Thursday, July 31, 2008

India Two Years-In Retrospective







It is hard to believe that two short years ago the Loudamericans boarded a plane from Minneapolis to Bangalore

The 5 of us were nervous , scared and wondered for most of the journey "what we were thinking?!"

The country of India, it's people and ever changing Political climate has provided us a life changing and enriching experience. I could go on about a great many things however our avid readers know all of that.

It has been great watching our kids grow and meet new people and how they deal with problems of daily life here.
For instance:
~ When we first arrived all we heard was "LOOK A COW" "did you see that cow?" and now cows have little or no draw on the daily ride to and from school.
~ The kids would also break down in hysterics every night as the power went out. "Help the powers out!!" and now they just say : "S*@t there went the power".
~ "Mom, what is Mutton?" has been replaced with, "please pass the mutton", "Can someone please pass the curd", "can you put chocolate in my chocolate milk?" "Do we have any pomegranate juice or did Raj make any of that yummy mango smoothie drink". (This usually came from Wade as he was dreaming up some new martini recipe.)
~ Jimmy calls his lunch box a "tiffin", they sit "properly" in school and are not phased when people switch between English, Hindi, Tamil and Kanada.

The new friends that we have made as we all forged a bond through the learning curve of being ex-pates has been a blessing. This is a true description of god put people into your life for a reason. There are to many to mention them all so if I forget please excuse me. The MILLERS!, Bradley-Goads, Steinhoff-Fuchs,Tait's,Webb's,Shays,Wilson's, Herkelman's,the Target ex-pat community, Ajay and Angelica and of course our families back home we say thank you.

Tracy has risen from Senior Manager to Director of Business Services.
Tom has gone from an unemployed stay at home Dad to being enrolled in The University of Phoenix on-line program stay at home Dad.

Jimmy has climbed the educational ladder from Nursery to First Standard reaching his first goal " Being a school ager". He has also reached his goal of playing the drums and takes lessons once a week. The drum teacher actual begs us to let Jimmy continue his lessons stating" He is the only one in the class who knows what I am talking about" God help us!

Kay (besides painting up a storm & eating strange foods) has applied and has been accepted into the new CIA/FBI children's program and we only see her at night. Her role model is Colonel Flag. She still wants to be a face painter. Not a bad occupation in India.

Billy, who has lived in India longer than anywhere else, in the world now rides his bike with wild abandon. He talks up a blue streak and has civilisation saving light sabre battles with Jimmy.
Not to mention, he is a grand theft auto theif. Keep your hot wheels under lock and key.



Yeah the kids are growing up.




We have travelled to many places these past two years and for that we are blessed. We came back from Minnesota this past June and ran into an unexpected wave of homesickness. It was hard coming back and realizing not only have our kids grown up but all the kids we know have changed, including the adult kids.

We now only have about 6 months to go and we will be heading back to the US and will experience the home sickness again of missing all our friends from India.
But, what a ride! How lucky are we:) ??!!