How Son Got Into an Accident

This is a story about the phone call you don’t want to ever get. Also a good story about learning to keep cool. Earlier this week, I strolled into the Consular section along with the Diplomat ready and eager to do some ultra boring admin stuff and dish out some visas. 15 minutes into my daily routine, which included getting nice hot green tea, chatting aimlessly with my fabulous consular buddies and pondering the joys of my job, I got a phone call from my house. I picked up and my housekeeper said, in what seemed to be a pleasant, happy manner, “Hello, madam!” Well, hello to you too, and what can I do for you, my dear?

It was that this moment that the blasted woman began wailing loudly and screaming, “Madam, really bad news, madam!!” and then mumble things incoherently in Bangla and really bad English. As she is somewhat prone to drama, I decided to panic only moderately and so I started asking what exactly had happened. The next sentence aged me 5 years, “Car bad accident, the children…oh, madam!!!” accompanied by more severe wailing. My hair raising rapidly on the back of my neck, I began shouting in my cell phone, asking her whether the kids were ok (my Son carpools to school in our car with a neighboring child and her small sister). All she kept doing was repeating something nonsensical about a bad accident, and the children, and would not for the life of me answer if everyone was OK. Since she was calling from my house, I quickly hung up on her, grabbed the stunned Diplomat who was standing next to me, semi-yelled/mumbled  in the direction of my Boss something about having to go and flew out of the office amidst the deafening silence of the room while my colleagues were listening to my conversation.

Outside the Embassy, we spotted a heavy bullet jeep (part of the Embassy carpool) and threw ourselves in it, screaming at the poor driver (turns out he was new and it was his first week) to take us home. He mumbled something about having to wait for the Ambassador, but the Diplomat was having none of it. In the longest 5 minutes of my life, we were outside our building and burst inside our apartment, only to find an exhilarated Son who kept talking about “the big bump” and my housekeeper who burst into tears the moment she saw us. Turns out (as best as we can understand from two housekeepers and one driver’s combined English and our shaky Bangla), my driver was driving towards the school when one of the awesome local driver rammed into the left passenger door of our car while making a left turn. The door was completely totaled, and the 3 kids apparently flew inside the car because, of course, none of them were strapped in. Which is my own damn fault.

The car spun out of control for a moment and then the driver regained it and managed to stop. I feel pity for him – he was faced with a car with 3 hysterically crying children, and 2 even more hysterical nannies. I swear he was ready to quit on me. As luck would have it, our car was hit by a driver and car belonging to the American International School of Dhaka, and by the time we got to the scene of the accident, the school had already dispensed its own transportation manager who in less than an hour had our car in the shop.

The whole incident taught me a few things:

1.       Strap your child in the car, whether or not there are car seats.

2.       If you know that your staff is a drama queen, take a deep breath and try to get the story out of her before you panic and decide that your child is dead.

3.       Drive slowly in a country where pretty much no one knows real traffic rules or how to drive for that matter.

4.       Send your nanny for English lessons.

Single Parents in the Foreign Service

I have been wanting to write this for a long time, but never got around to it. Now that the holidays have descended upon us, it somehow seemed a particularly appropriate time to write about it. I often get asked by FS applicants whether there are any single parents in it or whether it is a suitable job for such parents. The simple answer is – yes, there are plenty. Is it a suitable job for a single parent? Well, how many suitable jobs for such parents are there exactly in the world? This actually might be an easier one than you have imagined.

The Service is home to many single parents. In my own A-100 class I had a single mom of a 10–year old boy. She got posted to one of the toughest posts on the Mexico border. Here, in Dhaka, there are at least three that I am aware of, some of them with more than one kid, under the age of 5. Some enter the Service as single, some become single while serving. The reality is that the Foreign Service life can prove to be too much for some families and we have our share of divorces. Then again, the same happens to perfectly stable communities, with perfectly normal jobs, in say, Wisconsin. The one tiny difference is that while most divorced Wisconsin couples will probably stay within a few miles of each other with the distinct possibility of some form of co-parenting, the folks who get divorced in the Foreign Service are facing a global geographical divide as your beloved former spouse packs him or herself and moves back home while you jet off to another part of the world every couple years or so. For those who are already single, for whatever purpose, leaving the past behind and working your dream job abroad is just the balm needed.

