YES!!!
After 5 months of building chicken-pens, feeding, chasing chickens out of the vergetable garden, more feeding, building more chicken-pens, feeding, etc...one of the little black hens actually started laying eggs!
She managed to lay these four just in time for our sunday-morning and they tasted absolutely lovely. As it turns out the eggs taste of the food the chicken gets, which in our case would bee a subtle leeky rucola bolognese flavour...with the wine of course. So here's to our laying lady and her two sisters who hopefully follow her example soon!

Finally!!! After one year in India I finally went to see the Taj Mahal!

It took a friends visit to take the time and go there, and it was worth every minute of it!
My friend Rian came to visit me and as it was her first time in India we tried to experience all sides of India within the week she was here. Luckily she has a very open mind and thinks everything is exciting and intreguing, and that quality is immediately grasped and understood by the Indians...I have never seen so many people that wanted to take a picture with her!

The weekend we took it easy...shopping in Hauz Khas in my favorite shop (Country Collection, always good for something beautiful) and then a South Indian thali for lunch on saturday, and on sunday a walk and lunch in Lodi Garden. Monday we had booked the "Nigel Tour" - Nigel is a 86 year old English gentleman who came to India whilst in the Army and never left. As he puts it he "wanted someone to bring him tea and a newspaper at 7 in the morning", and in India he could have that. Nigel knows everything about Delhi and its (British) history, and took us on a very comprehensive tour through a Sikh temple, a step well in the washerman-quarter, the ghats at the banks of the Yamuna River where bodies of deceased are burned, the old expat neighbourhoods (this is where the Europeans lived around 1900) and the place where Delhi began...King George the 4th announced here in 1911 that Delhi would be the new capital of India, only to have his architect decide one year later that the spot wasn't good because it flooded during the monsoon...there you are. After lunch we visited Old Delhi, with its bazaars and narrow streets, its crowded alleys, its (literally) breathtaking spice market and glittering wedding street. At the end of the day we were exhausted, only to find that Nigel would happily have continued!

Tuesday was Ghandi's birthday and this year we spend it by the pool...the weather was perfect, the water still bearable (winter has started and it is now rapidly cooling down) and everywhere it was quiet...perfect!

And finally wednesday we went to Agra. We took the Shatabti express at 6 in the morning and arrived in Agra at 8...the train ride itself was an experience, with all the food and tea being handed out and Rian eyeing every package with curiosity...and the gentlemen sitting in front of us eyeing her with curiosity....
We were met by a Bollywood star (not really, he works for the travel agent, but he COULD have been a Bollywood star) and taken to our car with our driver for the day, Yugesh. Yugesh (we named him You Guess because we couldn't remember his name otherwise) took us to the Taj...and there we were, at 9 in the morning, with glorious views on the biggest monument for love.
The Taj Mahal is obviously a tourist destination and often these attractions are overpriced and overrated, but in this case it was worth every Rupee...in one word, perfect!
By the time we left the crowds were coming and we became a tourist attraction ourselves (mainly Rian, I must admit)...many people wanted to take our picture (or basically, their picture with us in it posing as their longtime friends from Australia) and this time I let go of my "here we go again" and followed Rian's enthousiasm, and laughed my head of!

Then we went to the Fort, which actually was as beautiful as the Taj. From the Fort you can see the Taj, lying in the distance at the bank of the Yamuna river, like a painting from long lost days. It was in this Fort that Shah Jahan was emprisoned, looking at the grave of his beloved Mumtaz Mahal for 8 years, until he died. Serves him right...rumour has it that he chopped off the hands of the craftsmen who build the Taj so they would never again build something so perfect (and looking at India as it is now, it seems he succeeded...).
Still, the Fort is the most beautiful Fort I have seen since I arrived in India, with the Amber Fort in jaipur coming second.

After lunch we drove to Fatehpur Sigri, the ghost town build by Shah Akbar. The town was deserted soon after his death due to water shortages, and the buildings remain as a testimony of the time...beautiful, quiet, hot...and unfortunately full of "guides" who attach themselves like flies in the desert, pestering tourists with scary stories that they will never be able to understand the town and all it's monument without their help and guidance. fortunately the Lonely Planet had warned us for these guides and the fact that most of what they tell is made up anyway. Still, we didn't see the Jama Masjid and probably part of the buildings due to the guides following us...suddenly, I was fed up completely with the harassing and the constant whining for money, money, money...in India, everybody wants money. From us, that is, because we have "many Rupees". keep on dreaming.

