On the Road

I've had some of these pictures saved for an "On The Road" post for over a year--even longer. You see SO many crazy things on the road here. I was waiting until I had some good ones--like some of the best, craziest of the crazy things I've seen. But, I just don't have my camera most of the time...or we zip by too fast...or I just can't get a picture of it because there are SO many people in between me and the crazy thing!

Well, I'm cleaning out and nesting and making room for baby pictures. ;) So, you get these...the ones that I have.

And, since we plan on living here for a while, I'll have to do another post another day after getting some crazy pictures for you!

a transfer truck with no back

milkman--delivering fresh milk to your door everyday

Many people have motorcycles only, and they do not let that stop them from transporting things!!!

This guy is holding two computers.

The roads are always crowded. There are no lanes to stay in, so you get as far to the front as you can. This is why a motorcycle or scooter is awesome to have here. You can squeeze through the tightest places at the long traffic lights and get to the front of the line. Cuts your time to get somewhere SO much!

This is how I imagine it: The guy driving this steam roller was probably moving to another site, and he had to get his bike there too. So, he just attached it and drove on...right down the road.

Which makes me think of one of my favorite sights. I did not have my camera this day, and I was so bummed! There was a digger of some sort at this huge intersection. It had its scoop lifted up, and in the scoop was a motorcycle. I bet it was a similar situation to this steamroller. Oh, and another guy was just hanging on to the side of the digger. Going down one of the biggest roads and at a main intersection! I love it!!!

And you see the oversized, weighted down trucks ALL the time! Sometimes their load is hanging so far over the side that it's only inches...maybe a foot...off the ground--not kidding!

And, about a month ago, you could see me and my hubby on the road on his motorcycle. We had a mid-day date for lunch and running some errands. It was my first time to ride...and only time so far. Usually we are all together in the car. We just can't seem to get all of us on the bike anymore. ;) Nor do I really want to try it!

Always tractors and tanks.

And, notice, again the motorcycle transporting whatever they need to!

Here is the tow truck. There are many more bikes and scooters than cars. These "recovery vans" will come and guys jump out of the back and just pick up the scooters and throw them in. Not kidding--we watched them do it. That's how they tow in our town. Gray knows....his bike was towed last week. ;) The fine...was $3, and that was a $1 higher than normal because he didn't have his insurance card! Good thing is he's getting sharper and sharper on his Hindi with all these "situations." Fun thing is in our last Hindi intensive class the guys had to practice speaking about this situation. Getting your bike towed in India! Our awesome teachers just knew how handy this was.

I know this just seems so horrible that I took a picture, but you see this all.the.time!!!

Guys that just stop their bikes or cars to relieve them selves right there on the side of the road.

And, gotta love the creative ways to get it carried...get it transported!

One More Post!!!

One more post from our time with Gigi and Grandy!

In the capital, we fit all of us in one auto rickshaw!

Isn't that awesome--4 adults, 4 kids and one driver!

Here's the backseat.

Grandy sat up front with the driver. I'm not sure how he felt about the lack of personal space.

We told him he had to hold on and put his arm around the driver!

We rode all the way to the new, fun mall that has an awesome outdoor playground and Chilli's!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the playground!

Jackson was nervous about this part, but with some coaching, he did awesome!

Sam's silhouette

Here is an album full of pictures!

Mostly from the playground, some from shopping at an outdoor market

Our friends, Mike and Miriam, sent lots of goodies wrapped for us!!!

We waited til after traveling to open them.

It was actually great! The kids opened and got lots of new toys and fun things.

They were able to play with them the next week while we hung out in Delhi and Gray was in meetings everyday.

Mike and Miriam, thank you SO much!!! So much. You guys bless us well!

We had a wonderful, wonderful time and cannot wait for Gigi and Grandy to come back!

Here's the clan all clad in Wolfpack colors!

And, if you come back, I'll wear a wolfpack shirt again too!!!!

Train Ride back to the capital

Their names in Hindi

#71-76

Gray, Brandy, E.D. (how they wrote it), Debbie, Sam and Jackson

Sarala was in another seat, but still got to sit with us--people are usually nice to swap!

This is a wonderful thing about India. There is always someone there to do something for you for a small fee! These guys are called coolies. They carry bags on and off the trains for people. Most of the time they carry them on their heads on the scarves. They always have on red, so you know you have a "professional" coolie. They do like to bargain, and for me, this is the most stressful thing we bargain about. I always try to remain cool about it (and tell myself every time not to get all riled up), but I always get all riled up at the prices they quote us and the bargaining process that is necessary. I guess it's the stress of being at the train station with our kiddos and that they are carrying our luggage with all our stuff...maybe that's why it's so stressful!

Trains are always good down time. The kids, with much grace from the Father, I'm sure always travel well on this 5-6 hr train ride.

It gets in so late, so there is usually a lot of sleeping going on too.

I still have some more posts of some time with Gigi and Grandy.

6 on one bike!!!

We really did it!

We actually traveled like this only 2 times, but we did it, for real. Our white family of 6 is quite a novelty or possibly "freak show" fits better anywhere we go, but especially when we rode through town like this. Families do get around towns and cities all over India on one bike. Only the driver wears a helmet--and that's only if that city has a helmet law. It's only been a couple of times that I've seen families that are about the size of ours on a bike. But, every time I'm out I see 3 men on a bike at least a couple of times, which probably equals the weight we were carrying.

