- Education: Mine and my driver's. Lokesh is quite talkative as driver's go I've learned. One of the first billboards we passed on the way home was a aged photo of Rajkumar, a movie star that died of old age last year... Lokesh comments - "doesn't he look like James Bond?" Angela - "uh, (pause) he's very handsome, yes." A few miles down, another billboard from a recent movie. Lokesh tells me it's very popular in London - this is very big because it's been on the news (aren't all things on the news I think to tell him - there were three weeks of Elizabeth Hurley's wedding). I say that is very exciting. Lokesh asks "are London and England the same country?" I think apparently the British haven't left their mark afterall. I explain the difference between cities and countries with an analogy of Bangalore and India (I think I must be smart). Lokesh asks "Is England the same as your country?" Angela: "uh, no - my country is much further away - England is about a 14 hour flight, and my country is almost 24 hour flight" (Again think I'm smart using these terms) Lokesh: "can you take the train there?" ... When we got home, I borrowed Caden's globe for a brief lesson on geography. Lokesh seemed to appreciate...I wonder about the Indian education system... for drivers anyhow. And what about me - getting my "education" from him?
- Privacy: On the bright side, Lokesh tells me EVERYTHING Wade and Caden do during the day... no secrets here. "Sir was asking about that jewelry shop there - very good gold there" "We did so much of shopping today - spent so much of money." "Today we got vouchers for 500 rupees from the store since so much of shopping" "Sir is learning Hindi from a book" "Hindi is our national language - if you know Hindi you can go anywhere in India" (I don't tell him actually there are 18 National languages and 1,600 minor languages and dialects - some things probably should be kept to one's self.)
- Fairness: Today Wade hired a new maid to start Wednesday (Tuesday is a holiday). Our current maids are a mother/daughter pair. The daughter, Sonia, is supposed to come in the morning and clean. The mom, Jessie, usually comes in the afternoon and cleans up after her and helps "look after" Caden some. Sonia is rarely on time, and frequently doesn't make it at all. She will do little that Wade doesn't directly tell her to, again. Jessie generally works really hard and tries to remedy this. To get "rid" of Sonia, we fire the pair (I wonder what to expect - Sonia makes $20 a week for six days plus gets fresh water and to take our used toothbrushes, etc.). Still, Wade is in charge of the house now (this is our agreement) and he has had it with trying to "coach" her performance. I think she's not exactly comparable to a junior consultant, but I understand his frustration. So, in a nutshell, we're switching out maids and Jessie gets fired along with Sonia. (Yes, mom, it's always the mom's fault.) Anyhow, without belaboring it, I feel really sad about this - it just doesn't seem fair no matter what you do. We've decided to give them both a month's "severance" pay - this seems to make my sense of justice feel even worse....Very little in the world keeps me up at night (I'm an excellent sleeper), but this troubles me profoundly. Somehow I've taken for granted that I know "the right thing to do."
I hate to end with that nagging thought, but truly, I realize that I've come to take a great many things for granted. I've decided my "capstone" blog will be on "the Ten Things I've Learned in India" - when it's time to move back to the US, or as soon as I figure them all out.
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