Wha-cha looking at?

My Mother is camera obsessed.  This can be a great thing when you are in a wonderfully strange country with a two year demanding attention and can just forgo the camera and steal your mother’s pictures for your own blog.  But it can also be a little annoying and for Hubs a little embarrassing. 

My Parents have taken Sally’s two sisters in turn to other countries and for this trip Sally.  (Totally wish they were MY grandparents) And my Mother likes to compile a scrapbook at the end of the trip so they will have lasting memories.  Very sweet gesture, and a great idea, but in order to get material for the scrapbook my Mother has to document every single place, action or fart that happens on the trip.  Sometimes she will have preconceived ideas of pictures she wants and then we have to stage them, or re-enact something that happened so she can get a picture, or we have to listen to “Oh shoot, I missed it, that was such a great picture and I missed it, I’m NEVER going to get a shot like that and it was so perfect, look out for more cows….”

These pictures can create some funny stories.  We have a picture of stunned airport security officers telling my Mom not to take photos.  My mom’s defense was “Well I said in front of her about five times “Oh I have to get a picture of this!””  Maybe the security officer didn’t hear my mom say this because she was too busy scanning my Mother’s camera as my Mom was saying it? 

When we went to the crowded market on the beach I thought to myself, “good my mom is taking pictures I don’t have to embarrass myself”.  Hubs thought, “Wow this is embarrassing” and I’m sure Sally thought “Don’t make me pose anymore”.

Although my Mom was making a spectacle of taking pictures for me to steal from her, she commented that people really didn’t stare at her like she thought they would.  I was blown away.  I thought people were staring more than I thought they would.  I don’t know if it’s the Hindu wedding necklace I’ve been wearing every day since we left, or if I’m just prettier than my Mom, but I’ve been getting some real hard looks.  I expected people to stare, we aren’t in an overly touristy city, and I do have pearly white skin and blue eyes, but what I didn’t expect was the guy literally standing two feet from me, facing me straight on and staring for about ten minutes.  I don’t like to be rude, so I tried not to stare back, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t blink the entire ten minutes.  Riding around in the auto-rickshaw, Sally watched a guy stare at me so hard that he drove his motorcycle into a passing pedestrian.   Maybe they are just intrigued by my Scottish/German stature?

Ew, ew, ew!

One promised adventure for this blog was what my white bread counter parts would eat in India.

My Mom has been gung-ho to try new foods and tastes, the issue with her is the spice (hot).  “No spice” to the South Indian waiter literally translates to “three alarm fire” to my mom.  As funny as it is to see her choke and cough waving her hands in front of her face sputtering “yogurt, yogurt!” it’s also sad that such a willing participant has to miss out on such good tastes.

My Dad has been a reluctant taster.  I know he would love at least half the food if he would give it an honest try and judge with his tongue instead of his eyes and brain.  The night we got the butter chicken he actually admitted to liking it, and commented that it was kinda like eating chili. (duh!)  Still he likes to play it safe with sandwiches at Subway, or with items like pasta or fish and chips at restaurants.  He thinks he’s adventurous because there is added spice to these dishes (like all food in the South) and he actually finishes his food.  My Dad’s face saver on this trip is Sally, and he’s not afraid to point it out, over and over again. 

Being eleven and precious gives Sally the luxury of saying “Ew, ew, ew!” to anything and everything on the menu or on the table.  The infuriating thing about it is I completely understand where she is coming from and how she feels because I was her.  I know the emotion that takes over when the food ordered is not EXACTLY what was in mind. 

The buffet food at the Chennai breakfast wasn’t so bad because we could point at things to explain and let her eyes do the judging.  Ordering off the menu was a different story.  All we could do was hypothesize what the dish would be like.  When Sally’s food came, if it was a disappointment Sally would make sure everyone knew it wasn’t her fault, Auntie had said it would be EXACTLY like such and such and it wasn’t.  How she’d get from “I think this might be something along the lines of the noodles you eat at my house” to “this is EXACTLY the noodles you eat at my house” must be lost in the translation from adult to preteen speech.

