Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Thursday, September 1, 2005
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Changes, changes
Well I suppose the first big update would be that we're down to three children now (Basraj, Sanjay, Akash). It's a long story (of course, everything here always ends up being a long story), but essentially we have had endless issues with the two mothers of the three children who left (Mahesh, Poonam, Amol), particularly involving their attempts to be manipulative of their children's loyalties and to turn our home into something it is not: a hostel/boarding house. In the end, it seemed that it was simply going to be too emotionally difficult (on all counts--for us, the children, and the women) for the children to remain with us, and the children have been returned to their mothers. Above all, this experience has shown us the difficulties of taking in children with one or more living parents (even though in this case the mothers are HIV+) and we are reaffirming our commitment to taking in only those children who are orphans or whose parents are not present in their lives anymore.
In other news, the mother of one of our volunteers (Patrick) has come to visit, and the children seem to have warmed to her quite well! [photos of the "dance session" we had with her and the kids to come...] Zahra is out of town for her cousin's wedding, but Amber and I are holding our own, which is a good sign because the majority of the year, this home will have to run with 1-2 directors, not 3 as we've gotten used to.
Challenges
Behavioral issues continue to keep us on our toes...we found a knife under one of the children's mattresses recently (although he assures us it was just to keep the ghosts away) and have had to deal with stealing. However, we are quite, QUIIIIITE confident the stealing will never happen again after the first ordeal quite traumatized the offender...Additionally, Akash has been rather moody recently, although we're unsure whether this is a new development, or fairly normal for him and his age. We shall see...
Progress
The children's English continues to grow at an impressive rate (never mind that it's primarily because they get a kick out of imitating us...) and they can understand most directions, commands, and questions in English. This is a HUGE improvement from a month ago when the children used to stare at us blankly any time we tried to talk to them in English. Of course, they are still learning vocabularly, and have a great deal of ground yet to cover as far as written English is concerned, but we're proud of them anyway! :-)
Interestingly, with just three children the home feels remarkably family-like and the boys, who used to band together with the other two (Mahesh and Amol--frequently the ringleaders) and avoid adult interactions, have become increasingly affectionate, open, and personable. Oh, and the highlight of yesterday was definitely arriving at school to pick the kids up and watching from afar as Akash held the hand of one of the blind teachers at the school, led him to a rickshaw, and helped arrange with the driver where he would be taking him. It's moments like that that give us hope that these kids will grow up to be responsible, compassionate people...
In other news, the mother of one of our volunteers (Patrick) has come to visit, and the children seem to have warmed to her quite well! [photos of the "dance session" we had with her and the kids to come...] Zahra is out of town for her cousin's wedding, but Amber and I are holding our own, which is a good sign because the majority of the year, this home will have to run with 1-2 directors, not 3 as we've gotten used to.
Challenges
Behavioral issues continue to keep us on our toes...we found a knife under one of the children's mattresses recently (although he assures us it was just to keep the ghosts away) and have had to deal with stealing. However, we are quite, QUIIIIITE confident the stealing will never happen again after the first ordeal quite traumatized the offender...Additionally, Akash has been rather moody recently, although we're unsure whether this is a new development, or fairly normal for him and his age. We shall see...
Progress
The children's English continues to grow at an impressive rate (never mind that it's primarily because they get a kick out of imitating us...) and they can understand most directions, commands, and questions in English. This is a HUGE improvement from a month ago when the children used to stare at us blankly any time we tried to talk to them in English. Of course, they are still learning vocabularly, and have a great deal of ground yet to cover as far as written English is concerned, but we're proud of them anyway! :-)
Interestingly, with just three children the home feels remarkably family-like and the boys, who used to band together with the other two (Mahesh and Amol--frequently the ringleaders) and avoid adult interactions, have become increasingly affectionate, open, and personable. Oh, and the highlight of yesterday was definitely arriving at school to pick the kids up and watching from afar as Akash held the hand of one of the blind teachers at the school, led him to a rickshaw, and helped arrange with the driver where he would be taking him. It's moments like that that give us hope that these kids will grow up to be responsible, compassionate people...
