The Big Move

February 16, 2009
I am sorry it has been so long since the last update. It has been quite crazy and I probably could write forever about it, but I will just give you some of the key things that happened these past two weeks. Ratnam and Lynne got back from Delhi on the 31st after a successful trip. The FCRA papers (for foreign money) were final in the system and they got the ball rolling. The FCRA people also said that they would move it along as fast as possible, which is a good sign. While they were in Delhi they bought some dresses for the younger girls at the wholesale market.

The day after they got back we started moving into the new house. It was quite a project. I took the whole day driving loads in the ambulance from the guesthouse to the new house, using three of the bigger boys to help and it wasn’t even finished. Along with the moving in process, we had to deal with the fact that we had no water, no electricity on the second floor, and no bathrooms at the new house. They were supposed to fix all of them by the night, but they ended up only fixing the electricity in the second floor. By the night, pretty much neither house was livable, but we made it work at the new house. We had planned on keeping the boys only for the day, but the day turned into overnight, which turned into a second day and night and they ended up staying at the house for five days. With the three extra boys we had eleven older people and 4 babies living in the house. It was almost comical how many people this house can hold quite comfortably. By the time the boys left on Friday, we had water, bathrooms, a clean house and it was almost organized. We hadn’t left the house for five days when we went to drop them off, and we probably wouldn’t have come out except that some people from the central government in New Delhi, who are doing some outreach program, where interested in doing a presentation to their group about Agape. It is very exciting since they will be presenting to very important people. We then worked on Saturday in the house doing more organizing and cleaning, Sunday we went back to the hostels because Sophia’s (Sweetie’s) birthday was on Feb. 1st and because of the move we didn’t get to celebrate until then. Sophia wore the dress I bought her in the US and she looked absolutely adorable. We brought her around to all the hostels to “give out” candy. (I ended up giving out most of it.) After that we came back to the house to have a celebration there. Sweetie was hilarious eating her cake. The next couple of days we spent some time at the office and some time at the house, Ratnam ran around like a mad man trying to get everything settled before he had to leave for America. The internet, phone, and the washing machine were all not working, and we didn’t have a driver. He got us a driver and got us hooked up on the phone and on the internet before he left on the 13th. In addition, Thanuja left for her village on the 14th for a function for her sister’s new baby. Having them both gone has made the house quite crazy. Lynne and I each have been giving two of the kids baths, cooking breakfast and lunch before heading out to the hostel or Easter shopping and then coming back to cook dinner. Today was a little crazy because it was ARV, but Jayapaul, who normally handles it, is visiting his village, so basically I had to be Jayapaul. Luckily Hafeez could come and help.