Home alone

Today was Stewart's first day at work. I have to wait for my clearance to come through before I stat so in the mean time I get to hang out at home alone.... or I guess with the man we temporarily hired. I'm not sure if I can get used to this. Before he came this morning, I made sure to do all the breakfast dishes and clean up the kitchen! The way I see it, we're not hiring staff to pick up after us but to keep our place tidy. Yesterday, he spent 10 hours sweeping, mopping, dusting, and shopping/cooking dinner. Today, he's cleaning all of our AC air filters, washing all the light fixtures and fans, sweeping the main areas, and ironing. I'm still doing all our laundry because having someone else do it just weirds me out. For the life of me, I can't figure out what all to have them do to keep them busy for 54 hours a week (9 hours/6 days)! I think we'll end up saying that we only want brunch on Saturday - no cleaning or other cooking on the weekends. We want private time.

I will say that breakfast this morning was a nice change from the cereal we were having last week. I had mango crumble and fresh papaya with lemon juice squeezed on it. I've only ever had dried papaya before. So glad that Stewart and I are adventurous eaters. I think it surprised the guy yesterday when he asked what we wanted and we said anything he felt like making! Right now, I'm enjoying a cup of masala chai - the real deal, made on the stove stuff. Indians take two tea breaks and I figure as long as they're willing to make extra, i'llmstart having tea as well! Plus, I absolutely love chai.

Random fact: you cannot find masala chai on the menu at their version of Starbucks in the hot months. It's a cold weather drink like apple cider or hot chocolate for us. They have a reason though - apparently, they're used to drinking 4+ cups of tea a day. Masala chai has a variety of spices in it and is served scalding hot. The combination of the spices and heat of the tea are not good for people (even Indians! as our cook pointed out). It raises your core body temperature and you have trouble cooling back down. At least this is how it was explained to us yesterday. If you must have it, only have one cup a day. I asked why this doesn't apply to their extremely hot curries but I just got a weird look so who knows. I'm happy with my one cup.

I've been spending my day staying out of the way and occasionally making small talk. We have a ton of information to read so I've been sifting through that as well. I'm pretty stoked on volunteer opportunities that are available and hope to become involved soon. More on that later. It looks like I'll be heading to the embassy health clinic today to begin the daunting task of finding an Indian doctor! Another adventure!