Friday, July 29, 2005
School Updates
Well, we went with the social worker to the children's school to speak with their teachers recently. Basraj's teacher reported that Basraj does very well in school but "occasionally gets into mischief"...however, he said this with a smile, so we're hoping he meant it in that normal-little-boy-antics kind of way! Sanjay's teacher praised all three boys ("Oh, those three who come by rickshaw every day? They're such nice kids!") and said that although Sanjay is a bit slow on the uptake, his writing has improved dramatically in the past month and he is doing much better in school. Unfortunately, Akash's teacher wasn't there when we went.
Friday, July 8, 2005
a day in the life...
Many apologies for the lack of updates recently. As you can probably imagine, things have been hectic, to say the least.
The first three children (Amol, Poonam, Mahesh) arrived on June 21st and had a bit of time to adjust to the arrangement before the others came, which was probably good because they’ve had a challenging time getting used to the home. Then the three oldest boys (Basraj, Akash, and Sanjay) showed up at our doorstep barefoot on Monday night, carrying a torn plastic bag with two pairs of ill-fitting pants, two pairs of shorts, and a shirt between the three of them (imagine if you will that before we could even take them shopping for more clothes, we had to take them (barefoot) to a shoe store to buy them sandals so that they would be permitted to enter the clothing store). And so, the past few weeks have been the beginning of our long-term living-together-as-one-big-happy-family arrangement.
Three days after arriving, we had a nerve-wracking little running away experience with Amol, Mahesh, and Poonam, who, after the honeymoon excitement of the first couple of days had worn off, decided that they didn’t actually like being subject to rules, discipline, or supervision, and didn’t want to go to school or have to do at-home lessons and studying. Its fairly typical of street children to run off, as numerous social workers here have assured us, but this was hardly consolation at the time...thankfully they’re back with us now, and seem to have finally settled in.
Progress has been made on various fronts—teaching the kids to say please, thank you, and excuse me, insisting that they wait for everyone to be served before digging into food and having them wash them their own dishes after meals, explaining that the clothes hamper is only for dirty clothes, creating a schedule of chores with a little checkbox chart...oh yes, its been interesting. There have also been hundreds of learning experiences for the children, some fairly trivial (how to use the hand soap dispenser) and others of the utmost importance (how to use a toilet!) in terms of their adaptation to life in our home.
I’m sure any parents out there (mine included) are going to read this with this "see, this is what WE went through all these years" sort of smirk, but I PROMISE these kids are more challenging than I ever was! They’re GOOD kids but they’ve never had anyone instill in them that school and education and studying are valuable, nor are they used to people telling them what they can and can’t do, or where they’re allowed to go and where they aren’t. They don’t understand that they shouldn’t write all over the (newly-painted) walls in chalk and/or pen, don’t know about the importance of capping markers or flushing toilets, can’t sit still for longer than five minutes, etc. They have all also grown up in a world of violence and early exposure to things like alcohol, tobacco (that’s right, all of our 8 to 11 year-old boys chewed tobacco and a few used to drink alcohol regularly!) and other unsavory elements. It often feels like the only language of discipline they understand is rigorous corporal punishment, which is problematic because we don’t employ physical discipline, and somehow, the threat of "time-out" pales in comparison to that of severe beatings, and they don’t always feel compelled to listen/obey as a result.
I’ve been asked to describe a typical day at the home, and I’ve got to say, that’s a rather challenging undertaking, mainly because we haven’t managed to fall into an entirely foolproof routine yet, and there are still plenty of mini crises that pop up daily. However, the day begins at roughly 8:30 (we’re thanking our lucky stars for that, because for the first two weeks, we had enrolled the kids in an English medium school that BEGAN at 7:00am, which meant getting up no later than 6, every single day...*shudder*), at which point the children harass us awake to make breakfast for them. [We’ve been informed that there is a precise science behind the Indian dietary and ablutionary routine, which I tend to shrug off as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, but the kids seem to prefer their particular order, so we don’t interfere.] Teeth brushing first, then food (generally toast, fruit) with chai, and then showers for the boys (Poonam is the only one who chooses to shower at night). After everyone is clean, fed, and dressed, we head over to the other house for two hours of English learning time—we’ve taken a second house in the same building so as to have ample room for volunteers to stay, as well as extra space for a classroom, playroom, and office for ourselves, so we’re in the process of setting the classroom up with bookshelves and floor mats and a large whiteboard for the wall.
