MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I was not on the ball enough to do a Christmas card photo, so this is what you get :) We are dressed in typical Indian clothes... the long tunic and pants with scarf is called salwaar kameez and is what you see ALL the time. Many women wear saree but in younger women it is for dressing up only. I can' remember what the men's outfit is called (kurti or something) but it is similar. The clothes are pretty comfortable. We - meaning the girls and I - wear ours to church!
The Crocs on our feet are NOT traditional Indian, but they work great for keeping our feet off the cold marble floors, and cushion them too. We wear them like slippers.
Notice my clay horse, a recent aquisition that I am VERY pleased with. He stands at the door until I want him in my family photo.
So no newsletter either, but of course, if you are reading this blog, you know all there is to know, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and all the best for 2008.

We would love to see our friends on this side of the world!

Oh Christmas tree, Charlie Brown Christmas tree, how scrawny are your branches...

We needed a Christmas tree, so off we went to the tree farm. Hahaha. NOT! But we did go to a plant place on the side of the road! They had great looking poinsettias too, but I thought they were expensive so we didn't get one. Anyway, there was only a few to choose from, so we picked the tallest one, paid extra for a little bit larger pot, and 300 rupees ($8) later, we were on our way. The tree got to ride in the front :). I had bought some star shaped lights at Diwali time, so we put them on then realized we had no decorations. Alex and Isaac and I made paper chains, and Sam made silver balls out of foil, then we punched lights out of foam and strung them too. Later at the market I got some felt ornaments, but we started with only homemade. It was really fun to make them! And even though our tree is kind of Charlie Brown-ish, I think it is really cute, and it really helps it feel like Christmas! Especially now that it has presents underneath!
One side note, we had some difficulty locating wrapping paper (although during Diwali season I think it is easier to find) but when we did find it, it was really cheap! 3 rupees a sheet for the foil kind (the only kind). The sheets aren't too big, but it is still cheap, even to use 3 sheets. I like that it is so shiny - it reflects the tree lights.





I have never let the kids do the spray snow, because it is so messy on the inside of the window. But here we can put it outside, so I brought a couple cans and they stenciled all over the door and windows. I also had brought a Playmobil Holiday House where Santa and Mrs Claus live and elves make toys. SO CUTE! So we played with that for awhile, and that helped it seem like Chistmas time too! We have a couple CDs of music too, but it seems weird for it to be Christmas when first, it isn't very cold, and second, there are no signs of it anywhere. No music at the mall, no Santas, no sales, no tree lots, no nothing. Very strange.

A video taste of shopping in Delhi

This is JanPath Market in Delhi. I had been there several times but never heard all this yelling before! This is not really great video (I wasn't thinking far enough ahead) but it sill give you some idea of the chaos and craziness that is the market. The thing I notice the most (even more than the noise) is just the sheer numbers of people - EVERYWHERE! You can't look anywhere ever that there is not some person. Weird. Keep in mind this is a weekday.

the high-tech world of key cutting in India

I needed a spare key, so naturally I stopped on the side of the road at the Key Man to get one cut. Or filed, which is really how it works.He did have vice grips and calipers, and a nice selection of files. You know, all the latest gear.

It cost me 80 rupees for a brass key (which I thought was steep, but he didn't budge) and of the 2 he made, one worked. So really it was 160 rupees!

It cracks me up that you can get pretty much anything you want on the side of the road. And where is this guy when it rains?

I especially liked the "store" next to the Key Man, which I noticed halfway thru the key cutting, as a motorcycle pulled over and came in for "service".

Check out the name... "R.K. Auto Works". Like it isn't just a spot of dirt! Oh well, might as well think big!

Helac India Private Limited (whew, long name!)

