part 2

Avi left on Wednesday. For her last night here, Harshita and Saloni stayed at the guesthouse with us (Avi has a double room). We agreed to leave the next morning at 4:30 – the plan was to go to down to the river for sunrise. Less than three hours after I went to sleep, my alarm went off. Getting up was agonizing, and for a few minutes, Alex and I were worried that we were the only ones who had actually gotten up. Avi’s light finally went on, and we were all ready to leave Nirman around 4:45. We had to wake up Tiwari ji to let us out, but that was okay. We took the shortcut Abhijeet had shown Dost and me down to Assi ghat. They were out paving the roads, so we were walking in fresh, sticky tar for a portion of the walk. It was dawn by the time we got down to the ghat; we sat silently on the stairs for several minutes. I listened to my ipod for a bit, too. After a while, someone (I forget who) proposed that we go on a boat ride. Wanting to go back to sleep for a bit before yoga, which would start at 7, I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but went along with the group consensus. Harshita went down and negotiated a boat for us, which turned out to be somewhat tiny and extremely rickety. When the ride was over, we had to coordinate one person standing on each side of the boat in order to get off without rocking too violently. We rode down past the southern cremation grounds toward Dashashwamedh ghat (where the aarti is). It was really peaceful to take a boat ride in the morning, the light was very pleasant and it felt quieter down at the river. We saw dhobis washing clothes on a couple of the ghats…we saw some monkeys and goats creeping around. Our boat ride lasted about an hour, and we got back to Nirman around 6:45. Alex and I waited for the yoga instructor until 7:25, but when she hadn’t shown up by then, I went back to sleep for half an hour. It’s really easy to fall asleep here for any amount of time. The fan keeps my room really comfortable despite the heat. Alex said today that it was the first day all week, according to the weather icon on his laptop, that the temperature dropped below 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Glorious.

After breakfast, we all sort of sat around waiting for it to be time for Avi to leave. At 10:30, her taxi arrived, and she left by 11. It was so sad to watch her say goodbye to everyone, especially Sunita. Watching her hold Sunita’s face in her hands and tell her how special she thinks she is broke me down momentarily. A small crowd –Amit, Harshita, Dost, Saloni, Sunita– gathered while she got in the cab. I went with her and had the driver drop me off at the tailor where I picked up one of the ten items I’d commissioned them to make for me. Everything was supposed to have been done by Monday, but every day that I went to go pick it up, they told me “next day, next day.” Ugh. Saying goodbye to Avi was really difficult since it’s been so nice to spend time with her, especially with the CMC ties. I’m really looking forward to visiting her in Bangalore at the end of this month; we’ll have a lot of fun. When I walked back from the tailor (I’d picked up the orange blouse piece I got to go with my purple cotton sari), Harshita and Saloni tried to help me wrap the sari. When we didn’t feel like we were very successful, Harshita went and got Khushboo to help us. She folded, tucked, and pinned masterfully. They all insisted that I wear a bindi and put on makeup to complete the look. I was okay with the makeup, but felt pretty self conscious about the bindi. In the end, I went along with it, and Harshita told me that “not everyone can pull off a bindi,” but I could. Oh boy. When we left my room, we immediately saw Rangnath, who asked, in Hindi, “where did you come from, Indian girl?” Wow… we then went to the preschool where some of the teachers were, and they were excited to see me in the sari. Once we were finished making rounds, we worked for an hour or so. I ate lunch after they left, and then took a nap for 3 hours. When I woke up, I was upset to discover that I’d missed Hindi lessons – there’d been a miscommunication, I thought we had class every other day. I put my sari back on when I woke up, and was moderately proud of the job I did wrapping it on my own. Wednesday evening, Nirman hosted a concert in the guesthouse. Dost and I introduced the artists (vocalist who played sitar too, harmonium player, tabla player) – Dost spoke in Hindi, I read in English. The concert lasted about an hour and a half, and Rangnath coordinated snacks afterwards. When we were standing there, Nita ma’am came up to me and said, “I didn’t see you wearing this earlier! I saw you from the corner of my eye and though, wow, what a dazzler!” It was a funny moment. I’m still getting used to the whole, seeing a professor everyday in a totally different environment than Bauer. After dinner, I stayed up late on skype talking to Jack and Drew, which was really nice. It’s reassuring to have consistent internet access.

Thursday morning, I got up for yoga, which was a struggle. Whenever I wake up here, I feel like I could go back to sleep for the rest of the day. After breakfast, Harshita and I got a lot done as far as recreating materials, since Subhash finally got us the beads we’d been waiting for. She had to leave at 11, because she’s gone to Calcutta for her brother’s wedding, so Saloni and Sunita helped out for the following couple of hours. After lunch, there was a meeting with all of the teachers and Irfana. They debriefed their first day of school, and then Irfana assigned a few of them (Sushmita, Amrita, Vandana, Neelam, and a couple more) to help me with the materials assembly. We colored in the black and white photocopies of a modified decimal board, which I then put on Irfana’s desk with a label saying they were ready for lamination. Nice! At 3, we had a Hindi lesson, during which Mamta finished teaching the alphabet. We also practiced writing names. After Hindi, I stayed up in the library for about an hour to use the internet. Around 5, I went back down to the guesthouse, and left with Alex and Abhijeet soon after that to shop for Indian clothes for Alex. Abhijeet put us on a rickshaw (he was going to ride his scooter) and told the rickshaw wallah where to take us. Unfortunately, when we got there, Abhijeet was nowhere to be found. We spent about an hour looking for him, when finally, after several calls with Dost as the middle man (we didn’t have Abhijeet’s number), he found us. By that time I was really frustrated, because I’d been hungry when we left and my mood had continued to worsen. At one point, a man threw his popsicle stick to the ground via my leg, and I whipped around and threw my arms up at him in a “what the hell?!” sort of gesture. He said “sorry.” I felt a little bit better after having had the opportunity to dispel some of my anger in his direction. As it turns out, Abhijeet took us back to the place where the rickshaw driver had taken us at the beginning, though he had dropped us at the back entrance, so Abhijeet didn’t know where we were. Exasperating. We spent about 15 minutes in the store and Alex bought a couple of things. In a bad mood, I insisted we walk back. First, we stopped by the tailor’s, where Abhijeet chewed them out in Hindi for not having my clothes ready. He picked them up yesterday…they’d finally finished them. Also, we stopped briefly to treat Abhijeet to chat, in gratitude for all of his help and generosity. Haha. We had a pretty standard dinner and evening; once again, I stayed up too late talking to people online.

