This Is Peanut Butter Country

Peanuts are a staple food in West Africa, where they are called groundnuts. Many regions have a groundnut stew to serve up with vegetables and a starch. Here in Bamako the local peanut butter, or pate d'arachide, is sold in buckets in the supermarkets. It's used for making a gravy for meats. In our house it's been made into banana bread and banana muffins, peanut butter cookies (which our housekeeper loved!), and peanut sauce for veggies and tofu.

Cashews are inexpensive here, unlike most of the rest of the world. They are a popular crop in West Africa because the climate is good for growing them and worldwide demand makes them profitable.  Their tasty availability has me anxiously awaiting the arrival of my food processor for cashew cream "cheese," cashew butter, and cashew milk.

I went for my first run in Bamako on Sunday, a short run to familiarize myself with our neighborhood. Right now is the perfect time of year for running outside -- relatively cool and cloudy. Early in the morning there were few cars on the road; on Sunday mornings traffic doesn't pick up until about 10:30. A few children said, "Bonjour!" and one man said, "Courage!" when I ran by, which is what Burundians sometimes yell to runners, also. I feel like I can get a lot of good miles in this town over the next couple years. I'm glad I brought trail runners, even for running on the road. Main roads are paved but the sidewalk, when there is one, is a dirt path that's often covered in rocks and debris. Looking at the photo, I can't remember now if that's a hard-packed dirt road or a paved road that has a layer of dirt on top of it. The red dirt coats everything.

Muffin goes back to school in one week which means I go back to regular running. (I am invoking all the patience and endurance I have learned through yoga and long-distance running to make it through this last week.) And that means we need a lot of food in the freezer for quick meals and snacks. We spent the weekend baking muffins and cookies. We tried our new tortilla press for the first time. We got Indian take-out for the third time in three weeks, just to test it one more time and make sure the leftovers are still delicious. This week will be a busy one for making tortillas, buckwheat crepes, Chebe bread, and more muffins, all for the freezer, and finding the best loaf of local bread for Muffin's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to hold her over until my bread maker arrives. The shipment with my blender will hopefully arrive this week and I plan on sending my housekeeper out in search of the last mangoes of the season for the freezer, for mango smoothies. Our other food project this week is to seek out the good meat supplier and place an order. We haven't been thrilled with the meat we've been getting from butchers and super-marchés so far.

Happy running and eating this week!

Seeking Out Running Opportunities

Sunday morning we decided to stop at a cafe for breakfast before doing a little grocery shopping. Since I can't eat gluten and I don't like eggs, breakfast is one of the hardest meals of the day for me to eat out in Africa but most of the time I can get some fruit and yogurt, and if I'm lucky, a little bacon. This restaurant was out of fruit plate, however (despite a bustling fruit market just down the block), and bacon. As I drank my surprisingly good coffee and munched on half a stale Lara bar I'd had in my purse while watching Muffin eat waffles and Mike eat pancakes, I felt discouraged. 

Then the channel on the television changed from a nature show about whale pregnancies to a marathon and waitstaff who hadn't been interested in serving us materialized to watch. I got up to watch, too. I didn't know until later that it was the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I couldn't hear most of the French commentary and there were no graphics on the screen informing me of anything other than distance and time. It didn't really matter, though. I watched and I felt happy. 

We visited the Parc National du Mali on Saturday for a short hike. There's a fitness trail with some crazy 1970s-like workout equipment, but it looks fairly new. I hopped onto a few machines and felt like I was in a Jack Lalane video, or the Ben Stiller Daniel Day Lewis treadmill sketch from Saturday Night Live. Muffin had a blast trying out all the equipment. I envision myself jumping into the car as soon as she gets on the school bus in the mornings to get to the parc early to run the trail up the mountain before the heat of the day sets in. I caught site of a track from our hike up the mountain, too. 

Mike thinks our neighborhood is fine for me to run in, I just need him to take me out a couple more times so I get the lay of the place. We have a treadmill coming in our household shipment. There's a gym at Mike's office. I can run laps around the field while the rest of the expat community plays ultimate frisbee on Sunday nights. There's a hash club here. There are ways to run. 

I didn't plan my gluten-free foods in advance of arrival in Bamako as well as I should have, so I'm hesitant to try too much running or working out quite yet. I'm making strides with grocery shopping and our housekeeper but everyday living and figuring things out in a new place is still taking up a lot of time and energy. One of the cookbooks I mailed to myself arrived last week, one that I'd already jotted down French translations for our housekeeper in Burundi, so I was able to ask our Malian housekeeper for the right ingredients without consulting the dictionary again. I hope some of my gluten-free mixes arrive this week so I can have crepes and make quick breads. I stocked up on local peanuts, popcorn, and honey to try making some kind of peanut-popcorn snack this week. The local yogurt is good and our housekeeper has a fresh, pasteurized milk source. Yesterday I found a good avocado at the fruit stand, which I overpaid for, but my housekeeper says it hasn't been good weather for them this year, so everyone is overpaying for the good ones. We are eating mangos like they're going out of style, because they might be soon. The rainy season has been unusual and we are eating produce while it's available.