The Helac plant is in Faridabad, a city to the west of Gurgaon. It is an industrial town. That means it is even smellier, dirtier, and uglier than other places. Driving through, you see few women, few trees, and much garbage. They hired a guy to paint this sign on the fence, but even though they gave him a logo business card to copy from, he still spelled 2 words wrong (including the name of the state, Haryana) and had to repaint it. Looks pretty good now, though, eh?This is just inside the main door to the right - it is the Quality Manager's office and parts checking area. The things to notice in these photos are all the shavings from the planes. They do all this work with hand tools. The boards come in looking very rough, and from the looks of all the shavings, it is a wonder there is any board left!This is an Indian table saw. Draw a line and use a hand saw. The finished product looks amazingly good when you consider the tools.These photos are of the main offices - Sumit took the one on the end and Randy the one farther in. The room at the end of the hall on the right is the conference room, and on the left is the bathroom. On the left side of the aisle are these cubicles. The two offices are pretty nice, other than the floors which are just rough cement. The cubicles have windows except for the part where there is no glass in them.This is the main plant area. It has lots of natural light from the roof, which is good since the power is off half the time. The men working there are the electricians pulling wire through those conduit on the wall. This next photo shows how the guy got the wire wrapped around the ladder, and they had to pull it all back out and unwind it and start again. Notice also the quality, OSHA-approved ladder, made from 2x4s that used to be a crate full of stuff from the US.
Bob and Ken came from Enumclaw to set up the first machines and help wire them up. We had them over for spaghetti the night they caught their plane home.Then Phay came to train the gear cutters. We did not subject him to dinner with our kids
This is the big giant generator they brought in to compensate for the fact that the power is off half the time. It is bad in Gurgaon and Delhi but I think worse in Faridabad.This is the view from the far end of the factory, once all the machines were set, the power was wired up, etc. The floor looks even from here, but it really isn't. Where I am standing to take this photo there is a roll-up door to another area of the building. This next photo is of a crew of people tearing up the brick floor. I don't know why, but they pried it up and broke all the bricks into smallish chunks. This is how many roads are here, too, the busted up bricks get pressed into the dirt and make bumpy roads that aren't much better than plain dust!Randy showing the kids how the machines work. In India, they are all old enough to get a job in a factory of some kind. It isn't legal until 14 years, but there is alot of child labor here, even in dangerous jobs.

The Helac factory has two parts - two large rooms. These next photos are of the other room, which until recently has been occupied by several massive looms belonging to the previous tenant. They were supposed to be removed long ago, but things move slowly here in India!
I thought the looms were pretty cool - they were weaving rugs and it looks like a very complicated process. What the top photo shows is the end of the loom which had hundreds of wires that the wool is threaded between. The back has the partially finished rug. Set-up must take forever.
This is a chunk of floor that came up with the removal of a loom. Quality work. Notice the many layers of cement (or whatever) you can see. This is Randy's executive bathroom. Hahaha. Actually the factory bathroom. Nice, eh? I wouldn't use it!
This is the inside of the office bathroom. Again, no glass in the windows. Sometimes there is some filthy plexiglass. The wires strung across the room and out the window are a nice touch. This shows how these buildings are put together. There used to be a door there, but we don't need it so we brick it up. And when we need a door somewhere else, we just bash a hole where we want it. Simple! They bricked it, plastered over and painted it and you had to look to find it.
This is the other part of the factory after the looms were removed and it was cleaned up a bit. Again, the floor looks smooth but isn't.
This is how I know.... we took our rollerblades one Saturday when Randy had to check in at work, and while he worked, we rolled! I think Isaac was the only one who actually fell, but the floor is pretty uneven and it was close a few times for me!The factory is very close to being ready to actually make something. And it has only been four months! It isn't Randy's fault - you would simply NOT believe the amount of government paperwork and hassle it is to open a business here. It has been very frustrating for him. Maybe someday I will blog about the corruption and extortion and bribes expected.

Meat Eaters in the Land of Veg

One of our biggest challenges has been the food. First off, everything is ridiculously spicy. Of course, I admit that I am a spice-wimp, but still. There is alot of potato dishes, and many strange (to us) vegetables. Then there is the fact that most Hindus are vegetarian - not all, different regions have different views, but most. And then the thing where they worship their cows. Someone told me it is illegal to sell beef in Delhi. So chicken is very available (and about the same price as US) and fish (expensive, but probably about the same as US), and lamb is readily available too, but beef and pork are rare. I bought bacon once, and it was gross - more like salt pork but not even that good. And once at Subway I saw someone put bacon on their sub and I would swear it was raw. So if that is how they eat it, no wonder it is not popular! I have recently found pork ham (yes, you have to specify, because it is most likely to be chicken ham) and it is pretty good, but no other pork seems to be available.

I wanted to blog about the meat, because the butcher shop here is really something. There is a shop at the mall across the road that we walk to, called Blue Water, and I get chicken there pretty often, but the first time I went in there I couldn't believe it. It wasn't the whole lambs skinned out and hanging along the walls, or the rows of fish, or the really bad smell, or the fact that they weigh your stuff directly on the scale, the same scale that has weighed the raw meat for every customer all day (and maybe all month!). Nope, none of those things. It was the guy cutting meat up on a raised platform with a knife held in his toes that was the most bizarre to me! (Altho the huge chunk of log that they use as a chopping block that is probably growing a thousand kinds of bacteria wasn't really my favorite either.)