The most annoyingly funny meals were the “white people” meals we ordered for Sally.  On the way to Salem from Chennai we stopped at the fancy hotel for lunch.  Scrawny little Sally decided she would order the “Chicken Cesar Salad” AND the “Crusted Chicken Dinner”.  The enjoyable part was my Mother ordered the exact same meal so we actually had a control subject for the meal. 

Somehow the Cesar salad was too “spicy” for Sally to eat (Mom said it tasted like regular Cesar salad with the exception that it was iceberg lettuce instead of romaine) so my Dad told her to pick the chicken out and eat it and leave the rest.  Sally did okay, but there was one big piece of chicken left she couldn’t bring herself to eat because it had touched the parsley.  The PARSLEY!  Okay, I totally get the runny touching things, I still won’t give Poohpers ketchup because I think it’s disgusting and don’t want her to touch me with ketchup hands because then I will need a shower.  And if someone puts a tomato on my burger and it juices on my bun that’s a problem, but PARSLEY!  That’s like saying I can’t eat it because it touched a clean napkin!

Don’t worry, she ordered an entree too, there will be something for her to eat…

NOT!  So the crusted chicken was a chicken breast with fries.  First ew ew was the fact that it came with vegetables (I gallantly scooped them up onto my plate, then stomach).  The second, minor offense was that the fries came with black pepper on them (scoff!)  But the real offender was that the breaded chicken breast came with, oh my, beyond imaginable, a BONE!  Suddenly the entire meal was contaminated like a piece of chicken with parsley on it!  Even the earlier desired melted cheese on top of the chicken became like a toxic substance destroying every last inch of the meal.

I personally am of the mind that you can starve if you have food issues; I have done this countless times myself.  I know Sally has more granola bars in her suitcase than are stocked at the grocery store, so I personally would let this go.  A hungry, disappointed tummy is enough punishment in my mind, but for my parents that grew up poor, any food waste is sacrilege.  My Grandmother even lives by the slogan “better belly burst than good food spoil”.  So my Dad spent the last half of the meal leaning across the table scraping toxic cheese off of the offending chicken in a desperate attempt at consumption for Sally. I knew only too well that at this point, the chicken was contaminated far beyond consumption.

The Road To Chennai is Paved in Puke

As you can tell by the title, this post is going to be both exciting and disgusting and for those pure-of-heart, a little sad.

The second day in India we traveled from Chennai to Salem, the “town” where Hubs is from.  Traditionally one would take a train, but because new highways are being built and expanded we took a taxi-van.  The trip takes about 6 hours with no stops and moderate traffic.  Because you have to pay for the driver’s transportation in both directions, we got my mother-in-law to organize the taxi and she procured a Toyota Enova(?) minivan for us.

Traveling with five and a half passengers plus a driver in a small minivan can seem crowded, but for this trip we also had 6 large suitcases and 6 carry-on bags.  The driver tied four of the suitcases to the top of the minivan and crammed the other suitcases in the back of the van leaving room for one person to sit in the very back with the suitcases.  Sally eagerly snapped up this spot and took full advantage of the suitcases as pillows.  That left both my parents, myself and Poohpers to occupy the back seat (middle bench) and Hubs sat in the front seat as our interpreter.  Hubs originally offered the front seat to my dad as the “heaviest, er healthiest” traveler, but the A/C aggravated his sinuses making his eyes water uncontrollably.

As soon as we got out of the city I asked the driver to stop and get us some bananas because our diets mostly consisted of grains for the last two days.  My Mom to avoid any spice, my Dad to avoid anything too strange, Sally wasn’t eating much other than the 40 granola bars my mom brought her, and Poohper just wasn’t eating right.  The driver pulled over to a sketchy looking road side shack and I thanked the lord for making built in wrapping for the bananas.  Sally of course refused her banana with an eww, but the rest of us mowed down.  Poohpers coming out of starvation mode sucked down her banana, half of mine, and against my will half of Grandmas.  We continued the journey in better spirits, passing the time by listening to my mother alternate between complaining about missing pictures of cows on the road, to complaining she misses so much of the trip because she’s the only one taking pictures.

