stress case

So, the other day i got word through informal channels that all foreigners on business visas needed to leave the country by the 31st of Oct. I found this out only bc a friend's company had become aware of it when their employees were unable to register at the foreign registration office. I am not registered on this visa there because I leave every 6 months.

So now all (or a lot) of the foreigners here are in total panic mode. No one knows what to do. the embassy isn't really helping, they are aware of the change in business visa rules, but say that it is up to the Indian govt to enforce this and they don't know anything and can't do anything. Meanwhile, we are all being directed to the FRRO (foreign regional registration office). Paul has been down there the last 3 days all day to get his employment visa renewed. So far.. he still doesn't have it renewed. It expires tomorrow. So who knows we both might be on planes tomorrow leaving the country.

And in the meantime I have applied for a renewal of my passport - they did not take my old passport as yet, so i could go back home and then see if the US would forward my new passport to me there or if India would let me back in on my soon to be expiring passport... doubtful though.

grr.. so stressed and confused. my work has been great though and are willing to give me whatever i need to get the situation sorted. so the question is, do i go back home on sat and wait for a new passport and get a new visa or just ignore all of it and hope i can get back into the country later?!

Charity Ball - Bali- Job- Car- US- Job- Leaving - Dubai

Omg.. It has seriously been forever and a day since I’ve blogged. But really I do think about it often, but my internet has been so spotty the last few months that I get turned away when I can’t even load the page quick enough.

So a quick (in my terms isn't so quick now is it??) recap!

Feb-May –

To recap the previous postings in case you forgot - Stacie left in March Boo Hoo. Adam, Lisa and Andrea came for a two week visit in April - YEAH!! And I spent a lot of these months helping the American Women’s Club organize a charity ball. It was fun, but also annoying a bit. I enjoyed all my pieces, but it made me see clearer some friends I’ve had here for a long time. I didn’t realize the extent of how people can be different when you transform to work life from friend life. Not interested in seeing that again anytime soon! We did amazing though and raised around 15 lakh (close to 30,000 USD or more actually…) I didn’t go to the ball though – it’s not really my cup of tea to be honest. I like organizing things and doing logistics, but I don’t like the stress of getting all dolled up for a night of way over priced eating and drinking of diet cokes.

So instead… Paul and I took off to Bali, Indonesia for a week of relaxation! I needed it after the stress of the ball and he had been swamped doing films and commercials. It was beautiful! We had a great time. It was a true vacation vacation. I’m not usually very good at those. I don’t typically like to go to a destination to just laze around, but that’s exactly what we did! We went to the beach on the north-west coast (Permuteran) and snorkeled and got insanely burned. Boo hoo. But our villa was beautiful and we had an outside bathroom which was super cool. And it wasn’t outrageously expensive. Woo hoo. Then we went inland to Ubud and stayed in a gorgeous villa where we had our own private pool, outside bed, table, bath and then inside bed, bath, etc. amazing! And again not outrageously expensive.

Since we were so sunburned it wasn’t easy to do much, so we lazed around the villa quite a bit venturing out for meals and a touch of sightseeing. One place we went was to the Monkey forest… and Paul got attacked by monkeys! WHAT? You scream… yep. Attacked by monkeys!

Haha. I was clicking away too. If you blow up the photo you can see paul's skin in this monkey's teeth!! What we think happened --- a small monkey was pestering some other monkeys and they’d been chasing it. We sat on the wall a ways away, but then in a flash that little monkey had snuggled up next to Paul and we think the other monkeys thought he was protecting it, so they all attacked him – 5 total! He had flesh wounds and all. Oops. And of course he wasn’t too bothered. He was letting the monkeys climb on him within another 30 minutes and he didn’t go get rabies shots either. I would have been hysterical!