I am in awe of single parents. I think there should be a special place in heaven for them. Or they should always be allowed to fly business class. Or be given free drinks upon sight. Or chocolate. Or cupcake samples. Or have famous songs written about them. My mom was a single mom. She is an awesome mom and she did a spectacular job of raising me. So I know how difficult it really is. Single parents have to make decisions on their own. All the time. About everything – whether giving frankfurters and mac and cheese from a box can pass for a nutritious meal, whether a nosebleed in the middle of the night merits going to the hospital, whether not putting your kid in the Spanish immersion program will put him behind all those little brainy brats from his kindergarten, whether to co-sleep with your kid, whether your 5-year old daughter’s strong desire to wear shoes to bed every night is a problem, what is a good curfew for your teenager, should you allow your little girl to date at 16, what is a good bedtime, are 5 cookies before dinner too much, whether to circumcise, to have long or short hair, to give TV every day after dinner, to allow a sleepover, to choose a college, to do just about anything. It is so difficult and lonely to make these choices on your own. I know, because I am constantly asking the Diplomat about his opinion before making most decisions regarding Son – and while I mostly ignore his opinion much to his chagrin, it is so damn comforting to hear him yey or ney or even venture a more evolved opinion when needed. Yes, I have a lot of respect for single parents.

But oddly enough, I think the Foreign Service just might be the place for them. The fabulous job aside, it can take one to a country where help is readily available and inexpensive. In many South Asian, African and even South American countries, live-in nannies, housekeepers and drivers are the norm. With free housing, free schooling (K through 12) and unbelievable embassy support network by your fellow colleagues, such help becomes quite affordable. You can even bring your trusted nanny with you to the United States when you are back there temporarily. For many FS families, their foreign nannies become a beloved part of the family. The Service will also allow your parents to come and live with you so that they can provide you with the moral and physical support you might need. The Foreign Service is a community in the best sense of the word and if you need anything ranging from advice, emergency stroller, a few hours of babysitting, home cooked lasagna when coming back from the hospital with your little one to dog walking when you need to be away– the community will be there to support you just for the asking. While you might have family and relatives in the U.S., at post you will have a good network of colleagues and their spouses, most of whom will live either in your own building or a few blocks away at best. So, help will always be a few steps away while in the U.S. you might have your sisters, but one of them lives in Wyoming, and the other one in Florida.

So, be brave! Join the Foreign Service even if you are a single parent and you are scared of making all decisions on your own thousands of miles away from your comfortable U.S. home. You will be surprised at how manageable it can be.

I remain in awe of you, single parents. I think you are amazing. Rock on!

 

PS - I encourage comments and recommendations from FS single parents, so that I can make this post even more useful.

The Wedding Season Started

I admit to having a writer’s block. I honestly have nothing funny to write about this week. I am super busy at work because apparently one third of Bangladesh has decided to go and see what America looks like during Christmas while one third of my co-officers have decided to go and see what Australia, Thailand or some other exotic nearby location looks like at the same time. That makes for a whole lot more work and a whole lot grumpier colleagues. To top it off, the State Department has just introduced some major revolutionary changes in our work systems, and given us little to no direction on how exactly to implement them. But, rumor has it President Obama will give us an early release on Christmas Eve! Now THAT is cool.

Let’s see what happened during the last 10 days– I MC-ed a Fashion show/launch of a magazine, got misquoted badly by the press to the effect that the US-India bilateral relations were better than the US-Bangladesh ones during a business visa outreach (did NOT even remotely say anything even distantly close to this), spent a Thursday exclusively in meetings, attended Son’s Christmas party at the French School, had Son subsequently with fever for three days (he claimed it was the cake I gave him??), attended a dinner party, a Christmas party, a dinner in a restaurant that was supposed to include just me, the Diplomat and an acquaintance and ended up having another friend from the Embassy, the owner of a major TV channel and the legal rep of the Bangladesh special police forces.