Today is a "surprise" holiday -- you never know until the last minute which day will be the holiday for Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Mike has the day off so we are contemplating getting outside for a bit, exploring a new place. I have enough bottled water and peanut packs for a day hike.

We're Moving to Mali

The title about sums it up.

Our plans have changed from what we thought would be happening last year at this time. But we're happy with the change. I've been tired of the United States for a few months now. I'm certainly done with winter. Muffin asks every day if we're moving back to India. If we're going to Pakistan. If we're going to Chad. If we're going to Mali. She hasn't been in one place for so long without getting on a plane and traveling somewhere (although that changed las week when we went on vacation); she assumes every morning we are waking up early and going to the airport. My aunt told Muffin she has itchy feet and Muffin agreed, although in the sense that her feet are literally itchy because of her winter dry skin.

We haven't even unpacked all the boxes from India yet and my project for the next few months is to decide what goes to Mali and what doesn't. I've already got lists for consumables, for our suitcases, for the air shipment, and for the boat shipment, based on two overseas moves already and on the basic nonavailability of so much stuff in Africa (Mali may have slightly more to offer than Burundi, but I'm not taking any chances).

I've started speaking French to Muffin. We're hoping to enroll her in a preschool program that will prepare her for full-immersion French kindergarden. She doesn't seem to remember any Telegu or Hindi but she is taking to the French very well.

She is so certain that we still live in Hyderabad. I think there's a lot about Mali that will be familiar to her and make her feel at home.

Mike has been working in various African places the last few weeks. He said landing in Africa felt like being home again.

We all have itchy feet that are ready to be back in Africa.

Time to Clean Up

Last year was a year of change, transitioning from India to the United States. This is going to be my year of cleaning and purging while we stay put in one house for a while. I got a good start during the packing and unpacking last summer and fall but now that the holidays are over it's time to get back on that project.

I went through my stash fabrics and I used this tutorial for a tree skirt for the Christmas tree, this one for a scrap skirt for Muffin (photo to come once I've completed the whole outfit), and this one for a Lego bag. I have a couple winter clothes projects planned, for which I had to buy some new fabric, but once they're done it's back to the stash for spring and summer sewing.

I've put a number of books up on PaperBackSwap.com and have resisted the urge to use all my new credits to receive a bunch of replacement books.

I've been cleaning out my closet. On Friday I put a ton of clothes up on Freecycle.com and by the end of the day half of it had been picked up. Anything that's not picked up by the time Muffin goes back to school on Tuesday will go into one of the many donation bins that we pass on the drive between home and school.

I gave a little TLC to the vacuum cleaner that was put into storage in 2008 and not used since then. The filters are supposed to be washable, but they weren't washed before going into storage (whoops!) and they are beyond washing now. Black and Decker no longer makes them but still has some for sale on their site so in lieu of buying a new vacuum I bought new filters so I can delay a vacuum impulse purchase and research a good one.

I realized that now that I'm driving around in winter with a kid in the car, I really should get things checked out in a timely manner because I really, really don't want to break down in bad weather with my little companion. On that note the car is going into the mechanic shop again today.

I joined a gang... of other moms who are training for the same half marathon that I am in March. Once the kiddos are all back in school we hope to start running together again. I need that. My lungs are all dusty from the cleaning. I need fresh air on a regular basis but without motivation I won't go outside when it's cold.

Right now it feels like my full-time job is to get ready for the next move and whether I'm cleaning out my closet or getting the car fixed, everything contributes to that goal. We don't even know when the move will be or where it will be to but it is always looming. I'm still unpacking boxes from the last move. I'm making trips to the dumpster every day. I'm spending time in various stores trying to decipher the best storage solutions for things like all my stash fabrics and sewing supplies so it's more organized for the next move. I'm reducing clothing and toys and books. We put every single DVD and CD into sleeves in binders and threw out all the plastic cases, reducing our next move by several boxes and pounds.

It's going to be a long, cold winter and I resolve to put my indoor time to good use. 

How to R2-D2

This year for Halloween we had a three year old who wanted to be R2-D2, accompanied by a Princess Leia mommy and a Han Solo daddy. Leia and Han seemed easy. Buy, borrow, or steal appropriate clothing and get a fairly popular wig. R2 was going to be more of a challenge because I wanted something more charming than store bought. I searched Google Images and pinned to Pinterest. I came up with a plan:

We spent an afternoon at a craft store trying to find just the right materials: foam, felt, glue, and something to craft the headpiece from. For the headpiece we ended up with a plastic army helmet glued to the inside of a salad bowl, both from a dollar store.

