This week is a big one in India - it's Diwali, which has a lot of mythical origins but now seems to mostly involve putting lights on houses, eating loads and setting off insanely huge fireworks in the street. The racket has been crazy for a couple of nights now - the noise is like being in a war zone. Lots of firecrackers, rockets and other stuff, just fired off in the middle of the road. Cars, autos and bikes just ride past them as they're going off. The fireworks are pretty awesome, probably as a result of having no safety regulations and being so close to China, where most of them are made. It did get a little annoying on Monday night when they were still firing off at 2am, and the kid next door started at 6:30am but it wasn't so late last night.
Speaking of last night, I had to do a couple of work calls from home in the evening and to be honest they were a bit of a waste of time - with all the noise from outside I either had to mute my microphone, or when people on the other side were speaking I couldn't hear anything they were saying. One thing that did come up towards the end of the call was when my boss mentioned what a great time he had at our house when he was in town last week, and how the cook and Emma had made such delicious food. Some of the folks on the team said "you have a cook? Sign me up for an expat assignment!" I kind of smiled through gritted teeth because it was getting late, towards the end of the second hour of evening calls after having worked 8:30 - 5:30 during the day. And what they and I didn't know is that later that evening Emma and I had a bit of a drama.
As we were getting ready for bed Emma noticed a couple of ants by the bedroom closet. She got some spray and zapped them - they walk around for a minute or so then go into spasms like they are a malfunctioning robot. But it must have set off some kind of panic because two minutes later there were about 100 ants on the floor. More spray, and there were about 1000 ants on the top of the closet, and on the floor too. Freak out time. With a combination of spray and our awesome Dyson handheld vacuum we kept them at bay for a bit but we realized this wasn't a tenable situation. With it being around 11pm on Diwali night there was no way the Rentokil guy would be available, so I went over to the Palm Meadows clubhouse to beg for help. Eventually I got hold of a maintenance guy who came over and took a look. By that point the tide had abated somewhat (between Emma and me we had vacuumed up 6 loads of ants) but there were still a bunch more around. The guy was awesome, took a good look around and noted that they were probably coming in through the wall, after the really heavy rains a couple of nights before (after which the power was out so it was cold showers in the morning). Fortunately the closets themselves are sealed at the back, so no ants had gotten into our clothes but there was a gap between the wall and the top of the closet, and the ants were in the space in between the closet and the wall. He went and got another guy and between them they sealed the gaps and he promised to come back in the morning with ant medicine and ant ointment.
So this morning there were no ants visible in the bedroom, and he came over as promised to treat the outside of the house. It was only Rs500 - about $10, and we gave him another Rs100 for his trouble (he refused to take a tip last night). I can't imagine how much it would have cost if we'd had to do a similar thing in Minneapolis on Christmas night!
So, next time you think that it's all easy life and lounging around having staff here, bear in mind that you might have more "people" in your house than you might think.
Speaking of last night, I had to do a couple of work calls from home in the evening and to be honest they were a bit of a waste of time - with all the noise from outside I either had to mute my microphone, or when people on the other side were speaking I couldn't hear anything they were saying. One thing that did come up towards the end of the call was when my boss mentioned what a great time he had at our house when he was in town last week, and how the cook and Emma had made such delicious food. Some of the folks on the team said "you have a cook? Sign me up for an expat assignment!" I kind of smiled through gritted teeth because it was getting late, towards the end of the second hour of evening calls after having worked 8:30 - 5:30 during the day. And what they and I didn't know is that later that evening Emma and I had a bit of a drama.
As we were getting ready for bed Emma noticed a couple of ants by the bedroom closet. She got some spray and zapped them - they walk around for a minute or so then go into spasms like they are a malfunctioning robot. But it must have set off some kind of panic because two minutes later there were about 100 ants on the floor. More spray, and there were about 1000 ants on the top of the closet, and on the floor too. Freak out time. With a combination of spray and our awesome Dyson handheld vacuum we kept them at bay for a bit but we realized this wasn't a tenable situation. With it being around 11pm on Diwali night there was no way the Rentokil guy would be available, so I went over to the Palm Meadows clubhouse to beg for help. Eventually I got hold of a maintenance guy who came over and took a look. By that point the tide had abated somewhat (between Emma and me we had vacuumed up 6 loads of ants) but there were still a bunch more around. The guy was awesome, took a good look around and noted that they were probably coming in through the wall, after the really heavy rains a couple of nights before (after which the power was out so it was cold showers in the morning). Fortunately the closets themselves are sealed at the back, so no ants had gotten into our clothes but there was a gap between the wall and the top of the closet, and the ants were in the space in between the closet and the wall. He went and got another guy and between them they sealed the gaps and he promised to come back in the morning with ant medicine and ant ointment.
So this morning there were no ants visible in the bedroom, and he came over as promised to treat the outside of the house. It was only Rs500 - about $10, and we gave him another Rs100 for his trouble (he refused to take a tip last night). I can't imagine how much it would have cost if we'd had to do a similar thing in Minneapolis on Christmas night!
So, next time you think that it's all easy life and lounging around having staff here, bear in mind that you might have more "people" in your house than you might think.
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