Our First Days

We have started to settle in and are finally unpacked and figuring things out a bit. We are still waiting for our shipment to arrive and I'm afraid it will be quite a while before we get it. I guess it all depends on timing and what company you have but once it gets into port it will take at least a week to clear customs and then who knows what. I have heard some people getting their things very quickly and efficiently and others taking months so I don't know what to expect. It seems that things get taken care of very quickly and efficiently for the most part such as lost luggage being delivered to people's doorsteps, apartment repairs magically getting fixed within a day or less, vans picking up and dropping off multiple people at multiple locations every day. It runs like clockwork.....big, overwhelming, intricate, messy, chaotic clockwork.

It is a strange phenomenon and I am still not really sure how to define the culture of work and time here. It seems like work gets done very efficiently and very quickly but at the same time the city is so busy and unpredictable that you cannot always expect anything to be on time. For example, when you are scheduled to meet someone they might be 15 minutes early or 30 minutes late which I suppose depends on the traffic and ability to get from place to place. On the other hand, our school is still very much under construction from summer renovations yet deadlines are vital and it will be completely finished an look incredible 10 days from now. Any order we request from the school gets completed in record time yet it might take 2 hours of travel time to run a simple errand in town.

One speaker at our school yesterday summed it up well: "Whatever is true about India, the opposite is also true." This is definitely a city of paradox and contrasts: rich vs poor, order vs chaos, community vs over population. Whatever the case, it is an exciting place and we can't wait to find our place in this complex system that is Mumbai.

We have already accomplished quite a few things in a short period of time which makes us feel closer and closer to becoming locals. We have all our official paperwork taken care of, we have bank accounts, insurance, and cell phones. We hired a housekeeper 2 days ago who will start on Monday cleaning, cooking, and running errands for us. We have been out walking and experienced getting a little lost and making it back to our apartment. Things are starting to come together and we are staring to get oriented. We can recognize 2 or 3 of the major roads around town and have almost figured out where we live which is a plus. We have officially started school orientation and will be meeting the rest of the staff soon. We will try to venture out this afternoon and weekend to do some shopping and exploring which we are excited for. So far so good.

We have to get ready for school now so more to come later. (Its currently 6:45 am and I've been up since 4 from jet lag so mornings have become pretty productive - moving furniture, unpacking, emails, blogging, etc.) I took a video of our apartment last night and I just uploaded a few pictures from our travels and first couple days. The video is on youtube (link on the right under videos) and the photos are and picassa (also a link on the right). Enjoy!

Photos - http://picasaweb.google.co.in/indiake/FirstDaysInMumbai

Video - http://in.youtube.com/user/indiake814

क्या कहाना
K&E

We're Here!

We made it! And apparently can steal wifi internet from our neighbor across the hall so we should be able to keep in touch. The flights and everything went really well. We got Suri all checked in and they fed her and gave her water in Brussels. The plane ride was good. Realllllllllly long, but good. When we got to the airport in India we went to baggage claim with about 500 other people all huddled around one turnstyle waiting for our bags. It took about an hour, but we got all our bags and they wheeled out the pug. We flashed some papers to the guys in customs and they just let us walk out the door. They wanted to see the dog's paperwork but they didn't check bags or anything. Then the folks from the school met us outside and drove us to our apartment.

We got in our place around 3am and went directly to bed. We got up again to catch a van to the school to do a bunch of paperwork and orientation stuff. We were supposed to be there at 8 am but when we showed up there was no van. Apparently some other people got in and didn't realize we were coming so they took off without us. So we waited around the apartment for about an hour and a half trying to call people and figure out what was going on. We have a very nice desk manager named Buwar who tried to be helpful but really doesn't speak english so that didn't do much. We eventually got to the school and started working on health forms, signing up for cell phones, bank accounts, and other things like that. We grabbed a quick sack lunch and went downtown to registration office which was all in all about a 5 1/2 hour adventure. The traffic is rediculous and it takes over an hour to get downtown (which is only about 4 or 5 miles away). So after driving an hour to get there, spending 2 hours waiting and filling out paperwork, and another 2 1/2 hours to drive back home we got back to our place around 5:30. We hung out for an hour then caught another van to go to dinner. We drove around and picked everyone up and went to a nice little chinese restaurant. Then it was home and back to bed. We got to sleep around 10 last night and are now up at 6am which is a good nights sleep all things considered. Today we are going to do some unpacking and cleaning up then we are going back to school at 9 to finish doing all our paperwork stuff. (They just brought in people from banks, hospitals, phone companies, etc to the school to have a little business fair-type thing where we can walk around and get all the things we need). Hopefully we will finish early this afternoon then we are planning to come back to the apartment and adventure out around town to try and buy cell phones and do some shopping and exploring.