We ended the day with beer and snacks in the Taj palace hotel, end then were taken back to the station by our Bollywood guy, who literally put us on the train, to be met by T and mr. Gill two hours later at Delhi Station. Wow! What a day!

Busy weeks!
After the initial heavy rains we have had the occasional drips but nothing substantial anymore; I have sown the first seeds -following a new method I have read about, "Square Foot Gardening"- and now I am eagerly awaiting the moment when I can actually transplant the little plants into the garden...
However, the chickens have grown to the point where we dare to let them out in the open (no fear of cats anymore) and as it turns out chickens LOVE everything small and green. They have eaten all the flowers from the pots, all the new little leaves on bushes and have grazed their way through half the spinach in the vegetable garden before we managed to stop them. That means another busy couple of weekends for T, as now we'll need a fence...

But the highlight of the past weeks was the visit of T's children who came over for part of their holidays. It was the first time they came to India, and we were excited to have them! We visited Jaipur which is really beautiful, and worth another visit. They especialy liked the Monkey Temple, which is on a hill overlooking Jaipur, where monkeys gather at sunset. We went with a bag of peanuts and obviously were favourite with the monkeys and an occasional child.
We also loved the Amber fort, which lies at the bottom of a mountain. It is 600 years old and still in a wonderful condition, made of sandstone and marble, featuring beautiful details like rooms with mirror-inlays on the ceiling and beautiful fresco's at the entrance gate. We didn't take a ride on Elephant back though, as the elephants seem to suffer a lot from marching up and down the hill in the hot Rajasthan sun. (We found Rajasthan to be cooler than Delhi though...it is higher and seems to cool considerbaly at night).

Agra, and the Taj Mahal, we unfortunately had to skip as the whole family caught Delhi Belly at some point...we have decided to keep that one in store for a next visit. Instead we went sightseeing in Delhi - the picture was taken at Humayun's Tomb, one of Delhi's most beautiful buildings (and very similar to the Taj Mahal; same layput but different stone).

Now, the kids are back to Holland where school will soon start, and we are back to normal life....trying to shed the xtra accumulated kilo's, building fences for the chickens and looking forward to cooler weather!

The monsoon has started!

It was predicted to hit Delhi on the 28th of june but it came early, and as the scorching 48ºC has now turned into a delightfully 26ºC, it's a relief!
We have thunderstorms every day now - the sky turns into a very dark grey and when the rumbling starts the winds start as well...then the rain comes, as if the gods are turning buckets full of water upside down. The roads and sewer systems cannot cope and streets (especially the ones downhill) turn into rivers, with stranted tuctuc's standing deserted left and right, the occasional car ploughing through. Thank god we bought a jeep-type car!

Our garden turned into a pool, parts of it at least. There is suddenly so much water that the grounds are satiated...I am sure the vegetables will drown (we still have rucola, fennel, leek and sellery in the garden). Oh well, part of the How-To-Grow-Vegetables-In-India experience. I'm learning every day. It surprises T and me that the Indians haven't build large underground reservoirs for the excess rains, as a reserve for the hot summer when there are water shortages. With the enormous amounts of people, and cheap labour costs, achieving that should not be a big problem.

For now we are busy checking the house for the inevitable leakages, making sure the cats and the chickens are dry and safe, and keeping the generator running as frequently trees will fall onto electricity wires, cutting us off. By the time we are ready for a boat to roam our garden, we'll post another blog!

So much for the digital highway... I cannot upload pictures from our home as the system -despite claims that it is broadband- will not even upload a 100k file...and now I cannot upload from the embassy either as their system changed and T has his own internet connection now, to which I have no access. So...no more pictures from now on!

India is HOT!!!

No, not in the sense of booming...India is literally Hot...very very Hot...I don't think I have ever been so Hot in my life! And given the fact that we lived in Sudan on the edge of the Sahara when I was a child, that says something!

Yesterday it was 40ºC in the shade and 48ºC in the sun...even the wind feels hot, scorching, like you are sitting in an oven. Inside we have a permanent temperature of 36ºC and the airco's (of which we can only run two at the time since the wiring of the house will not allow for more) cannot keep up...the coolest we manage to get our bedroom is 22ºC (with the airco set on 17!).