Half way we stopped at a modern fancy looking hotel with a restaurant that would have food that my parents and Sally could eat.  We just settled down at the table and were going through the menu trying to figure out which western looking food items would not have added spices when they brought us out some complementary poppadum like chips.  Poohpers with her banana induced vigor started eating them right away, but then also started choking on them, and then like usual when chocking, started to puke a little from the coughing fit.  Not a big deal unless your belly is overfilled with bananas and your little puke becomes a large puke that scares the crap out of you enough that you start freaking out and puking more which triggers more puke.  It was a never ending cycle.  My poor Dad was on one side and Hubs on the other.  Hubs frantically pulled cloth napkins off the table as my Dad held them under her chin and Poohper’s little skirt acted as the safety net catching any errand splashed.  I crawled over my Mom to get to the poor baby as Sally sat frozen staring at the scene unfolding.

We managed to stop the flow and I cradled poor little Poohpers as we took her outside to find her some fresh clothes and calm her down.  Our driver was great and got out Poohper’s suitcase (which luckily didn’t end up on the roof-rack) and rocked her in his arms as we found some fresh clothes and a bag for the soiled ones.

Upon returning to the table at the restaurant, like a true 11 year old Sally didn’t ask about Poohpers but instead disgustedly proclaimed “Auntie, I can never UNSEE that again!”

Yesterday my Parents and Sally left so they could catch their plane to Delhi for their North India tourist package.  To avoid another puke incident Hubs and I decided Poohpers and I would stay behind while he traveled back with them to Chennai.  Apparently this did not help as Sally decided to upstage Poohpers and revisit her chicken fried rice.  I think it was slightly less dramatic.

The Freak Show

Hubs and I are independent introverts.  For the most part we like to quietly do our own thing.  When it came to getting married we wanted to take the afternoon off work and go to city hall to sign some papers.  Knowing my mother would never let me forget it if she wasn’t there (I actually went back to school for a three year program so I wouldn’t have to listen to my mom complain that she missed my University graduation) we decided to do something bigger.  By that I mean that we invited immediate family only (sorry again friends and relative) and had 25 people witness us get married in my parent’s living room one Friday morning.  We were fortunate enough that 3/4ths of Hub’s siblings could fly in from around the world, and his mother came from India.

Because of the small wedding in another country, part of this trip was so that Hub’s mother could host a wedding reception for us.  Today was the reception, or as Hubs liked to tease my parents and I before the trip “the freak show”.  The reception was from noon to four o’clock (note 4 hrs) and it consisted in us dressing up in beautiful (ahem, hot and heavily beaded) Indian outfits and sitting on a stage under heat lamps, er, spot lights as the hosts brought up relatives to congratulate us, chat a little about how they are related and how everyone is doing, pose for a professional photograph, pose for the videographer to take some shots, then exit the stage for the next guest.  The waiting relatives would all sit around staring at the stage (us) as they waited their turn, and guests would be taken to the side room in groups for lunch.

The lunch room had long skinny tables set up with chairs on one side facing another long skinny table with the same set up.  In front of each seat was a banana leaf functioning as a plate with various curry and vegetables blobs on it.  People would sit down and start eating as the servers would come along with stainless steel buckets (nice ones, not barn ones) and scoop out various other dishes like rice, biryani, rasum and dal, refilling as people emptied their leaves.  As in “theme” with the banana leaf, there were no utensils.  It really was interesting, but I was exhausted by the time it was our turn, which came at the end of a long hot day.

I was told there would be A/C at the reception hall, but I also saw the “we’ll see” expression on my mother-in-law’s face when I was told this, so I was not surprised when Hubs and I spent four hours sitting (as in standing) on the warming tray stage greeting people.  “Lucky” for them, my parents and Sally also got to sit centre stage.  It was nice to meet Hub’s family and community, and I think I handled it pretty well.  I think my parents were pretty tired and hot by the end, but said to themselves “it’s a once in a lifetime experience” and trooped right through.