So the city is pretty crazy. There aren't really any street signs or traffic lights or even any real defined intersections. There are some on the major roads but mostly its a twist and turn of back roads and streets that seem pretty hard to navigate. The driving is just as wild as it looks in the videos, everything is chaotic but it all seems to flow and work somehow. Our apartment is huge, I'm not sure square footage but it is comparable to a house for sure. We have 3 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom (one of which is also the laundry room) and wide open entry/dining area . It's really nice. We have US-style toilets and walk in showers and big closets (which is great since we have a lot of stuff). So it looks like we will have at least one guest room and turn the other bedroom into an office/storage area/bedroom depending on how we feel once our stuff gets here. The floors are all marble and the walls are all concrete or tile so I think if we want to hang stuff we have to have people come up and drill holes. It sounds like we can paint too which is exciting so we may start that sometime in the next week as well. They have provided all sorts of food and books and maps and city guides and everything we need to get oriented so we feel well taken care of.

The weather is what we expected, humid and wet. The rain is actually alot like Washington in that its pretty light and drizzly but every once in a while they get a huge downpour for 20 minutes or so. It's not raining all the time though, it's actually really nice because it gets windy when it's stormy out which feels really good. I'm guessing the temperature is around 80 but it doesn't feel very hot. We've been wearing jeans and long sleeves and been very comfortable. EVERYTHING is air conditioned too so actually we are freezing cold most of the time so it feels good to go outside. Our apartment has about 7 million air conditioners and humidifiers that are running constantly to keep the moisture out which seems pretty necessary or else everything gets really damp. We are still trying to figure out the balance of how much A/C we need to keep dry without freezing to death. I think we're getting close.

Well, our battery is running low so I will end here. We got our laptops from the school yesterday so once we get an electric adapter for this computer or figure out how to get hooked up online with the school's laptops we will send out some more updates. We've taken a number of pictures already and I'm going to try to get the video camera out and take some shots of our apartment and surrounding area once we get settled. So that will be coming soon. But for now everyone is safe and healthy and having a good time. More to come!

क्या कहाना

K&E

And We're Off!! (for real this time)

Well, we are sitting in the lobby of the Hilton in Newark, NJ (which is highly overrated by the way) and ready to get on our plane to India tonight. All of our luggage managed to get through so far (including the dog) and, more impressively, none of our bags were overweight thanks to two days of continuous packing and repacking. We take off at 8pm tonight and fly about 8 hours to Brussels followed by another 7 or 8 hours to Mumbai. We should arrive in India around midnight so hopefully everything will go smoothly in the airport and we can get to our apartment quickly and get some sleep. Once we arrive, the school will take us around for a few days and get us all set up with phones, bank accounts, internet, and those other essentials. If all goes well we should be able to call or email within a couple days.

We will be meeting all the other ASB newbies at the airport today so it will be nice to go through all of this with a large group. There are about 20 of us flying from the US which makes a nice support group for any of us that really start freaking out. So far I think we are not in that category, but we'll see what happens once we get on the plane. We are mostly concerned about the dog since communication with the Indian airport has not exactly been efficient, consistent, or comforting. Elizabeth has done a great job of covering all our bases though, so we feel prepared and informed on our end which provides a little more reassurance. For now I think our fate is pretty much out of our hands so we will have to just wait and see what happens.

क्या कहाना
K&E

8 Days and Counting . . .

We've been on a couple trips since our last post: one to Boise, ID for the 4th of July and another to Memphis, TN for a laptop conference to get us ready for the school year. Our trip to Boise was nice except for the fact that Elizabeth got food poisoning the first day and was out of commission for a good part of our stay. Even so, we got to see some friends and family before we head out which was nice. We also were able to stop by Yakima on our way to and from Boise to visit with Heather, James, and our godsons Mikey and Connor one last time before we leave which was great.

The big reason for this post is to let everyone know that we have stepped up our techi-ness and have become even more connected to a number of sources. First, we are both on Facebook now and have already connected with a number of you. If you're on there and we haven't found you yet, drop us a line. We have also set up a Picassa photo account under this same name (indiake) and a Youtube account (named indiake814) to start posting our videos. Check out the links on the right as we have rearranged and updated things on this site to account for all this. We posted a number of photos, a video of Kent and Pam's cabin and a video of uncle Kevin's sail boat that he built. Hopefully you will keep checking back for all our new stories, photos, videos, etc. once we get to Mumbai. (This site also has an RSS feeder so if you want to receive automatic updates click on "subscribe" at the bottom or send us a note and we can help you out)

The countdown is getting smaller everyday and after going to the tech conference in Memphis and meeting a number of the ASB staff we are even more excited to get there and get started. We look forward to seeing many of you this Sunday at our going away party. Hope everyone can make it!

क्या कहाना
K&E

So much to do!