Our clothes feel as if they have just been ironed, the marble -which is everywhere in the house- feels warm and the floor feels as if we have a permanent underfloor heating on, set on "Korean temperature in the winter" (app 34ºC). The water from the coldwater tap is so hot that we cannot use it (my thermometer stops at 42º and it was way beyond that), the water from the boilers -which have now been switched off- have a bearable 36ºC, the outside temperature. My brain has switched off...overheated. I can only sit very quietly, walking to the fridge for a cool drink once in a while, and then returning to my seat in front of the airco. I feel deeply for all those people who live in the streets, with no access to cooling, powercuts of hours in a row and no generator, and sometimes even without access to water! India still has a long way to go before it is truly booming on all levels of society!

Mr. Gill tells me that we can expect this temparature for 40 days, and then the monsoon will come - I am starting to understand why everybody takes their annual leave around this time if they can be missed. Next year, I am planning a vacation to Antartica in June....

Ok, this is one of those "Indian weeks"....

Bishnu is off with mr. Gill to a hospital because she was bitten by something and is now starting to have a stiff neck, and the stiffness and swollenness are moving up to her head... could be nothing, could be blood poisening. I don't want any of my personnel to drop dead on the job, so off they went.
Jubeda then came telling me that she burned a finger making chapatti's, so I put some rescue cream on the finger and a band-aid...it is like having a big kindergarten at the end of the garden, and if one of them is all, suddenly they all are.

We have had water problems in the weekend (always the weekend), as the floater in the watertank turns out to be broken, so the 2000l tank was empty...and dirty...and it took us 5 trips to the roof to find out what the problem was. Now it is sort of solved (T repaired the floater) and we can shower. A necessity, as it is already 40º C in the shade.

Our second vacuumcleaner starts to break down; to be honest, if I see the amounts of fine dust that clings to its exterior, it is no surprise it cannot handle a house of this size. And it also becomes painfully clear that we too are breathing in this fine dust...I don't even want to think about the health consequences, because that will make me want to move out of here asap.

And the airconditioning in tour bedroom is also starting to shut down in the middle of the night, for no apparant reason. You then have to get up, unplug it (which resets it, I think), plug it in again and switch it on, after which it will work again for a certain period of time. It is the only airco with this problem (and it would HAVE to be in the only room where we really DO want the airco to work), and I don't think the technical guys understand what is happening, as they keep coming up with excuses...a sensor gone crazy, cold nights (in India....haha), electricity fluctuations (and could we get up at 04.00 to check), a printboard gone astray....who knows. Maybe there is a curse on the house, caste by a crazy tenant who could not take the breaking down anymore.

In India, the question is not IF something will break down. The question is WHEN it will breakdown (the weekend, obviously). Also, once it starts breaking down, it will continue to do so. One is forced to get creative and work around the problem until it is solved...I flushed my toilets this weekend with water taken from the pool. As long as we have water there we will at least be able to wash ourselves and flush the toilets...but I must admit that trips to the Netherlands are a badly needed relief once in a while!

Old Mac Marja had a farm.....

It started with an Easter Brunch at our place for all embassy people that had not left for holidays... about half the people came, with spouses and kids, carrying decorated eggs for our big "Eitje-tik" (=slam-the-egg) contest... we took pictures of everyone carrying their egg (as shown above... need we say more?). Guests came bearing gifts such as chocolate eggs, easter bunnies, bottles of wine, a book called "A sahibs guide to the mali" and.... 6 chicks!
T's collegue of the agricultural department and her husband figuered that on a farm, one needs chickens...so here we were, with six fluffy yellow squeeking balls!
Unfortunately we were about to leave for the netherlands, so T had to devise a cage at the very last minute, and in India, good material is hard ro find, so the maze in the wire used was too big and actually allowed a chick's head to stick out...when we came back from our trip two of the six had been beheaded by passing cat. Bishnu reported that she only found one leg and a lot of feathers....poor things!

