Corban's First Writings

Corban wrote his first words last week--all by himself without my help! I was really pumped and just had to share for the grandparents/great grandparents. Usually they are the ones who care about such menial things:) Or do just the parent's get excited about little things that every other child on earth does? it seems so monumental when it's your's:D We don't have a scanner so I had to take a picture:) The words are Bat, Corban and Sat incase you have trouble reading 4 year old writing:)

Tea Time

I'm sure most of you remember from history class that India was once ruled by England. Even though it's been independent for 60 years English tradition is still around.
Take for instance, tea time. It is observed twice a day...around 10 am and 3 pm. Tea is served with lots of milk and sugar so it's basically chai. Coffee is the same and reminds me of my Granny's "coffee milk" she used to make us as kids....lots of milk, even more sugar and a little bit of coffee. This would definitely be my kind of drink except that the 2nd time I drank it here I got diarrhea and stomach cramps--while having to hide the grimaces--at a birthday party:) So i haven't participated again:) Brian's office is served tea (chai) twice a day and he loves it. It's also served after church. I really can't get into having tea with myself at home--it seems like something you do with company:) but we have really become addicted to tea biscuits! They come in lots of shapes and brands but they are basically the same...they taste like vanilla wafers or shortbread and they are very cheap.
Some other English traditions that remain are driving on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on what would be the passenger side in America. That one's going to throw me off when i start to drive:)
and formal english writing and speaking. They add the letter U as in colour and flavour and use the letter S instead of z as in organise.
I haven't asked anyone what the national feelings are towards England. I assume they are good since Europeans are welcomed and live here. But there was one shady piece of evidence that I discovered in a language translation book that suggested India might not have the most fond affections for England. It is a "Learn Kannada in 30 days book". My housekeeper speaks this local language so we bought it to try to help us in conversational translation. As I looked through the random sentences like "It was raining outside today", this phrase caught my attention..."In the last world war, the Germans were fighting bravely." Hmmm. I couldn't imagine why you would ever need to say this to anyone in any language so i asked Brian what he thought it meant. He assumed it was b/c India was against England who was an adversary of Germany. Anyway--thought that to be a little strange for a book written in 2007:).

Kai Army Crawling

Kai is starting to army crawl--just tempt him with a toy and he's on a mission to get it:)

The Queen of the Netherlands

The Queen, Prince and Princess of the Netherlands visited Bangalore today! One of their stops was Brian's company, Ujjivan. The Prince and Princess are investors in the company and are very interested in microfinance.

The city gave a warm welcome to the royalty. They paved the dirt road in front of Ujjivan (usually full of potholes). The funny thing was they paved it to the building just past Ujjivan then stopped:) They also picked up all the trash which usually surrounds the area (trash surrounds every area of the city but they combed the streets where the Queen would pass). It looked nice.

Here is a picture of Brian and the other managers that work for Ujjivan (there are about 100 people employed at this office). Brian was sad that the other employees were forced under "lock down" which meant they weren't allowed to see the Queen--even to peek out the window. Police and secret security poured through the neighborhood surrounding the office prior to the royalty's arrival and a bomb squad searched the building.

The other 3 pics are of the Queen, Prince and Princess...i must say that I think only royalty could get away with these hats:D

The Queen and Mr. Ghosh, President of Ujjivan

$3 Imports

I've found a number of imported/luxery items (as in toilet paper:) here that cost $3. That's a lot of money here and i have trouble paying for these items at this price when they are so cheap in the states:)

1- 80 count pack of baby wipes...$3
8oz (half the size of American jar) Peanut Butter..$3
1 box of sandwich size ziplocs...$3
4 roll package of toilet paper...over $3 ($4.45)
3 small rolls of paper towels...$3
Bottle of Worcestershire sauce...$3
Bottle of BBQ sauce...$3
Bottle of pancake syrup...over $3 ($4.40)
Tiny bag of almonds...$3
Small jar mayo...$3
Small bottle French's mustard...$3

The list goes on but the moral of the story is don't buy "American" in India:) Except for those baby wipes:) and the peanut butter:) and the toilet paper...:) and the...

What Are They Doing Now?

