Shortly after our return to India in January we discovered that an army of mosquitoes invaded our house. They were particularly brutal at night and we were dinner! We try to protect Kara with a mosquito net over her cot, but sometimes one or two slip in and poor Kara would wake up with welts all over her face.

In India, people have made peace with the mosquitoes. We suspect that they are bitten so often while they are young that they actually build up a resistance and that the bites don’t itch. I’ve often seen people taking a nap with a handkerchief over their face (i.e. the rest of their body is fair game). Marga however is not fond of mosquitoes.

About 2 or 3 days back in India, with Kara still sleeping in our room (to help her adjust being yet again in a different house) I woke up with a light shining in my eyes. This is a nightmare for most South Africans as it normally means an armed person is behind the light. To my relief I discovered that it was Marga who was on the hunt. She had her cellphone in one hand, while swatting mosquitoes with the other hand. I laid still and enjoyed the show for about 15 minutes. Marga was quite athletic as she hunted them up and down the walls, catching them on the outside of Kara’s mosquito net and even jumping on the bed to get the ones high up on the wall and the roof. It was both a comic and scary sight!

Marga didn’t want to turn on the light because Kara was sleeping in our room - so she hunted with the help of a cellphone! She was quite effective also - around 40 or 50 mosquitoes died in our room that night. The next morning it looked a bit like a murder scene with blood splatters on the wall where Marga swatted the mosquitoes. The only part of the story which I didn’t find funny was when I realised that most of the blood on the walls were mine!

Take a look if you dare:

Kara

We are so impressed with Kara - she is now mostly sleeping through the night and she impresses and amazes us on a daily basis with new skills or “words”. She crawls at the speed of lightning and stands up against any and everything. Kara has always been her daddy’s girl. She always did her “tricks” first for me - e.g. rolling over, standing up, saying “Pappa” before “Mamma”, etc. When it was feeding time she would refuse to eat until I gave her food to her and then she would eat it all. And when I came into the room she would laugh and get all excited.

This changed a few weeks ago when she started developing a bit of separation anxiety - and now her world revolves around Marga. I’m in a distant second place. I really hope that I can reclaim some of my former “status” in my daughter’s eyes.

Gymboree

Marga discovered a wonderful baby programme in Hyderabad, called Gymboree. They have classes for babies of different ages and a wonderful environment for babies to learn and play. Marga, Kara and I are going to “class” every Sunday. I took a few snaps during the class.

Expat interview

I was recently interviewed by a relocation company about our experience and views of Hyderabad.
You can read the Expat Interview if you are interested.

Ellora

I never got around to posting about Ellora (near Aurangabad). Its almost a year back that I was there, but the images of Ellora are still clear in my mind.

At Ellora they basically carved away a small mountain to leave behind a temple. It took 6000 people 150 years (full time) to build the one big temple. The workers started at the top of the mountain and carved their way downwards, leaving behind an intricate, but massive work of art. Can you imagine a project of this scale? Managing 6000 people for 150 years and if one makes a mistake it stuffs up the whole design! It was impossible to get the scale of the temple captured on a photograph.

Other than the temple there are about 20 caves also carved into the mountain side. These caves are newer than the Aurangabad caves. Ellora developed when Aurangabad was abandoned due to shorter trade routes to the north.

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It’s been too long since we’ve updated this blog! Since the last blog entry we’ve had an interesting time reorganising our lives here in India with Kara and making the new house our home.

Our staff and Alexandra

Theo already wrote about Alexandra, our first au pair, in the previous entry. Well, our staff liked this blonde, attractive girl who moved into the house. Especially Raju. He constantly tried to feed her, telling her that she was too skinny and that picking up weight would mean that she had lived the good life in India. He thought nothing of entering her room unannounced for chats and once even thought it appropriate to stand outside and knock on her bedroom window (which was on the top floor of the double-storied house) with a broomstick. Suffice to say she became very quickly very annoyed with him.