Amit's House

After returning to DD from Delhi (Parks's delivery), we went to visit Amit's family. This is the family we stayed with to do a language/cultural immersion just before leaving for Delhi. It was so fun to go back there, visit with the family and see the kids!

The kids had a blast playing on this vikram.

A while back, I posted about this form of transportation. It has two seats in the back that face each other that usually hold about 8-10 passengers, but sometimes up to 14--which is crazy! Sometimes they are enclosed and used to transport goods, known as a "goods carrier."

That's Amit's father on the right of Sam. With all the neighbors all around!

If you zoom in, this one has it posted that "I love Islam."

Religions of the driver and/or usually the owner of the vehicle is very known to all! Most autos, rickshaws, buses, taxis, transport vehicles and sometimes personal cars have stickers, icons, small idols or words painted that make known the religion. Once we had an auto that had Jesus and also a Hindu god--which is quite common to see Jesus simply added to the Hindu religion as another god to worship. When we asked the guy about it, he actually was totally devoted to Jesus, and Jesus only, but he explained to us that he had to have the Hindu god's picture as well because the owner of the rickshaw he was driving was Hindu and insisted it be on his auto. So, it's good to ask and have conversations and not assume things about what we see here.

One of the funnest things about returning to visit our friends in their neighborhood was that we were remembered! As we walked through the narrow streets to get to their house, some of the kids were calling out our kids' names. These girls were talking to Sarala and followed us to come play. I love when our kids make Indian friends!

Motorbikes and The Scooty

Some of our friends in DD have bikes and scooters. While they are out of town, we were able to borrow them. I know it seems quite crazy for us to ride like this to all of our American readers, but this is quite a normal site here in India. Normal meaning a family on a bike.

I learned to ride the scooter and got comfortable with it cause we thought we were going to be riding them in Thailand. I didn't want my first time driving a scooter with my kids to be when it was necessary and in a different country.

We enjoyed the convenience of hoping on them and riding around town. It was fun!

Bike Seat

This little girl is at most Sam's age.

I wish you could see the metal grate-like seat she is sitting on.

It's used to hold bags, groceries, and whatever you need to hold while on your bike.

And, the boy on the front is just sitting on the bar.

Kids are just used to things like that here.

Settled....an Update

What a whirlwind this past month has been. 4 weeks ago, we were finishing packing up our house and getting ready for travel. In 3 weeks we spent the night in 8 different places, and it would've been more if there weren't landslides! But, now we're settled in, living in the capital as we wait on our baby's grand arrival, recover and get all of our paperwork done. It's nice to be settled down. We like the house here. Jackson calls it our "toy house" cause there are awesome toys here for the kids. He calls our home in DD our "brick house." Over the past few weeks our kids have said many things like this.

Sam: "I want to go home."

Jackson: "I want to go back to India."

Jackson: "I want to go to our brick house."

Sarala: Well....I think she's used to this traveling life and does awesome with all the change.

But, now they seem to be quite settled and know this is our short term home.

Until the team arrived, we had no baby items at all, but they brought many bags of goodies for us, and I have unpacked and repacked so many bags in the past 3 days. But, now we have all the baby things we'll need for the next month or so ready to go. We even have a car seat--which on one hand is humorous to me cause our kids have been in more airplane buckles the past 6 months than car seat buckles. Plus, we don't have a car!

Sarala begged me to take this picture of her napping with her baby today.

Settling into our new place has brought some fun challenges. Of course, we have to burn up a few things as we get used to electricity in a new place. Power was off so much yesterday in Delhi, but even when it was on, our switch kept flipping over and over and it would be off anyway. We're already well-acquainted with the electrician our landlord uses, and he fixed the bad switches yesterday. But, today while we were eating lunch with some friends, we got a phone call saying our meter had a fire in it while we were at church. Funny thing is on our way out, I smelled a burning electricity smell, but thought it might be normal. Crazy, isn't it...this is our new normal!!!! We were gearing up to spend the next couple of nights away again...just after getting settled. But, to our glad surprise, when we arrived home, our landlord had already had it repaired. Wait....is this India??? We're thinking we have another good landlord here! He came up and checked on the house and saw it was nothing we had on (cause everything was off when we left), and got it repaired. We were overjoyed....to not only to find out we didn't have to move, but also to have fans and even A/C.

AND....it does get better. We also were blessed to get a car today. There was an extra car that a couple isn't using while they are traveling, so we get to use it while we're here! For the first time in 6 months, Gray is driving...and for the first time ever, he drove in S Asia and on the left side of the road. Now...just so you can understand what a gift this is. Usually we have to leave the house and go out of our neighborhood to try to catch an autorickshaw. The other day we spent over 30 minutes out trying to get one--along side the roads of traffic in India, in the heat, with our 3 kids. Then, we still had to sit in traffic and travel for 30 minutes It's just too hard to explain what a sweaty, frustrating, difficult task it was. So, when we were blessed with a car today, we were again overjoyed, especially cause we now have a reliable way to get to the hospital when the baby is ready!!! Maybe we'll use that car seat after all!!!