Then the Diplomat and I also went to a lavish wedding party, where we both knew no one but the father of the bride, a wealthy businessman who was marrying off his third and last daughter. Can I just say that there is NOTHING like a South Asian wedding. Only the first event of three more to follow, it was spectacular. After all guests had arrived (think about 300 of the closest family and friends), elaborate and generous gifts from both sides were marched down the middle of the restaurant hall to the sound of very loud drums (inexplicably, both sides' gifts included baskets full of toothpaste, deodorant, aftershave - remember Old spice, folks? - it was almost like they were preparing the newly weds for some sort of a prolonged bathroom siege). Then the groom came in surrounded by a bunch of his buddies who were blowing oddly loud whistles and settled on one of the chairs on a beautiful raised platform. Soon, the bride came, accompanied by a seemingly endless posse of relatives, each one dressed more splendidly than the other. It was all very elaborate and moving, and as she was passing by me, her mom and I were sobbing inconsolably shoulder to shoulder (I am a hopeless crier, you should see me at Son’s school events, I am like an open fire hydrant on a hot New York summer afternoon). It was fine for her, she was watching her last daughter get married and leave the house. It was real awkward for me since everyone was staring at me and my mascara was not water proof. It was even more awkward since I was the only white woman in the entire hall and all photographers spent hours taking pictures of me, while all the staff pretended not to look at me for 4 hours.

The wedding was awesome – the younger relatives from both sides did a dancing performance for which they apparently practiced for months before the wedding. It was hilarious and really endearing. Then every single person in the hall got on the stage to take pictures with the couple, including us. I must say the bride and the groom (who did not know us) were a bit startled but did not get phased one bit. They apparently had really good wedding training. At any rate, THAT is the way to get married. Thank you, Kausar!

Wedding season is just starting in Bangladesh, and I just cannot wait for the next event! Unless, of course, the world ends on Friday. Which would be a pity on so many different levels.

Cows, shawls and red – a Rajasthan odyssey, Part II

We visited Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar and finally, utterly exhausted and palace-ed out, finished the Jaipur. We spent on average an evening and a full day in each place, and traveled every other day covering about 350km from one place to another for an average of 6 hours per trip. While arguably a roadtrip is the best way to see a country, there were moments when my behind was so numb from sitting in the back seat of the car that I’d have to walk for a few minutes before I would feel it looming behind me again. You’d think that all that fat I’ve accumulated there would provide some padding. Another issue is what to do for 6 hours in the car if reading is not an option for you since you get nauseous reading in the back seat. After taking pictures for an hour, having thoughtful conversation about culture with the Diplomat for another, playing 389 games of gin rummy on my cell phone, staring blankly at the desert, sleeping in most awkward positions resulting in severe back pain, one really starts looking forward to reaching that damn hotel room. Once there, we would rest, shower and get ready for a walk in the dusky town. Then off to dinner in a nice, romantic place (everywhere we went, we opted for open air restaurants, preferably with views of the palace/fort/local attraction. I will share my recommendations below.

I was mostly impressed by the palace inside the Junagarh fort in Bikaner – a much less traveled destination and often out of the usual tourist path, the palace there is breathtaking inside. It is both beautiful and incredibly well preserved. I highly recommend including Bikaner on your itinerary. For dinner, there is pretty much only one place -Gallops , right in front of the fort. Luckily, the setting is gorgeous, the food outstanding and the ambiance lovely. Other highlights of the trip were

-        --  The fort in Jaisalmer, which remains the oldest still living and breathing fort in the world – people actually still live and trade there much like they did in 1156. For dinner in Jaisalmer strong recommendation is Saffron on the rooftop of Nachana Haveli (haveli means a mansion) - an incredibly romantic restaurant serving food under the stars. If you will try lal maas anywhere in Rajasthan, this should be it – it is organic and it is spectacular. For lunch – Shanti located in the fort and offering stunning views of the city. You MUST have the tandoori chicken there, it is the BEST we had ever had.

-         -- Spending the night in a tent in the Thar Desert after riding a camel into the sunset. OK, it sounds way better than it was in reality given that we were surrounded by about 1000 Indian and Western tourists, all on camels

      or camel carts, rolling about the dunes, eating and drinking and screaming loudly with pleasure. And the tents were Swiss and each had a bathroom area with running water and sitting toilet. Still, it was great and highly recommended as an experience.