We crafted.

I bought a full Princess Leia costume, complete with hair-buns wig and ended up hating everything about it. So I Freecycled it and started from scratch, changing my concept to Hoth Leia. White yoga pants on sale for $5 and a beautiful white vest and snow boots that I'll wear this winter anyway paired with a long-hair wig that my mom helped braid. Han had to buy a henley shirt and black vest, supplying his own pants and boots. We bought $5 blasters and decided to keep them fake looking by not painting them black.

Star Wars family complete!

This was Muffin's first Halloween in the United States so we had to go the extra mile for her. Although, she's only three so the extra mile didn't have to be too far. We drove to a nearby neighborhood where a friend of ours was having a small party. We trick-or-treated at about five houses then went to our friend's for pizza and "grown-up" treats. Muffin ate too much candy but she didn't have school the next day so we could have a later night than usual and manage her the next day without too much difficulty. (Friday night she slept for twelve hours.)

I'm going to skip over Thanksgiving this year -- dinner is at my aunt's house and Mike most likely won't be home for it anyway -- and jump right into Muffin's First U.S. Christmas.

The Gluten-Free-Free Void

We learned last week that Muffin does not have celiac disease. She has been gluten-free her whole life as a precaution. My brother and I both have celiac disease but neither of us exhibited symptoms and were diagnosed until we were in our twenties. Genetically there was a very good chance the same would be for Muffin. While living in India we could not get Muffin tested accurately; conversations with pediatricians and nutritionists showed that they didn't even know what I was talking about when I said, "gluten free." Once we were back in the United States for good, I made an appointment with her American pediatrician who made arrangements for Muffin's blood screening. She ate gluten for two weeks and never exhibited any symptoms. Three different screenings were performed and not a single antibody was present in any of them, so her pediatrician is confident she doesn't have celiac disease.

I'm relieved that she doesn't have celiac disease. It makes school, parties, and all other times out of the house so much easier. But there's also a void. (I know, another void; see yesterday's post.) I've spent so much time over the last three years worrying about Muffin's diet as well as my own but I hadn't realized it until I suddenly only had to worry about myself again. I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for gluten-free cooking now that I no longer have to nourish a child with it. I don't have to prove that gluten-free alternatives are just as tasty as their glutenous counterparts. She can just eat the gluten foods with Mike now. I feel like I can get by with mediocre food, or just skip most treats altogether, since it's now only me who needs to eat gluten free. I wasn't expecting to feel this way.

One Week Later

What a difference a week can make. Last Wednesday, Muffin had had a terrible first day of school on Tuesday. She had Wednesday off and I was filled with dread about Thursday and Friday. She did a successful half-day on Thursday but when I tried to drop her off on Friday she clung to me like we were glued together. For an hour I stayed in the classroom, cajoling her to let go of me and go play. Eventually we left and I told her she had to endure a boring day with me with no complaint and with no Dunkin' Donuts and no television. By the end of the day, as my Facebook status noted that afternoon, if she'd ever seen Arrested Development she'd have been saying, "I've made a huge mistake." I stuck firm to my promise of not being able to play with her because I had work to do. She had to entertain herself and at first she met my challenge with cheerful exuberance but quickly bored when she saw I wasn't going to give in. She spent the better part of an hour screaming at me while I tried to ignore her because I was "working." I wasn't really working. Who could with all that screaming? But I had my laptop open and was determined not to play with her.

I was feeling pretty hopeless and was dreading school again on Monday. I emailed her teacher on Sunday asking for a little more help in getting Muffin involved in activities right away to get her engaged.

Between Muffin remembering Friday afternoon and her teacher's engagement, so far this week she's been going willingly. This morning I didn't even have to sneak out while she was busy; she said, "Bye!" and turned her back on me.

I feel so relieved. And I've gotten so much done this week. I've gone running. The house is coming together. We have our new carpeting so I've been able to unpack the bedrooms. I've been doing paid work, which I haven't done in a long time. I like it so much, I've accepted more! Working and getting paid is so nice. I'm keeping my promise to Muffin, though, that I'm not going to do any work while she's at home. She goes to school and I do my work and then we play together in the afternoons and evenings.

Also, we've had some awesome weather with lots of outside time. That helps a lot. And Mike and I got together over the weekend, leaving Muffin with Grandma for an overnight. That helped a lot too.

Rainy Days and Mondays

I know it's Tuesday, but with school starting today it feels like Monday. (This is the first set I ever made on Polyvore, four years ago! It has very little to do with my post; I just like it.)

