Parentless

A bouncing 2.2 kilo baby boy was born at 10 am this morning. We are still waiting on the doctors report but the baby is breathing on his own and with his mother which I am told is a good sign.

 

Last Weds. Manny went in for a checkup. After an ultrasound and some tests they wrote on her chart that she had "reduced liquor" and they needed some more tests. Ok first off I'm guess the translation there would be liquid versus a surprising lack of whiskey. After she got home we got to talking with her and asked her how much water she was drinking every day. She told us that she couldn't drink more then about a glass or she would vomit. We found out the same held for almost anything milk, soda. No matter what she drank she couldn't keeep it down.

Today we took her in for the additional tests. It was the first day the labs were open since our last visit. The doctors did the tests and monitored the babies heart rate. The heart rate was variable going up and down. In 4 days the babys condition had gone from stable to critical. As I type this they are inducing her. The baby is a little over 8 months old but according to the doctors the development stopped almost a month ago. So we are looking at a 7 month...

Diwali. Is the india festival of Lights. I'm told it takes about the same spot in the India mind as Christmas does in America. It's the festival time. A time to spend with family. There are actually three times of year that you could consider the Holidays in India. It really depends on your religious heritage. Hindu's have Diwali. Christian celebrate Christmas. Muslims celebrate Ramadan.

OK though it is the Holiday season I'd have to say the resemblence to christmas stops there. Christmas to me is quiet and calm. Family and friends and carols and cold winter nights. Diwali is loud and Hot. with Christmas are the scents of pine and apple cider. With Diwali is sulfer and ashe. Diwali is the fireworks time of the year and to be perfectly honest the forth of JUly ain't got nothing on this. There is no centralized display. Almost every family in town will buy some fireworks and starting at midnight the night of Diwali and going on for days after they light them off.

My son attempted to tell one of our...

Went out shopping a couple days ago for bunk beds and a baby cradle. We weren't sure how much it was going to cost for the beds we needed for the orphanage. After some shopping we finally found a couple different options ranging from 18,000 rs. ($400) to 10,000 rs. ($200) both were more then we really wanted to spend especially when you figure we need 6 of them now and many more in the future. Next shop was the carpenter maybe we could have it made. Well that was better about half the price but still too much.

So finally I decided to build my own. I never realized what a mess that would cause. When I went to by the lumber the prices were unbelievable. 1 1x6 8' long was over $100 at one shop and more at another. I'm sure I just didn't find the right shops and there is doubtless cheaper lumber around but when they quoted me all the lumber I thought I'd need for a baby bed and a bunk bed it was into the thousands. Ok lumber might not be such a good idea. However on the way home I noticed a shop that sold...

     I'm a star Trek fan. Maybe that goes without saying since I'm a computer programmer. Got to thinking this morning I wonder if I became a programmer because I watched Star Trek as a kid or started watching star trek because I was destined to be a programmer? Anyway I brought along some DVD's and sat down yesterday and watched one. As I watched them "Beam" the 100th person that episode I got to thinking it would be nice if I could just "Beam" back stateside every now and then.

     Been here a little over 2 months I guess homesick was bound to set in eventually it would be dim to think otherwise. Last couple weeks have been tough ones. Nothing moves quickly in India especially on a shoestring budget. Of course we could pay the expedite fee("bribe") and get it all done faster but don't think we are that desperate yet. We have been waiting on the lawyer to get the paperwork filed for the orphanage for almost a month today it looks like we will have to get a new lawyer. Last month we put down a deposit on a hall. We wanted to start teaching some classes but then the hall fell through and we aren't sure we'll be able to get our deposit back. If patience is a virtue if I stay around here long enough my "virtue" will out shine the sun because it seems that patience is all I've gotten for our efforts to date. 

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I've been thinking about starting to keep track of how many accidents I've seen since I've been here. Then I got to thinking I'll update how many I was involved in. So far I think the count is up to 6. Only one of any significance and that was last friday. the right peg on my bike broke off accompanied with some skin from my knee and elbow.

Like every one else growing up in the 80's one of my favorite movies was Ferris Beulars day off. I felt like his science teacher this week as we tried to get ahold of the advocate. Beular, Beular, Beular. Seems answering machines are a luxury item so if they don't pick up all you can do is try again. Beular, Beular.

     All things concidered last week was a bad week. One of those weeks were everything just went wrong as if the world had just decided that it didn't like you that week. But we press on. We hope to hear back from the advocate this week. Perhaps we will finally be able to move forward with the orphanage. Needless to say it has been frustrating.

 Hey all we finally got all our stuff. I took an 8 hour bus trip to Chennei, 2 hours in customs, 4 hours waiting to get my passport back followed by another 8 hour bus trip home but in the end we got it all through. Looks like most of it survived. We'll see. The guys we hired to Unload the truck were rolling boxes up the stairs earlier so there is no telling how much is broken we'll find out tonight when we open it all.      Ok shameless plug because I promised I would http://www.atozlogistics.net/ was incredible. They took care of everything for us. Sheparding me through customs pushing through the paperwork even making sure I got to and from the bus station. I highly recommend them for shipping to India.      For those keeping up on Manny. SHe's doing fine. Her husband deposited about $25 last week. He didn't however add anything to that this week. He agreed to deposit about $10 per week into savings as long as Manny stayed with us. We'll see how it goes next week....

The last couple weeks have gone well. Mercy got her orphanage newsletter sent out. (If you didn’t receive a copy please drop us an email with your mailing address so we can get you added. ) We still haven’t gotten our stuff picked up from customs. Seems one delay after another however looks like weds. I’ll be able to go over and get it all cleared and it should arrive Thurs. or Friday. The pregnancy is proceeding well. Mercy is in her 7th month now. Our little bundle should arrive Dec. 5th. Just in time for our anniversary. We are still trying to get our paperwork processed so we can start accepting orphans. Looks like it will take more time. Our son Ashish was asking this morning if we could get some corn for supper tonight. I said we could but it wouldn’t at all be like what he had in Iowa. I told him here it is a lot drier and harder. He said he wouldn’t be interested then. Spent some time in area near our home some friends were asking for some pictures of what life is like for children here in India....

     First the Good news. I got a job. Ok maybe not that good. Work is a funny thing. While you do it you can't wait to stop. After you stop for a while and the bank account gets a little low you can't wait to start. Earlier I mentioned that things where a lot more expensive then we remember and a 10% slide in the dollar had really left us flat footed. We did manage to get by but it didn't take long before our funds started to dwindle. Originally we were thinking I'd be off for at least 3 to 6 months while we got everything straightened out but the new budget wouldn't allow for that. So Hi HO Hi HO ...

     Ok time for shameless plug. The company I work for is Osprosys. We are located in the heart of Bangalore. We provide a large variety of services. I'm personnaly envolved with the application / website development side of things. If you need any development work done feel free to contact me via Osprosys.com.

     Ok the bad news. Our shipment arrived earlier then we expected. Ok at first that didn't...