English time is going pretty well for the kids. Many have fairly short attention spans, so we try to keep the activities varied and interesting, and it also helps that we (directors and volunteers) equal the children in number, so we can teach them one-on-one and tailor everything to their individual strengths and weaknesses (ahem, like Akash, who, after 5 straight days of trying to memorize the names and spellings of the colors, still can’t get them straight...). All in all though, they’ve learned a great deal of English, partly from this academic time, and also from having to speak it with us at home. We’ve thrown in a few English movies too (hallelujah for Disney), although those happen mainly in the evenings.
Geeta, the caretaker and cook, arrives around 10am and begins the lunch preparations in the main house. We bring the kids back over to eat around 11:30, after which, last minute school preparation chaos always takes place (tracking down misplaced pencils, Poonam requiring twenty minutes to braid her hair, putting shoes on, bringing bookbags downstairs, etc) and we’re out the door by 12:15. We go by rickshaw to drop them at school, because their new school is across the river and not within feasible walking distance. We chose this school because it is one of the few public schools in Pune that boys and girls are permitted to attend at the same time. At most schools, girls go to school from 7am to noon, and boys from 12:30 to 5:30; however, this arrangement would require that the entire day be spent shuttling kids back and forth, and as well, we would have very little time to work with all of them together for English tutoring because they would be split up according to gender.
After dropping them off at school, we directors and volunteers have a bit of downtime, although it hasn’t proven very relaxing as of yet. There are always numerous errands to be run—grocery store, bank, MG Road—cleaning to be done, meetings to be had, clothes to be washed, administrative paperwork to be finished, and a long list of overdue emails to write (sorry about that!). Geeta starts dinner preparation around 4:00, and those of us who are home generally help with that in whatever way we can—chopping vegetables, peeling potatoes, etc. Jackie is intent on learning the secret of perfect chapati making, so she has become Geeta’s sidekick in the kitchen, hanging on her every word and trying to remember the correct proportions of ingredients so as to be able to recreate them at home in the US. Two of us leave around 5:15 to pick the children up from school (all 6 kids plus an adult crammed into one rickshaw is rather uncomfortable so we usually take two), returning home around 5:45 with chattering, hyperactive kids in tow. Geeta serves them chai and biscuits at 6, after which we take them outside to play kickball, four square, volleyball, soccer, cricket, jumprope, Frisbee, etc in the dead-end alleyway below. This is technically Jackie’s activity time, but depending on how much energy the rest of us have, we often go out to play with them as well.
Everyone comes in around 7 or 7:15 and the kids play or work on their school work until dinner, which isn’t until 8-ish (a little late for us Americans, but as I said, the kids have this specific routine they like to follow). After dinner, we try with varying success to involve them in clean-up and chores, and they generally run off to play and work on schoolwork afterwards. The bedtime "process" begins around 9:15, at which point they brush their teeth and put pajamas on (although we’ve had some issues with pajamas because they aren’t used to having separate clothes for sleeping in, and don’t understand why they can’t wear the same grubby clothes they ran around in outside to sleep in). The boys go to bed around 9:45 or 10, although they don’t generally fall asleep at that point, and bedtime is undoubtedly one of the most exasperating times of the day for us directors as a result. Poonam (the only girl) has a room to herself currently, because we’re waiting to receive 2 more girls, and since she’s a bit quieter and better behaved than the boys, one of us reads with her before putting her to bed. Hopefully we’ll be able to introduce the same reading-before-bed concept with the boys in the near future as well, but at present we have enough trouble just getting them to lie down long enough to fall asleep that the idea of actually trying to sit and read with them before bed is daunting.
The putting-to-bed process is generally over around 10:30, at which point we all collapse and go to sleep as well, occasionally with minor interruptions from the kids (Mahesh’s bed wetting, Amol’s sleep walking, and Poonam, who often nuzzles her way into one of our beds in the middle of the night because she is scared of the dark and doesn’t like sleeping alone).
AAAAND there you have it--a day in the life of those of us at the AIC home...stay tuned for more updates soon, free time permitting!
The first three children (Amol, Poonam, Mahesh) arrived on June 21st and had a bit of time to adjust to the arrangement before the others came, which was probably good because they’ve had a challenging time getting used to the home. Then the three oldest boys (Basraj, Akash, and Sanjay) showed up at our doorstep barefoot on Monday night, carrying a torn plastic bag with two pairs of ill-fitting pants, two pairs of shorts, and a shirt between the three of them (imagine if you will that before we could even take them shopping for more clothes, we had to take them (barefoot) to a shoe store to buy them sandals so that they would be permitted to enter the clothing store). And so, the past few weeks have been the beginning of our long-term living-together-as-one-big-happy-family arrangement.