Rainy Days and Mondays by rabbitrabbit featuring Topshop

It's the second rainy, dark day in a row. Yesterday there was too much thunder and lightning to go outside and play but I'm hoping to get Muffin outside today (although I just heard thunder, so maybe not). I'm too tired to fight with her right now about turning off the television. We're both tired of coloring, Play-Doh, Legos, and unpacking and we don't have our full repertoire of toys and activities. And I can't fully unpack the bedrooms yet anyway (see below).

We had a rough morning at the first day of school and we both need a little quiet alone time. She doesn't seem to understand that I need to work while she's at school, so I can't stay there with her all day to play. Today was supposed to be my day to start working and running regularly again and it didn't happen and I'm a little grouchy about it. Tomorrow there's no school and I'm not optimistic about Thursday and Friday going my way, either.

We moved into the new condo last week, warily. Some parts of the carpet smelled brand-new while others still seemed a bit off, but I was tired of not being in a real home and I think all my moving helpers were tired of loading and unloading my stuff, so we moved in. Then, after a couple days of rain when I had to close the windows for long periods, causing some stuffiness, I realized that not all the carpeting had been replaced. They'd only done the stairs and the hallway, not the bedrooms. The bedrooms still have a funk, not to mention the carpet looks older and has sort of sticky feel when I walk on it barefoot. They're coming back on Thursday to do the bedroom carpets so what little furniture and other belongings we have in them I have to move out.

We had a nice weekend with Mike home, though! Lots of playground time for him and Muffin. We used our "welcome to the neighborhood" coupon from Lowe's to buy a grill and patio furniture during the end-of-season sale. Mike ate home-cooked food while I started to feel at home in our new kitchen.

The next few days are going to continue being rough. But I'm trying to remain positive that over the course of a few weeks things will smooth over. She'll get used to school. The carpets and a couple other maintenance issues will be fixed. Mike will be home for a long vacation. I may even be able to run that half marathon at a slow-but-sure pace and then set my sights on a Turkey Trot or Jingle Bell Run.

I'm not even asking the rain to stop and let out the sun. I'd just like the thunder and lightning to stop so Muffin can go outside in her new raincoat and rain boots.

We Didn't Move In

We didn't move in to our new house over the weekend and I am so tired, annoyed, spent, and tired again.

On Friday I stopped in to pick up the key, do a walk-through, and drop off a carload of stuff we'd been collecting from Target and Kohl's throughout the week -- new towels, shower curtains, that sort of stuff. I stopped in the leasing office, got the key, and drove over to our new parking space. I unlocked the door, admired the new flooring, and smelled a familiar, but unwelcome, smell. Cat pee. Pet odor, to put it politely. In the newly renovated condo we were leasing, they failed to rip up the old carpet and replace it with something less smelly. I went back to the leasing office. They said they'd clean the carpet that day and it would still be ready for moving in on Saturday. I wasn't optimistic. But I was tired of living in our hotel so I let myself believe that it would be possible to still move in on Saturday morning. And if it wasn't I'd stay at my dad's for a couple days and/or check into a different hotel if it looked like a long-term necessity, a hotel that was closer and more convenient to where we need to be.

On Saturday morning my mom came to the hotel to help Muffin and I finish packing our things and load them into our cars. Friends and family members gathered at my dad's house to await word from me as to whether they should start loading our stuff from his garage into their pick-up trucks.

We arrived at the condo and it still smelled. Back to the leasing office. There wasn't much they could do about it on a Saturday but they would rip up the carpets and we would be credited the rent for the days we're missing to next month. We drove to my dad's which is about ten minutes away. Muffin was riding with my mom so I took advantage of being alone to cry in my car. Mike was doing training all weekend and was out of touch. I felt horrible that I couldn't keep my promise to Muffin of finally having a real house to move into after about six weeks of transitory living. I imposed on friends and family members who had now wasted a Saturday morning. And I just wanted to unpack my suitcase and not have to pack it again for a long time.

Now, we have a cat, and while she's good about using the litter box, I can sympathize with having a cat who is not. Our cat is staying with my mom, not moving into the condo with us right away, and I refuse to move into a house that smells like someone else's pet. And when given the choice of a newly remodeled unit or a non-remodeled unit, we decided to pay the extra money per month for the remodeled one. I expected the carpet was going to be ripped up and replaced before the condo was deemed acceptable for us to move in to. I should not have found this problem the day before our move-in date. It's so frustrating.

I scrambled with phone calls on Saturday afternoon, rescheduling two deliveries and the cable guy that were due today. Today the leasing office should be calling me to say if they're starting on the carpet today or tomorrow. We should be able to move in within twenty-four hours of them starting; they do the job in one day. I'm hoping for Wednesday night in our new home, even if only our beds make it over there and we pick up the rest of the stuff from my dad's garage piece-meal over the course of the following days.