I thought I'd update you on what the boys are doing these days...

Corban is getting very good at riding his big boy scooter (he and Haddon practice in the house:). He is a creative lego builder (hence the green dog in the sidebar pic:). He learned to spell his name a few weeks ago and is excitedly learning to recognize and write his letters and numbers. He was glued to the computer yesterday as we watched the launch of space shuttle Discovery. He's very much into rockets and airplanes (which most of his lego creations attest to:)

Haddon is getting new molar teeth, which I don't think he realizes:) He is starting to sing alot and memorizing lyrics. He sings "Jesus Loves Me", "He's My Rock", "Go Diego Go" and "Old McDonald" He imitates pretty much everything his big brother says and does:) He is also getting very quick on his scooter and is the cutest thing when he's running--he looks like Rocky Balboa:)

Kai turned 7 months yesterday. He's cutting a tooth, starting to army crawl (going after the object of desire on the floor), loves to laugh and make other people laugh, and rode for the first time sitting up in the grocery cart yesterday. He's trying different foods but unfortunately didn't like avocado this week so we'll have to try again later:) He is such a happy baby which makes momma very happy!

Funny Faces and No Shirts

The boys are in to two things among others this week...they like to go around in the house without their shirts on--like their daddy:) and they are into making funny faces. Last night as we hung out after dinner I took pictures of both:) Kai, unlike my first two babies, doesn't go around in just his diaper very often (i'm not sure why i'm deciding to dress him--i love baby's in diapers:) so he's not part of the shirtless gang in these pics. Daddy was part of it but I won't show you his bulging muscles:D he might be embarrassed:)

Speaking in Code-- with a Southern Drawl

I think i've mentioned before that most people cannot understand me over the phone here. I rarely call places of business for information b/c i know it's useless. Even when I spell words out they cannot make out the letters I'm saying:) I did have to speak to the airline company we are flying with in December on the phone the past 3 days--they have an office in Bangalore. We were having trouble with our credit card processing so I've had to give all my credit card info (Name, address, city, state, zip, telephone #, email, , credit card #, exp date, secret code, etc) a total of 6 times now spelling out each letter! It's been over 4 hours of phone time:) I learned the alphabet code that this airline uses after the first two information sessions. Alpha (A), Bravo (B), Charlie (C), Echo (E), Yankee (Y), etc...so that i could speed up the process. Amazingly they still didn't get some of the letters:) I had to repeat my email address (flipflops) scores of times:) Thankfully the Lord gave me patience and a desire to succeed so we could get to the States in December!:D Finally today there was victory after an hour!:)
Another little communication note is that here they say two letters or numbers in succession as "double T" or "double 2" instead of "t, t" or "2, 2" so i've now got it down to spell "C-o-l-e-double t-e" or they won't understand:)

The Boss

This man is a huge movie star and his picture appears on many richshaw driver's windshield in the form of a large sticker. It cracks us up because he's this older guy with a big belly and "Miami Vice" look. His nickname is "The Boss" and many guys here call each other by this name:) The times I have flipped through the TV channels to see what interesting cultural sites I can see about India, I noticed how many music video channels there are...atleast a dozen...and in all of them the video features a beautiful young woman in her 20's dancing and singing alongside a "Boss" look alike --an older man with a big belly, 80's Topgun glasses, and the "Miami Vice" look going on. He could be her father in age but it looks to me that they are singing about love--to each other. It's really funny. I haven't seen any actual couples like this out on the streets but I guess it's the "Sugardaddy" image they are trying to create on tv.

Just a little Note

I was enabling the "Comment Moderator" which allowed me to receive an email when someone left a comment. But it also hindered the comment from being published immediately. So I've disabled it and comments should be able to appear instantly. I didn't want anyone to get annoyed and not comment again:)

Haddon Scooting

Kenoa and the Rap CD

Wednesday night Brian took us to this nice restaurant, Kenoa, he had eaten at with work. (Nice restaurants in India are half the price of American "nice"--which is very NICE!) It felt like we were in another country. It was a very beautiful, open air restaurant with a Polynesian feel on top of a multi-story building. It was down this dirt road--I'm not really sure how anyone could know it was there. I'm always grateful to get out of the house midweek so I had to blog about it since it's the only thing that happened out of our normal routine so far this week:) I know it's superficial and boring to post pictures of the interior of a restaurant but it was like a little getaway for me--felt sort of like being up in a tree house as a kid-- so i had to show you:)

Also a nice thing about being a westerner and eating out is that we are usually the only ones in the restaurant until we are about to leave:) Indians eat later--around 9 or 10 pm. So we never wait in line and usually have the place to ourselves!

