Mr. Kanaan and the Chicken

Last week while walking to school one morning with Raphael and Yinon a rickshaw driver pulled over to greet us. It was Mr. Kanaan, our favorite driver. Kids call him Mr. Funny Horn for the amusing honking sound that his horn makes. Mr. Kanaan is a busy man, I suspect he is everyone's favorite driver. Every time I call him asking for a ride he is always busy on another assignment. So we were quite surprised to see him pull over for us.

It appears that Mr. Kanaan was on the way to our house with... seven baby chicks in a plastic bag. Wow, that was a real surprise, but it kind of makes sense. He was the one driving us when Maya spotted bird cages in a pet shop on a side road (will write about that later). He also pulled over every time kids noticed baby goats or puppies on the road. On one of our weekend excursions he had taken us to two pet fish hatcheries. Him and Maya must be on the same wavelength when it comes to animals, and today he showed up with this precious gift for her - seven baby chicken.

I won't lie, I was quite excited as well. Right away I started exploring options in my head of how to set up a chicken pen. I thought Maya will be ecstatic. She's been asking me to let her raise chicken since we first got to Madurai.

But as soon as we reached home and let the chicken out in a shady area under the stairs, my fantasies have been put to an end. Mutamma, our cook and housekeeper, gave me a very serious look and a categorical "no way".  She thought live chicken would attract snakes and rats, and I should also mention ants, Maya's big nemesis. Eial-Sir was of the same opinion, we can not raise chicken neither inside nor outside of the house. Although the vote was tie with Mr. Kanaan and me in favor, and Mutamma and Eial against, we decided it was better to get the chickens out of the house before Maya  finds out they were ever here. So we sent Mr. Kanaan away with seven baby chicks packed back in the plastic bag. But before we did that, we did take some pictures - see below.

On the way to school boys climbed these stairs of an empty office building and requested to be photographed

Surprise gift in a plastic bag

Would this be a good place to set up a chicken pen?

Right away, the chicken start eating and checking out the place

Sorry Mr. Kanaan, but we appreciate the thought

Goats on the main street, in search of some green grass

Mr. Kanaan pulled over when he spotted these puppies

At the fish hatchery that Mr. Kanaan took us to

Worker at the fish hatchery

More fish hatchery pics

Raphael's Letter to Friends

Everyone wants to know how are kids adjusting to their life in India. My family especially were asking me whether our kids were "shocked" by dirt, garbage, poverty and how are they dealing with that. The truth is that kids are such different creatures than us. Things that bother us don't even register in kids' minds. They don't see garbage, they see chickens. They are not freaked by vehicles not staying in their lanes, they are too busy waving to other kids riding on motorcycles. They are not saddened by the fact that their friends and life they knew stayed far behind, they think it's just around the corner and they will see them "next week". In short, the kids are busy exploring and discovering their new surroundings. They still act like it's one big exciting trip, not a whole new different lifestyle.

Here is what Raphael wanted to tell his friends about his life in India. I took these notes down on October 7, which is about a week after we got to Madurai.

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October 7, 2011

Raphael's Letter To Friends:

I was on a ricksaw. We saw Meenakshi temple. We saw schools. I took a bath. I went on top of the roof and the lower roof. I watched the builders build a house. I am playing with ropes downstairs. And drawing. I like to do painting here. I am riding motorcycle with Mr. Selvakumar. I am sleeping in the mosquito net. There are big piles of bricks and big giant dump trucks come every day to bring builders bricks. Me and Nini and Aba went to a hair salon to get our hair cut. Me and Nini are playing with choo-choo trains. Me and Nini and Maya take a shower and bath in our buckets. Me and Nini were washing the roof yesterday. Mommy said when we go to school we can ask friends to come to our house and play. We can also tell them where we live. The outside windows are glass and in the inside there are bars. I like India. People are so nice, really nice.