May- June

The day before we went to Bali I got a call from a job I had all but given up on. I’d applied in Feb, heard nothing for ages, interviewed in March and then still didn’t hear anything until May… they offered me the job, but since we were leaving I said they’d have to wait until I got back and I’d come meet again to discuss the job. I was so irritated though. I had already planned to go to the states for a month then over to Berlin for a month to buy a flat. I even had a free apt in Berlin lined up. But…I took the job of course… it’s as close to a dream job as I’ve wanted here. It’s research, its HIV, I can work from home and I’m considered a consultant (consistent with my visa) and the salary is respectable (nothing near the west, but nothing as bad as ‘local’). Perfect. And I have been dying without real work for a long time. I still do my CORP work, but I needed something with real deadlines, real responsibility and something that would challenge me. Of course they are all a bit unorganized and slow, but I’ve managed to deal with that.

Oh and did I tell you we bought a car? Not a new car, but a 2001 maruti esteem automatic. It’s old and a bit janky, but it wasn’t expensive and I can drive it all over!! I love it. I was scared the first day when I had to drive it home from downtown.. But I did it and I wasn’t even nervous once I got behind the wheel. And then after weeks of trying to get it transferred from diplomatic tags to normal person tags, I finally got to drive it again to my new job – which is 11 km away and takes about an hour and goes through some of the messiest parts of Mumbai (driving wise). And I did it and now there is no stopping me. I seriously love driving around. I find it so easy which shocks me. I find it keeps me occupied and hour long journey’s feel like 20 minutes. I love listening to my ipod again and having the mobility to just go where I want with no purpose in mind. Yeah!! you really can't understand what a sense of accomplishment it is to drive here. the first few weeks, i seriously would just beem, i was so proud of myself for driving in the insanity and not getting hit or hitting anyone else! Think..2 cm away from other cars, massive pot holes, chaos all around (cows, cars, walkers, bikers, push carts, motorcycles, choas!!)

Back to the job…Since they wanted me to start right away I thought I better go back to the states for a quick visit before getting sucked into a job that wouldn’t let me leave for at least 6 months (or so I thought at the time). So with 3 days notice I found a flight (for the same price I normally pay 2 months in advance!!) and headed to the US for 2 weeks. 1 week in CA and 1 in OK. The one in OK turned into a bit more due to missing my connection and having to wait a few more days.. but that’s ok. Had more Mexican and spent more time with Stacie and my mom. It was a great trip, short, but glad I went back.

Then I got back and was ready to get into work.. Well they are slow like I said, so I didn’t start for another week and then very slowly at that. I read and researched and tried to make myself useful, but only after a month did I start to get the hang of what was going on. At this point, 2 months later I am still not officially hired, nor have I been paid, but I hear that its coming and I might just see 2 months of paychecks on the 1^st of Sept. We shall see!!

July-Aug

And… the kicker…don’t get too excited, but we have set a tentative “leave date” for India. We are thinking Dec 2010… my job should be finished in June of 2010 and it will be 9+ years here for Paul at that point, so it’s either dig in our heels and buy a place here or move on for a bit. I can’t imagine not living here, but I also think that it’s time for a break. I think we need to get away for a while and see if we really miss it and want to come back. We can always come back. I’ve seen plenty of people do it. Of course it would suck to ship all of our stuff out of here and then bring it all back again… but we’ll see. But I think a lot also depends on Pauls work and my job. If i am offered a better and greater position doing HIV after this is finished.. then it will be hard to turn down.

And where would we go??? No clue. That’s why it’s a tentative leave date. We think perhaps Berlin as a temporary location to chill out for a while, visit with friends, buy an apt, just enough time to get bored of not working there before moving on to somewhere else… or it could be LA.. Who knows? Only time will tell.

But since we’ve made that arbitrary decision, we’ve made a goal to see more of India in the meantime. Our first opportunity was the other weekend, when Paul had two whole days off.. I had wanted to go somewhere in India, but I had also just gone to the states recently… but Paul wanted to go to Dubai and eat beef. So off to Dubai we went again. It’s summer so over 100 each day with high humidity, but when you only have to walk 500 feet to the mall.. It’s not soo bad. Haha. We didn’t buy anything though – seriously depressing. We are too fat and they already had winter clothes out. So instead we filled our suitcase with a cooler and stocked it full of frozen foods – hamburgers, bacon, sausages, cool whip, cheese, etc. fun fun.

