It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and rainy night as the quiet driver weaved the bus through the wet streets of Mumbai, past the palm trees and the shining lights of the still wakeful city. 

As the driver maneuvered the bus next to the lobby, the family adjusted their eyes to the light and tried to assign meaning and direction to everything they saw.  They tumbled out of the bus, happy to be home, and to see what this next home would look like.  The elevator, crowded with a family's worth of luggage, each bag packed with a year's worth of peanut butter or Deet spray, dragged itself up the building to their new door.

The doors sleepily pulled themselves open to their floor of the building, and the children raced to unlock the door and see this new space.  With the flip of each light switch, the shadows and dark corners of the large apartment went from dark and foreboding to bright and sterile.  The government issue  furniture was arranged inoffensively and the white walls hung bare of any warmth.  But the beds already had their sheets on them, and once the mother pulled their blankets from her luggage, the children snuggled into their new rooms and fell fast asleep.

It seems that my every arrival at a new post has taken on a film noir air, and last night's arrival in Mumbai was no different.  The apartment is nice, though it will feel like a rather strange hotel until all of our things arrive.  Happily, they delivered our air shipment yesterday and so we spent the day unpacking.  Our sea shipment should follow in a matter of weeks, making one thing easy in what looks to be a very complicated city.