-         -- The Blue City in Jodhpur best seen from Mehrangarh Fort. For food in Jodhpur go to Pal Haveli’s Indique – a gorgeous setting on top of an old haveli, offering beautiful vista of the looming fort in the near distance. Order a bottle of Indian Sula Sauvignon Blanc, my current favorite wine. Enjoy. Mention me with appreciation. In Jodhpur, we stayed at Ratan Vilas, a beautiful haveli with free wi fi! Every morning, we would see the owner sitting on a chair in the garden, reading his newspaper in the scant morning sun, greeting the guests regally.

-     

    -- The Pichola Lake in Udaipur – take the touristy boat
    ride around the lake, and enjoy a glass of cold King Fisher beer on the Jag Mandir island. In Idipur, we stayed in a gorgeous haveli overlooking the lake and I would highly recommend it – Karohi Haveli. It also
     has a great rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake and the palaces. Dead romantic! Also had free wi-fi.

-            

           -- The camel fair in Pushkar – turns out, once a year for less than a week, all self-respecting camel and horse breeders in Rajasthan go to Pushkar to trade the goods. We happened to be passing by the city when the fair was full on. I got to hug a tiny goat. Yey. Forget cats and dogs, the face of a baby goat is so cute and so soft that only common sense and fear for personal hygiene stopped me from kissing it passionately all over. I also got to pee in a make-shift desert toilet (see below)at the fair. It consisted of 4 rods, some tin and a rag. It was drafty, to say the least.

-          I was underwhelmed by Jaipur. Who knows why – the pink of the city was beautiful, the palace was OK, and the city architecture was fascinating. Perhaps it was too big and modern of a city, where I was expecting the usual small historic town feel and magic in the air. I do have a restaurant recommendation though – a brand new affair called Wassup in Ashok Nagar. It serves international cuisine of excellent quality and flair, and the setting is beautiful. Set on two floors, it reminded me of sitting on a tree in the middle of a jungle.

      I have several pieces of advice as well as a few astute observations for those who are contemplating similar pursuits:

1.   I have never seen so many loitering cows in my entire life! For real. They were EVERYWHERE!  In the streets, around the cars, over the cars, on top of merchandise, in the middle of the street dozing off, in the temples, in the palaces, in gardens, toilets, restaurants, markets, in the trash, in people’s laundry, in the back yards, in the front yards, in the main squares. Holy cow!
2.  If I ever live to see another woolen shawl, I’d shoot myself. Rajasthan is DA land of those damn shawls, made from camel wool, pashmina, other wool, silk, half-silk or who knows what acrylic craptastic material. Everywhere you go, there are a gazillion scarves hanging from all nooks and crannies and everyone is trying to sell you one every 2 minutes.
3. Women there wear a different variation of the usual saree – they don’t wrap a long fabric around, but wear a skirt and a top, and a long transparent scarf draped over their faces, all richly decorated with beads and shiny things. The color of the long scarf is usually bright red or purple, which makes for a very cheerful sight every time a woman passes in the street.
4. Indian tourists have re-discovered their land and are now about 90% of the visitors in Rajasthan. I cannot really vouch how fascinating they find the palaces and the forts, but they obsessively took pictures of everything they saw on their phones. Indian tourists also have not lost their fascination with foreigners. I think I was photographed almost as much as the palaces themselves. The weirdest request came from a newly-wed girl who asked me to take a picture with her husband?!? I refused. Seriously...
5. I have NEVER been asked so many times in my life, “M’am, your country?” usually in a hurried, demanding sort of way. In the beginning, I was polite and would respond that I was from America to the oohs and awwws of my captive audience. Then, I got bored and started saying things like, “I am from Bangladesh,” or “I am from Sweden,” and even, “I am Indian, why?” The whole thing eroded further, and to “M’am, your country?” I began to reply – “My country is beautiful” “My country is great” or even “IS very far away.” The final drop in the bucket was in Kolkata on the way back, where I was standing exhausted waiting for our luggage around 10.30 pm to go and spend the night in a shady hotel near the airport. A middle-aged lady next to me was having a most inane conversation with her husband when she suddenly turned to me, and out of the blue asked me the blasted question. Unnerved, tired and highly irritable, I snapped, “And what is to you lady, am I asking YOU what YOUR country is???” Not my finest moment, I admit, but let’s just say she had bad timing. The problem was that we were the last people there, and our luggage wasn’t coming so it got a little awkward for a while.