I wanted to be moved in this week. Muffin starts school next week and I wanted the time for her to adjust to a new home before starting a new school. She's being such a trouper and what makes me feel the worst over this whole experience is how much I'm asking of her to cope with things that most three-year-olds don't have to cope with. On the school questionnaire that asked if there are any issues the school should be aware of, I had a rather lengthy answer explaining our living situation and how she keeps talking about wanting to go home to Hyderabad. And when she's talking to herself she's started lapsing into Hindi. She has dentist and doctor's appointments this week and I still need to do some back-to-school shopping and plan lunches and snacks. This was supposed to be our back-to-school prep week and now I'm cheating Muffin of all that attention because I still have to focus on moving.

Mike will be home for the weekend and I am so looking forward to it.

"Let me explain..."

"No, it will take too long. Let me sum up." --Indigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

The fog of moving is lifting. Five weeks ago we left Hyderabad. We spent a week at one parent's house and a weekend at another before moving into our hotel room.

We got new driver's licenses. I had to take a written test and a road test. The road test examiner clearly thought I was a waste of his time; he could have been playing video games on his phone rather than making an experienced driver take a token run around the test course.

We found a place to live and we move into it in one week. We found a preschool for Muffin. I am eagerly awaiting the start of school after Labor Day; Muffin is not. I'm too tired to argue with her about it. I want to get her settled in the new house and new neighborhood first. We've been visiting the nearby playground. I'm setting up play dates with children from her new school so she sees some familiar faces on the first day. Hopefully all those things will help her a bit.

Our first shipment of stuff arrived last week, which was mostly toys for Muffin to help her feel more at home with familiar old things in new surroundings. This morning our furniture from California that was packed into storage in 2008, before we left for Burundi, arrived. We're expecting one more shipment from India and a shipment from a storage facility in Europe to arrive within the next few weeks. I'm not worried about the slow pace. I have no where to put stuff other than my dad's garage, which is now almost full. A couple weeks between shipments means I have time to sort through things rather than be overwhelmed and do nothing. As the old furniture from California was loaded into the garage this morning I was making a mental note of what can go up on Craigslist or Freecycle right away. Mike's away at training and won't be back until after we've moved into the new house. I'm hoping to have the house mostly set up by the time he comes home so the weekend will be a real vacation for him, spending time taking Muffin to the beach and playground, rather than shopping or unpacking boxes. 

And that's about it. I've been working, both paid and volunteer, whenever Muffin takes naps or watches Sesame Street. I've hardly run at all but I'm getting back into it.

I'm starting to feel like I might have some control over life in the near future.

Moving Panic Officially Begins Today

Image from Threadless

The craziness before moving begins for real this week. Dentist, eye doctor, Muffin's pediatrician. A few last pieces to bring in for framing. A chair or two for re-upholstering. Lunches and coffee dates to say "good-bye" to friends. The movers come two weeks from today and we fly out a couple days after that. I'm not that worried about the actual packing. The movers will do all the physical labor for us and whether it's in our suitcases, air shipment, or boat shipment, everything will all get back to us eventually.

I'm panicking over what happens after we're packed up. We are having trouble getting new U.S. driver's licenses. The hotel I wanted to stay in is booked so I had to choose another location that's slightly less desirable. It feels like all our "free" weekends between July and October are all booked up already. I need to find a house to live in. I need to get Muffin into preschool. Some of these things I can't do until we land in the United States, but that's not stopping me from worrying about getting a game plan in place.

I woke up feeling sniffly this morning. Muffin's had a slight cold all weekend and Mike is a bit under the weather as well. We are kicking into "just getting by" mode.

I'm trying not to let yoga and running fall by the wayside over the next few weeks. My mind has been wandering more than my legs lately, though. I'm sick of the park. I'm tired of the treadmill. I'm anxious to be back in the United States where I can wear my shorts not just for running at the gym, but any time I leave the house, whether it's for running, going to the grocery store, or anything else.

Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature. And Losing a Shoe.

Day Three

Our host at Dekeling Resort finally understood that we wanted to take a nice walk rather than sit in the car. He suggested we take the Toy Train up the mountain to Ghum, then hike to Aloobari Monastery. We'd stopped by the train station the day before and the train was already sold out so we decided to take part in one of the Darjeeling travel traditions -- the taxi-share. We packed up Muffin, some snacks, and some dry clothes (because it was raining) in the backpacks and walked into town. We took a wrong turn, then ended up at the wrong taxi stand. A driver pointed us in the right direction. We passed another taxi stand and then another one. And a driver there pointed us back toward the last stand we'd passed. A driver there pointed across the street. It seemed like we'd been walking for nearly an hour and we'd finally found the right taxi. We decided to pay for four seats so we could have the large back seat to ourselves and have room for the backpack. We then had to wait for the taxi to fill up. Three more guys climbed into the front and a man and two women climbed into the wayback, and we were on our way up the mountain in a taxi-share!

