Money

It's been about four month since we moved here to India and although there is plenty of things that I can complain about the one thing that I cant complain about is the currency used here. Recently the Indian Rupee has varied anywhere from 47-50 rupee per American Dollar. It is usually pretty easy to do quick conversions in your head to see if you think you are paying too much for something. Such as the 8 dollar pack of Oreos or 12 dollar package of 6 slices of ham. (lunch meat)
What I like most about the currency here is that the paper money has the denominations are distinguished from each other by color and size. The 5 rupee bill is green and is the smallest. While the 1000 rupee bill is the largest I have seen and is red-ish. I have heard that some people occasionally mistake 1000 bills for 100 rupee bills. I though have never had this issue. This is probably because I rarely get 1000 rupee bills since they are difficult to use. If you want to use a 1000 rupee bill at most shops you better have about 900 rupees or more in merchandise. Otherwise the shop keepers give you dirty looks and ask if you have anything smaller.
The only complaint about using money here is that many places do not keep change in their shops. I have received small candies or chocolates instead of change. The norm is that one candy equals one rupee. While I do not get my change back I do get candy so I guess that makes it ok.
In other news a storm is sitting off of Bombay right now so it has rained all day long and will most likely continue to rain for the next day or so. Fun. Because of the storm, the temperature dropped a degree or two which means that every one is now wearing sweatshirts and coats. I however still roam the city in my shorts and t-shirts. Because I still think it is hot. Ok, that's all for now.

It's Different!!

I have been seeing this commercial lately for a local ketchup brand from a company called Maggi. The also make several other products with the most popular one being Maggi noodles. These are basically ramen noodles in the U.S. but with masala flavor instead of the oriental, beef, chicken, and pork that ramen offers. They are so popular that just using the term "Maggi" means that you are talking about the noodles. And the worst thing about the Maggi noodles is that Nathan absolutely loves them. He would eat them for every meal if I let him. There has been more than one occasion where he demanded Maggi for breakfast. Now, I don't like to fight my son too much over what he eats for breakfast since I am usually trying in vain to keep them as quiet as possible so that Kathleen can sleep, but I draw the line at Maggi. I really don't think that those kinds of foods are appropriate for breakfast.
The ketchup commercial I see now is just a man and his son (I think) talking about something over some food. I have no idea what they are saying because I believe they are speaking Hindi. The tag line for the commercial is "it's different" referring to the ketchup. I don't know about anyone else, but referring to your product as being "different", doesn't really make me want to try it. What I usually think is, different compared to what?, and what does that even mean? You would think that they would want to say that the ketchup is great and how many people love it. But it does not really surprise me here in India that they would use that claim. I recently broke down and purchased a pack of the ketchup. Mainly, I did this to appease Nathan who strongly requested that I buy it every time we went to the store for a month. I haven't tried it yet but when I do I will try to remember to comment on how it tasted. Hopefully it is not that "different".

Shut down

This week the city of Pune is practically shut down do to fears over the spreading H1N1 swine flu. All of the schools have been shut down since Tuesday due to the scare. Its not so bad except that the kids are starting to want to do more than play in the apartment. Luckily we had a play date with one of the other Ex-Pats today so we did get out for a little bit but this will be interesting keeping them busy for at least the next week. Schools are not the only thing closed down. All the movie theaters in the city are closed and at least half of the malls. In general, if it is a public place that a lot of people might go to, it is closed. This is going to be true for the next week or so. I am currently most concerned about getting to the market to get groceries for the next few days. The place we normally go to is closed and suppose we could go to Shivaji Market but that wont get us any milk or cereal and such. I am sure we will figure this out in the next day or two but it should be fun. We finally have the opportunity to do some sight seeing this weekend but are going to be stuck in the house waiting for this whole thing to blow over. I know that seems petty but I haven't seen much of the area and I would like to see something besides the 3 mile area around our neighborhood. But the most annoying thing is we also have Alex's birthday next week. We've had problems trying to figure out what to do for his birthday since he is turning five. But, now it looks like that problem is solved since we have no where to go for his birthday and no stores are open to get any present for him. Luckily he is still young and we can probably push celebrating his birthday back a day or two and hopefully by then the stores will be open again. Well, that is all for now. More to come later.