And now we are back into the grind of work and life.

I am looking forward to a trip to Kolkata at some point this year. My friend Clare who used to live in Mumbai then went to London for 2 yrs has made her way back to India. I’ve only been to Kolkata once and never left the hotel (post rickshaw run), so we need to go explore. And I want to go to Berlin in Sept or Oct for a week to try to find a place to buy! Even if it sits empty for the next 6 months at least we’ve invested and have a place to go to there. We’ll see if any of these things happen.

And that’s about it… life is work and work and see a few friends here and there. I miss the west these days. I miss having lots of different friends. I miss being able to fly 2 hrs to another city to see a friend who’s just had a new baby. I miss seeing my friends’ bands tour through my city. But for now I will be happy with the things that I will surely miss here – the maids, the car washers, the chaos, etc.

And just like every year.. it is not time for the Ganesh Festival! Hopefully i can get my lazy arse outside to take some photos. And by the way.. monsoon has been super pathetic this year. I don't think I have one photo of the rain. we had a mini-flood at the beginning and it seriously haven't rained for more than 5 minutes since june. Bad news for India my friends. But I must say that I have loved the cooler weather and not so soggy feet. It is already starting to heat up again for our Sept-Nov summer...but at least i'll have the car to potter me around in this year.

And.. if you made it this far... John Harrison, email me! I think you can click on my profile and email or find me on facebook. would love to catch up. the email i have for you no longer seems to work!

moving...

All I can say is I hope I never have to move within India again! I can only imagine how difficult it will be to actually leave India with all of this stuff!

The last 10 days or so have been insanely stressful. We have been dealing with Paul's work who are proving to be an absolute nightmare, vendors who are very unhelpful and a new apartment that is still not ready to move into!

I won't go into all the specifics because that will be reliving the frustration and exhaustion, but i hope that spark i see is the light at the end of the tunnel! We move on Friday, which is apparently an auspicious day according to Irish tradition.

And of course during the transition, we'll be without internet for a while. i'll miss my facebook and internet news, but am so looking forward to a new apartment!

life is full of ups and downs

Life was getting back to normal, I had begun to get over my post travel depression and was getting back into the swing of things. But then I got some bad news from back home on top of the nightmare of looking for apartments and now my life feels out of control again! I hate having so many factors in my life that I have absolutely no control over - i feel so helpless!

I'm trying to stay busy, which isn't that hard when I have 15 brokers calling me every 5 minutes and millions of emails with new broker's phone numbers coming in. I am having absolutely no luck finding a new place though. Well thats not true.. we had found one down the street that we liked as it was pretty similar to our current apartment, but was new and was a full 3 bedroom (albeit small bedrooms!). But when we met with the owner all sorts of issues cropped up. There are no balcony railings (on the 10th floor) and no known date on when they will be put up. In the west you would not even be given an option of moving into a place with that not done.. but not here! And considering I have 2 cats, I just have to make sure that the balconies are safe as can be and I am not willing to take any risks. Then it also came out that just behind the building a new 16 story building is in the process of being built. This will cause lots of dirt, noise and of course take away our light/breeze. And to top it off, the building is on reclaimed slum land. What this means is that 350 families were removed from their homes so this nice new expensive apartment complex could be built. They will be eventually rehoused in a smaller, crappier building next door - but for the moment they are living in shacks down the road. So as a development worker this is tough to swallow.