As we ate it started to storm, which was cool being in an open air restaurant, but that meant we'd have to walk the dirt/mud road about a 1/2 mile to get to the main road to find a rickshaw ride. We called a taxi which you never know if they'll actually come or take an hour to do so. This nice couple and sister invited us to ride home with them. They had an 8 month old baby too. So, in the Indian way, we all piled in this little car...9 people in all:) This couple lives right across the street from us in another apt complex. The weirdest thing was that the guy changed music cd's as we were getting in the car. What was now blaring on the stereo was american rap music. I was hoping it was toned down rap but oh it wasn't! There were 4 small children in the car and i just couldn't understand why he wanted to make sure we heard it. I thought maybe since we were americans, he assumed that's the music we listend to so he put it in for us:D It had terribly obscene lyrics so Brian and I were trying to keep up the conversation so we could "cover our children's ears" by talking over the music. Thank goodness we only live about 5 minutes from the restaurant! Very strange:) But we were very thankful for the ride!

At the Playground

Washer and Dryer Appreciation Day!

Hopefully this video will help you appreciate your washing and drying machine! This is a housekeeper in the common area of our flat washing clothes. The clip only shows a small portion of the work she is doing. First she dips the clothes in a bucket of clean water. Then she dips them multiple times in bucket of detergent water, then she lays them on the ground and scrubs each piece, dips them back in the detergent water, rinses them off in the clean water bucket, wrings them out then hangs them to dry. She has to do this many times b/c not all the clothes she is washing fit into one bucket load. All while wearing a long skirt!:D This is everyday, and most housekeepers have multiple homes they take care of. I'm sure after that she has to fold and put the clothes away too. I really appreciate the washer and dryer Brian bought me!! Although our housekeeper did this huge chore for us, our clothes looked "worn" from the scrubbing and smelled sour from drying in the humidity. Thank you Lord for luxuries we don't deserve!

Party time at Sobha Aquamarine

This was a party held Saturday night for the whole complex. This picture doesn't show much of the party--the dancing is in the background which you can't see. All the women and children wore their best outfits and a dinner was served. The DJ played dance music at full blast til 11:30 pm. I felt a little intrusive so i didn't get close-up shots. Although one neighbor (in the green and orange saree) was nice and asked me to come dance:). There were lights strung up all over the trees and bushes and the outfits were so colorful. The sad part is this was a party honoring two goddesses. Hindus celebrate many religious festivals and worship many gods/idols (a term they use). The largest festival will be coming up in November--the festival of lights. It lasts for 10 days I believe. The children are often off of school for a religious holiday. Please pray that many Hindus will know the Truth and be able to have an eternal party! Side note: yes, the "snow" (dust) is still in the air:)

Indian Art

These pics are for my Mimi who has been asking to see Indian artwork. This was a little area at the mall where artists were selling thier work. I'm still on the lookout for more!

Weekend Outings

Our favorite restaurant "The Only Place" is for westerners craving hamburgers, french fries and apple pie a la mode. It's one of a couple of places in the city to get steak or burgers that we know of. It's tiki style--open air dining.














I took the boys to the mall Saturday with the help of our housekeeper's daughter, Ramier. She is really sweet and would be the perfect babysitter except she speaks very little english. We dined at McDonald's, which reminded me of why I said I wasn't going back there last time we ate it:) It's not like McD's in the states. The menu consists of fried veggie burgers, minced chicken (doesn't really look like chicken) sandwiches and the one that makes me laugh...the veggie sandwich with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo. The boys end up wasting their food--i really can't blame them:) Atleast the fries are good:)














This is our housekeeper's daughter, Ramier. Her mom wasn't able to come on Saturday so she came to help right as we were leaving. I was so thankful--she held Kai the whole time and spared my back! She looks 12 but is 18 and also cleans homes for a living. So sweet!