Three days after arriving, we had a nerve-wracking little running away experience with Amol, Mahesh, and Poonam, who, after the honeymoon excitement of the first couple of days had worn off, decided that they didn’t actually like being subject to rules, discipline, or supervision, and didn’t want to go to school or have to do at-home lessons and studying. Its fairly typical of street children to run off, as numerous social workers here have assured us, but this was hardly consolation at the time...thankfully they’re back with us now, and seem to have finally settled in.
Progress has been made on various fronts—teaching the kids to say please, thank you, and excuse me, insisting that they wait for everyone to be served before digging into food and having them wash them their own dishes after meals, explaining that the clothes hamper is only for dirty clothes, creating a schedule of chores with a little checkbox chart...oh yes, its been interesting. There have also been hundreds of learning experiences for the children, some fairly trivial (how to use the hand soap dispenser) and others of the utmost importance (how to use a toilet!) in terms of their adaptation to life in our home.
I’m sure any parents out there (mine included) are going to read this with this "see, this is what WE went through all these years" sort of smirk, but I PROMISE these kids are more challenging than I ever was! They’re GOOD kids but they’ve never had anyone instill in them that school and education and studying are valuable, nor are they used to people telling them what they can and can’t do, or where they’re allowed to go and where they aren’t. They don’t understand that they shouldn’t write all over the (newly-painted) walls in chalk and/or pen, don’t know about the importance of capping markers or flushing toilets, can’t sit still for longer than five minutes, etc. They have all also grown up in a world of violence and early exposure to things like alcohol, tobacco (that’s right, all of our 8 to 11 year-old boys chewed tobacco and a few used to drink alcohol regularly!) and other unsavory elements. It often feels like the only language of discipline they understand is rigorous corporal punishment, which is problematic because we don’t employ physical discipline, and somehow, the threat of "time-out" pales in comparison to that of severe beatings, and they don’t always feel compelled to listen/obey as a result.
I’ve been asked to describe a typical day at the home, and I’ve got to say, that’s a rather challenging undertaking, mainly because we haven’t managed to fall into an entirely foolproof routine yet, and there are still plenty of mini crises that pop up daily. However, the day begins at roughly 8:30 (we’re thanking our lucky stars for that, because for the first two weeks, we had enrolled the kids in an English medium school that BEGAN at 7:00am, which meant getting up no later than 6, every single day...*shudder*), at which point the children harass us awake to make breakfast for them. [We’ve been informed that there is a precise science behind the Indian dietary and ablutionary routine, which I tend to shrug off as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, but the kids seem to prefer their particular order, so we don’t interfere.] Teeth brushing first, then food (generally toast, fruit) with chai, and then showers for the boys (Poonam is the only one who chooses to shower at night). After everyone is clean, fed, and dressed, we head over to the other house for two hours of English learning time—we’ve taken a second house in the same building so as to have ample room for volunteers to stay, as well as extra space for a classroom, playroom, and office for ourselves, so we’re in the process of setting the classroom up with bookshelves and floor mats and a large whiteboard for the wall.
English time is going pretty well for the kids. Many have fairly short attention spans, so we try to keep the activities varied and interesting, and it also helps that we (directors and volunteers) equal the children in number, so we can teach them one-on-one and tailor everything to their individual strengths and weaknesses (ahem, like Akash, who, after 5 straight days of trying to memorize the names and spellings of the colors, still can’t get them straight...). All in all though, they’ve learned a great deal of English, partly from this academic time, and also from having to speak it with us at home. We’ve thrown in a few English movies too (hallelujah for Disney), although those happen mainly in the evenings.
Geeta, the caretaker and cook, arrives around 10am and begins the lunch preparations in the main house. We bring the kids back over to eat around 11:30, after which, last minute school preparation chaos always takes place (tracking down misplaced pencils, Poonam requiring twenty minutes to braid her hair, putting shoes on, bringing bookbags downstairs, etc) and we’re out the door by 12:15. We go by rickshaw to drop them at school, because their new school is across the river and not within feasible walking distance. We chose this school because it is one of the few public schools in Pune that boys and girls are permitted to attend at the same time. At most schools, girls go to school from 7am to noon, and boys from 12:30 to 5:30; however, this arrangement would require that the entire day be spent shuttling kids back and forth, and as well, we would have very little time to work with all of them together for English tutoring because they would be split up according to gender.