The driver stopped a couple times to let off other passengers. No words were spoken; we were hoping we'd either see a sign or the driver would indicate to us when it was time to get out. We wanted to get out just after Ghum. We passed the Ghum train station and then saw a sign for the next town. And then we got stopped in pooja traffic again. More people celebrating the lunar holiday by parading through town with Buddhist texts on their heads. They were also tapping the heads of people on the sidelines so while we were stopped, Muffin stuck her head out the window and got herself blessed with a Buddhist text.

We inched along in traffic until a T-intersection came into view. The driver pointed to it and said "Aloobari," so we got out and walked from there.

Traffic

Taking a left at the intersection

The walk was great.

Every fifteen minutes or so we'd see someone and ask them if we were still going in the right direction. There had been a couple intersections; also, we had no idea how long the walk was going to be and if someone told us "short distance" or "long distance" it was completely irrelevant. We knew we were on the right path and we decided that if we were out there for six hours and still hadn't found the monastery or our way back to town, we'd flag down a car and pay any price they asked for a ride back to our hotel.

Luckily it didn't come to that. After maybe an hour of walking, some of it at Muffin's pace, we glimpsed this through the fog:

Aloobari was under renovation but the caretakers let us come in to take some photos.

From the monastery we could continue along the same road to return to Darjeeling. We were told "long distance," but we hoped that the man who told us that meant "long distance for tourists," which actually wouldn't be as long for us as it is for other people because we are hearty walkers. We were getting hungry and the weather was turning cool and rainy so we were ready for lunch.

Somewhere between this photo:

 and this photo:

Muffin fell asleep and when her foot relaxed one of her Crocs fell off and we never saw it. By the time I noticed it was gone, it was out of sight and none of the locals had seen it and picked it up for us (which often happens when one of her shoes fall off). We were too tired and hungry to back-track more than a couple meters so we wrote it off and figured we could find some fake Crocs in town.

The road brought us to Chowrasta, a pedestrian plaza in Darjeeling about two kilometers from our hotel. We stopped at a restaurant and ate some of the worst Indian food we've ever had. Muffin didn't even eat her dosa, and she loves dosa.

Chowrasta:

One of the roads off Chowrasta was a Cheap Chinese Plastic Mela so we browsed there for a new pair of shoes. Only one guy had fake Crocs and he didn't have a pair small enough for Muffin. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at every shop that looked promising but couldn't find anything appropriate. This meant a trip to the Western mall, as opposed to the Mall, a pedestrian walkway lined with shops and restaurants. So we went to the mall and not a single store sold children's shoes. We'd heard about a Thai restaurant and on the way we found a children's shoe store. The Crocs were all too big for Muffin and most of the sneakers were too but we finally found one pair that fit and, even though I thought they were ugly, Muffin thought they were cool so we bought them. (Two days later she announced they were too small and has refused to put them on since.)

We had an early dinner of terrible Thai food and took a taxi back to the hotel. We needed to get an early start the next day for our drive to Bhutan.

Day Four Coming Soon

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan. With a Preschooler
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling

Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling

Day Two
Since we had to go back to the hotel with Mike's passport for registration, we decided to eat at the breakfast buffet there. So another walk down the hill and back up it was needed. Breakfast started at 7:30 and we had arranged for a car to pick us up at the resort at 9:00 for site-seeing so we needed to get back-and-forth with a reasonable amount of speed, for India.

We didn't come to Darjeeling very prepared with touristy things in mind to do. We wanted to walk around, see some mountain peaks, and drink some tea. Tea was the easy part. The weather was too cloudy, and even rainy at times, to see the Himalayan peaks. There really wasn't much to walk to in town, especially if you wanted nature. So we decided we may as well start with the standard tourist package. We'd heard the zoo was worth the fifty-ruppee (one dollar) entrance fee and we wanted to tour a tea plantation so if that's all we could do that day, we'd be satisfied.

The driver was supposed to pick us up at 9:00 but everyone forgot it was a lunar holiday and traffic was completely stopped in town as celebrants paraded with Buddhist texts on their heads toward a temple. He showed up at 11:00. We had no idea where he was going to take us; we decided to go with the flow and see where we ended up.

Pooja traffic.

