A Day in Wade's Life

Well, we have a number of posts by Angela working into the wee hours of the morning to keep people informed of our events here. Thankfully, she has been tireless in the effort as I am somewhat lax in my efforts to do likewise. Just for everyone wondering what my day is like here, I am providing a typical day scenario:

My days start, like Angela's; after coffee. Angela car-pools with Tracy to allow Tom and me a vehicle to get the kids to school in. If we are using our car, only one parent gets to take the kids in as there are already four kids jumping around in the back seat, so only the passenger seat is left. I am sure that there are a few safety issues here, but they only put 3 seat belts in the back seat, so someone inevitably has to go without.

We cruise to the school, which starts around 10 am in Whitefield. Our driver is ever diligent to point out that it is named such because of all the white foreigners that settled here - okay I got it the first time, although I cannot figure out why the Indians felt it necessary to settle the foreigners under the airport flight path. Hmmm.

The school is reached by traveling down a dirt road lined with trash, stray dogs and a construction shanty town - a small settlement of hap-hazardly strewn together shacks of corrugated aluminum and plastic; there are no utilities. Trash is typically burning along the streets even in front of the school (note the black marks on the wall surrounding Caden's school).
Our driver tells me that 10 years ago the area was essentially farmland and undeveloped property. The lake nearby was said to be used for irrigation and was clean enough to swim in. Now the water is foamy and the color of antifreeze, providing a pungent odor. We won't be doing any fishing there...
The area has grown faster than the infrastructure and the results are apparent. I asked our driver to stop washing the car in the street with soap to keep the runoff from going to the storm drain, but he looked at me funny, saying that the lake is already dead, what's the point? He still doesn't get to let the wash water run off to the drain.

Anyway, Caden is done from school at 1pm (I am usually trying to get the daily grocery shopping done in the interim - a 3-hour feat with traffic). We try to get some fun in during the early afternoon, such as going to the Aeronautical Museum, where Caden has claimed one of the restorations as "His Plane." (Sorry Jeff, there are no F-15s).
The day will typically wind down with a trip to the pool to cool off. I have really enjoyed seeing Caden get better at swimming and we are often joined by friends who also like to wind the day down near the pool.

Living in Bangalore is interesting. I can't help but think that the world here is not really that flat; I am reminded of this when the Internet goes down (it is a wonder of spider-like strewn cables of CAT 5 spliced and duct-taped together - access to which costs more money than most people's monthy income); or the regular power failures; or just seeing the maids fill up our left-over water bottles to take home with them so that their families to have clean drinking water.

Caden and I miss Angela during the day as we see and do things:

I don't know that the motion of the elephant would do much for Ang, though. There is a lot that India offers and we would like to see as much as we can. We are busy planning trips to see more around the area (with Angela) so stay tuned.