So its been a while since our last post and even though we haven't left yet, a lot has happened. We've been busy figuring out all the minutia associated with a large move. We have our visas, shipped all our things, have been immunized with every vaccination known to man, have most of our travel plans sorted out....whew! We still have quite a bit to do but after shipping our things it feels like we are a few major steps closer to being ready to go. Our cousins Matt and Mia have moved in and we have had a smooth transition considering all the stuff that is coming and going between the 4 of us.

We have both finished up with work which is nice so we have time to focus on the move. We are both excited to be done but it is bitter sweet for both of us. We have both been blessed to have such supportive jobs and to have been surrounded by such caring and wonderful people these last 3 years and we will miss everyone a great deal. We hope everyone keeps in touch. We have new email addresses so we hope to keep updated on all the happenings here at home while we are away.

The next month will be a busy one. We are off to Boise one last time for 4th of July then we head to Memphis for a laptop conference before going to a couple of weddings then jumping on the plane to Mumbai at the end of the month. We bought a new video camera and are working on putting together some photo albums to post so we should have lots of great images to share. Hopefully we will post a couple more times before we head out. For any of our friends and family, if you didn't receive our most recent email with our new contact info, please let us know. We want to make sure everyone that wants to be included can be. We will be having a farewell party at our place so if you didn't get that email please let us know and we can give details. Thats all for now. Until next time.

क्या कहाना
K&E

The New Word Phenomenon

Have you ever noticed when you learn a new word, suddenly you see it everywhere, when once it almost seemed to not exist? We have experienced the same thing with India. Ever since we found out we were moving to Mumbai, we see it everywhere. At the airport on the way home, we saw a flight to Mumbai. When shopping, we notice all the India related foods or other products. Even Elizabeth's new favorite Body Butter from the Body Shop is called Moringa, which we have now learned comes from the "miracle tree" in Northern India. Isn't it interesting what comes up when you are looking for it?

क्या कहाना
K&E

The Beginning . . .

As you all know we have wanted to do some travel and live abroad for a while and this year is finally our chance to do it. Kevin applied to Search Associates, an international recruitment service for teachers. Once registered we began looking at possible positions and schools back in October of 2007. Many new positions were posted everyday and some old ones became filled as time passed. We began looking in Europe, especially in Spain since we were both very comfortable with the culture and language and both had experience in the country. We contacted a number of schools but as time drew nearer to the job fair these positions quickly filled up and our horizons began to expand.

Boston - Feb 2008
We arrived at the job fair with resumes in hand and our minds open to all possibilities. We were quickly overwhelmed with hundreds of people and the very fast paced, well oiled machine that was the Search Associates job fair. After an orientation on Thursday night we prepared for what would be three of the most intense days either of us had experienced in quite a while. Friday morning we showed up at the hotel at 7am to a room full of tables, each with principals, superintendents, and delegates from schools representing virtually every nation we could think of. In front of each table was a line of applicants all competing for a chance to interview. Behind each table was a sheet of butcher paper with the available positions for which each school was hiring (many of these edited the morning of). We quickly walked through a room of 500+ people to look at the positions that are actually available. Our top choices were all full but there were also new openings that were never previously seen. We stood in line and walked up to the tables to ask for an interview time. Kevin was looking for a math positions and Elizabeth was looking for any kind of administrative position that a school would be able to offer (preferably non-teaching). The delegates were very kind and very honest. Many would not even offer interviews since they could not hire a non-teaching spouse. Some gave it some thought and tried to come up with alternatives but still there were not many opportunities for Elizabeth.

After 4 hours of sign-ups we began the actual interviews. Each interview was 30 minutes and we just traveled from hotel room to hotel room to meet with the various countries. This was fast paced, stressful, and a time for a lot of trust and quick decision making both for the candidates and the schools. Over the course of the next 2 days we met with schools from Bulgaria, Malaysia, Venezuela, Taiwan, Colombia, Qatar, Turkey, and India. As you can see, our options were very open. Most of these schools were only able to offer math positions for Kevin and nothing for Elizabeth so it really came down to which school would provide the best package as a whole. We met with a few of these schools 2, 3, 4 times while we were there but India ended up being the obvious decision. They not only represented a quality school with an AMAZING benefit package, but we felt a connection to the delegates and their values as a school. Plus, they had the perfect jobs for both of us! We graciously accepted and Kevin will be teaching 6th and 8th grade math and Elizabeth will be working in the superintendent's office doing office management work as well as meeting with the school board and working with American universities and international universities to build relationships with the American School of Bombay.

So there it is! We will be leaving at the end of July and we can't wait. We are excited for the new adventure and have a lot to take care of before we go! Until next time . . .

kyaa kahanaa - क्या कहाना - Beyond Words of Praise
K&E