Comments

I didn't realize that I had the setting for Comments set to "Blog Members Only". I've changed it so that anyone can comment now. And now I know how to respond to comments (i'm a little technology challenged:) so if you've asked a question or posted a comment in the past you can go back to it to see the answer/response. Sorry for the delay:)

Toothpaste in India

Think this would go over in the states? Colgate's latest flavor is not Fresh Mint or Winter Cool but Active Salt :D I thought that was funny:) Indian's like spice in everything including their toothpaste:) I'm not sure I want to try it, but Colgate's other new flavor is Citrus Blast...maybe.

"Colgate Active Salt combines salt with calcium and minerals to make teeth strong and gums healthy. Developed after extensive consumer research in India, it is positioned as an everyday family toothpaste that combines a minty taste with a dash of salt for a unique brushing experience."

The Movies

America has Hollywood, India has Bollywood. Bollywood produces over double the amount of movies each year that Hollywood does! Movies are a big deal here. I didn't realize how big of a deal until I saw an advertisement for the top movie theater here. Seriously, the chairs look like lazy boy recliners! Infact, they do recline! I learned that at this theater there are different levels of movie viewing, kinda like the caste system of cinema:) There's the normal stadium seating like we have in the States called "Classic". Then there's the "Europa" which has even better chairs and waitstaff to serve you food, then there's the "Gold" level which has the recliners and full drink and food service. I think the tickets are pretty affordable for the Classic , maybe $4.00. The Gold level is probably comporable to U.S. prices which means the majority of people can't afford to ever watch a movie in here, but i'm sure the rich are enjoying their lazy boys:)

My Husband, My Hero

I just have to share what Brian endures each day on his way to and from work...he never complains but if it was me I would be bitter! For the past 2 months he has taken the bus to work and alot of times on his way back home b/c it's hard to find a rickshaw at rush hour. The buses here are old and smelly:) Not really b/c they are old but b/c people do not take advantage of baths and deodarant like they should. The buses are very, very, very crowded and so most people are standing up and hanging on to the hand rails. So you can imagine...surrounded by deodarantless, showerless people, holding their arms up into the air, squished into a space meant for 40 yet somehow every morning there's a hundred, and your face is at armpit level. Ugh! For a twenty minute ride or more. And being so crowded Brian says alot of times he is hanging out the door just to get a ride:) I've tried taking pictures of the buses here but it's hard to capture while i'm moving and the bus is moving...i'll keep working on it. Anyway, my husband is a saint. We are trying to look for a vehicle but in Bangalore you don't have the luxery of a strip of car dealers to visit. Thankfully Brian has a friend that owns 3 used car dealerships and is bringing some for him to look at at work.Maybe soon he'll be able to ride arm pitless to work :D

Bathroom Talk

I never thought about the fact that some people in the world don't use toilet paper:) It makes perfect sense to have an alternative to using massive amounts of trees to do this job and to conserve on waste, but it just never crossed my mind. In India there are usually hand held water sprayers next to the toilets. I haven't yet figured out how they spray themselves and then somehow just become dry enough to put their pants back on but I'm assuming there's a system:) I do know that you can't shake hands with your left hand b/c it is used in this cleaning process. At one home I visited I noticed they didn't have a sprayer in the bathroom (i was using paper napkins:), so I asked the wife how they cleaned up in this situation--she knew i was asking out of curiousity. She said they use a mug of water. I realized I had seen a bucket full of water with a cup in it, but i thought it was to catch the leaking water from the faucet:) All public places have toiltet paper which I'm thankful for!
Another conservation method is having small, individual hot water heaters for each bathroom (if it even has hot water--thankfully our's do--except the kitchen--which means washing dishes with cold water). You flip a switch next to the light switch to heat it up and then turn it off when you are done. You just have to remember to turn it on in enough time to warm up before your shower. There aren't large, central water heaters that stay heated and supply every room with hot water.
Another, bathroom issue...we are in the process of potty training Haddon. Mainly b/c diapers are so expensive here (disposable I should say). We brought a ton of Kai's size 3 diapers with us knowing this fact ahead of time. (My brother and sister-in-law graciously gave us almost a years supply of diapers when Kai was born!) but we only brought a few packs of size 5 for Haddon. Since he is not even close to being potty trained, and having run out of his size, he is now wearing Kai's size 3 diapers:D They actually fit him but don't quite hold the same amount of overnight liquids as the size 5:) Poor child:) we'll be stocking up in December in the States if he is still wearing them.

