Return from paradise...

The Maldives trip was everything we expected and MORE!! It was our first return to the Bangalore Airport since we arrived from Dubai back in July. I barely remembered even being there - we had arrived at 3:00 am and I just recall it being deserted. We breezed through security and hit the duty free shops. Big Diwali sales were going on - Buy 1 get 3 (yes, I said 3) free on all candy!!!

This should hold us over for the 45 minutes before our flight!!

The in flight entertainment for our short puddle jump (just 90 minutes)...

Taylor snapped some good pictures from her window seat...

We landed on Male and were whisked straight onto a speedboat for a 20 minute ride to Bandos Island...

After a quick island briefing, cold towels and a welcome drink...
... we were in the ocean. Taylor was up first and she had no fear! Bandos' house reef begins just a few yards off the shore line, so there are thousands of amazing fish right at your toes! The edge of the reef (where the real action is!) is about 50 yards off shore. Once you get out there, you are instantly in the middle of the ocean... sharks (big ones!!), manta rays, eels, oh my! I wish I had captured Taylor's expression when she first returned from the reef's edge - or Pat's for that matter - words cannot describe the beauty out there. I have just a few of the photos from the underwater camera to put here on the blog... the rest are coming (my brain was in a Maldivian coma when we packed to leave there and I left the disk from the camera in our room!) it is on route to us, but if you recall my last post office experience here, who knows how long it might take!
Andrew was up next... and off they went...

Taylor showed Lauren where the boys were out on the reef's edge... you can barely make out their snorkels out past the last line of wave breaks...

My favorite part of each trip out there was the sight of them walking back toward us on the beach, talking about what they had seen!!Even Lauren gave it a try (just in the lagoon, of course!)

Thankfully, Taylor has started to take over some of the photographic responsibilities. So I actually appear in a few of the pictures!!

Andrew loved the pool bar (as did Lauren, who swam up and ordered chocolate milkshakes on her own every afternoon! Here's Drew with a fresh coconut...

And his big catch on the night fishing trip...

Of course, Taylor found a 4 month old, to whom she glued herself at the pool every afternoon... Little Lucy was among several families who were at the pier to see us off when we left. Lucy's Mom, Sam, was especially sad to see her helper leave!

I tried to get photos at sunset every night for the whole week and it just never worked out that I could get us all in one place. Our very last night, I was determined... and it was worth the effort! I finally dragged Drew away from his friends at the very last moment before the sun dropped over the horizon... these are some of my favorite pictures of the week...

I have so much more to post on this trip... the rest of the underwater photos, the video of the dolphin cruise and much more. Seeing as it is 2:05 am here, I need to get to bed! More to come on this post tomorrow!!!

On our way...

We are flying out to the Maldives in the morning and won't be bringing our laptops (are we CRAZY?????)... We will be for the most part out of touch with the rest of civilization for a week. Can you believe we will miss the entire World Series?? Anyway, I tried to set up auto posts for interem, but had issues uploading the photos today. Sorry, I will surely post all about our Maldives trip as soon as we return. Look out for that on Halloween!

Extended Family

Oh, where to start... The sheer volume of people that filter through our house on a daily basis is staggering. There is a constant flow of helpers... delivery guys, maintenance guys, a girl who just shows up to turn on our lawn sprinklers, the snake catcher (seriously!), the boy who paints the bottom 3 feet of all of our palm trees, a crew of 10 women crouched down on our front lawn pulling weeds out by hand, the internet "dude" with his long hair on his fancy red motorcycle... on and on and on...

Here's a look at some of our extended family:

This is Raju, our gardener. I just love this guy. Each villa here in Palm Meadows is maintained from the front edge of the house forward by the association staff. The villa owners/renters are responsible for maintaining the side and back lawns. We were fortunate that the previous renters here had found Raju, he is a gem. He rides up every day on his bicycle, with a smile on his face and his clippers in hand... He has planted us a great veggie garden and Lauren loves to pick the green beans every morning. He is just 21 years old and is already married (his wife is just 16!!!!)Raju's clippers...

Check out fancy twine used to secure the hose to the water spicket...

Here is Sanjeev. He owns the local florist and drives up twice a week on his motorcycle with a huge basket of fresh flowers to choose from. He cuts them fresh and arranges them right at the doorstep! I always let Lauren pick the flowers for one arrangement - she loves it.When mail arrives, the "professional courier" is at your service...The car washers... every morning at 7am sharp. They are actually a father and son team. The boy, Gungadan, is just 13 years old. Andrew is fascinated by him. He said to me, very matter of fact, "Mom, that is Gungadan, he washes cars for a living."


This is Challu, our nanny, playing Taylor's sitar. Our maid, Sheela, with Challu (her daughter) and her 2 sons, Avinash (8 yrs) and Avishiek (10 yrs) with Taylor, Lauren and Andrew. Is Andrew actually bigger than Sheela??????

Somehow I have no photo of Harish, with whom I spend the most time of all! I will take care of that tomorrow and post here as well. Harish pretty much manages all of the day to day activities of the house. He pays our bills, grocery shops, organizes house maintenance, translates for us, picks the kids up at the bus stop on rainy afternoons, brings in the bikes, scooters, toys and balls from the yard every night (Robin, we need to bring him home with us, I'll see if he has a brother for you!), oh yeah, and drives us absolutely everywhere we need to go (he is clearly underpaid!!!!).

Mother and daughter...

I snapped these photos a week ago while sitting on the leather seat of our air conditioned truck, listening to Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" downloaded from our iPod, waiting for Pat who was in the liquor store buying some Bacardi. He likely spent more money in the liquor store than this woman will earn in a year. I had to pry Taylor and Andrew from their Nintendo DS games to watch this mom, who was literally digging a foundation at a construction site - by hand! She would disappear, out of site for moments as she loaded up her huge, hand woven basket with dirt, and then emerge with it fully loaded atop her head, climb up and out of the ditch to dump it. Her daughter sits on the pile, with a steel plate of her own, mirroring her mother's actions, learning about hard work. Notice the oil jug on the hill in the second photo and the steel cup... drinking water... far from the chilled Evian we are sipping from in the truck.

I could take photos just like these absolutely everywhere in the city. Life is hard here. People simply work hard. It really alters our perspective, and, I hope, will change the way we see the world forever.

Puja for cars, bikes and even strollers!

This week we celebrated Dasara here in India. Yet another big festival holiday full of traditions. This was an important holiday for the drivers, in particular, since a puja (prayer ritual) needed to be performed for all things mechanized. Forgive me if my facts are not exactly straight... this is the best I could piece together from various sources (some of which spoke only broken English)...

1.) Harish gathers up all of our mechanized items (bikes (even the pedi-cab!), strollers, and of course, our car.
2.) Harish goes to the city market and shops for puja supplies (flowers, food items, colored puja paint, insence...)
3.) Harish hires a guy to wash everything to within an inch of its bare metal (any sign of dirt is disgracing the gods... in fact, the truck was washed 3 times that day!!)

4.) All items are decorated with the paste, flowers, banana leafs... limes are placed in front of all tires, to be crushed when you pull forward

5.) The puja is performed, complete with chanting and wafting of insence all over the place!
6.) A huge bowl of snacks are bagged up and taken around to hand out to all people of lower castes only (i.e. maids, cooks, security guards etc....)

This is all done to assure safe travel for all who use these vehicles. If you could see the driving conditions here, trust me, you would try anything!!