The First few days

December 26:  Arriving in India; manganam and vazhoor

We got to the airport in India in the morning at 3 am, and my uncle picked us up.  Before that, we had to wait very long in a queue to get admitted to India.  We made it through fine.   While my mom and dad were in the queue, I was away reading Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse.  But I got scared in the middle of the Titan's curse and stopped. 

My uncle, Accha (he is my mother's younger brother), is a good driver.  He drove so fast and so swiftly and in a swervy way.   The rules are way different here.  I don't have to wear a seat-belt, and I can sit in the front.   Woo-hoo!

And then I arrived at Mangam, which is where my dad's parents live.   They have named their house Aruvey, which is a combination my sister's and my name.  There are four dogs at their home.  The dogs were kind of excited when I came.  Arf Arf Arf!!!

After a few hours, we all went to Vazhoor, which is where my mother's parents live.  The whole village is full of people from their family, in other words my family.  I have tons of second cousins and granduncles and relatives.  All of them together must weigh a ton.

December 27: Parrots Scared Away

Today morning I went into the parambu [farm] at Manganam and picked beans and other vegetables for  lunch.  My grandma and I scared away the parrots when we came.  They were trying to eat all our nice food.  Mean parrots, aren't they?  You will hear more about the subject of beans later probably. 

I have been having lovely food.  My grandma had a chocolate cake waiting for me yesterday when we arrived.  

In the evening, at Vazhoor, we burst tons of firecrackers.  There were sparklers that I could hold in my hand.  Then there were rockets, and there were also the spinners that shot out fireworks.  Then there was a spinner that spun fireworks in a big blast, stopped for a moment, made you want to go close, and then started up again.  Whoosh!

December 28:  Playing with my cousins

I played with cousins Aksharachechi, Nikki.  I have six cousins, all on my mother's side.   Two of them,  Kukuchacha and Maluchechi, are too old to play with me most of the time—Kukuchacha is eighteen, and Maluchechi is fifteen.   Kukuchacha does not stay in Kerala, but he is visiting because of the vacations.  I like playing Mechanix with Kukuchacha.  Kukuchacha was the only kid allowed to light the fireworks.  

Aksharacheci is ten years old.  She stays two hours away, in a city called Ernakulam.  She is visiting for a week because her school is closed.  Nikki stays in Chennai, and is six years old.   She has a younger sister called Aarohi (we call her Roo) who is about a year old.  Aksharachechi, Nikki and I play a lot together.  We play stuff like kannupothikali (like blind man's bluff).

My real site is supposed to be on blogger, but I can't access it right now, because we don't have access to the internet.  Once the internet is fixed, one computer in the house will have the internet.