Our Abode

In our main room is a window that looks out past several apartment buildings to the lake of Durgam Cheroo(sp?) located three short blocks away. In the morning, just after the sun has begun to climb in the sky a lovely cool breeze wanders through the open window ignoring the bars that hinder anyone else (besides bugs) from coming in. It is a delightful time of day to be up and about. The air is not yet hot and the windows can be opened wide whereas at dusk we must close them to prevent the mosquitos from adopting our home as their own! In case you’re concerned that we suffer from the heat during the night, I’ll put your mind at rest. The bedrooms and bathrooms have screens affixed around the windows with velcro and every room except the kitchen and bathrooms have ceiling fans. All the windows in our house have black bars up reminding me of the house I lived in for four years in Mexico. However, they don’t look that bad—they are decorative so one doesn’t feel as if they’re living in a jail cell.
Yesterday I finally finished unpacking all our bags and repacking the stuff we won’t need while in such a warm climate. It was exhausting, but what a wonderful feeling to be finished! Our apartment is on the fourth floor (fifth by American standards) of the apartment complex called Keshav Estates and we’ve been settling in for just over a week now. We’ve begun to adjust to having to occasionally th-wack at cockroaches with a rolled up newspaper and I don’t jump nearly as much as I did at first when I see one scurrying by.

John and Rachel’s bedroom

All the floors throughout the apartment are marble, a common source for flooring here. What a treat we didn’t expect! But walking on marble all day long does a number on the feet, so we picked up some flip-flops to wear around the house— it’s the first pair I (Rachel) have owned since my childhood as I’ve never been fond of them. But here, they are definitely a God-sent! We have acquired some nice large mats for the floor and they are great for Aria to be able to roll around and play on.

Aria playing in her room

The apartment is delightfully spacious, especially after living for a good seven months in only a dorm room! There are three bedrooms in the house (wanna drop in for a visit?) and it’s been fun for me to have a room to decorate for Aria. There are two windows in her room and outside one of them a couple of doves or pigeons are roosting. Their cooing is such a soothing sound to hear. Our own room has a little bathroom off it where we’ve enjoyed many a bucket shower. In all the rooms are many many cupboards— a nice feature for hiding clothes, luggage, and such.
As for the other rooms, the main room serves as our dining room, living room, and office and has a decent-sized balcony off it where I hang our laundry to dry. The kitchen leaves much to be desired, but is sufficient. I always look both ways as I enter it as it’s the room that boasts of the most cockroaches. I don’t like to be in there at night!

The balcony

We are located two blocks from the main road and walk there to catch auto rickshaws to wherever we might wish to go. Next door is a small grocery store, which is a blessed convenience and I now have a cookbook and am hoping to make some tasty Indian food before long.
If you do happen to drop by Hyderabad, India, do give us a call and we’ll see about putting you up! To see more pictures of the apartment, check out our recent photo album ‘where we live’.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 4th, 2006 at 6:33 am and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.