Today is a New Day

Today was a new day.  Chris is in Europe for his first business trip.  One week away after we have only been here 9 days.  Ouch.  But we braved the weekend and did very well.  Today things didn’t start so well.  We’ll back up a little. 

Yesterday our driver, Nitin, took us to the zoo.  On the way, he asked me for money.  He said he hadn’t been in the office for a few days and needed 500 rupees.  He would go into the office that night and hand in all the paperwork so he could get paid, and pay me back the next day.  I’d read in the preparatory books that this would happen and that we should always keep track and insist on repayment.  So I insisted he put it in writing.  He was a bit upset, and said it was just between us.  I agreed I wouldn’t share the information if he paid me back, but still wanted it in writing.  So he wrote it down and took us to the zoo and for ice cream, then off he went, saying he’d be back at my requested 8 a.m. 

So, Monday morning.  George overslept and I still allowed him to chat via WhatsApp with his best friend Shaan. 

He had a quick first breakfast on the run (he gets breakfast at school after his 1 hour bus ride) and we ran to the busstop.  Then I went inside and fed Grace and Alexander breakfast, got them showered and dressed, snacks and lunches packed and backpacks ready.  We went outside to get in the car at 8:20 to discover there was no car!  There has been a car there every morning, usually an hour before I asked for it.  So I’d taken it for granted.

The car is arranged through Chris’ company, and he is in Europe, and with the time difference, it’s the middle of the night there.  Ugh.  Oh, and our wifi is down again.  Thank goodness Chris got me an Indian cell phone with Vodafone before he left, and I have data!  I googled the car company, called them and asked where our driver was.  They didn’t know, but insisted they’d have a new driver with us in 15 minutes.  That was when I realized that all our carseats and boosters were in the other car, with the driver that has ditched us.  The receptionist at TravelTime did not speak English well enough for us to understand each other, so when I kept asking about where the car was, and where our carseats were, she didn’t know and kept asking me to call the new driver.  So I called the new driver, who speaks nearly no English.  Again, I say to PACCAR, while your employees in India may not need Hindi lessons, the spouses who have to have drivers and get groceries and go out and find places, they NEED Hindi.  Most business people here speak English fairly well.  The average person does not.  And I do not deal daily with the business people, I deal with the average people every day.

Back to the story.  After 35 minutes, I called TravelTime.  This time I had Baru speak to them.  They had him call the new driver, who had been sent someplace completely different.  Baru guided him back to us, and he finally arrived, another hour later.  So it was 10:45 am when we finally left for school, which is 45 minutes away.  And, of course, he doesn’t know where the school is and doesn’t speak English.  And half way there he expressed that he had another job at 3 and needed to leave before then.  Um, no.  The twins get out of school at 2.  We have a playdate at 3 at Rakshak Society with some expat moms I’m dying to meet.  Then we have to be back home at 4:45 to pick George up from the bus.  So I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with TravelTime, so I emailed Chris’s administrative assistant, Snehal.  I explained the situation and asked her to call me, because I did not have her phone number.  OK, things, hopefully are worked out, this driver will stay for the day, and someone else will arrive at our house tomorrow morning at 7:30 (who probably won’t speak much English and won’t know how to find the kids’ school either.- But that’s for tomorrow.) 

So we made it to school by 11:30 (only 2 and a half hours late) to find Halloween decorations everywhere! 

 Yay!  Except the celebration is tomorrow and we only have 2 costumes for Alex here and none for Grace…uh oh.  But for now, I had the driver drop me off at at Café near the school so I could write while they are in school.  I asked other expat moms for a café where I could get free wifi and decent coffee or tea.  Well, I had a yummy breakfast and a turmeric juice drink, but there is no wifi.  Ah, India.  At least there is an outlet and I brought my converter, so here I sit, lost in my new city, loving my time away from the kids and desperate to have them back by my side again.