So i've been on the hunt for other apartments. But basically no one has anything in our price range that is as nice as the one above. But folo's work also isn't so keen on us moving to this apartment because as they say "it's in the slums"! We don't care! it's just down the street from where we currently live, so it won't really be a change in neighborhood - and honestly I could do without listening to the posh Olive across the street! So this has been a huge stress on my shoulders. I had hoped to move by the 1st of Oct, but that is obviously not happened. Then I thought I'd be happy with moving even upto the 10th of Oct - but even that is looking less likely. So now the question is, do I risk it and move 3 days before we leave and hope the cats are adjusted or just wait until we are back from our Ireland/US trip? Due to family stuff at home, I may end up staying there longer than anticipated so Paul would have to do the move on his own... urgh. decisions. And nothing that I can really control. I guess I will just wait to see what happens. Life usually gives me a good indication of what I should do, so I will wait and hope it becomes clear soon.

time for a move??

We've been in the same apartment for 4 years now and I am so sick of it. I love it in many ways, but coming back from Europe to house that smells of mold was not fun. we have little hope that our landlords would actually do anything to fix this place up and so we've been on the hunt again for a new apartment. I actually was looking before my trip as well, but not much had come up.

Then my broker told me about this new building down the street from where we are now. It is still under construction, i can see it from our window. usually one of my rules is that we won't move into a building under construction because it goes on forever and ever in Mumbai. No project ever finishes when they say it will. But with the absolute lack of options this is the only one that feels like it could be home.

It actually looks remarkably similar to a friend's past apartment. It's a 3 bedroom, but the bedrooms are quite small. the positive.. the showers are amazing. like real proper showers, with fancy showerheads and full body massagers!

my old 'criteria' was: bathtub and balconies.
now my new criteria: separate shower area, balcony (safe for cats), and big enough bed/living room to fit our furniture!

the bed just fits in this bedroom. the living room is a good size and would allow paul the ability to get his flat screen tv and surround sound he's been wanting. but i'm super indecisive. i've seen the place like 10 times already, measured everything from here and there and still can't feel 100%. maybe it's just the thought of change... but how much change would it be - its in the same neighborhood, it's a high floor, has balconies, still has a tiny sea view and would give us space to grow....

its now in the hands of folo's work, so we'll see if the owners accept an offer or not. either way we need to move soon since our trip to the US/Ireland has been moved up a few weeks!

busy bee

Somehow the last few weeks have been busy again and full of social engagements. I'm not complaining! It's been fun to get out and about again - I guess I was just going through a 'homebody' spell.

I also starting writing a column for the American Women's monthly magazine here. It's on travel... who would have guessed. This month's article was on Japan since I was still so excited about our trip there. I also had a few photos on in the magazine, but unfortunately they looked terrible! One was cropped badly and the colors did not come out well at all. But I guess you can't expect perfection from a no budget monthly - but I think things will get better as time goes on and things become more systematic. This was the first month that incorporated a ton of changes. Overall it's looking great though, so I am glad to be part of this initiative.

Also i've been trying to get more organized for the rickshaw run. I need to really start pushing people for donations. No one has donated yet.. so I think we might have to send the link to family first and get the ball rolling so our friends will be more inclined to give.

hmm. lets see what else... i'm trying to get back into the spirit of doing the MDP blog. Its hard to find new photos though as I feel like I've put just about everything up and Mumbai has become too normal for me again so that i don't even feel like taking my camera out anymore. gotta get back into it.

and i am planning my trip to russia with my grandmother. We seem to be on track. I should get my passport back on Friday from the Russian consulate..and crossing my fingers that it has a proper visa in place! We've booked flights, an apartment for Berlin and now I just need to finalize whether we are going to Tallinn (Estonia) or Riga (Latvia). Getting excited though.

Thats all from here... gotta get back to the wii fit :)

life changes....

there seems to be something in the air.. all of my friends seem to be going through some major life changes these days. my close friends in the US are dealing with lots of changes, good and bad, my lovely T in Paris is going through a rough spell. And the most close to home now is that two of my closest friends in India most likely will not be here 6 months from now. I know I shouldn't think about that now, so far in advance, but I can't help it. I can't imagine life here without them. But I guess I had a friend like that here before and I couldn't imagine life without her when she left, but somehow I've managed to keep on going here for 3+ years since and we've managed to stay close even with the distance. And I made other new friends in the meantime. but still... for the last 3 years most of my fun nights, great talks, camaraderie, etc have included either S or H.