The Quest

Finding things that you need here isn't really that difficult. Well, at least for the most part. I have become quickly adapted to the idea that a store that may seem to carry everything does not have the one item that you are actually looking for. It took us a few days to track down a power strip so that we could use our DVD player. (In our apartment there is only one power outlet on any wall. And although in America there are usually two plugs per outlet, here there is only one. This makes plugging in more than one item interesting.) To start with we did not know what to call the power strip. Names for things here are sometimes quite different than in the U.S. We later found out that the power strip or surge protector was actually called a "spike guard". After we knew this we found them in several stores but it took a few attempts to find a good one. I also have been having a tough time finding a plastic tub so the boys can take a bath. We only have a shower and they are really missing being able to take a bath. Even though I have seen them in our friends apartments, they do not know where they came from.
However, my main quest has been to try to find a reliable way to watch Buckeye football this fall. I was told that there would be no problem finding broadcast of Ohio State football. Unfortunately that is not the case. There is absolutely so way of watching the game on television here. I am really not surprised since we have at least six or seven cricket stations but other sports have only sporadic coverage. My only other option is to try to find a way to watch or listen to the games. With the time difference most of the games will start around 10:30pm. I think I can get the games on iheartradio.com but I am not really sure. My parents have offered to point theirweb cam at the T.V. but I am not really optimistic that this will work. If any one has any ideas please let me know. My quest continues to this day. It will not cease until I can listen to the Buckeyes win the Big Ten again. More to come later.

Business Time

Since we arrived here I have had the opportunity to deal with varying different kinds of local businesses. There has been everything from the local Shivaji Market which handles all forms of produce and meat, to Big Bazaar which is the local form of Walmart. Of all these businesses our bank has had me the most frustrated. To make a very long story short, the bank linked our bankcard to the wrong account causing every transaction (besides ATM) to be declined. This makes buying anything besides groceries difficult because we need to always have cash on hand. (In general it is always good to have several hundred Rupees on you anyways just in case.) We have tried to get the problem resolved several times, and each time the bank tells us that it will be taken care of within a few days. Though, as far as I know it still hasn't been taken care of. what astounds me about all of the hassle we have dealt with on this issue is that in the U.S. I am pretty sure it could be dealt with the same day. If not it may take a business day to change over. As of right now we are sitting at three weeks since we first noticed the problem. Waiting for service is very common here. We had a problem with our internet the second week we were here. The call center said it would send someone out so fix it. That was around ten in the morning. (no one will give any kind of time frame for when they would actually show up) About nine-thirty in the evening the technician actually showed up. We wanted to do some shopping during the day but we had to wait around all day for him to show. Finally we were fed up and just went anyways. From what I understand this is how things are done here.

Another interesting difference between the U.S. and India is the sheer number of people that work on a particular job. At Big Bazaar and other shops you will commonly find not just one person or two working in a department or area of the store. These places will have anywhere from five to ten people working. I saw eight people pushing approximately ten carts back into the store. From highly trained first hand experience I know that one person can easily handle that many carts. especially when the carts are half the size of common shopping carts from the U.S. When I went to purchase a DVD player, I had six sales associates helping me. Granted I was the only one in the department at that time but the fact that there were that many people just staffing that area amazed me. If I walked into any random American store I would be lucky if I ran into one sales person when I actually needed them. Even in the little store front shops this is true. one shop that I stopped into a few times not only was crammed with way more stuff than I thought would ever fit into the twelve foot wide shop, but also had five guys working there. A sweet store several shops down had four employees just behind the counter. Actually, all of this should not surprise me. with a population of around one billion it is not hard to believe that places can afford to pay people to work. And, of course, I am sure that the salaries being paid are probably not comparable to any U.S. wage. I know that a lot of people complain about minimum wage in the U.S., but if any random person here made seven U.S. dollars a hours I think they would probably faint.

Most of the shops I have visited would be very reminiscent of places in the U.S. in fact many operate seemingly very similar in set up and operation. Even the Shivaji market would remind anyone of a meat and produce market. Although it might be one from a hundred years ago. The market had four areas: Produce, which by far seemed the cleanest, Fish, Poultry, and Beef, which I am pretty sure was actually water buffalo. The produce section was a pretty standard building where each person set up their table with there goods. It is reasonably clean and they have a pretty large staff that sweeps the floor constantly to remove debris from falling produce. Our cook did all the shopping while I just watched. We ended up spending the equivalent of eight dollars for four grocery store sized bags literally full of veggies. I am not completely sure, but I it felt like it weighed around fifteen pounds of stuff, maybe more. The poultry and fish areas were pretty standard too. the fish was in its own building and the fish mongers had their stuff all laid out so you could see exactly what you were getting. They had everything that could be acquired locally from Indian salmon to jumbo prawns, to small hammer head sharks. We didn't buy anything from there but we walked through so I could see it. The poultry sellers had their own separate stalls that where they prepared the chicken to sell. And, by prepare I mean that they killed, de-feathered, cleaned and cut right in the open. I have worked around meat rooms before so the cleaning and cutting is not new but I haven't been there for the beginning of the process. Needless to say it was "interesting". I really didn't have a problem with it though. mainly because I was pretty sure that the chicken was fresh. Of course for any vegetarian or free range proponent, I wouldn't recommend going to this area. The last section was the "beef" area. I am pretty sure that the cutting area would fail health inspections in at least forty-eight states. The other person that went with us to the market was an American that we met a few days before. He assured me that the meat was good and took me to the butcher he goes to. Everything seemed on the up and up. I just ate some today so we will see if everything works out ok. The meat was cut on very large sections of tree trunks. It looks like they have been there a very long time. Some had the trunks up on legs others had larger sections on the floor. Waste from the "beef" is put into bins for grinding or they might toss small pieces out the windows. I noticed this because a hawk came within a few feet from my head as it swooped down and picked up some bits of intestines. Overall, the market was a very interesting experience. I think I will go back. I know how things work here now. You can pay American prices for stuff just translated into local currency if you go to some of the western grocery stores. Or, you can pay the equivalent of twenty dollars for almost two weeks worth of groceries at the market. I am pretty sure I know which way I will lean towards.
I am sure that I missed a few things about dealing with Indian businesses. But this is a pretty good picture of how things work. If you want something done you need to be patient. But eventually it will get done. And, If you want to save on food you need to be willing to go to the local markets. That's all for now. More to come later.