All in all, an amazing vacation and highly recommended. Any questions are welcome. Again, I recommend using a tour company to book your hotels and car transfers. We saw a fair amount of Western tourists who thought they’d wing it on the spot and book places as they went. They all ended up in dingy hotels with no running water or were flat out told their reservations did not exist. Awesome. Swagattours.com were excellent and when we go to Kerala next year, I think we’ll use them again. 

Cows, Shawls and Red – a Rajasthan Odyssey Part I

The Diplomat and I have just come back from a colorful, exhausting and fabulously gorgeous trip through the vast land of Rajasthan, India. We lovingly summoned the Inlaws from India to take care of Son who was delighted to enjoy 10 days of utter freedom and to play with his favorite toy – his grandfather. In exchange, we hopped on a plane or two and landed in Delhi on a cool November night ready to tackle this Rajasthan thing. I had the crazy idea that rather than spend a night in Delhi and go to our first stop, Bikaner, by car, we should save a night on the road and take the sleeper train instead. Interesting decision. So, from the airport we got ourselves a decrepit-looking old cab, classic Indian Maruti dating circa 1935, which sped through the streets of Delhi like the devil himself was behind him. Our two suitcases were placed precariously on top of the tiny car without being tied or anything, and every time the cab made a hair-raising turn, I fully expected to have my undies splattered all over the dark Delhi street from my falling suitcase. We made it without an incident, which to me proves that there is higher force somewhere out there looking out for me and my precious belongings.

We bid the closeted Schumacher adieu and trudged along the freezing platform – it was around 11 pm and we were booked on a sleeper train to Bikaner, where a car would meet us and take us on our romantic desert journey for the next 10 days. The reason I decided to take the train was that I had this foolish dream that we will travel in a luxury sleeper wagon, in a romantic compartment where the Diplomat was going to whisk me a la James Bond in one of his many unrealistic luxury train scenes. We were going to dine in a delicately appointed restaurant car and exchange pleasantries with the exquisitely dressed pretentious passengers. Not so much. Actually, not even close.

I entered the train only to find myself in the middle of a long compartment, separated by thin walls into several cabins with 4 berths each (2 on each side bunker style). Each such “cabin” was separated from the rest only by a tiny curtain. In one word – it was all very communal. See for yourself:

There were kids everywhere, food, ripe smell of feet and sweat, crumbs, shoes, screaming, giggling, crinkling of newspapers and plastic bags, and just a general sense of complete and utter lack of privacy. Romance abandoned, I climbed on the top berth and changed into my dark blue satin pajama bottoms to the utter amazement of the fella who was lying on the berth below diagonally from me. The Diplomat settled on the berth immediately below me and soon was in deep sleep as the train began to rock us gently. Slowly, everyone turned off their lights, drew the curtains and the wagon was enveloped by sleepy dark silence. I was lying quietly on my top berth, watching old episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” and was pretty pleasantly amused overall. 

Just as I was beginning to doze off around 1 am, the train stopped for a moment in Gurgaon (a Delhi white-collar suburb), and a second later, a gang of 3 white-collar dudes burst through the curtain into our section and without even asking a question, turned on the lights and sat unceremoniously on the bottom berths where the Diplomat and his neighbor were sleeping. Then they looked up to me and said to my astonishment that they I am in one of their berths. Sternly, I denied and triumphantly showed them a picture I had taken earlier of the passenger manifest posted on the train, which had my highly unusual, white-person name next to the number of the berth. The dudes were thoroughly unperturbed. They started chatting up our neighbor who apparently thought that the whole thing was perfectly normal and had no issues having two random people sitting practically on top of him in the middle of the night on a train. After some heated discourse, the ticket master showed up and it turned out that the guys had bought tickets for the previous day instead. This was already taking over 20 minutes so I tried to glare at them in the most eloquent way possible to hint that they need to get out and let us all sleep. You know the glare – the kind you use when someone is talking loudly in a movie theater and you slowly turn around to glare at them and teach them some manners in a quiet dignified manner. Let’s just say that Indian trains ain’t the best forum for subtle diplomacy. They did not seem to be impressed by my excellent glare or to be interested in leaving at all. So, I decided to tell them about things in life and they got an earful about rudeness and manners and people wanting to sleep and watch their damned show on their Ipad. One of them eventually climbed on the other top berth across from me and was snoring (and farting loudly, I might add) within 3 minutes, while the other one left. I sighed deeply, wrapped myself tightly with the prickly blanket and fell asleep.