We ended up at the zoo, which is also where the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute founded by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa is. The zoo has red panda and snow leopard breeding centers. It's small, but seeing the pandas, a variety of leopards, and peeking in at the mountaineering museum was certainly worth the dollar we paid for admission. Muffin was fascinated by the mountaineering gear and the statue of Tenzing Norgay. She started talking about how she wanted to climb mountains. She even insisted on standing on the "little mountain" next to his statue rather than on the ground in front of him when she posed for a photo.

We unfortunately ruined the whole day for many zoo-goers who wanted to take Muffin's photo. We wouldn't let them. It slows us down and makes Muffin withdrawn. Plus, she's not an exhibit. We were watching the snow leopards. One was actually walking around very close to the front of the cage and I'd never seen one so close before, nor so active. They are always curled up as far away as possible. So I was pretty mesmerized and was enjoying myself. Until someone asked me if they could take Muffin's photo and they kept insisting after I said, "No." Eventually I said, "There's a snow leopard right there! Take a photo of that! My daughter is not part of the exhibit." I cannot get over the fact that so many people feel it's okay to intrude on our day to take a photo of Muffin and get insulted when we say it's not okay. It's never just a quick snapshot; even if it were, a quick snapshot for ten different people asking becomes a large amount of time for us. It's not as if she's a celebrity and she owes it to her fans. She's a regular little girl trying to enjoy the zoo with her parents.

Okay, that rant is over.

After the zoo we told the driver we wanted some lunch. I specified "Good Chinese food or good Indian food" so he'd have some idea of where to take us. He drove up to some kind of tourist attraction and we could smell the fried snacks. We were very annoyed. But then he pointed down a treacherous staircase along the side of the hill. "Go down there and cross the street." We did, and we saw a sign that said "Burmese Restaurant." We were hungry and didn't know what else to do so we went inside.

It was pretty dirty. But we got some fried rice and Mike had dumplings and they brought us a yummy cilantro soup. It made us warm and full and didn't make us sick later in the day, so that made it a good lunch.

When lunch was over we told the driver we wanted to tour a tea plantation. We didn't care about his enforced itinerary anymore. He seemed confused. He'd also seemed confused about our request for lunch. We were not sticking to the plan anymore. But Muffin could only last for so long and gosh darnit, we were in Darjeeling and wanted to see the tea.

The tea plantation was a pleasant surprise. We were at Happy Valley. The guide told us they are the only plantation that does tours. I have no idea if that's true or not. But it was free and I ended up buying some tea so everyone was happy. It was a tour of how the tea is dried and processed once it's picked and how the black tea, green tea, and white tea are handled differently. After the tour of the building we asked if we could walk around outside and the guide said it would be okay. Muffin took off down a path saying "Follow me, guys!" ("Guys" is a new thing for her. It's funny, but I still want to be "Mommy.") Then she saw some local children playing in the tea and the next thing I knew, she was climbing her mountain right into the middle of the tea bushes. She was running and laughing and having so much fun that we didn't stop her. We just let her go for a while. We could see her head and her red sweatshirt and we could hear her laughing and yelling. Eventually I followed so I could fish her out and help her back down the hill. She refused and kept climbing higher.

Just outside of Happy Valley, there was a little old lady with a snack shack who invited us in every time we walked past. Once we were done with our tour and our walk, we obliged her and went in for her tea. I'm a little confused about her operation but it has something to do with the tea that is given to the pickers each week as a supplement to their salary and she collects it and resells it so the pickers can get more money. She had several small bowls with different tea leaves in them. She taught us how to pick up a handful, blow on it, and then smell it to see if it's good tea. Muffin loved that:

Then she taught us the super-secret-special thirty-second brewing process. I found that it's just like brewing tea any other way, except the result is weak tea. Muffin loved the tea, though (with more milk than tea and a little sugar):

After our tea adventure we asked the driver to bring us back to the resort. We'd accomplished our goals for the day and Muffin was approaching melt-down time if we tried to squeeze in one more tourist attraction. Plus we needed to rest up for the walk back into town for dinner. We'd forgotten to put our order in at breakfast and we wanted to try a different restaurant anyway so we walked to the Mall and went to a Continental-style diner/bakery. We were hungry and it was edible.

We walked back up the hill to the resort for the night, remembering to put in a breakfast order before we went to bed.

Day Three Coming Soon.

8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan. With a Preschooler.

On Saturday night we returned from quite a road trip. Mike, Muffin and I flew to Bagdogra last Friday. From there we drove several hours to Darjeeling. A few days later we then drove to the Bhutan border and spent several days driving through Bhutan. Then we flew home.

Muffin is probably the best-behaved almost-three-year-old kid you could possibly ask to take on a road trip with you. That doesn't mean the trip will be easy; it means we are insane for even thinking about attempting it.