So you go in and order lamb chops (as I did once, and won't do again, since I didn't know how to cook them and they were like leather, and there isn't enough meat on there to feed a mosquito) and they pull down a lamb and hack off a chunk and then if you want them into chops they give it to the guy on the raised platform and he chops it on that nasty log. If you order chicken you can have it "cleaned" by the guy with the knife in his toes.

It actually makes sense because it leaves both his hands free to manipulate the meat, but the concept is kind of gross. Also, the big knife (can you see it there in front of the guy with the hat? It is fixed in place somehow and is used for cutting bigger things) gets "cleaned" by wiping it with water out of a bowl that sits beside him to dip his finger. My guess is it never sees soap or hot water. Frankly it is amazing that we have never gotten sick!

Recently, tho, I discovered that a guy in our Church branch is a grocery wholesaler and he can get BEEF!! this photo is of Christelle and I the day he delivered our steak and roast, and even tho I don't have the best ways to cook it, we have enjoyed it alot! Apparently he can get pork too, so we will give that a try next.

Incidently, there is no such thing as a Crock Pot here, or I would own one!

Getting a car so we can get around! it's a new Toyota Innova

Our first item of business once we arrived in India was to get a car. We had already decided to buy the Innova, since it seats 7 and looks and feels like a minivan. I wanted red since everyone here (and I do mean everyone) drives white or silver cars. I don't know how anyone finds their car in a parking lot - they all look the same! Anyway, our first day in India, Randy says we need to go to Toyota, and look, we can see it from the hotel, it is just a little ways. Let's not hire a car, we'll just walk. I laugh every time I think of this. Several things were wrong with this plan. First of all, it was about 100 degrees out. Second thing, it LOOKED very close, but really wasn't, especially since roads don't go straight to anywhere and there are no crosswalks or sidewalks. Thirdly, we are white, and white people do NOT walk places, and white people with 4 kids walking and crossing roads is enough to cause a traffic pileup. If our goal was to throw our kids in the deep end, we succeeded. We were sweaty, tired, and lost, and the staring was something else. We were such a freak show! Once we had to cross the street, and that means just weaving thru the cars and climbing over the median (they all have fences here). We also had to go thru a barbed wire fence. The cars were so close together and we were such a long chain of people! Then we ended up down a dead-end road, and when we stopped to figure out which way, some motorcyclists that were stopped to eat came to offer help and ask us if we wanted some tea. (?!) Then we had to turn around and backtrack to a road that went through.

Finally, we did arrive at the Toyota dealership, where we ordered the car, selected options and then asked them for a ride back to the hotel! Needless to say, the kids insisted on going places by car after that! Next step was getting money from Helac to pay for the car, and that proved to be quite a challenge too. The money wire took 2 weeks to arrive. (Sounds bad, but we can top it - we got a second wire from Helac (into our account since the company account wasn't open yet - that is a story for another day) and 3 MONTHS later we were still trying to wire it back out!)

By the time we were ready for them to deliver the car we had hired a driver, by stealing him from the taxi service we used :) . They delivered the car and we were so excited that we all piled in and Randy drove around the neighborhood! Then he drove the kids to the bus the next morning.

One more day and Ajay started work and we were mobile!! Wow, what a luxery that was! The options on this car include a CD player, roof rack, floor mats, a rear bumper guard, and seat covers. No tint on the windows, that is illegal here. Unlike most people, we park IN our driveway, which is narrow and as you can see, has a tree in the middle of it. Randy had to chip off a part of the fence so the gate would open wide enough.

The total bill, including options, licensing, registration and insurance was 950,000 rupees (or 9 and a half lahk rupees, as they say).

Randy drives occasionally, like to the bus stop or even the airport and the church a time or two, and he doesn't seem to have any trouble with the wrong side of the road. I tried to drive in the neighbourhood and couldn't keep it on the right side! Now, this IS India, so maybe no one would notice! The shifting is REALLY weird- with your left hand but the gears are in the same positions as at home.

One more thing to mention about the car - after a few weeks we had to go back to the dealership for our permanent license plate. They called and said it was ready so off we went. Of course, it wasn't REALLY ready - the guy was gone for lunch, and he is the only one, etc etc. The same old song and dance that we are beginning to expect. Anyway, after a wait, the guy came and made our plate. Yep, made it. It consists of a plastic plate and some letter and number stickers. Pretty hi-tech!

like everything here, no matter how simple, someone has to do it for you. Even to screw on a license plate, that requires a certain guy and you have to go to them, and there is no way to speed it up or make it simpler, it just has to be that way.