The next morning around 7 am, I woke up to the Diplomat’s loud announcements that we have arrived and to the sight of my upper neighbor’s ass crack offered generously as he snored with his back towards me and the rest of the world.

Soon we were off the train, met our driver and jumped into the small Tata that would drive us around for 10 days and 2,500 km through the Rajasthani desert. We had organized our trip through a company called Swagat Tours who let us customize our package and pretty much were at my whim and mercy for a month before the trip. They were truly outstanding in their patience for my last minute changes and the choice of hotels and routes proposed. To top it all, when we were in Jaisalmer, we got a call from the guy who was working with us on the trip, one young and enthusiastic Nemish, telling us that there was a huge 3-day long music festival in the desert that was going all night long and would we be interested in coming by. Well, yes, we were – where else you’d hear Bombay bands playing original rock at 1 am under the moonlight in the middle of the Thar desert??

To be continued…

Hotel Babysitting and Why You Can Have It All!

There is a huge risk that after this post I will either lose massive readership or be mob-lynched as a terrible mother. That’s OK, I have never really claimed to be a particularly good mom. Which is why I wanted to talk about getting babysitting services when you travel at hotels. Many of us don’t have the luxury of traveling maids, or grandparents at immediate disposal at home, or weirdly independent kids who can just take care of themselves magically while you chose to prance about town at night. On the other hand, folks like to travel and given the above limitations, they have to take the kids. Even if that means dragging a whiny screaming three-year old through Florence, smiling nonchalantly to passersby as you attempt to take in the beauty and calm of the Renaissance architecture and expressive statues of rather large naked men . Or explaining every three minutes that there is NO carousel in a 10-mile radius of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta and refusing resolutely requests to carry the heavy tired child. Or taking 48 tiny pebbles from the artsy-fartsy golden fish pond in your Kuala Lumpur hotel under the stern stare of the hotel manager while your child is asking whether he can throw them back in a little later when the angry uncle in the uniform is not looking.

The point is, whether we like it or not (I actually do) we take our kids on trips quite often and sightseeing during the day might actually be quite fun as we point out to the gorgeous Marseilles yachts or let them run through the expansive mosques of Old Delhi. But what happens at night is an entirely different issue. Many parents end up either dragging the already incredibly exhausted, irritated kids to dinners at nice restaurants that (shockingly) do not end up all that well or get back to the hotel and hole themselves in since the kids have to go to bed, while staring longingly at the glimmering night lights of the city they just paid over $2000 in plane tickets to see.

There is a solution and that is to get babysitting in the hotel. Ever since Son was 2 months old, we have used hotel baby sitting services as needed. Back then, we were in California for the annual lavish Christmas party of his company at the stunning luxury Grand Del Mar. The company has just shelled out massive amounts of money to fly all employees from the East Coast to San Diego, put us up in a $500 a night room for three days and had a black tie party at the grand ballroom. Not going to the party was not even an option. Since then we have hired sitters at fancy hotels like the Fontainebleau in Miami, the Wintergreen tennis and ski resort in the Shenandoah Valley, we had sitters in Bermuda, in Kuala Lumpur, Thailand, even in Kolkata!

So, how does it work? So far, every hotel that we have been to (arguably, we have not been to Motel 6 since our early dating days) has had a list of either babysitting services approved and vetted out by the hotel, or names of sitters who actually happen to also work for the hotel . Depending on the place and country, price per hour can vary dramatically – from the $20/hr we paid in Miami Beach to the $10 for 4 hours in India. In most cases, you will need to pay for the sitter’s transportation and even dinner depending at what time she comes in (use your judgment, of course). We always get babysitting in the evening as we prefer to spend the day with Son dragging him around with us, but all babysitting services operate also during the day if you need them to. If the hotel you are staying in does not actually offer babysitting but you and the mister are itching to get loose on the town and see its infamous red lights district (strictly scientific interest, clearly), you can try a couple of other options. If you are a fellow FSO, write to the CLO in that town (if there is an Embassy or consulate) and ask for a recommendation – many local nannies love to get overtime (a quick shout out to a magic CLO in Kolkata’s U.S. Consulate who got us in touch with an amazing ayah!). If you are not, you can still call the American Citizen Services desk and ask nicely whether they can recommend one (trust me, crazier requests have come to that section). In Bermuda, we were playing tennis with the pro at the hotel whose teenage daughter happened to babysit regularly. She was great. And then there are always professional babysitting companies in all major towns. But I personally would not go that far – even I have my limits on whom I trust with my kid.

