What's Up?

We've been keeping a pretty low profile lately, and haven't taken any big or exciting trips. We've been re-visiting a few of our favorite places and bumming around the apartment with the kids trying to keep out of the oppressive heat (which is going to get worse over the next month). But that doesn't mean things haven't been just as interesting..

I did set out on a mission to find a very small phillips screwdriver last week, thinking it would be a 10 minute run to the hardware store and back. The little DVD player that we got for the kids had something break and I needed to get the offending part out of the player before it rattled around and shorted something out.

The problem is, there's not such thing as one-stop shopping here. There are 100 hardware 'stalls' within any given square mile, and all of them have different things. It really amounts to a bunch of little shops that fill up with whatever they can get their hands on, and then hope people come by and happen to need what they have. Of course, out of the 20 shops that we stopped at over a 2 hour drive, exactly none of them had what I needed. I did get a good tour of some different parts of the city, though, so it wasn't a total bust.

Last Saturday we went to Pondy Bazaar again. It was hot and crowded, but we enjoyed it as usual. There were lots of beggars this time. Much more than we usually see. It was sad to see filthy little kids in rags, not much older than Micah, tugging on your clothes and begging for money. The usual sight is a mother with an infant in her arms shoving an empty baby bottle in your face and making the "gimme money" sign, but the little ones operating autonomously was something new.

Things we won't miss:

• Backwards light switches. Up is off, down is on. I can't tell you how hard it is to get that through your head, especially when you're searching for a switch to turn a light or fan on.
• Feet washing. We must wash the kids' feet 10x a day. Certainly any time they get on a bed to take a nap, watch a movie, or play, or walk on something that's supposed to be clean. The pollution is so thick here that it actually settles out and creates a nice thick layer of soot on everything.
• Attention. I can't wait to be anonymous again. Being constantly stared at and the center of attention any time we step outside got old quick. Not only does everyone want to know where you're from, they want pictures of you, with the kids, without the kids, just the kids, them with the kids, and so on, and on, and on. Luanne even had someone take a snap shot with her at the mall bathroom this weekend while she was washing her hands.
• Tap water. It'll be nice to have clean water from the faucet again. No more double rinsing dishes, brushing your teeth with bottled water, changing out big ol' water jugs. Oh yeah, that'll be nice.

We're gearing up for our trip home, which is 5 short weeks away. I just arranged the tickets last weekend, and I could almost feel the business class seat reclining beneath me. The flight from Chennai leaves late at night, so with a little luck the kids will be out soon after take off and the adults can relax a little bit.