Train station in Bangalore


Chapter 2

Blog? What blog? After a long hiatus -- JP and AJ are back in EFFX y’all!!

There are reasons … many versions, in fact… that we can offer as to why our efforts to post were stymied, but there are plenty of other stories to tell. So cozy up now, furry friends, and I will tell you tales of Mr. Alex (as he is called here) and myself and what we’ve been up to in our new home.

When we left off, you had met Egg Man. If it was not stated, we were thrilled to meet him, as we were somewhat unsure of what to eat those first few days. It’s not as if there’s a scarcity of food, but the kinds of food, their names, the manner in which it’s presented were wholly unfamiliar. More specifically, we were not sure how to ask for what soupy mix from which medieval looking cauldron from which sweaty barefoot guy in a roadside stand, and whether or not we should jump right in with our naïve, antiseptic bellies. In that way, we were glad to see Egg Man. Alex mentioned the chicken hair (feather pieces) on the eggs, which leads us to a general theme in our new existence here: we feel much more in touch with what we eat, being reminded always of the origins of our food.

Egg Man also delivers warm raw chicken to our door, warm not from sitting out from the fridge, but from being recently alive. Soon after Egg Man came Milk Man. Not glass bottles 1950s milk man, but our sweet barefoot snaggle toothed milk man! We’re unsure if he milks them himself, but the cows are milked into a large metal container that he rides around town on his bicycle. He rings our 50 decible buzzer at which point we run outside with our plastic pitcher into which he transfers milk with the metal dipper that they used to drink from the well in “Little House on the Prairie”. Mr. Alex Pasteur was the first to boil our milk and discover how the cream then rises for skimming. We were not so adept the first few times and had our cereal with essentially half and half. Now we are down to something like 8%. With some practice we may achieve 2%.

You may be dismayed to read that we’re still eating cereal, that we’ve not been good Indians and eating idlies off of banana leaves for breakfast as we did our first morning here. As much as we’re trying to assimilate, we continue our dirty cereal habit. But back to our theme, we’ve become painfully aware in the case of cereal as well, that poor corns need to sacrifice their lives to become our beloved corn flakes. Just as our milk tastes more flavorful and the chicken fresher, the flakes do taste very corn-y, and there are occasional hard jaw-breaking corn kernels among the flakes to remind us who died for our food.

But let’s go back to chicken for a moment. One evening, we saw an amazing sight. As we were taking an evening stroll, we passed by a parked moped that started squawking. The moped was loaded with stuff as they often are, but this time it was different. There were about 40 or 50 live chickens gathered in bunches by their legs and attached upside down to every free surface of the moped; we wanted to hug the squawking, undulating, chubby hoola skirt made of chickens were it not for their beaks. After we spent some time marveling at the sight, a mustached man looked at us and giggled, “Chicken Fry!”

Our town is like nothing we’ve ever lived in. Addresses are meaningless, half the people are barefoot, and mopeds dodge livestock and battle with ox-drawn carts for road space. Regarding addresses, I remember laughing so hard when our friend James’ address in Nicaragua, when he was in the Peace Corps, was something like “3 and half blocks East of Texaco gas station” and his friend’s was “Behind Home Plate.” Laugh no more, as we are “Opposite Police Station.” In these early days, most of what we do is an adventure, both a challenge and a joy. Of course there are frustrations, having come from the land of schedules, efficiency to a place where “tomorrow” means “maybe next week”, but we recognize that there are things in this world that may be lovelier.

If you’re interested in the weather (Roland) it’s very dry, which allows for very warm days (high 80s) and cool nights (low 60s). These are our estimates, and this is “winter”. In the morning, many people wear ski hats (the kind that goes down to your neck and your face pokes out) and scarves. This is a bad omen. But we need no omens, as every Indian loves to tell us how sickeningly hot it will get in the “summer” -- March to June. Alex was told today it gets “Hot as hell. I mean H-E-L-L. HELL.” Given that in this town the English is not so good, and we rarely if ever come across rhetorical expressions, this one resonates.

Bangalore
Last weekend, Alex and I went on a mission. Banglaore is the IT/outsourcing center of India = modern amenities = these country bumpkins out = See ya Vellore, hello Bangalore! We was pimpin’ out in the big city wearing our best burlap sacs. The sidewalks weren’t paved with gold, but they was paved.

We knew we were in the right spot when we went to an English language bookstore and rocked out to early 90s hits. “Informer” (Snow) has made a big comeback – we heard it in English and Hindi at several hot venues in the city. Let me qualify “hot”. Our mission was to supply ourselves with relative luxuries we couldn’t find in Vellore – a lamp (anything but bare lightbulbs), a printer, a wooden spoon, dried basil, oregano, pillows that were not hard as rocks. So we ended up spending too much time lurking at the Spencer’s and Nilgiri’s supermarkets and going to various malls.

Alex, being white and male, when you put on India-goggles assumes the appearance of a solid gold effigy of himself spewing diamonds, wads of cash, and various sundry items from every pore and orifice of his body. This was much to his dismay and my amusement, as I would step aside as he got attacked and swarmed by every imaginable vendor, beggar, entertainer, or con man in sight. And apparently persistence is the rule, as when we would wave off another plastic snake seller or bongo drum player, “no” meant “try harder, ” “wiggle the snake in a more sultry fashion,” etc.

Our impression of Bangalore was that of a burgeoning, progressively modern city, approaching what I remember Seoul to be appear in the 1980s. From the areas that we saw, there were some interiors, micro-pockets and cells, but no large swaths, that were indistinguishable from the developed world. We know that this will change rapidly. Already there are fewer mustaches. We found success in Bangalore, if that means lugging a suitcase and a bursting duffle bag full of modern treats on the 4 hour train ride back home.

Earth-Shattering Events That Have Occurred Since Our Last Posting:

Monkey stole bananas from our terrace.

Men from an adjacent construction site were using the side of our building as a urinal. I yelled from the window and told them to stop. They did not understand me, nor apparently what might be objectionable.

Our water ran out today. We called maintenance to refill the tank on our roof.

We hired a cook/maid. She started yesterday. She will come a few evenings a week to prepare our dinners and clean the apartment.

Our neighbor has scorpions. Men stripped the palm tree near their home and said the problem was solved.

Alex has stepped in crap twice this last week. This is not a good start. There are dangers lurking in every corner.

Alex attended his first hospital campus planning meeting. Excited to use the new printer for his document, he realized we didn’t have paper. In a scramble, we parsed together scraps of Jeeyung’s diaper and faecal weight forms and printed. To Alex’s dismay, when the office-helper photocopied the document he did both sides. Fortunately, the doctors got a kick out of talking about feces and construction budgets at the same time.