A day in the life...

I realize I haven't posted anything in several weeks! I apologize, but I lost a week reading the Millenium Trilogy! (It was very good.)

We've been here over a month now, and we're definitely settled in. I found a regular playgroup here in Boudha, and it's great to see other moms and interact with other adults for a change. Leela seems to enjoy it also, even though she's the youngest one there by 8 months. Leela loves standing, and can get up to standing all by herself, and has already taken a few tentative steps. Crawling is still her preferred method of locomotion at this point.

Our daily routine is as follows (sort of): We wake up, play for an hour or two while I eat breakfast, and then it's nap time. After nap time we play more, maybe go shopping or go to the bank, and some days we go out for lunch. Other days we lunch at home on leftovers from the dinner the night before. One more nap in the afternoon, and then we play until dinner time. Our didi makes dinner on the week nights. It's usually rice and/or chapatis, dal, and a vegetable curry. On weekends, Dave or I make dinner, usually something easy like eggs and potatoes, grilled cheese sandwiches, or pasta and sauce. The other day I felt inspired and made hoecakes and tomato sauce... When we cook, we have to either cook the hell out of whatever we make, or make sure to use boiled or bottled water for cooking. If we're eating anything raw, we have to soak it in Chlorinated water for 15 minutes. It's definitely not as easy as cooking in the West.

In one of my last posts, I mentioned something about how in many ways living here is like living anywhere else. In some ways that's true, you get up, brush your teeth, shower, eat, sleep, all the usual stuff. However, here some of the daily routine stuff is just a little more difficult. Brushing teeth, for instance, you have to rinse with boiled water. Cooking, you need to be super clean and cook everything thoroughly (goodbye, eggs over easy), also we have no oven. Clothes, everything is hand washed, so clothes get stretched out. It's having to go through the extra effort that makes me miss and better appreciate all the conveniences of home. It's easy to live here, but also more difficult.