Home Sweet Home

There is quite a bit of commotion at our house tonight--relatives! As if the house wasn't full enough with seven of us living here, four more adults and two babies were added to the mix tonight. It was actually pretty fun, we got to coo over a 7 month old boy and a 9 month old girl while everyone else blabbered in Hindi. The only downside is that now I get to fall asleep to the sound of crying babies...

As promised, here are some pictures of my apartment...

Our room! That metal shelf is where we keep our clothes and that's my bed against the window

My bed against the window and Caroline's bed on the right.

When you walk out of our room you walk into the one common space of the apartment. The small floor mat on the right is the bathroom. 

View from our doorway

This room is the living room, dining room, computer room, and bedroom for the kids. Yes, all three kids (ages 17, 19, and 21) sleep in that bed.

Just off this room is the itty bitty kitchen...

My sister Sadia (left) and Ami in the kitchen

This is the other bedroom in the house where Abu and Ami sleep (and occasionally one of the kids will sleep with them too). Through this room you walk outside over this grate thing (sorry for the poor description, it's hard to explain!) to another bathroom that has a western toilet (hallelujah!)

Ami and Abu's bedroom

Finally, the exciting bathroom pictures! This is taken from the doorway of the bathroom. That hole in the ground is the toilet, and the green bucket next to the drain is the shower. In Indian bathrooms the floor and walls (until about 3/4 up) are tiled because everything gets wet.

Still standing in the doorway but looking to the right, there is the sink and washing machine. Even the washing machine drains onto the floor and down the shower drain. This startled me the first time it happened because all of a sudden there was water gushing at my feet. Apparently this is normal!

The glamorous Indian style toilet! Jealous?

And there you have it, the tour of my digs in India! I can't fathom sleeping in the living room and not having a space to call my own. I'm so thankful Caroline and I have a room with a door! On Sunday we're leaving on our second group excursion to Udaipur and Chittorgarh until the following Saturday. Hopefully this blog post will tide you over until then :)

Namaste!