We are Residents!

It hasn't been a fantastic 2.5 weeks in India. I allowed a week to get settled, and after 2.5 we still don't have an Indian Bank Account. I have done 2 days of support, in which the phones crashed completely for 10 minutes and one time Level 3 couldn't reach us at all by phone. We bought Ben a new razor and the clerk had to fill out a form, so that we could pay for the razor and have it brought to us. Every single thing is soooo difficult. We joined a health club, but we couldn't take books out of their library, because we didn't have our permanent membership cards yet. The library probably only had 300 books, and no Internet access. My ncr email doesn't work.

On the bright side Sunday we left the apartment without our keys, and the security guard took the initiative to climb in from the neighbour's balcony. People from the church went out of their way to make sure we had a plan B to get in to our apartment. We have been to the health club 3 times to work out, and last night we all finished up with a swim in their outdoor pool. And finally after 3 extremely frustrating tries we have met our visa requirements and registered as resident aliens. I took a picture from the hallway of our apartment building, which I'll post as soon as I find a USB cable to replace the one that I left at home with Dianne's distance learning course. I am writing this using our home internet access! Sunday night we even enjoyed Linda's sermon on stress from almost the other side of the world. We are still full of stress though. I wonder if, in this case it is a healthy reaction to this overstimulating place. Christine, and Mom and Dad have phoned us, and we have been blessed to talk to many people that we called. Saturday night we went to Lianne Franklin's hotel, had a beautiful supper and listened to a pianist and bassist play "blue moon" for us.

Ben and Joel's school (pictured) seems fantastic. Raghu arrived back from Canada Monday. Today he solved a problem for a customer, that I wouldn't have been able to solve. I think that it is possible that we will be succesful here. There are however some formidable obstacles to overcome. Our American customers won't care that the security gaurds wouldn't let the new driver in to the compound because they didn't recognize him, or even that he got lost trying to find HCL. Did I mention that everything seems more difficult here?