After dropping them off at school, we directors and volunteers have a bit of downtime, although it hasn’t proven very relaxing as of yet. There are always numerous errands to be run—grocery store, bank, MG Road—cleaning to be done, meetings to be had, clothes to be washed, administrative paperwork to be finished, and a long list of overdue emails to write (sorry about that!). Geeta starts dinner preparation around 4:00, and those of us who are home generally help with that in whatever way we can—chopping vegetables, peeling potatoes, etc. Jackie is intent on learning the secret of perfect chapati making, so she has become Geeta’s sidekick in the kitchen, hanging on her every word and trying to remember the correct proportions of ingredients so as to be able to recreate them at home in the US. Two of us leave around 5:15 to pick the children up from school (all 6 kids plus an adult crammed into one rickshaw is rather uncomfortable so we usually take two), returning home around 5:45 with chattering, hyperactive kids in tow. Geeta serves them chai and biscuits at 6, after which we take them outside to play kickball, four square, volleyball, soccer, cricket, jumprope, Frisbee, etc in the dead-end alleyway below. This is technically Jackie’s activity time, but depending on how much energy the rest of us have, we often go out to play with them as well.
Everyone comes in around 7 or 7:15 and the kids play or work on their school work until dinner, which isn’t until 8-ish (a little late for us Americans, but as I said, the kids have this specific routine they like to follow). After dinner, we try with varying success to involve them in clean-up and chores, and they generally run off to play and work on schoolwork afterwards. The bedtime "process" begins around 9:15, at which point they brush their teeth and put pajamas on (although we’ve had some issues with pajamas because they aren’t used to having separate clothes for sleeping in, and don’t understand why they can’t wear the same grubby clothes they ran around in outside to sleep in). The boys go to bed around 9:45 or 10, although they don’t generally fall asleep at that point, and bedtime is undoubtedly one of the most exasperating times of the day for us directors as a result. Poonam (the only girl) has a room to herself currently, because we’re waiting to receive 2 more girls, and since she’s a bit quieter and better behaved than the boys, one of us reads with her before putting her to bed. Hopefully we’ll be able to introduce the same reading-before-bed concept with the boys in the near future as well, but at present we have enough trouble just getting them to lie down long enough to fall asleep that the idea of actually trying to sit and read with them before bed is daunting.
The putting-to-bed process is generally over around 10:30, at which point we all collapse and go to sleep as well, occasionally with minor interruptions from the kids (Mahesh’s bed wetting, Amol’s sleep walking, and Poonam, who often nuzzles her way into one of our beds in the middle of the night because she is scared of the dark and doesn’t like sleeping alone).
AAAAND there you have it--a day in the life of those of us at the AIC home...stay tuned for more updates soon, free time permitting!
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
aaaaand the insanity has commenced!
The home is finally OPEN! As of today, AIC is the guardian of our first three children--Amol (9), Poonam (10), and Mahesh (8). More details and photos to come soon, just wanted to post and let all diligent blog-checkers know the news!
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Jackie!
So, our first volunteer has arrived! (Actually, she’s technically an "intern" according to her summer grant status--oooo somehow that sounds even more high-brow and official!) Her name is Jackie and she’s a student at Middlebury (going to be a senior this fall) who has come to do a sports/recreational outdoor activities program for the kids, as well as to provide general help around the house and with tutoring. Of course, we don't actually have children living here yet, but that's a minor detail, and she's really flexible and eager to help, so we're glad to have her onboard!
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Chale chalo!
Welcome to the first entry of the official Ashraya Initiative for Children online journal--candid, no-holds-barred, on-the-ground, authentic, limited edition, and all that. Or so we hope, at least. [It is also entirely possible that this blog could fizzle out of existence within a few months, as child-rearing responsibilities take priority over coordinating updates for our supporters in far corners of the globe, in which case you will most likely notice one day that the link to the blog has been unceremoniously removed from the main AIC website. In the event that this happens at some point in the future, I apologize in advance--hopefully this journal is not as ill-fated as I am making it out to be.] By "we" I am referring to myself (Elizabeth Sholtys), and my fellow co-directors of the home, Zahra Hadi and Amber Wang, as well as anyone else who comes to work with us (volunteers, etc) and wishes to contribute.