By then however, the Chicken-fever had gotten me, in the sense that I was looking forward to fresh eggs, chickens who would eat kitchen leftovers and free manure...I had anticipated starting with app 3 hens (4-5 seemed like the perfect size but that seemed to be out of reach with 6 chicks), but now the chances were that maybe only one of the survivers would be a female, so we needed more chicks!
In India, when one needs chicks one orders them. They are then beeing bred in a big machine and as soon as they hatch you can have them, so there we went, mr. Gill, Bishnu, Chunky, an illy box and I....off to get the new offspring. They sell per 10 (150 rupees for 10) and mr. Gill negotiated two extra for free, so there we were, with a dozen yellow, red and black fluffballs in an illy box. T's challenge is to make a new cage for them this weekend, my challenge is to keep them out of Friend's paws until they can defend themselves (Olly doesn't try to catch them, he just lies there and watches).

Obviously, all but one rooster will have to go eventually (so I hope the cute little black chick that I rescued out of the box -30 grs, I weighed it- is a hen). T thinks they will be ready just in time for Christmas... the grim but realistic downside of being a farmer. Until then however, I will happily put them in and out of their box, for the sheer pleasure of scooping up a little fluffball and brushing it against my face, just to feel how small and soft it is. Beats every stresstherapy I know!

Beautiful India..Bert and Anita (T's brother and his wife) just toured Rajasthan, taking a 1000 pictures in the process (which we all had to see when they came back...and actually that was a pleasure). They were not very rested, driving 3500 km, but I think they had a great time. I must say the "colourful India" msut have been derived from Rajasthan....the landscape is rather bland with its deserts but the people compensate with their colours.
Amongst other things we now have a great amount of tips on cities, hotels and places to see!
It was great having them over...great guests!

We are now preparing for a little vacation of our own, to Kerala. We wanted to go to a beach where they would have rest and good food, and we were looking at Bali, Thailand or the Maledives, but apart from the prices of tickets (quite high!) also travelling times were not very attractive...to bali we would have to travel for almost 2 days to reach our destination (not very practical when you can only leave for a week). So we finally decided to stay within India - after all we ARE living here - and go down south. We found a hotel in our little book ("Special places to stay") - it is on the beach, fresh seafood prepared in front of your table, ayurvedic massages available and our own little private cottage...what more could we possibly want?

Jahanpanah, Delhi's fourth city!
(kids in front of the Bijay Mandal, the Begumpur mosque, The Satpula Dam, inside the Kirkhi mosque)

On the 28th of february our group did its tour, starting at the Satpula dam (which used to be part of the Jahanpanah wall). It is quite an intreguing building - what can be seen from the streetside looks like the wall of a bastion, and the seven arches (Satpula = 7 arches) can only be seen from the other side. Behind the dam is a little wildlife sanctuary, unfortunately with a sewer opening up into it...fortunately our tour was not in summer for it would have smelled really bad then. From Satpula dam we walked to Khirki mosque, another hidden treasure. Khirki mosque is one of the two mosques in India that is covered, presumably to shield the faithful from the sun, but in fact dividing the prayer hall in little segments, which is probably why they didn't repeat this way of building.

After Khirki Mosque we went to the Bijay mandal, which is likely to have been the palace of Muhammad bin Tughluq, the sultan who build Jahanpanah. Muhammad was quite a charackter - brilliant, cruel, crazy...he moved Delhi's entire population to what is now Adilabad (three months on foot), only to have most of them die on the way. Those that didn't die perished once arrived as food and water were scarce. Those that refused to go were beheaded...and there are stories that the crippled people, for whom the trip would have been too far, were put in catapults and flung in the direction of Adilabad...Mohammad is said to have died of food poisening in 1351, but we suspect it was poison.

We concluded our tour at the Begumpur mosque, which lies in Begumpuri village (and actually hosted part of the village in the 19th century). Most of the monuments are being restored, and in India that means that you walk amidst the working peopleover rooftops that may crumble beneath you...but it does give you a sense of authenticity.

Kids are everywhere at those places, and the first thing they scream when the see you is "hello, money!". Glad that is clear then...I told them in my best Hindi that my name is not Money but Marja, but I doubt wether they cared...mr. Gill had to walk with us every time we went to study our monuments, to keep the kids away (not in the last place because they all look like they are full of lice, and Kate, my 7cities buddy, had just explained that she got lice from one of those begging kids when she had just arrived in India and it took her MONTHS to get rid of them...just the thought makes my head start itching).
Still, studying the monuments, their history, and the time they were build in (app 1325 - 1351) gives me a sense of how the city developed - all 7 cities tours are chronological so the city literally unfold before your eyes...fascinating! Worth all the work! I am meeting nice people as well, as the total 7 cities group consists of about every nationalit possible. One of my fellow-adventurers is from Korea and made me Kimchi...another is setting up an acupressure class which I am dying to attend and with Kate I go shopping...finaly my social life here starts to take shape!