Friday morning, I wasn’t feeling very well so I slept through yoga. I got up and went to breakfast, only to find myself feeling hideously nauseous. I went back to bed for a couple of hours, and realize in hindsight I probably took my malaria meds too close to breakfast time – the prescription says I should wait at least one hour before eating after taking it. Oops. At 11:30, I got back up and went upstairs to continue working on the materials. Friday’s job was to color in the black and white photocopies of the checkerboard. I was sitting up in the school library (the one on the second floor of the guesthouse, rather than the one on the third floor of the other building), when three boys from the seventh and eighth standards came in and offered to help. I asked them if it was okay with Shipra ma’am, which they insisted it was, and they proceeded to help me finish all nine of the copies we had to color. So helpful. I asked their names, and was having a hard time hearing the pronunciation so they wrote them down for me. Also helpful. At around 12:50, Tivari brought me a note from Irfana saying there’d be a teachers’ meeting at 1 (Thursday and Friday were half days…government orders which stand indefinitely until the heat eases). I thanked the boys profusely for their help, and left the one I’d been working on unfinished. When I went back up after lunch, one of them had finished it. During the meeting, we played a game to celebrate the end of the week and chatted for a while about planning and the timetable. We took a break before Nita ma’am came in to lead a workshop, during which time I ate lunch. Alex informed me later that she’d led them in nursery rhymes like I’m a Little Tea Pot and Ring Around the Rosey. Needless to say, I was thoroughly disappointed to have missed it. At 3, we had Hindi lessons again, where we practiced the alphabet some more as well as some conversation. I finally began to understand some of the rules of conjugation, which Mamta had been having trouble explaining before. Afterwords, I spent an hour or so on the internet, and then went down to meet Amit. He took me to the hospital on his motorcycle again…when we got there, I marched up to the pharmacy while Amit awkwardly stood in front of one of the fans. This has become our routine. Once I had the vaccination in hand, we went to the ER. It was the same doctor I’d had for my first two shots…the one who isn’t as good at administering the shot but charged twice as much than the other guy did for the fee. This time, though, Amit confronted him about it in Hindi and he only made me pay 20 rupees, as the other man had. I’ve basically gotten over my fear of shots…I even watched him prepare the injection this time. Proud! When we got back, I spent a lot of time online, procrastinating on writing the blog. We had dinner, and I went back to more blog procrastination. I stayed up late working on the first part of this installment, which I’ve begun regretting when we have to wake up early for work.

I got to sleep in a little bit today, as there was no yoga. I didn’t get up until 8:30, and was pretty tardy to breakfast. I was thrilled to find, though, that Kanti didi had made us pancakes!! I had one with marmalade and one with honey…and put cornflakes on top of both (for texture…don’t judge). As usual, we also had a plate full of mango. After breakfast, Alex told me we didn’t have a meeting until ten, so I napped for half an hour. The beginning of the meeting was focused on honoring a man who passed away 13 days ago. He worked here as an accountant for 17 years, and he’d been the one who helped Avi and me make arrangements to take the car to Sarnath. We had two minutes of silence, followed by Nita ma’am, Irfana, and one other person saying a few words about the man. Rupali, who is seriously one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, began to tear up. Once that was over, the teachers, Alex, and I went to a different classroom where Nita ma’am gave a workshop on the importance of having a plan. We sat in really uncomfortable, little kid sized chairs…not my favorite workshop (the rest of the ones, we sat on the floor). Once that was over, Rupali, Mitali, and I coordinated on our lesson plans for Monday. I’ve agreed to plan for second standard, which I’m co-teaching with Mamta and Rupali. Rupali is prepping for fifth and eighth, I believe, and Mitali is taking care of sixth and seventh. I’m going to have a really busy schedule once school starts up in full swing. I’m glad I’ll have my first day Monday and then get to miss a few days while we’re travelling. The idea of having to prepare solid, functional lesson plans that I will have to implement the following day is really daunting. Once we were finished, I had lunch, and then went up to the library for a long afternoon of AC, facebook, and music downloads. The power was on, so the wifi connection was strong enough for me to download a couple of mixtapes, about which I was so excited! Around 6, I went back down to the guesthouse, where I found Abhijeet chatting online, as usual. The four of us hung out for a bit, and then left to go out to dinner around 8. We went back to the same restaurant we all went to a couple of weeks ago, and had a feast of garlic naan, chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, another kind of chicken, roti, and chow mein. Everyone but Abhijeet had soft drinks, too. It was my treat, and, tip included, I spent 800 rupees. Not bad for such a prolific meal. Since returning back, I’ve just been listening to music, chatting with people online, and working on this post. Because it’s such a pain to have to catch up on lots of days worth of blog posts, I’m going to try to start writing things down at least in a word document every night so I don’t end up with so much writing to do. Happy Fourth of July!