New Friends

There is an OWC happy hour the last Friday of every month at a bar in the Sheraton hotel called "The Dublin." Despite the moniker and the hotel setting, it is still just a bar in Bangalore. Legend has it they once sold Guinness (in cans) but Friday it was Kingfisher and more Kingfisher. When we arrived we met a British couple who had been here for about 7 months and were very nice. Shortly thereafter, more people started to arrive including an older couple from California, Sherry and Ira. Sherry was talking about how she feels like living in India puts her "above the world." We both gave her quizzical looks and she went on (and on and on) about how she feels like she can "really see the world" now and that now it's like she is up here (and she raised her hands above her head) and the world is down here (and she moved her hands to her waist) and so now she really understands the world. We also met a man from what is now Pakistan but he has lived in Singapore for a long time. He was talking about the contrast between neat, organized Singapore and our charming Bangalore. It had the makings for a fine night until...the night took a turn for the worse.

Did I mention the other day that the woman who called me a "trailing spouse" also happened to work at IBM? Both she and her husband do so, and the other morning she was talking about how she was looking forward to seeing me and meeting George at the happy hour. They arrived about an hour after we did, just as we were thinking of leaving for dinner. Her husband, Chris, had the roundest face I've ever seen and refused to look us in the eye. He would say something then roll his eyes to the right or left like a doll with wobbly eyeballs. He reminded me of a ventriloquist's doll. I know they said they were enjoying Bangalore but I can't remember one good thing they said they liked. There is a gated community outside the city called Palm Meadows where most of the older ex-pats and those with small children live. I don't think any Indians live there. We haven't been to see it but all I can picture is that manufactured town Disney built in Florida. They live out there and were complaining about how difficult it is to come into the city - which is why they were late. They complained about not being able to watch their favorite TV shows. They complained about their jobs. They complained about what a hassle everything is...We were thinking that our dinner reservations would be our escape. But oh no, they invited themselves to dinner. "We have to eat too!" And with that we went, off to a dinner for four. I won't put you through the agony but we'll just say the conversation didn't really pick up. I mostly talked to Jen since Chris wouldn't look at me and it just felt like everything she was saying was scripted like she has a list of the ten questions to ask people she's just met and 10 things to share about herself. I imagine the list like a choose your own adventure book: if new person, says they like to travel, go to page 3 for the 10 countries you've visited, for books, page 4 for your favorite book, and so on. The conversation just didn't seem natural. When we finally left, we got the sinking suspicion that they were ready to plan our next dinner-date. Please, don't call us, we'll call you. (Sadly, I've already gotten the follow-up "had a great time, let's do it again soon" email.)

Despite the torture of spending an evening together, some good did come of it...they are members of the "Bangalore Expatriate Club." Billed as an "exclusive club for cool expat professionals" they make new members fill out an application form which we did a couple of weeks ago. Having not heard back we thought perhaps because we were cool enough but Jen said no. They make people apply because they were getting Indian citizens who were joining but they would talk to the president and have her send us the invite. We got our acceptance letter this morning so we are now members of an exclusive, cool club.

We had our dumpling party at Vivian's on Sat. This was really supposed to be for the "Asian" ladies but since Vivian is right upstairs, she invited us too. Fearing I might be leading us into another night of gloom and doom, we decided to go early and leave early. We ended up canceling our dinner reservations and probably stayed way past our welcome. We just hope Vivian and friends aren't saying the same thing about us that we did about our Friday night friends. There were about 25 people there at one point and tons of hand made Chinese food - we opted to bring drinks. A couple people brought these desserts that were more like soups. One of them looked like onion soup but it was made with mushrooms, ginger, and other spices. It is served cold and is suppose to help cleanse and cool the body. The other soupy dessert was clear and had bean curd skin (which looked like melted mozzarella), barley and other spices. That wasn't bad either but luckily Monique, who was born in Vietnam but considers herself Australian, brought brownies. It was the first time I think I can say I hung out with a South African, a German-South African, Australians, Chinese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, an Irish-man who has been living in Finland, and aside from George and I, another American from Texas. What was interesting was that aside from Adele, the South African and myself, all of the women were Asian. Most of the men however, were white - Australian, American and/or European. Unlike the previous evening, everyone seemed to have their own funny and strange Bangalore stories but the tone was less whiny/critical and more excited and accepting.

Towards the end of the night, as the crowd was dwindling, George and I were asked if it was hard to be from America these days. What I walked away from that conversation with is: the entire world thinks our President is an idiot. The people of America voted him into office ergo, the people of America are idiots. They, of course, did not say that but could not understand how he got elected. They were surprised when George said he didn't think Hillary wouldn't win because she is a women or Obama wouldn't win because he is black. They were surprised that most of America is so conservative. I'd like to think that either Hillary or Obama has a chance because they are not Republican. Our foreign friends seemed to think Mitt wasn't a bad choice. They also thought it was pretty funny that the election is still a year away.

I never did get my water on Friday but the bell rang on Saturday morning around 10:30. It was one of the "electrician" guys who came when we first moved in. I remembered him because he was the one who hugged me when he arrived and hugged me again for an awkwardly long time before he left. He was creepy. George and I were both glad he (George) was here this time. He comes in and he takes the dryer out of the box, again. He goes back to where the washer is and looks around. He pulls out the directions and hunches over the kitchen counter to read them. He then stands in the living room for a few minutes looking around. He asks us if he can move the water cooler because he needs the extension cord they brought the other day. We tell him he can move it so he unplugs everything and brings the extension cord back to the dryer. Then he's on the phone. He comes out to the living room again and says that it won't work. He needs some other sort of plug but he tells us it's no problem. Someone else is on their way. Now, it's about 11 and we told Chandan we would be leaving around 12 to go see a lady about a mattress. So the electrician boy waits with us. He goes into the other room and makes a few phone calls. Then he is standing around watching TV with us. I go to take a shower and when I come out, he is flipping through our guidebook on Singapore in front of the TV watching soccer. By noon, no one else has come and we kick him out to get our mattress, leaving the box in the middle of the room where he took it out, the directions on the counter and our refrigerator unplugged. Luckily, George had gone back to see what he was fiddling around with and saw that he had unplugged the fridge.

We had an interesting day Sunday...but I'll save that for another post.