Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Our apartment's gate

Today is a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood... OK so I'll stop with the Mr. Roger's references!  But today was truly a beautiful day with bright, blue skies and crisp, chilly air.  One that I will have to document and reminisce about in the midst of the heat that's just about a month away.  Today was a great day for a walk to get to know the ole neighborhood a little better.

Almost every house in Delhi is "gated" - meaning there is a gate (and usually a guard) in front of the house.  Walking around our neighborhood today, I was surprised that not a single gate looked the same as any other one.  It makes sense... this IS a country where many things are custom or hand-made.  To give you an idea of some different gates (and guards) around our 'hood, I took my camera out with me on my walk today.  Enjoy!

With a view into their garden.

Very ornate gate!

A modern wooden gate

Guard (in typical uniform) was happy to be photographed (next he asked me to photograph him with his friend).

Beautiful detail

Typical "guard house" outside many of the gates.  These guards were smiling and laughing before I took the picture!  There was also a fourth man inside the guard house.

Cool shadows

Rustic charm

Lazy Sunday afternoon card game (notice the man sleeping)

Finally back at our gate (with a view of our guard house).  Our guard works part-time, mostly in the evenings.

I often wonder what's going on behind many of the gates in Delhi... if these gates could only talk, what a story they would tell!

The sky is falling... and don't let the closet bugs bite!

Very happy no one was in bed when the ceiling fell!

When we came home from Neemrana, Karen found large chunks of our bedroom ceiling on her side of the bed and on the floor.  We noticed cracks forming a few weeks before, but never thought it would be such a disaster.  Thankfully, we went on vacation and Karen was spared!

Now to our closets.  When we moved in last year, we noticed wood powder and cracks in the tops of our closets in both our bedroom and guest room along with some dead bug skins.  We notified the maintenance department that takes care of our home, and they promptly came in blazing with a bug spray.  They ended up drenching the closets with termite spray diluted in kerosene (I just found out about the kerosene part...another story), leaving us with a uninhabitable house for a few days.  We ended up staying at a friend's apartment while the clean-up crew (one poor guy who is ordered around by 4 "supervisors") eventually cleaned up the mess dripping from our closets.  I figured any living creature was now dead in our home!

Fast forward 8 months.  When we came back to India at the very end of July, we noticed a chirping or gnawing sound coming from somewhere in our bedroom.  We ignored it for a few weeks as we thought it was probably our air conditioner or some other noise India makes.  The chirping grew louder over the next few weeks, so I started to investigate.  While doing the manly job of testing the closet's wood integrity, I just about put my entire fist through the paper thin upper-side panel.  I shrieked.  I remembered I had pictures of the bugs from last year and so began a Google investigation.  After 20 minutes, I came to the conclusion that the bugs were known as "old house borers".  They are known to make noises after their 4th year of infestation (after their pupa stage).  You don't want to see what they look like the 5th year!!  Nasty!  Karen and I immediately placed a work order to have these closets taken down as they were infested!

Below is a slideshow of pictures with an audio clip of me talking to the bugs.  You can definitely hear them in this clip...especially after the 3rd hello!!  I wish I got Karen talking to them...they respond to her voice more!!  I don't know what they are saying.  I don't know if I want to know...

The Upholsterers

The past three days I've had the pleasure of sharing our living room/dining room with two Indian upholsterers.  They arrived each day at 10am and worked until 4pm with a half hour lunch break in between.  The younger of the two spoke very limited English while the older one was like me....didn't even attempt to speak the other person's language.  Well, I did try to say "Pani", which means water, but I think I butchered it so I fell back to English and said "water" or "wuter," which they understood and partook.

After they set up shop and began working in our living/dining room, the place seemed split in two.  I worked in the dining area with my fairly new Macbook Pro while they worked in the living room area with their century old hand-crank sewing machine.   I felt a bit awkward, so I decided to make the situation even more awkward for the three of us.  After a short internal debate, I got up the nerve to ask if I could take pictures of them with my imposingly large camera.  Their response was one that I've grown to know well over the past few months.  It was the classic long blink with simultaneous head bobble...aka wobble, wiggle, or nod.  Expats in India have learned that this can mean yes, no, or maybe.  I felt optimistic, so I chose it to mean "yes."  I could tell they didn't know what to do once I put the camera to my eye, so I just smiled, did a little head bobble of my own and said "Ok."  Immediately, they seemed at ease and went back to work while I crawled around on the floor and took pictures of them from various cramped angles.  I know they thought I was crazy.  I figure they now have a good story to tell their friends and family!  Ten minutes later, to my delight, the younger guy came over to my laptop to take a look at the pictures I just downloaded.  Surprisingly he asked if I had a jump drive!  I told him I will make him a CD as he smiled at the laptop screen displaying their pictures.