Anyway, without further ado, on to the updates!
The past three weeks since Zahra and Amber arrived have been uniquely...eventful—-note that I do not use the word "productive" here, although they have on occasion been that too. We have our share of ongoing trials and tribulations, ample photographic documentation of which will be provided (toilets that haven’t been flushed in 7 years, cockroaches, lack of water, and Zahra’s mosquito bites) as well as fun times, inside jokes, and the security of establishing a daily routine that includes playing hot potato with the alarm clock in the morning, eating at least one meal per day at the Yogi Tree restaurant (yey cheese chapattis!), visiting the internet café at night, and walking home together afterwards. Our newly established schedule will undoubtedly undergo complete revamping once the children join us here, but for the time being, as we all adapt to living in such close confines and explore emerging group dynamics, it has served us well.
I’m sure you’re all waiting with bated breath for the news of our official home opening—-needless to say, we’re equally anxious. After our projected June 1st opening date became impossible due to intricacies of the sluggish Indian bureaucracy, as well as the fact that we’re now working within the confines of another NGO and have to accommodate its dates and schedules as well, we resigned ourselves to waiting a bit longer. In the meantime, however, there is certainly enough work to keep us all busy...
Evidence of a woodworking project that we attempted in the midst of spontaneous liberated-female (read: femi-nazi) inclinations still stands propped against the wall in a spare bedroom. It was only a cupboard project for the pantry—-a frame with six shelves to keep food on, nothing fancy, you might argue. HA. Add an inept carpenter to the equation (first time didn’t cut the wood properly, second time cut straight through one of the boards into the second, leaving us with only five shelves remaining), as well as toxic headache-inducing paint fumes and ample dust, neither of which coincided harmoniously with my bout of sinusitis, subtract out all of the various power tools we apparently needed and didn’t have (except a drill, which we actually broke down and bought) and operational knowledge of aforementioned power tools, in addition to Hindi-translatable woodworking vocabulary (carpenters square, pegs, and "vood pooty" (wood putty) have been among the hardest to communicate, despite diagrams), and you get a rough idea of the experience. To make a long story short, it was one of those go-getter projects that turned out to be a bit more trouble than it was worth, although I’ll have you know that the few boards we’ve actually finished look quite professional! Zahra’s going to read this account of the story and give me one of those gleeful i-told-you-so looks...and admittedly, she DID initially express skepticism. ah well. it’s been a valuable, albeit frustrating, experience.
Other excitement has included a persistent water shortage—-the scope of which seems limited to our flat alone, numerous exasperating encounters with the landlord (although the shouting match between him and the society manager concerning our water problem almost made it worthwhile), a trip to Mumbai to meet with various people and spend time with street kids from my work there last summer, battles with pigeons and wasps, useless carpenters who only succeeded in bungling the door repair job further and electricians who never show up, and futile efforts to keep our two cats (Ashu and Bug) from wreaking havoc on the numerous houseplants with which we have decorated the house.
Outfitting the house with furniture is coming along well, although various architectural idiosyncrasies have rendered one of the bedrooms essentially impossible to furnish because NOTHING FITS THROUGH THE BLOODY DOOR. We suggested to the landlord that he alter the door frame and/or wall structure, which he wasn’t too keen to do, alas. As you can see in the photos, to move a donated bed from its home in this bedroom to another room upstairs, we had to completely dismantle the frame and reconstruct it afterwards just to get it out of the door. Furniture buying has become a lazy afternoon pastime for us—-chairs, floor mats, cupboards, bathroom cabinets, etc. Our remaining frustration is the bed situation, because we have been unable to find affordable, sturdy bunkbeds in bulk, however, we were assured today that they can be constructed cheaply, and will be going tomorrow to peruse materials (don’t worry, we’re not embarking on another woodworking project, someone is building them for us).
We haven’t had many opportunities to actually work with the children in a while (again, blame the bureaucracy!) although we did take 6 of them (Akash, Sanjay, Poonam, Mahesh, Amol, Balu) to the doctors for preliminary check-ups last week, where it was determined that they have worms and are anemic. Dr. Saiyed gave us medication for them (she is very generously donating her services and time) and we’re taking them back for bloodwork and TB tests shortly. With luck, we’ll be able to have them living here with us sometime in the next 1-2 weeks...cross your fingers!