I guess this means i will have to get out and about again and make new friends... but I'm so over that! That is one of the hardest things about living abroad is constantly feeling the need to make new friends! And when so many of them just come for short spells, its difficult to really open up fully and get close.

I guess I am just feeling sad, but i know that things happen for a reason and that it always works out best in the end. And I know that with whatever happens in my friends lives, my memories of India will always be mostly centered around V, S and H - well and of course folo. Now we just have to make sure that we spend the next few months living it up as best we all can!

busy doing nothing

For some reason I feel like I've been busy - but doing what I don't know! I have been researching about my upcoming trip to Russia, looking for an apartment, looking for a holiday apartment for Berlin this summer, reading on the summer rickshaw run, etc.

I'm perfectly happy doing all this - but then sometimes I feel like perhaps I should get out of the house and socialize a bit! But the problem is that I don't really want to - there are so few people here in Mumbai at the moment that I want to get out and socialize with. What happened to the social butterfly in me?

I also don't feel like taking photos at all anymore. Not sure if I am just bored with the Mumbai surroundings or if I'm just lazy. but i'm trying to find new places to visit and some reason to visit them so I can take photos.. just doesn't quite happen.

And.. those Japan photos... grr. still need to get through them, but it's so overwhelming. But I have to do it before my russia trip or else i'll be in big trouble with two trips of photos to go through!

The only other news here.. My friend Stacie will be moving in with us when she comes back from the States in July. it should be fun - although I am not sure how much time we'll actually overlap at the house since we both have too much travel coming up.

And the rickshaw run... gotta start thinking about that. we have our justgiving site up, but haven't sent it around yet. anyone want to be the first to donate??! www.justgiving.com/karmakab

guess thats it for now.. back to researching my adventures

pet peeves

I've been in India long enough now that I should really be used to how things are done here. But occasionally you have one of those days where things just really get on your nerves! I had one of those days the other day. I went to Chroma (kind of like our version of Best Buy - but no where as good!) to pick up some rechargeable batteries. I was fine just looking at all the options on offer when a sales assistant asked if he could help me. I said "Yes - can you tell me the difference in these batteries?" He just looked at me blankly and then walked off to get someone else to help me. So I went ahead and started reading the backs and trying to figure it out on my own.

Second sales assistant comes up and asks "Can I help you?" I wanted to say "I don't know CAN YOU?!" but I resisted the urge and just repeated my question. He said "the one in your hand is the best" Ok.. so can you tell me why? Do more customers buy this one? Have you tried any of these or received feedback on them? Etc. Of course he had no response to any of my questions, so I just went ahead and got the one that I thought would be best.

Then I get to the register and I see another charger just the same as mine but a bit bigger and much cheaper. So I make the mistake of asking the cashier if he knows the difference and why that other one is cheaper. He hasn't the slightest clue, but asks the guy next to him. This guy also has no clue but decides he wants to look smart so he reads the back - until I explain that I can read English and have already done that! Then he tells me that the cheaper one also charges 9 volt batteries.. Ok.. so it does more and is cheaper?!? That doesn't make sense. Then he goes off to get another sales person (probably the same incompetent one who tried to help earlier). By the time he comes back I have read further on the back and found that one charges in 8 hrs while the cheaper one charges in 16 hrs. Ok. decision made. Thanks.

But what gets me is why do they even ask if they can help you if they know full well that they really can't help you!??!?! Mumbai really seems to just hire just about anyone who 'looks' the part - rather than train them and make sure they know something about what they are selling!! Very annoying. And you know that these guys who work in these places for the most part couldn't even dream of buying most of the products on offer, so of course they have no real experience with them. Just very annoying this day for some reason!