Jogger's park

Since we have gotten here I have noticed that there isn't very many park areas as we would know it in our immediate area. There are several playgrounds but they are not the best in the world. These playgrounds are usually very small, very muddy, and very old, and in poor condition. One is across the street from the school but I dont know if I would let the boys play there. the equipment looks as if it is going to fall over and the field is almost dirt or mud where the local boys play cricket. The playground in our society consist of a slide, two swings, a seesaw, and a merry go round. If any one from our hometown came across this playground they would probably assume that the equipment was installed somewhere around the 1970's. most everything is made of metal and in dire need of WD40. However the equipment is in fine shape for this neighborhood. the society next to us has a better playground but it is also only a year old so I am not surprised. The closest thing to a park is called the joggers park. It's about the size of two (American) football fields side by side. It has a brick paved path that makes a basic circle around the park and is approximately 500 meters long. I only know this because of the sign at the end of the track that said how far it was. (this is amazing because not only was the sign in English but there actually was a sign available.) Although it is not a huge park it is very nice because it is the largest open green area I have seen since moving here. I like that it gives the boys some room to run with out having to worry too much about whats on the ground. (even in our society the random stray dogs roam around and leave presents. especially in the sand around the playground.) The park is walled in and you have to pay the absolutely huge sum of 1 rupee for and adult and .5o for the children. So for the three of us it winds up being 2 rupees or about 4 cents U.S. They also have a playground out of the 70's but their is a lot less stuff to worry about. We spent about two hours before having to leave because it looked like it was going to rain. Coincidentally this started our three days of solid rain. I hope to take the boys back there soon.

Earlier that day I also went to the local golf course. I walked there from our apartment while the boys were in school. Its only about twenty minutes away on foot but I needed to cross several busy streets. When I crossed Nagar road, which is about 3 or 4 lanes across across on each side. (I am not sure since I was more concerned with not getting run down. ) At the red light there was about 3 dozen motorcycles a dozen or so trucks and about 2 dozen cars waiting ( and sometimes not waiting ) to go. To be honest I waited for some other pedestrians to cross so that hopefully the traffic would at least slowdown when coming near us. It mostly worked. It was at the golf course that I learned the foreigners and outsiders are blatantly charged at least twice as much for services. A round of golf for a local is about 600 rupees. Foreigners however, as clearly marked on the sign, have to pay over 1500 rupees. At our society the same thing happens for the gym. A one year membership is well over double for an outsider (or someone who doesn't actually own the apartment.) for a cab ride you better get the price up front. you can ask for a metered ride but you must absolutely know where you are going. Otherwise they will take you the most round about way possible so as to charge you more. A ride around town will still only cost between 20 rupees and 60, which is slightly more than a dollar, but it is the principle of the thing. That's about it for now. More to come later.

Rain rain rain

Today it rained pretty much all day. Literally. I woke up around 6am (I know, what was I thinking.) and it was raining pretty hard outside. I walked the boys to school in the rain. picked them up in the rain. And during the one break in the weather, we walked over to the mall across the street to get some ice cream for a desert. When we were ready to leave, it was raining. I shouldn't be upset since this is supposed to be the rainy season here. The first we were here it would rain, but not until afternoon and for maybe an hour at the most. Today was a constant hard rain. anyways, it wasn't all that bad. we had a couple of furniture items delivered from the store today so I guess it was ok to be stuck home. It was only a desk and a little cabinet for the kid's toys. at least now we have an area for our computer and their stuff.
I still find myself getting very tired in the afternoon. I must still be adjusting to the time difference. I never really believed in all that jet lag stuff until coming here. One day last week they boys and I just fell asleep on the couch and chairs in the living room. We fell asleep at around 5 in the evening and didn't wake up until about 745 which made trying to get them to bed really interesting. It's been getting better day to day so hopefully we'll be good in a little while. So that way when we go back to visit in the fall we'll be really screwed up.