Almost halfway

It is 4:43am. Sadly, this is "sleeping in" for me. Neela is restless this morning. Twice she stood up at the railing in her crib. She didn't cry, just kinda rubbed her eyes and wondered what she should do. Both times I rubbed her back a little and she willingly layed back down to try to go back to sleep. I think maybe she didn't get enough to eat last night and now she is feeling a little extra hungry. She had her bottle at walmart last night, and then had some bread from Marnie's sandwich and a few bits of the jar of mixed fruits we bought. They said she was only doing two bottle feedings a day, but it seems she really, really, really loves drinking from the bottle. It is the one thing which always puts a happy ending to her tirades. They say these regression things are great for bonding, so we are thinking we will let her have a few more each day. It is weird cuz we never bottle fed out kids at this age. I suppose we are lucky that she still enjoys this and we can share this with her.

The sheer number of people living here continues to amaze me. As we walk thru the streets, not only are there corner to corner store fronts on all the major streets, but every building has at least 3 or 4 floors for housing. The streets are constantly packed with cars, mopeds, bikes, and periodic buses. We see a lot of bikes with electric hub motors, and most of these do not look new, which means they have been driving these for years. There are also a lot of solar water heaters on the roofs of the buildings. They look like the evacuated tube kind, but I suppose some could just be metal pipes.

We are starting to get the hang of crossing the streets here. We started just waiting for another local to come by and then we would literally draft on them across the street. Now that we are more confident, we will proceed on our own. The trick is not to wait until the street is completely clear, you just wait until the part of the street right in front of you is clear, and then you move forward to occupy that. You continue in this manner until you have reached the other side. The flow of traffic is a constant space negociation between all the players, with both drivers and peds constantly asserting themselves for real estate. It helps that most of the time cars are never moving that fast so any collisions would be minor. The commute home last night was faster at times and we nearly hit three people. It is surprising how some of the peds don't even look before crossing the street. They seem to trust that someone will horn or swerve around them as needed. Maybe there is something more subtle in the technique I'm not picking up on.

Today is orphanage day. Plan to pick up some diapers to donate to the orphanage, not sure what size. We are going to avoid the part where she lived, but I'm still a little nervous she may recognize some things and it will make her upset.

Thanks to everyone who continues to share this with us via our blog. Thanks especially for all your comments and keep them coming, it means a lot to us to hear from you!

All for now. I must check my email and take a shower before pumpkin wakes up. Oh, too late. She is standing up watching me right now....

Dave