Post-Christmas Blues

The kids have been having fun with Manish and Laxman. I am afraid they are going to miss them when we leave the Guesthouse in a few days. We have been gearing up for the big move into the flat. The kids and I have been at the apartment for the last 2 days cleaning and preparing. The place was pretty grimy. The last tenants obviously did not spend a lot of time cleaning or taking care of this flat. After a lot of elbow grease and disinfectant it is beginning to look more like home. We now have most of our furniture and it has all been assembled.

Our housekeeper, Indumati, started on Monday. She is hard working and very nice. She is working on a trial basis, but we are hoping she likes us and the apartment and decides to stay. She was a big help to me today at the local market in Sector 82. She can help me translate and communicate in Hindi and is a good bargainer. We had to purchase some dustbins (trashcans) and a washtub for the dishes so we went to a "plastic shop." I neglected to bring my camera today so sorry that I don't have photos.

We also now have curtains. We purchased some ready-made ones at the mall and then had a local tailor cut and sew them to size. He also made me 12 throw-pillow covers with the left over material. For this work he only charged me Rs 550. That is about $12. At the market today I arranged to have another tailor make 12 pillow-inserts. This will only cost another Rs600. These beautiful handmade pillows will wind up being a little over $2 each!

In India technology costs about the same as it does in the US. For example, cars, computers, phones all are comparably priced. But items or services that require mainly labor to complete are dramatically reduced in cost (like the pillows).