Poohpers had it rough; she was the baby that cried if you held her too much, unlike most babies, if she was overwhelmed she wanted you to put her on a blanket in the corner by herself instead of holding and cuddling her.  In this culture people love to touch babies and chuck their chins and pinch their cheeks.  We’ve had women come from the other side of the department store just to do such.  So at a gathering where anyone and everyone that might even remotely be related even through marriage is invited to avoid disrespecting someone my little Poohpers met most of her relatives with a loud “NO!” followed by her turning her head away and crying.

Lastly was Sally.  Sally is a good kid, but as I’m not afraid to tell my sister, her Mother spoils her.  For the reception, Sally (our little hockey player) was all dressed up in a fancy ornate dress with ruffles out the wa-hoo and fresh flowers in her hair.  I was the one fortunate enough to sit beside her so I got to watch the excitement fade like a meteor barreling to earth.   I got the questions and comments that went from “aren’t you incredibly board?” to “well at least you have something to distract yourself” to “Is it seriously going to be another two hours?” all while I watched her slowly melt down her chair.  It was at the point that she was slouched in the chair so much that her head was resting on the back of the chair with her one foot tucked up under her butt and the other one sticking out towards the crowd (note in this culture it’s rude to put your feet anywhere but on the floor and super rude to point the soles at anyone) that I decided I would suggest to her that she could take a walk if she liked.  Sally looked at me with shock and disgust on her face and said “but they expect me to sit up here, it’s proper!”

The Mother Land

Finally a post from India!  We have now been experiencing India for four full days (oops, make that a week now).  There are a lot of little stories to write and there is the experience of traveling on the plane with a two year old, but I thought I would write about first impressions of the country first, then back track to catch up chronologically.

It has not been easy to blog.  The obvious reasons are we have been busy touring, shopping, visiting and making sure my parents and niece are okay.  Then there is waiting till we can find a surge protector for the laptop so the unpredictable current doesn’t fry our hard drive.  But the main reason is we are in the city of Salem where Hub’s mother lives and Hubs refers to as “The black hole”.  I have to admit, it is like a ginormous small village, but I think Hub’s real disdain comes from spending 5 months here about 6 years ago.  North America accustomed him to high speed interned and everything at his disposal, so he’s put out here and not afraid to voice it.  Me, the “princess” from Canada, isn’t really bothered by all this.  I feel bad for my readers that are anxiously awaiting pictures I have yet to take and posts I have yet to write.  I guess I just accepted before we left that everything would be an inconvenience compared to my “normal” life.

As for my impressions of India, I like it.  I don’t think I would want to live here all the time, and I will admit I much preferred the city (Chennai) to Salem, but I still like it.  India is all those things that people complain about, but in some ways that is its charm.  I like how things are not so sterile here.  You see life all around you, the good the bad, the pretty the ugly, the stinky.  In North America we are so uptight (me included) about everything.  Everything has to be cleaned to death, all the bad things in life swept aside, old and unproductive people are hidden from our everyday life.  This country is alive, it is colourful, and people seem to be thankful for the little they do have.  Here I don’t feel the sense of entitlement that is suffocating in North America.

I am amazed at how use to the noise you get.  Here the honking is constant, people honk just to say “I’m hear and I’m passing you so watch out!” which seems like noise pollution but actually makes sense.  And people actually get out of the way!  The buses have more pull here, if they honk, you move or die!

The food is amazing!  We haven’t eaten crazy amounts and actually half of it has been “Chinese”, but it’s good.  The first meal was breakfast and we were still jet lagged and trying to explain food to our white bread counterparts so they didn’t starve when I took a mouthful of Dosa soaked in Sambar and stopped mid-sentence to proclaim to Hubs “This is SOOOOOOOOOOO good!”.  My mother-in-law is now fattening me up like a pig for the kill, but it is so hard to say no when it’s so good.  I think Hubs will need bigger pants.  I should have saved my maternity pants….