Shanti is back. We haven't seen her since Wednesday last week since her father-in-law passed away. She's talking to me a lot about all the stress, burdens, and customs she is going through right now. Her husband is the oldest son, so he's in charge of making sure everything is paid for, though his other brother is supposed to contribute. (Whenever monetary obligations enter the story I always feel like I'm being asked for money/more hours.) They will not be allowed to eat meat or celebrate anything for some time. One of the sons may or may not have to shave his head, I'm confused on that one. I think the younger one has to shave for Dad and the older one will have to shave for Mom. The body will be cremated (minus the bones) the ashes are scattered in the sea (they're not allowed to keep them, according their religion, like we can in urns) and the bones are put in a small vault or something.
There had been plans for a huge celebration weekend at the end of the month for the deceased, who had just turned 80, and Shanti and her husband, who were to celebrate a wedding anniversary, and someone else's birthday. Now those plans are all canceled. Next weekend, Shanti's husband has his graduation ceremony for his master's degree. Apparently he's one of the students to be honored for achievement or excellence. Sad that he won't be able to enjoy it much. Also interesting that he's an academic and his wife is a maid, no? Especially in a place where there is a pretty heavy stigma surrounding the housecleaning profession.
Shanti is talking to me about this stuff all day. It's fascinating, and I feel for her. She becomes almost emotional at one point (though it's unclear whether it's out of sadness or stress), but it irks me that she often stands around either chatting with me or on the phone while I am paying her by the hour to clean and/or watch Regin. I finally had to cut her off in the middle of a sentence to go get Regin who was threatening to jump out of his high chair.
Monday night George has a meeting with the US. Thankfully this doesn't happen too often for him. Our friend Carmen seems to regularly have to meet over the phone/internet with people in the States at odd hours. George ends up staying in this meeting (and therefore totally hogging the internet) until 3am! So I go to bed and get up again at 3 to get something I'm working on done. No worries, this is what I get for my last-minute "brilliant" ideas.
We lose power for a while on Tuesday. We're sitting around waiting for it to magically come back on, like it always does in the States, and the heat is building up and up, and we have all the windows open, when George decides to call the apartment management to see if it's just us. It is. Some fuse blown or something.
Thursday (my mom's birthday) is great. I feel awesome to have gotten a gift I'm excited about and gotten it to my mom on time, plus Shanti is making up some hours and since I didn't want her cleaning for me two days in a row, I told her: no cleaning, only watching Regin! Yeeeeaaaahhhh!
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By the way, George is 'blogging' his experience now on Facebook by posting his iPhone photos with comments on his profile there. If you want his perspective, I guess you better go there to get it!
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