Then Alexandra got a bad flu, and Nurse Raju stepped in. Every hour he would take her “Afrika tea” (Rooibos tea, which I brought from SA) and try and force her to eat something. On the third day, he decided it was time for the steam treatment. He took a pot of steaming water, a strong menthol balm and a towel up to her room and forced her head over the pot with the towel over her head. Not used to this flu treatment, Alexandra was convinced he was trying to finish her off. “Raju, I can’t breathe!” she would say to him. And Raju would just keep her head down, shouting, “Breathe, Madam!! Madam, I don’t hear you! Breathe!” And then Alexandra would try again to escape, shouting back, “But I AM breathing!”

It was probably a combination of shock and steam, but Alexandra recovered rather quickly after that night.

Family visit & trip to Bangalore

Theo’s parents and his brother, Hein, visited us in India.

Kara & her grandfather

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Namaste hamare dosteyaan,

We’ve been quiet on the blog front, but things have not been so quiet on the home front.

Almost two months ago we had a very smooth trip to India with Kara, but it took quite a while for us to find our feet again here in India.
It was especially hard for Marga who has been in South Africa for almost 6 months and was surrounded by family and friends during her pregnancy and the weeks following Kara’s birth. Suddenly we were alone in a somewhat familiar and still somewhat foreign and somewhat unhygenic country, with a vulnerable newborn.

And to top it off we arrived at the start of the swine flu pandemic in the East and it has since just gotten worse. (Swine flu and babies don’t mix well).

New House

To make things even more interesting we also moved to a new house in Hyderabad. It is in an area called Whisper Valley. Here are a few pics.


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After almost 4 weeks I finally made it back to my gorgeous wife and beautiful daughter. It is the last time I’ll be away from them for more than a week. I did not realise how traumatic the seperation would be.

After spending the first month with Kara I was filled with self-confidence (gathered by reading many books) and it was easy for me to handle her, calm her and soothe her to sleep. After the long break I found my daughter almost 30% bigger than when I left her (and my wife back in her pre-pregnancy shape!) and she didn’t want to be held in the same way anymore and I had to re-connect with her.

I arrived on Saturday (13th) afternoon and was fumbling my way through trying to get back into things with my duo of girls. On Sunday I was treated to an early Father’s Day lunch and Kara accompanied us of course. During lunch Kara became hungry, but Marga had prepared a bottle for the occassion. With fond memories of our previous bottle encounter, I scooped up Kara and the bottle and within a few seconds she started to blissfully empty the bottle. Thereafter I rocked her to sleep and we both knew that father and daughter had rekindled their bond. (I think the picture says it all)

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It’s been three weeks since Theo left for Hyderabad again, and Kara and I miss him terribly! The day before he went, he left one of his worn T-shirts for Kara (so that she can remember his smell), and somehow (although she also thinks nothing of throwing up on it!) she seems to be calmer when I put it in her bed.

He missed most of the pregnancy because of us being worlds apart. To contribute in his absence, he bought and studied a number of books on babies, raising girls and even sleep training.

It was great to have Theo a little to ourselves the month right after Kara’s birth. The little missy and her daddy bonded very well as she loved falling asleep on his broad chest, and it was beautiful to see the relationship between them unfold. He even looked after her wardrobe. Being a rather tiny baby, Kara drowned in her new-born clothes. Theo decided his baby needs something that fits properly and came home with a couple of vests and very cute babygrows for tiny babies, which she wore almost every other day until recently, when she finally fitted into her new-born and 0-3 months outfits. Read the rest of this entry »

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Its now 3 weeks - for this family of 3!

Kara has become even cuter, but her taste for the “night life” has also evolved. She loves entertaining her parents between 1am and 7am.

When she is not sleeping - she is in motion. She communicates, waves, kicks and crawls/slithers (mostly in search of a food source …)
She has a very healthy appetite. In Marga’s words : “She drinks like twins!”

Either her yellow tint has diminished, or we have become more used to it because it is not bothering us as much. We are still keeping our fingers crossed that it will disappear soon.