Love,
Raphael

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Here are some of Raphael's favorite moments captured in photos:

Checking out construction site next to our house

Sitting right under the ceiling, assisting with mosquito net installation. Check it out, Raphael has his tools ready

Inspired by the story of Three Little Pigs, the boys are building the house of bricks

This big construction mess is happening in our covered car port, which we obviously are not using

The rain unexpectedly ended, but the boys weren't wet enough. They proceed to the faucet 

This is one sure way to get upset stomach and diarrhea. Tap water is not fit for drinking...

On the lower roof, assisting me with hanging laundry

Making the roof wet is still a favorite game

Mopping the floor with his own mop that he insisted on buying

Setting up and sleeping in the mosquito net

Sitting on the lap of Mr. Funny Horn while driving the rickshaw back home

Taking a bucket bath

Climbing empty shelves and jumping off them

The top shelf works as "time out" zone because he can't get out of it himself

Priming the shelf while the other two kids are watching the movie

Election Day

Last Monday we had a local election day. We've been curiously observing various election campaigns for the last couple of weeks.  There were rickshaws cruising in our neighborhood with pre-recorded messages blasting through the speakers. Sometimes a guy in the rickshaw would read messages live over microphone. Sometimes we saw demonstrators marching down the street with flags and matching hats. There were people knocking door to door handing out pamphlets of candidates. Obviously the only part we could understand from the pamphlet was the photo of the candidate. Once the candidate herself showed up at our door in her most exquisite sari with a large entourage of followers.

Apart from that, the election day didn't mean much to us except it was another day that our kids were out of school. We went around our business as usual until we noticed that our quiet street has become quite a parking lot. As we should have guessed, the Maruthu Rukmani school across from our house was a local voting point. The people were coming in various modes of transportation from early morning. Some by foot or on bicycle, some by rickshaws and motorcycles. The most important people came by cars driven by private drivers, and they parked right outside our house. Overall we were very impressed with how the election was conducted. Everything was organised and peaceful. I saw poll workers listing through lists of voters with people's names and photos. The next day we read in the paper that over 80% of rural and 64% of urban population came to vote. Way to go Tamil Nadu!

Below are some pictures we took on our street while walking to the corner vendor.

Mutamma is a voter. Her nail has been marked with hena. Voters on our street got their nails marked with permanent marker. 

Lots of traffic at the entrance to Maruthu Rukmani school.

Maya and Raphael posing next to a motorcycle.

We're peaking inside the school gate, we can see poll workers with their lists.

We were stopped by two young ladies eager to know our names and pinch the kids' cheeks.

Another voter check point at the corner of our street.

Neat row of parked motorcycles. You can see our house ahead. We're still amazing at how much more orderly things are done here in Tamil Nadu versus the state of Orissa where we lived before.

VIPs arrived in cars and parked right next to our house. 

No Car Seats: A Jolly Ride Home

Arrived in Madurai around 8am on Wednesday, September 28. A jeep was waiting for us and kids were very excited to hear that there were no car seats in India. They piled up to the trunk, snatched the camera, and took some silly pictures of themselves and us. They enjoyed the ride immensely, waving to motorcycles, rickshaws and school buses packed with kids on their way to school.

What did we see on our ride? Here is Maya's story in pictures about our ride home. It's hilarious that all she cares about is chickens, goats, and cows. Every creature we saw is accounted for!

According to Maya, we saw two chickens and one rooster.

We passed by a "stinky creek" with ? number or pigs and three piglets.

We saw a cow pulling a cart? I have to question that, haven't seen any carts pulled by cows. Cows are free in Madurai. But maybe she's right, perhaps there was a bullock pulling a cart in the outskirts of town closer to the airport. 

We saw a goat.

Maya noticed that houses here in India have flat roofs. Check out the photo below, that's a pretty correct drawing of the houses we passed by.

We saw a vendor selling fruit. Check out the sign with Tamil letters she drew.

Here are the photos of some things that struck Maya the most:

Reached home successfully. Here is Maya on her victorious run up and down the street. She is extremely excited about the green space next to our house. She is chasing the chickens and is begging us to let her adopt them.

Jet lag finally kicked in. They are all passed out in hot afternoon sun. I am pretty sure there was a power outage at that time, and one fan that Mr. Selvakumar kindly lent us had stopped blowing.