In the middle of the night the power came back on and the fan above me started up.    It reminded me of a favorite movie scene, the opening of Apocalypse Now.      The spinning of the fan blades, the oppressive heat and the realization that I am still in India.    Apocalypse Now is based on one of my favorite books, Heart of Darkness.    Francis Ford Coppolla filmed a documentary of his making of Apocalypse Now called Hearts fo Darkeness.   In that documentary he experiences his own apocalypse, moving up river and into the jungle until  “little by little we went insane”.

Like the Kurtz of Conrad or Coppolla,  we have moved further into “the jungle” of India.   We left the civilized comforts of the Hilton Hotel and moved 20km towards the real India.    True, this is the upper-middle class expat India, it is our own personal Heart of Darkness, and I fear we are starting to go insane as well.    I will share a couple of highlights about our current challenges.

Internet Access:  The teachers at the American School assume each student can read  the class del.licico.us page and comment on the discussion boards.  They expect students to email their assignments.   I am addicted to the internet and  have a strong dependency on being able to Google at will.   Looking out from the balcony of our house I have good view of the ocean, grass huts and scattered houses of other expats.    In one sense it is hard to imagine having internet access at all, but the lack of connectivity and the communication it provides is one of the most difficult forms of darkness.   I spent the better part of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday searching the city for a wireless internet card.    My current cell company, Airtel sent me all over the city to 5 different stores on false promises of available stock.    At one store that we had called to confirm stock, we were met with only an offer for the employee to deliver one to use later.    I finally found a store with some from a different company, Tata Indicom.   I took it home only to find out we are too far out in the jungle, beyond the reach of their cellular towers.

Quality of Workmanship:  At first I didn’t think our house was new.   It looked like a poor remodeling job.  The quality of workmanship and inability to finish a job are appalling.   We have hot water heaters that don’t work.   The pipe fittings under the kitchen sink included an open T connection that allowed the sink to flood the kitchen floor.    In the master bath, the toilet was installed without a proper seal belching up a room full of sewer odor every time it is flushed.    The list goes on and on, and I feel like I live in a house built by school children.    Worse yet, every day the plumbers and electricians come back to the house and we show them the problems and explain how to fix them and every day they don’t have the tools or the parts and promise to return tomorrow.

Electricity: Notice to people moving to Chennai, especially expats.   When you real estate agent says “the power rarely goes out, especially here along the ECR (East Coast Road)”  DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.  The power has been out every day, sometimes for over 4 hours.   At night the power goes out and the AC stops and the fans stop blowing the mosquitos away and the place turns into a giant brick oven.    And of course we have no generator, so we are literally sitting in the Heart of Darkness until the power comes back.

Sleep:  We are not getting much, between heat, sick (now Max is sick, with an e.coli infection according to Dr. Shawn), power outage, lack of furniture and respond to email all night expectations we are totally exhausted.     What sleep we get is on a borrowed inflatable mattress or an old couch the landlord left in the house.    Either way, quality sleep is a distant memory.

As with the post below, I am not complaining.   Everything is just a challenge that we are meeting with humor and good spirits, proven by the fact that we haven’t had anyone in tears for all week.   Most challenges get solved and sometimes the list gets shorter.   Next big milestones are the installation of the generator, arrival of our sea container of junk from Arizona and the end of the daily visits from incompetent tradesmen.   Until then, we are slowly going insane in our Heart of Darkness.