So yes, you can have your cake and eat it too. Now, there has been the occasional funky situation where you stumble upon some, um, rather eclectic characters who eventually turn out to be excellent nannies. At the Fontainebleau, when Son had just turned one, we had to get a sitter for the night to join yet another lavish company soiree. The hotel recommended 3 different companies, and I chose the one that advertised that all of its sitters were college students of child psychology, knew baby CPR and could pretty much feel good about themselves only the company of children. So, I quickly called and arranged for a sitter to come that very night. I happened to have my two best male friends from highschool visiting Miami at the same time and they came to see us at the hotel. They got really excited that a college-age babysitter was coming to the hotel room and since she was already running a bit late and we had to go to the party (at the hotel ballroom itself), they eagerly offered to watch the sleeping Son until she came in.

About 30 mins later, I hadn’t heard anything from them or the sitter for that matter, so I decided to walk the 3 kms across the massive hotel lobby and go up to our suite to see what was up. On my way, I stumbled upon my classmates who muttered something about gold teeth and old lady, and disappeared in a cab. Clearly disconcerted, I raced in my 5-inch heels through the slippery lobby almost bumping into Timbaland on the way (gotta tell you, the guy is stout!) and arrived breathless at the suite door. I knocked gently on the door not to wake up Son, and after what seemed like eternity, a hoarse voice asked, “Who is it?” Somewhat taken aback, I responded that it was the kid’s mom and after some fiddling around with the doorknob, the door swung open and a massive African American 50-something old lady grabbed me, flashed me a resplendent front gold tooth and squeezed me in a tight embrace. Then she jumped back and after briefly introducing herself, she told me that I looked gorgeous but that she did not mean it like THAT, ‘cuz she was into men, definitely into men. In fact, she got her husband waiting for her right now home but she loves kids (has 5 of her own) and so she likes babysitting. So I had nothing to worry about, but go and have fun with my undoubtedly gorgeous husband, into whom I was assured she was not interested in the least. All of this soliloquy took a little less than 2 minutes to pour out of her mouth, all the while her fantastic gold tooth kept glistening in the dim living room of the hotel suite. I was mesmerized, just kept nodding and, after checking on Son and suffering another massive hug, escaped back to the party. All was fine in the end. Phew.

A Very Secure Plane Ride to India

We have recently returned from a lovely family trip to Chennai. I have to tell you though, going from Bangladesh to India has turned into some sort of traveler purgatory. If you thought that taking off your shoes at the airport security checkpoint was a terrible inconvenience, I’d like you to take a trip from Dhaka to Chennai to get a bit of a perspective. After we entered the ever filled with vicious mosquitoes Dhaka airport, we had to scan our luggage before check-in while the observing officer was languidly cleaning his teeth with a small plastic fork. After was passed that bastion of security, we had to put the bags again through an X-ray machine right at the gate, where a feisty lady frisked me lovingly if haphazardly behind a rather dirty cloth booth and the Diplomat was even more lovingly and similarly haphazardly frisked right next to the machine. Once inside the waiting room, you’d think it would be over. Definitely not. There, a spritely fellow asked us to open up our bags and rummaged through my bras and feminine products serenely and without batting a Muslim eyelash. A stern looking woman took me behind a wicker partition and felt me all over again with fierce determination. You will excuse my impatience, but at this point we got a bit overwhelmed, and so I asked the lady why the heck we were being subjected to everything twice. She told me that the folks outside the gate were from the airport police, and the ones inside – from the airline. In her words, “We don’t trust them and they don’t trust us!” Speechless, I sat down and gave Son some crayons to draw dinosaurs.