Busy week...wednesday we had our 7cities presentation, and that involved a lot of work.

7cities is a program which was initiated by two american ladies, and it deals with the architectural highlights in Delhi's "7 cities" (Delhi was built in 7 stages in 7 different persiods of time, hence the 7 cities of Delhi). The larger group of app. 30 people is devided into smaller groups of 3-4 people, and each group is assigned a city of Delhi and a list of its monuments. The group is then meant to prepare a guided tour, a report and arrange a lunch. It is a great way to learn about the city and to get to know people and places. My group, consisting of Kate, Sue and me, had the fourth city of Delhi, Jahanpanah. More about that in a next blog.

Then I took Friend to the vet; Friend is Olly Kumar's friend, a tiny tabby stray cat, who now and then enters the house to eat Olly's food. About a month ago he started limping, and as he increasingly started to look scruffy and got thinner and thinner, we decided to catch him and take him to the vet. Well, it turned out that Friend lost a toe during battle and had an ulcer underneath his second toe, which caused the limping. As the ulcer wouldn't heal the vet suggested to take the toe off...so Friend was operated (and fixed) and is now living in our poolhouse until he is fully recovered. Mr. Gill likes Friend better than Oly, because he doesn't scream in the car, but I do think they all think it is strange that I would go through so much trouble for a stray cat. Well...if I cannot help the people of India, then I might as well try to help a cat.

Coming weekend it is Holi (the festival when they throw paint) and we are hoping that our personnel will not share the festivities with us by coming round to "decorate" us...we have been advised not to hit the streets as we are likely to become targets of paint-throwing drunken Indians, so we'll have a dinner party in the garden instead. No paint, just booze (that part of Holi we like)!

New guests have arrived: T's brother and his wife, Bert and Anita.

It is wonderful to have them over; we have had long evenings at the poolside (drinking a LOT of wine!) and wonderful breakfasts, finally enjoying our garden which looks beautiful now. The temperature is great at the moment: cool during the night and app 20-24 degrees Celcius during the day...but soon we will have Holi which apparantly is the start of summer (so we might as well enjoy as long as it lasts).
We went to Old Delhi with Bert and Nita, strolling the little streets where no car can go...which does not stop the honking, by the way, as scooters, motorcycles and riksha's can go into these little streets and they'll squeeze by you (or brush against you if you are unlucky). B & N just bought a new camera and spent most their time taking pictures and then reviewing them, and subsequently T and I spent most our time waiting and making fun of them...but we had a great time nonetheless! Lunch then at Karim's, a very famous and longtime establishment where they serve Mughal food (=Moslim food) and then we walked back to mr. Gill who was waiting at the Red Fort, wondering why the hell we didn't take a riksha as normal tourists do.

B & N are now touring somewhere in Rajastan (with a car and driver arranged by mr. Gill) and will be back in two weeks with more pictures and lots of stories - we couldn't go with them, unfortunately, but they promised to take notes so if we DO have time to take a trip, we'll have their experiences to guide us.

Did my first bit of driving today and I think I scared the wits out of mr. Gill....obviously they drive on the left side of the road here and that means that the shiftstick and indicator are on the wrong side of the car, and so is the bit sticking out...according to mr. Gill (who was constantly screaming "slower") I went very close past other cars. He does the same thing all the time but apparantly he feels that he does know the width of the car, and I don't (which is probably correct).
The fact that no-one stays in the lane they are supposed to does not help, but still I had fun (and I didn't hit anyone).