Another highlight was watching cricket with them as we all worked.  I am still clueless when it comes to cricket, but it was fun seeing and hearing their passion for the game.  There were mostly sighs however, as India apparently didn't do well against South Africa.

Three days, two couches, two chairs and 4 dining chairs later, they were finished.  The bill was a whopping $77.  Their work was flawless!  We wrote them thank you cards and gave them a tip.  If you are wondering why the guy below has on a puffy jacket and matching hat, our apartment is cold and he's got style!  We have a space heater, but unless you are 3 inches from it, it's still cold.  Since Delhi is cold for only 2 months of the year, most homes are not equipped with heating.

Talented Fella!

During the first day

 

The final product

The Tortoise Beats the Hare!!

The first box!

Sorry, this is not your ordinary interesting post ooozing Indian culture, ethnology or folklore.  No, it's much more exciting than that!!!  Our sea shipment arrived last Thursday!  This serves as one excuse why this blog has been quiet for the past week!  

Fifteen boxes, two twin mattresses with box springs, a set of golf clubs, 1 air purifier, 18 dishes, 22 glasses, and other essentials such as a crock pot and 8 rolls of Bounty paper towels have made it to our new corner of the world!  Amazingly, there were only 3 injuries!  Our Brita water pitcher fractured its bottom, a small book shelf cracked its top shelf, and a tall standing oscillating fan broke it's only leg rendering it gimp.  Not too bad!  The packers at Charlotte Van and Storage come highly recommended.  Now we are left with a Himalayan mountain (side note regarding the word himalayan: After watching many science programs, I've officially dropped a syllable and switched from saying and thinking [him-uh- lay -uhn] to [huh- mahl -yuhn].  Sounds much more pompous, educated and interesting thanks to the Brits) of packing paper and a bunch of boxes filling our hallway.  As expressed before in a previous post, our bed is the highlight.  Nothing like your own bed! 

Now we await our AIR shipment (yes, the shipment that takes 15 hours to fly instead of 4 months to float!)!  Our sea shipment arrived in Delhi from Mumbi just last week and was delivered first thing.  Our AIR shipment continues to sit in storage in India where it has been for the past 3+ months.  Essentials like a jug of El Paso Taco seasoning mix, 2 jars of Country Time Lemonade mix, 2 bottles of Bar-B-Q sauce (forget which brand), 4 blue plastic totes of Karen's teaching supplies, and my tripod are the highlights of that shipment!  Here are some pictures of Move In Day!

***Update:  We just found our our air shipment is at the Beijing Airport!  What?!

 

Our Apartment

Our living room from the front entry way

Here are some snapshots around our apartment.  We are on the second floor (called 1st floor in India because the first floor is called the ground floor) of a 3-story gated complex.  Our apartment is about 1400 sq feet with 2 bedrooms, 1 & 1/2 baths.  The floors are all marble or tile and the ceiling is about 11 ft high.  There happens to be a bunch of built in cabinets.  Luckily, it came furnished with the basics.  We can't wait to get our shipment, though, as the mattresses here are like what you'd find in a college dorm.  Thick springy western beds are not the norm in India.

We have a large reverse osmosis with UV light water filter that makes good drinking water as the regular water would give us the runs.  There's a great big new fridge and a small washing machine which is also rare to have in India I am told.  We have an oven and a gas stove.  The gas is supplied by a large tank that is sitting in a cabinet.  Due to a large amount of power outages (we haven't had one yet), there are 6 heavy duty car like batteries that serve as our reserve power.  There are a ridiculous amount of lights around our place too, which may be why Delhi has so many power outages!  It takes about 15 seconds to turn on the proper light as there are about 12 switches grouped together for each room (a reason we are looking forward to getting our label maker in the shipment!).

There is no balcony or terrace, but the view from the large window in our living room is really pretty (nothing but green flowering tropical trees with parakeets and other pretty birds).  The landlord who lives on the ground floor said we can use their garden in front any time.  We might wait until mosquito season is over (should be about 3 more weeks when the temperature begins to drop).  Dengue fever is rampant this year due to the wettest monsoon season in 15+ years.  All the colorful designs in the stairwell are made of flower petals and the designs (called Rangoli) in our entryway are made of colored rice.  It is welcoming custom I believe.  Here are the pictures of our new home!