store), and simply having the kids home more with fewer of our usual places to go.  They are currently off school for Pongal, and were previously off for Christmas, such that in the past month they have gone to school 4 days.  In Cincinnati, I tend to get very antsy if I spend too much time physically at our house with them SO we end up going somewhere most days--the library, park, museum, a bike ride, etc, even on school days.  Here we have definitely spent a lot of time at the playground, but that is mostly it, aside from some sight-seeing of various Hindu temples.  And since we packed very light' we did not bring a ton of indoor things to do in our guest room when we are not at the playground.  I have been at the hospital a fair amount, and Matt has spent more time with them than I have, but we are all together quite a bit, and I am discovering that, for instance, I really, really rely on the local library for sanity as a parent back home.  All in all other things have worked out well--Nora seems to be doing well at daycare, and Naomi apparently loves her school, while Sage has more mixed feelings, but is doing ok.  The hardest thing for Sage is that PreK here is much, much more structured than in the US, and since the kids all speak Tamil (for the most part) at home, and learn English in school, which is sort of new to them in PreK, Sage doesn't feel like she can understand any of the kids in her class, or her teacher much of the time.

So there are some hard things.  On the up side nobody has gotten sick yet.  I am sure we will eventually.  And it is really interesting to learn about the hospital here, and some of the things that they often see.  The doctors here are amazingly knowledgeable, resourceful, and kind.  They work longer hours than we do in the US, with greater demands and fewer resources.  They are truly top notch.  And each of the things that I have found difficult here says much more about me than about India, or Vellore, or whatever.  But I would be lying if I claimed to be a better, less spoiled person, and so, it is what it is.

India

About a week ago, we flew from SLC to Chennai, with plans to spend some time in India, theoretically setting things up for a research project and getting some exposure to tropical medicine, etc, at a hospital here called CMC (Christian Medical College). The last time I went to India was in Fall 2002, as part of an undergraduate field study program (like a study abroad, only less structured). A small group of us stayed in a village, sleeping on the floor, eschewing some of the modern comforts that one finds so easy to eschew at that phase of life, and spending a lot of time....well, to be honest, *thinking*. Observing, writing, etc. This was before I was very connected to the internet, and we didn't have internet readily accessible, but I remember writing a lot in a journal, which of course I could not find prior to coming back to India. I think in retrospect it must have been a difficult journey in its way, but of course one tends to remember the good and forget the bad, and one tends to think....hey, if I did it in college, surely I can do it a decade later with a husband and three little kids! Right??

 Shockingly enough, the experience has been different with kids. As in, (shocker again) a bit harder. But, as is true with most things that are challenging, I think it will also be a richer experience, provided nobody dies of dengue/JE/malaria/ricketsial abcdefg fever/etc. In any case, a week in, things have begun to settle a bit, and although I nearly fainted at least four times on rounds today (rounds were reeeeeally hot, reeeeeally slower than at Cinci, reeeeeally quiet such that I could not hear, nor could I understand 90% of what was said, and also I forgot to drink water with breakfast today, and also....I am, oh so unfortunately, a bit syncope-prone), and felt (ok, was) 100% extraneous the entire day, it was also fascinating in many, many ways.

 Our journey from SLC to Chennai was 29 hours long, including a layover in LA and Hong Kong. Nora was a crummy sleeper and had some lingering gastroenteritis that was not fun, but we did LOVE Cathay Pacific (many movies, games, nourishing endless food, kind flight attendants). We arrived at Chennai Wed Jan 1 at 2am. We did not celebrate the arrival of 2014, persay, nor did I make any resolutions (not sure about Matt), but we DID survive. The first couple of nights we stayed in a very nice Radisson Hotel in Chennai with great buffets, although we were sort of cramped with 4 people sleeping on two twin beds. Luckily, before we left, we found the most fantastic baby tent bed by Kidco (2.5lb and tiny enough to fit into a backpack, along with many other things when folded) for Nora to sleep in.  The thing has been a life saver; I cannot endorse it highly enough.

 The first day we ventured out for a quick car tour of Chennai, which was ok. We saw a Krishna temple of some sort with a "Math" (monastery), and the beach. The beach resulted in some serious tantrums from the kids, who were expecting a "play on me" type beach, if not a "swim on me" beach. But it was interesting (and sad) to see the huge swath of beach and adjacent fishing-community buildings that were destroyed by the tsunami several years back. After some yelling at the kids for being spoiled, we gave up on chennai and collapsed back at the hotel. The next day we took a car to Vellore and checked in to a hotel here, which (like the one in Chennai) was really expensive, and also really dark, BUT had 4 beds. The plan was to stay in this hotel until a spot opened up at the CMC campus housing on Jan 13.

 The next morning I met with Dr. Ana Simon, my contact person here, who along with Mrs. Reena in the Directors office very quickly helped find us an immediate spot at CMC campus, as well as a spot for Nora in creche (aka daycare) and for Naomi and Sage in a local school. Which is about when things started to look up. Bagayam campus (or CMC college campus, where we are staying) has been amazing, and a complete godsend for our family. Unlike the area around our hotel, it is quiet, shady and open with places for the kids to run around, climb trees, swing from vines, and play in the ubiquitous sand (I have never seen children so adorably dusty). We have had some additional issues trying to figure out how to get internet, how to adjust to new foods, get over jet lag, etc, but suffice it to say: without this campus, this experience would be 10 million times harder.

 So there you have it. I am going to attach some pictures, and write a few words, and then call it good for tonight.

Five to a tuk-tuk.  No, this is not safe.  On the other hand I don't think these things can go more than 20mph tops.

Naomi and Sage's new school.

The view from the 5th floor of CMC hospital

CMC courtyard

Who needs baby swings?  This is wasay safer than riding in tuk tuks

Speaking of safe...

Even Nora loves the banyans

The college canteen.  This place is great. You can get a "meal" for 50 cents here.  You order it by asking for "a meal".  Gotta love it.  (They also have pizza and grilled cheese).  It is about half a mile from our current guest room, right by the big girls' school, all on Bagayam campus.  Oh yeah, sage is asleep in this picture because of the horrible beast that is jet lag.

A beautiful garden within the college itself

The other side of the college (the dome is a small chapel)

More travels in tuk tuks

Sage's and Naomi's first day of school

Swinging on the vines

Just as clean as they are back home!

More first day of school

I forgot the name of this temple, but it is within a 600 some-odd old fort in Vellore and is a good example of Dravidian temple architecture.  I think.

Within the temple

Another one

View from the walls of the old fort

Outside of the golden temple near Vellore.  I had heard of the golden temple at Amritsar, but it turns out there is another one near Vellore that is a major pilgrimage site but for whatever reason not at all a tourist site (maybe because you have to go through several layers of security to make sure no one brings in a camera or phone?).  All the women in red saris are pilgrims, and every single one of them represents one hundred women who tried to touch/kiss/hold Nora while we were there.  This temple made me nervous with kids because there were SO MANY PEOPLE (the picture doesn't do it justice), and everyone was rushing about.  It is set up as a big star which forms a path around the central temple which is all made of carved gold on top of some other metal.  I reeeally wanted to take a picture, but you will have to just use your imagination (or your google--remember, not the one in Amritsar).

That is it for tonight!