Family Unvacation 3 September, 2008 at 8:52 pm
So
In a few weeks we’re going to India to visit family. My family, specifically. And DK, in particular. Because if we (somehow) left DK with someone here, we’re not sure my dads siblings would let us in their front doors. “attriel? Who? never heard of you!”
I’ve been 4 times in my life. Once when I was a little older than DK will be. Once when I was 8 and again at 12? and then after kiir and I got married, we went to “show off the new bride” to the famly. My dad made a point of the fact that that trip was the last one he was obligated to obligate us to. Now it’s my family, and it’s up to me to go.
Then he decided he wanted to take DK :o Which is fine, because tickets to India are like 1500 or 2000 apiece, with the various sundries associated. And with 3 seats, thats a lot of scratch. while I love my dad’s family, there are honestly better things I could do with 6k. But my dad is paying, so we’re only having to come up with the money for the various bits we need for the trip (diapers for DK, some fixed wardrobes, etc), things we’ll need to pay for associated with the trip (over two weeks in kennel for K, at 30$ a night, plus another 10-20$ or so if we want him to get any exercise), and then money we need IN India (souveniers, money for my “sisters” (I’m supposed to protect them, but because I’m not there, I’m sortof giving them money to hire protection. but there’s no actual protection involved anymore ; so really I’m giving them money because I can’t symbolically protect them any longer … yeah, I’m not sure I understand it either), etc). That’s all adding up :o
We decied we needed new diapers for DK because we just werent’ quite sure about starting with stained diapers there. We don’t really have any issues with them, but we’re not sure about the reaction we’d get from family. OTOH, my parents have suggested that we could just use disposables over there, since they sell them in the shops it’s not like we’d have to pack two weeks worth of diaps. But we just can’t really see our way clear to using disposables in the third world country where trash it tossed in the street to be collected later. Especially since we don’t use them at home. Sure, if we were using them daily already, we wouldn’t switch for the trip and we’d accept that it’s not that unusual there (I imagine a lot of the middle class and up use disposables, since that kind of thing is generally a trapping of “wealth”, in a way, because you can afford to THROW IT AWAY). But starting with cloth, and using disposables JUST for the trip just feels wrong :o
We’re still not sure what all we’re going to do where, but it’s probably going to involve lots of running around visiting family! My dad had seven siblings. Even if we just visit each of their houses for an afternoon, that’s one week spent on that. We’ll probably spend a night or two here and there, so it won’t be constant travelling. Quite.
And won’t it be fun to see how DK reacts to the environment and all those people around? Four seems to be about his limit for people he’s not familiar with, six with mommy and daddy. With my parents there, that only leaves two strangers. And that? That is NEVER going to be happening during this trip. Which means that this could get VERY exhausting. Very fast.