Thanks for enduring the bathroom topics--i just find them interesting:)

Corban's Racing Project

Corban and Haddon Dancing

Here are the boys dancing to our techno doorbell:) it plays a different tune each time it rings:)

This Morning

This is a picture of two woman carrying belongings on their head. It's in the street in front of our apartment. You can see many people walking to work or to their house. Women carry goods on their heads with the help of a helmet type support. We see alot of them carrying large urns which they bring to a nearby public well to fill up with water for their household; which means they don't have running water at their house or tent.

The other picture is of the flowers on our balcony that Brian bought a few weeks ago. 3 for $5! (Sorry I'm always giving you prices:) I just think of what it would cost in the u.s. for 3 potted plants and get excited. Side note: A friend emailed and said we must be saving lots of money living here, but about the only things that cost less than the u.s. are food, labor and plants. Everything else is the same or much more:)

There is a man that lives and works on the side of the road near our apartments selling plants. He lives in a blue tarp tent like many do here. The flower to the right had a beautiful, exotic, yellow flower on it until Haddon decided it was fun to take it off:) Hopefully it'll bloom again.

One Last Time

I promise this will be the last time I blog about grocery shopping!! You can tell what kind of life I have when my blog consists mainly of grocery excitement:) A pretty uneventful one:D but nonetheless, i just had to post some pics of our shopping experience...we take the umbrella stroller to carry Haddon and grocery bags, Kai is in a carrier on my hip and Corban rides his scooter. In the store we use a tiny grocery basket that Haddon rides in the front of and Corban in back when he gets tired of walking. He had all the food stacked on his legs:)
And guess what I found at the checkout counter?!! Tortillas!! I could not believe my eyes. They weren't called tortillas, an indian name instead, but they are TORTILLAS! We are having mexican tonight!! They were 6 for 20 cents! Can't beat that.

I put the picture of Corban on his scooter to show the night air. Nope, it's not snow falling, it's dust that can only be seen at night on a camera:) But it's there all the time and we are breathing it!:D but i just tell myself that we lived near 100's of refineries in Houston plus a landfill less than a 1/4 mile:) pollution is everywhere.

BTW...this is interesting to me...eggs and milk are not kept cold at the store. I guess the eggs are really fresh. The milk comes in boxes (with a longer shelf life) and doesn't have as much protein as in the States. You have to add protein powder to it which means the boys get to drink chocolate milk:) they love that. You can get fresh milk delivered to your door but it has to be boiled. I'm usually walking out the store with 4-6 boxes which lasts under a week in our house.

Video Clips of the Boys

My friend Heather inspired me to try taking videos on our digital camera and posting them. The ones i took are grainy, i'll have to figure out how to get better quality, but for now these are fun...Kai got the most air time:)The one of Corban failed to work for some reason. We'll try again later...

talking Kai on the bed

Haddon signing ABC's

Kai eating peas

A Few More Pics...

This is a little shopping strip near our apt. There are really nice shopping malls and stores here but local shops like these line the streets wherever you go. Bangalore is known in India as the shopping and dining city--sounds a lot like Houston:)

Pronounced "Shoba Aquamarine". Just one of many complexes near us.

Cows live and walk on the streets. They are considered gods by the Hindus

This is the chicken store where we buy our weekly chicken supply. They're the white things in the tall cage--alive:) It sounds and smells gross but tastes so good! I don't think I can go back to frozen chicken breasts.

Never A Dull Moment

We had an interesting weekend...a few highlights...