And maybe since we are insane, we had a mostly wonderful time when we relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

Day One
We arrived in Bagdogra and I'd asked the hotel to send a private taxi. While it's easy to hire a share-taxi and the "thing to do" if you are super-cool is to take the train, when traveling with Muffin we've found it's better to just have a car waiting for us. We don't need the adventure of trying to hitch a ride up the mountain.

We are used to driving in India so the honking and the near-death experiences around corners don't really phase us anymore. I noted that more corners than usual had guardrails along them, which actually made me nervous thinking that there had been enough accidents to warrant them and people still weren't slowing down and being cautious.

I lost track of the time, but the drive took several hours. I surprisingly did not get car sick. Once we left the flat plains around the airport we could open the windows for cool, fresh(-ish) air.

We stopped a few times on the way up:

Putting on a sweatshirt 'cause it's so chilly.

We were booked at the Dekeling Resort. The driver dropped us off at Dekeling Hotel, but I didn't know it was the wrong place at the time. There was a huge walk up the side of the mountain. An ancient little man came up to the car, strapped a belt around his head, and piled all of our luggage onto his back, then started climbing the stairs. So we followed. Up about a zillion stairs. I handed over my reservation to the front desk. The guy furrowed his brow and made a phone call and told us we were at the wrong Dekeling. He had the driver's phone number and called him to come back and get us. Some other porters carried our suitcases back down all the stairs and we got back into the car.

I was so relieved when we arrived at our actual hotel. The first Dekeling we stopped at is in the middle of town, where it'ss convenient to walk around but surrounded by cars, honking, exhaust, people, dogs, and dirty city stuff. The second Dekeling is in a location known as Hawk's Nest, which is quite a little ways out and up. Clean, fresh air. No barking dogs. No honking horns. We settled in right away.

Well, we settled in nicely for a few minutes. It turns out that Dekeling Resort doesn't have a restaurant. If you want dinner there you have to place an order at breakfast time for the restaurant at Dekeling Hotel and they'll deliver it. Also, guest registration is at the Dekeling Hotel so we needed to go back there and register with our passports. 

It's about a ten-minute walk down the mountain from the resort to the hotel. The restaurant at the hotel smelled so good that we decided to go there for dinner and do our registration. It was nice to walk after the airplanes and cars all day. Some of the roads were quiet enough for Muffin to walk rather than be carried.

It was too early for the full dinner menu, which no one told us until we'd looked at the full menu and decided on dinner items that we wanted. We perused again and decided on some South Indian snack fare. We actually had some good dosas. 

While I lingered over my dosa and hot chocolate Mike and Muffin went up to the office to register. But Mike only had my passport; he'd forgotten his own. 

So on Day Two another trip to Dekeling Hotel would be in order.

We decided to walk back up the hill to Dekeling Resort rather than get back into another car. It was a long walk, especially for Mike carrying Muffin on his shoulders. But it certainly helped to tire us out for a good night's sleep.

Day Two, Coming Soon.

Stay Hydrated -- Important for Baking as Well as Running

It's been a while since I've made macarons but I decided that Muffin is old enough to appreciate the work that goes into them now (she loves them; her favorite books from when she first started picking out books are macarons cookbooks; she knows that when Daddy travels to Bangkok or Singapore he comes home with macarons). We needed a project for today and I thought this would be novel enough to hold Muffin's attention. Plus, the dry weather is perfect for baking them -- even though it's monstrously hot outside (108 F / 42 C) so it's a little insane to be lighting the oven. We stayed well-hydrated with ice water and took cooling breaks in the air-conditioned parts of the house. And we had a very fun morning with a delicious reward.

The last time I made them I used Cecile Cannone's Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Cafe. This time I used Berengere Abraham's Macarons. I found Abraham's recipes to be, not easier exactly, but less labor intensive because they are in smaller quantities. There's a lot of waiting time, though, so they are not "quick and easy." Good if you like to clean as you go, bad if you have an anxious kitchen helper. As you'll see from the photos, having a smaller quantity means there's less room for mistakes if you want beautiful, photogenic macarons. I think I'll stick with Abraham's, though, until I become more practiced. Cannone's large batches can be saved for a big Christmas party. Abraham's are for having a couple people over for coffee.

We were inspired by the photo of the raspberry macarons, but we used store-bought jam instead of making our own. Muffin requested strawberry jam in half of them and raspberry jam in the others.

Mine

Muffin's

Muffin was so delighted with her work that it was worth the heat and the "wasted" batter of her imperfect cookies. I think she wants to do this every Sunday now. When we're back in the U.S. I want to take Muffin to Cecile Cannone's bakery in New York to see if "Madame Cecile," as Muffin calls her, will autograph Muffin's book.