Anyway, without further ado, on to the updates!
The past three weeks since Zahra and Amber arrived have been uniquely...eventful—-note that I do not use the word "productive" here, although they have on occasion been that too. We have our share of ongoing trials and tribulations, ample photographic documentation of which will be provided (toilets that haven’t been flushed in 7 years, cockroaches, lack of water, and Zahra’s mosquito bites) as well as fun times, inside jokes, and the security of establishing a daily routine that includes playing hot potato with the alarm clock in the morning, eating at least one meal per day at the Yogi Tree restaurant (yey cheese chapattis!), visiting the internet café at night, and walking home together afterwards. Our newly established schedule will undoubtedly undergo complete revamping once the children join us here, but for the time being, as we all adapt to living in such close confines and explore emerging group dynamics, it has served us well.
I’m sure you’re all waiting with bated breath for the news of our official home opening—-needless to say, we’re equally anxious. After our projected June 1st opening date became impossible due to intricacies of the sluggish Indian bureaucracy, as well as the fact that we’re now working within the confines of another NGO and have to accommodate its dates and schedules as well, we resigned ourselves to waiting a bit longer. In the meantime, however, there is certainly enough work to keep us all busy...
Evidence of a woodworking project that we attempted in the midst of spontaneous liberated-female (read: femi-nazi) inclinations still stands propped against the wall in a spare bedroom. It was only a cupboard project for the pantry—-a frame with six shelves to keep food on, nothing fancy, you might argue. HA. Add an inept carpenter to the equation (first time didn’t cut the wood properly, second time cut straight through one of the boards into the second, leaving us with only five shelves remaining), as well as toxic headache-inducing paint fumes and ample dust, neither of which coincided harmoniously with my bout of sinusitis, subtract out all of the various power tools we apparently needed and didn’t have (except a drill, which we actually broke down and bought) and operational knowledge of aforementioned power tools, in addition to Hindi-translatable woodworking vocabulary (carpenters square, pegs, and "vood pooty" (wood putty) have been among the hardest to communicate, despite diagrams), and you get a rough idea of the experience. To make a long story short, it was one of those go-getter projects that turned out to be a bit more trouble than it was worth, although I’ll have you know that the few boards we’ve actually finished look quite professional! Zahra’s going to read this account of the story and give me one of those gleeful i-told-you-so looks...and admittedly, she DID initially express skepticism. ah well. it’s been a valuable, albeit frustrating, experience.
Other excitement has included a persistent water shortage—-the scope of which seems limited to our flat alone, numerous exasperating encounters with the landlord (although the shouting match between him and the society manager concerning our water problem almost made it worthwhile), a trip to Mumbai to meet with various people and spend time with street kids from my work there last summer, battles with pigeons and wasps, useless carpenters who only succeeded in bungling the door repair job further and electricians who never show up, and futile efforts to keep our two cats (Ashu and Bug) from wreaking havoc on the numerous houseplants with which we have decorated the house.
Outfitting the house with furniture is coming along well, although various architectural idiosyncrasies have rendered one of the bedrooms essentially impossible to furnish because NOTHING FITS THROUGH THE BLOODY DOOR. We suggested to the landlord that he alter the door frame and/or wall structure, which he wasn’t too keen to do, alas. As you can see in the photos, to move a donated bed from its home in this bedroom to another room upstairs, we had to completely dismantle the frame and reconstruct it afterwards just to get it out of the door. Furniture buying has become a lazy afternoon pastime for us—-chairs, floor mats, cupboards, bathroom cabinets, etc. Our remaining frustration is the bed situation, because we have been unable to find affordable, sturdy bunkbeds in bulk, however, we were assured today that they can be constructed cheaply, and will be going tomorrow to peruse materials (don’t worry, we’re not embarking on another woodworking project, someone is building them for us).
We haven’t had many opportunities to actually work with the children in a while (again, blame the bureaucracy!) although we did take 6 of them (Akash, Sanjay, Poonam, Mahesh, Amol, Balu) to the doctors for preliminary check-ups last week, where it was determined that they have worms and are anemic. Dr. Saiyed gave us medication for them (she is very generously donating her services and time) and we’re taking them back for bloodwork and TB tests shortly. With luck, we’ll be able to have them living here with us sometime in the next 1-2 weeks...cross your fingers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