We found out on Friday that our van (the one with racing stripes) that was supposed to arrive on Saturday from Delhi (a 10 day trip) was infact not arriving on Saturday and had not even been manufactured at the factory yet! The manager called to tell us the bad news saying we had another form to fill out (b/c we are foreigners) although they had called us 10 days ago to tell us it had been shipped:D This is the way things run in India. So we are still rickshawing around town and now on the lookout again for another car.

Saturday I spoke with a doctor about a diaper rash Kai has had for 2 weeks. She told me about a clinic that could see him at 6:30 pm. (Doctors here work late hours!) She told me what landmark it was near. In Bangalore there are no street signs and no address numbers on buildings so it can be very vague and abstract when trying to find a location. On the way to the appointment we picked Brian up outside his office. The rickshaw driver drove us around for an hour. Finally we had him to just drop us off. We walked around for awhile looking for it and I prayed for the Lord to help us find this place before the doctor left. We were about to give up when this nice family stopped to see if we needed help. We told them the name of the clinic and they said they were personal friends of the doctors and would take us there! It ended up being right next to Brian's work:), exactly where we picked him up--so we had made a big circle:) We were able to see the doctor at 8:00 pm. Guess how much it cost to see the doctor? 150 rupees which equals $3.75!!!! Doctor's are not wealthy here obviously. The prescription he gave us cost $2.70! Wow!! Although it was the most unclean medical facility i've ever been too it was well worth the $3.75 and Kai just stayed on my lap the whole time when seeing the doctor.

After church on Sunday we decided to go to Commercial Street, a huge shopping area (like a Chinatown), to look for a rug for Kai to be able to roll around on.(All homes have hard flooring here b/c of the dust) On the way, in the rickshaw, Kai had a blowout bowel movement! It was everywhere. So here we are, Kai in my lap, yellow poop all over him and ofcourse I only have 3 wipes to work with:) Thankfully I had a change of clothes! I bathed him with the 3 wipes while the people in the car next to us just stared and laughed:) We had to throw away his clothes along with the diaper b/c they were saturated. Thank goodness for diaper bags! btw--we found a cheap rug and Kai had a blast rolling around on it.

Traffic on the way to Commercial Street

Commercial Street

Cheese Marvelous Cheese!

The new grocery store opened on Friday and--it has cheese!!!!!! Cheddar and mozarella! Mexican food is soon to come at the Frazier house! Now I just have to make homemade salsa and tortillas:) I bought all the ingredients so we'll see if I am craving it enough to do that this week:)
The store is really big and has everything you can get in India. I am so thankful that it's so close. The Lord takes care of me!!
I don't have a pic yet of the store but i'll take one on our next trip--tomorrow:)

Happy Birthday Ghandi!

Today Brian was off for the National Holiday--Ghandi's Birthday. It was a beautiful day outside. We went to the pool at our apt. complex. The water was freezing to me but Corban and Haddon had a blast! Later we went to meet some of Brian's co-workers for lunch. One of the interns from Italy was having her last day before returning home. Then we went to buy Brian a guitar. It was cheaper to buy one here than to have it shipped from the U.S.! Now we'll be able to sing and dance after daddy comes home from work.
Shortly after arriving back to our apartment there was a knock on the door. I won't go into all the details but we got "taken". This guy told us we had an international package waiting for us and needed a down payment for it to be delivered (in a believable explanation). The down payment amounted to about $5. 50. I won't say which one of us believed the guy and payed him:) but needless to say he didn't return with a package. It happens everywhere. He saw white people and assumed dollar signs. It's sad when someone resorts to making a living at lying. I prayed he would find an honest occupation-- and Jesus. After that we watched a movie and some soccer. Good day--thanks Ghandi!

This is some landscaping surrounding the pool. My camera doesn't do justice to all the beauty around us.

"The Meal"--Many restaurants serve this vegetarian meal. It's all you can eat. Made up of different sauces, gravy, goop however you might describe them:), bread, cracker like flat bread, rice, yogurt, banana and a little dessert that i didn't know what it was. All for $1.50! Amazingly, you can get very full on this.

Some of Brian's co-workers
The girl 2nd from right was leaving yesterday to go back to Italy