Soon we proceeded to the plane, where a stern officer requested to see our boarding passes. I gave mine apathetically. 40 mins later and we were in Kolkata. Oddly, it took an additional 45 mins to get off the plane, which was a problem since we had a short connecting flight on a different airline. If you know Kolkata, you’ll know that the international and domestic flights buildings are apart and it is a brisk 5 minute obstacle course walk to get from one to the other (the obstacles being multiple men asking to carry your luggage, offer you a cab, something to eat, or standing just to stare at you along with a bunch of dogs). Running as fast as we can with 3 small suitcases and child in tow, we made it to the domestic flights building. We were promptly stopped at the entrance by an massive Indian policeman who resolutely requested our printed flight reservation and passports. Clearly rattled and worried about our next flight, I gave the man the papers and pretended to be telling the Diplomat loudly about how late we were. The policeman was not impressed. An eternity later, he returned the papers to me and let us through, only to be stopped a second later by another cop, sitting at a small wooden banged up bureau and writing slowly important stuff in an ancient-looking large note book. He also asked for our passports and reservations. Giving him an icy stare, I gave everything to him, fidgeting as if I had lice creeping up my butt. Again, I kept telling the Diplomat loudly that we were going to miss our flight. Nonplussed, after writing our names and destination  in the giant book with meticulous handwriting and the speed of an asthmatic snail, the cop turned to the Diplomat and asked him phlegmatically which part of India he was from. As I was about to choke him with a piece of Son’s plastic dinosaur, he finally gave us the passports and we raced to the counter. There, it turned out that our luggage was too heavy to be carryon luggage, which meant that we needed to go back and put it through a scanner and get a security tag. After a few uncalled for expletives directed at the perky Indigo Air staff, we ran and put the damned bags through. We raced back to the counter only to have her say, “Oh, too bad, you put it through Jet Air’s scanner, not ours – they are right next to each other…” Who cares, lady!!! It is a @#$%ing scanner, they are NOT going to show different things. Audibly upset, I let the Diplomat go back and re-scan the damned suitcases, all the while glaring at the counter lady who in turn was giving me most pleasant looks.

Finally done and boarding passes in hand, we ran towards the security checkpoint. There, we had to go through 2 separate lines for men and women, and had a bunch of tags stamped on our carry-ons. I was duly felt all over again by a disturbingly androgynous lady with a spurious mustache  Once THAT was over, we rushed toward the boarding gate as boarding was almost over. Before getting on the bus to the plane, we had to show our boarding passes to the airline agent, and then immediately to an airport policeman (yes, apparently they don’t trust each other in India as well). The bus took us to the plane, where ANOTHER damn cop checked the boarding passes. I was close to a nervous breakdown.

Soon we were up in the air, sitting squished in our chairs, which were extraordinarily small. Right in the middle of our ascent, my front neighbor decided that it was totally cool to recline his seat and fell 45 degrees into my lap, given the angle of the plane going up. It was a rather annoying flight. The final touch came when we landed in Chennai – leaving the plane, I was stopped by yet another policeman who demanded to see my boarding pass. !@#$%%???? I dared to ask why – after all, I have just left the God-damn plane. He said that he did not know why, he just had to. What do you say to that….

Our Chennai stay was lovely. We saw many of Diplomat’s relatives and even took a fabulous overnight trip to the beaches of Mahabalipuram, where his wonderful uncle had booked us a beachfront room in a 5-star resort. Son and Granddad had a ball in the infinity pool. IN the meantime, soaking in the deep end and gazing upon the ocean, I overheard the following exchange between 2 men in VERY tight long-john speedos threading water inside the shallow end and their lovely sareed wives, supine on the lounge chairs “Oh, come on, the water is lovely!” “Naa, yaar, I am in my saree, can’t come inside!” “Eh, saree-shmaree, no one can see you here!” followed by a hysterical giggle by all. Yes, dear friends, India is changing.

We are now safely back to the manic life of Dhaka. In two short days, the Embassy will be hosting a massive event with over 1000 local dignitaries at the Westin hotel to observe the Presidential election’s day. I cannot wait to explain the difference between the popular vote and the Electoral College at 5.30 am.