But you don’t really want to read stories - everyone has been asking us to be more forthcoming with the pictures. So here are a few of Kara in motion:
(If you click on any picture a bigger version will appear)

Striking a pose & the distant look:
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It was the best of times, it was the …. - no actually it has simply been the best of times.

We have fallen in love with our daughter and our first week with her has been magical.
And a big wave from us and Kara (see below) for all the well wishes, emails, phone calls, flowers, gifts and support:

Our status check after 1 week:
Sleep-deprived - yes
Worried - yes
Feeling incompetent - yes
Having the time of our lives - absolutely

Our biggest worry is that Kara left the hospital with a nice yellow tint - jaundice (”geelsug”). This is quite common in newborns and fortunately her condition was not severe enough to require time under the lights in hospital, but it does mean that Marga and I (with our years of parenting experience - or not) must “monitor her condition”.
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Today, just after 3 pm, Kara Neha Scheffler arrived into our lives and hearts.

She made a grand, but unexpected entrance today because we did not expect her so soon, but already we cannot imagine life without her.

20 minutes before we left for the hospital:

Fist things first - so where did we come up with the names?
Kara has many roots and meanings - just Google it to see how many!
It means “beloved”, “friend”, “sweet melody”, “pure maiden”, “love”, “the beloved one”, “pure”. All of these apply to our beautiful angel.
It is also a strong name.

Neha is a beautiful Indian name that we chose because of the undeniable connection that our daughter will have to India.
Neha means “cherished”, “beauty”, “love” and “affection”. (It also means “rain” in Sanskrit). It describes how we feel about our little girl.

Also not only does her names have deep and impressive meanings - they are lovely cool names.
(We will be calling her Kara.)

Here is our family: (Have you ever seen a mother look so beautiful an hour after giving birth!?)
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As mentioned in an earlier blog - Nelius and I joined the Hyderabad expat trek to Aurangabad.
(Hyderabad is known for being the best in India for a few things, but two lesser known facts are that it has the best airport in India and the best expat society!)

It was an incredible journey of exploration, that departed from the Secunderabad station in Hyderabad. Roughly 60 firangi (foreigners) taking the 10 hour train ride to Aurangabad.

The train ride was a long interesting experience - good conversation and red wine flowed while delicious snacks were consumed. We also enjoyed a biryani train meal and marvelled at the bathroom with a hole that drops straight onto the tracks!
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The oscar studded movie - Slumdog Millionaire is making its way around the globe.

It is a good movie, with an entertaining story filled with emotion. It shows some of the best and worsts sights in India and it evoked a lot of different reactions from different corners of the world.

Don’t worry - this blog won’t spoil the story for those of you who still haven’t seen the movie. (But seriously it is time to go see it!).

My first “encounter” with Slumdog Millionaire was when I picked up a newspaper while in a plane in India. I saw an “ad” that covered a third of the backpage titled “Don’t go see Slumdog Millionaire”. It was written by an influential columnist in India and he expressed anger about India being “exploited” for the entertainment of the west. As with a lot of things in India - the ad accomplished the opposite of what it intended - it convinced me to go and see the movie (this was long before the Oscars) to find out what the fuss is all about.

So here is my review and critique:
The movie is an enjoyable one and I recommend it. The scenery it shows (including the slums) are not over the top at all and probably quite close to the truth. Nothing in the scenery or background shocked me, on the contrary I felt quite “at home”. The one thing about the movie that did “upset” me a bit is the way in which poor Indian people are portrayed. They are basically shown as dishonest, untrustworthy people that will rob you at the first opportunity. The movie’s concept of a “real Indian experience” irked me a bit… (Maybe I’m putting it a bit strongly, but I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter - please leave comments on this post.)

I have a completely different perception and after living in India for more than a year now, completely different experiences as well. There are exceptions to every rule, but if I had to capture my view on people in India (especially the poor) in a few words - I would say they are friendly, honest people. They will invite you into their homes and share the little food they have without expecting anything in return. I have always felt save, even (/especially) when walking through poor areas with an expensive camera and a full wallet. Read the rest of this entry »

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