I found that the two things that make India difficult are the loss of independence and control - I cannot drive when I want where I want, there is someone in my kitchen putting things back where I can't find them, there is someone cleaning my bedroom at the time I feel like having a nap, there is always someone somewhere in the garden, watching closely what I do...and even if I just sit and read, I feel watched and not very much at ease.
They pick flowers in combinations I don't like and then stuff them in vases that don't match, they pick vegetables I didn't ask for that then rot away in my fridge and they move dust from one place to another with their broom, despite the fact that I must have told them a hundred times to use the vacuumcleaner... this is how old people in a retirement home must feel, when they are wheeled away, wearing what they don't want to wear, meeting whom they don't want to meet, just because the person pushing them thinks it is a good idea to park them at a table. I think I will not want to get old.

So...I go shopping. If there is one thing you can do really well in India, it's shopping - if you like home decorations, clothes and pashminas, that is. So we "ladies" decorate our homes and when we are done we start all over again, just to keep busy...and when we are done shopping we go for lunch, tennis or tea. What a life! (I DO do other things though, but I hope to be able to upload pictures again when I start blogging about those things...more to come!).

What happened to our internet connections?
Suddenly it is impossible to upload images to the blog, which is a pity as I shot some really beautiful pictures recently. Welcome to IT country India!

Having lived here for half a year now, with a house that is STILL breaking down (now a huge wet spot has developed on the kitchen wall and I don't even want to begin thinking about the consequences....), roads that were supposed to be finished two years ago but will take another two years at least (which is a pain because it would cut our travelling time to the city in half), telephone connections that spontaniously disconnect you at the most inconvenient times and wedding parties being held every evening now (complete with loud music and fireworks...lucky us!) I would have to conclude that despite general belief India is still a developing country with all the problems that go with it.

T and I have given ourselves until summer - if the house is still breaking down then, making it impossible for us to enjoy the garden (the one thing that made us choose a farmhouse over the city) we will move.

On top of it all we have had our first case of theft...money was stolen by one of our personnel. We were warned that it would happen but once it does, it IS a disappointment as I thought we did everything to make people happy and take good care of them. Well, apparantly in India that doesn't work. Probably there is a reason everyone fires personnel for the tiniest mistake and generally treats them like shit...welcome to Incredible India!

Happy 2007!

We just returned from a wonderful though busy three weeks in Europe...Christmas we spent with our family and for New Years Eve we went to Switzerland to enjoy a week of snow, fresh air, mountainview and "Gipfeli" (croissants...but since our good friend Michael explained what they are made of, I think I just ate my last...).
Obviously the wonderful Christmas dinners took their toll when we tried to squeeze into our ski pants - mine kept popping open whenever I exhaled - so yes, we WILL start dieting now! No more of Bishnu's wonderful chappatti's and curries... salad it is! (Which incidentally happens to grow in our vegetable garden; nothing beats freshly picked salad, so I am hopeful the dieting will not be too much of an ordeal!).

Returning home was a better experience than last time...Bishnu and Jubeda had methiculously cleaned the whole house, put flowers everywhere (EVERYWHERE...every vase I own was used) and turned the heaters on in the living room and the bedroom. Also, no extra people living at the farm, no bills for stuff that was bought (and that I was expected to pay for), and they even took Olly Kumar to the vet when he was ill. So far so good.

Currently it is very cold in Delhi; during the day we have a wonderful 18 degrees celcius, but the nights are freezing cold with a moist and foggy 2-3 degrees. Houses generally do not have a heating system so we can barely manage to reach 14-15 degrees inside when turning on the airco's. T remembers similar conditions from when he was a child...I on the other hand have childhood memories of tropical temperatures so today I will go to Khan market and buy radiators so we can keep at least one room at a comfortable temperature!

Next week our first guests will arrive, Hilde and Ingo + 3 kids, whom we met in Korea. They are being posted back to Germany and decided to hold a stopover of a week in Delhi. As Murphy's law dictates, now is the moment for things to start breaking down...in this case the bathrooms. At the moment, three of the four showers are not working and the fourth barely has enough hot water for one adult...and four out of the five toilets we have will not flush down toilet paper as the sewage system was not installed properly...if this continues, we'll have to take a bath in the (freezing cold!) swimming pool and find some bushes to do the rest in.
Or we could all cuddle up, simply skip washing and do justice to the dutch saying "waar het stinkt is het warm" (where it is smelly it is warm)... It will be a memorable stay for them, that's for sure! I'll ask them to write a blog about their experiences!

For now, we both wish you a happy, healthy, exciting and warm 2007! We'll keep you posted about our exciting life in New Delhi!