Update

To elaborate on the past week, I received a package my family had sent via the 4-6 day express 4-6 weeks ago. Thankfully the doorman knows basic (I mean basic) English because when I got home from the grocery store, bags in tow, he pointed frantically at the post office (3 blocks down the street) saying “parcel, parcel.” I cringed, knowing what this meant: I would be spending the next few hours and possibly the night asking every employee in the place for my package. Having no idea where parcel pick-up was, I did have to ask around. I don’t want to bore you or make any of you frustrated at the situation (we’ve all been to the DMV), so I won’t go into detail. I was in an out in an hour, ran home with my new beat-up gift, and feasted on the Oreo crumbs my amazing family so thoughtfully packed me. It had been a long day.
I have spent four of the past six nights at LIFE Orphanage because they are short-staffed. They usually only have two live-in workers. One broke her arm falling out of the van on the way to school with the kids and the other had to go home for some prayers. I slept, sort of, in the guest room on the second floor with the girls. It was a lot of fun telling bedtime stories and being woken up by knocking instead of beeping. Each night was a school night, so it was homework time until dinner at 7:30 then stories and sleep! The girls loved to go into the guest room because it’s considered foreign territory and only for visitors. I have a cold and I found the only way to get them out was to fake sneeze on them. They saw me sneeze for real and screamed bloody murder when I would do it. It was hilarious.
Today was Parent’s Day at LIFE. I don’t exactly know what to think of this day because all the kids end up sad. About 15 parents, relatives, and siblings came and brought snacks for their child and some to share. That made everyone happy. But, some kids expected their parents to come and they didn’t show, some don’t have parents, and some knew theirs wouldn’t be coming. One girl’s mother passed away a month ago but no one has told her, so she was sad because she was expecting Mommy to visit. The kids whose parents do come are sad when they leave. This day is great for the relatives who get to see their children, but is it really that great for the kids? Parent’s Day comes around once a month, besides big holidays when the kids with families go home and the kids without go to another institution. It’s a harsh system.
I have had the pleasure of being the boot camp officer aka homework tutor during the hours of 5-7:30. So many of them are in the same grade that, without supervision, one finishes the homework and the rest copy it. I want them to actually learn the material instead of just the homework problem so they will be ahead of their classmates instead of behind, like they are now. I first helped one boy with his homework and he got an uncharacteristically good grade on the test. I was then swarmed and found myself helping five kids at once. They are very sneaky and love to go behind my back and look at their neighbor’s paper. Rule number one is “If you share your work, I do not help.” That usually gets them to focus. It’s a lot of fun- the math nerd in me comes out when I give each child a different problem to practice with and get excited when I correct them. The kids like it too (maybe), and I see where my math teachers could have been frustrated with me in tutoring sessions.
My diet has shrunk to a simple breakfast at home, basic veg lunch at the Pranic home (rice with veggie broth, some vegetable, and yogurt rice), and basic veg dinner at the orphanage (something like rice with veggies). I think Asian people must digest rice differently than people who eat meat regularly because I could eat a mountain of it and still be hungry in two hours. Here, people eat a healthy portion and are full until the next meal. I don’t get it. Maybe that is why there are tea breaks- to re-energize because the stomach is empty. Tea breaks are mandatory, it seems. At the travel agency the other day, the man booking my tickets stopped working when the tea came in, took time to drink it up, then went back to what he was doing. All the while I am sitting there, contemplating the meaning of such a break in work. It really doesn’t need an explanation, just like every other seemingly inefficient Indian custom. So what, I told myself, they take a tea break? I like tea breaks. I need to stop harshly questioning all these funny customs. They aren’t mine and they aren’t mine to judge. Nonetheless, I will not stop my complaints about every Indian government office. Even Indians complain about those!
I have one week until my Mom and sister come to visit and we embark and a very un-Indian holiday. Then, I am off to Jaipur, Rajasthan in the north for a 10-day meditation retreat. I will be spending the rest of December in the north- in Delhi and thereabouts. I am looking forward to taking a short break from children (as much as I love them) and seeing more of this land of constrasts.

Let The Rain Fall!

It is raining outside. It has been raining for the past few weeks and it seems I have yet to get used to the idea of a monsoon season, seeing as I left the house without my umbrella today (it was deceivingly sunny this morning) and came back looking like a street dog.
Blogger was facing difficulties mid-week when I tried to write about the trip to the arcade with the children last Friday. Fortunately, it's up now! There is a brand new mall near the beach with a Chuckie-Cheeze-type arcade/fun center in the foodcourt called Fun City ("Yep! We can handle all the fun!" is their slogan. Enough said.). To inauagurate the place, they brought the thirty-four kids from LIFE to the mall in a big bus and welcomed them in the lobby with nail painting, tatoos, t-shirts, and all the candy they could eat. This may not have been such a smart idea because, mixed with the cake they had later and the ice cream packed into their sac dinners, there were enough stomach aches for me to have given out ALL the Pepto-Bismol I brought (quite a lot- I raided Walgreens). I didn't, partly to teach them a lesson. After their pockets were stuffed full with the candies, they began tucking in their shirts and loading it through the collar. This became difficult to work with in the ball pit. The place was just like an American arcade, sensory overload and cheap prizes. They got free tokens for an hour, a cake break, magic show, goody bags (complete with more candies and cookies), and sac dinners from the most McDonald's-y restaurant in the city. They all got veg burgers, fries, ice cream, and sweetened ice tea. There were media cameras everywhere taking pictures of the kids for a newspaper article I have yet to see. They were in heaven and I was back in the States- it was great.

Last Sunday I spent the day with a friend I met in the Praninc Healing classes. She took me out for North Indian snacks (huge bowls of veggie curry and puffed rice topped with fried noodles) then back to her house for a non-veg feast of every possible type of meat in curry with lots and lots of rice. It was good, but the Mom sat herself right in front of me and would refill my plate after I took a bite of something. That, along with the Dad and sister taking pictures of me nonstop, made me feel like I was in a version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, substituted with Indian culture and without the wedding. I am actually headed to her house right now, so I will finish the details on this hilarious afternoon when I return.

Trick or Treat?

Happy Halloween to those of you who celebrated it. I did not take part in the sugar-injesting and costume-wearing this year. I guess I will have to celebrate double-time next October. The only sign of the holiday over here was the American diner (It's actually run by an American ex-pat whose motto is "never trust a skinny chef." Enough said.) throwing an all-you-can-eat buffet and interactive murder mystery game. I didn't attend because I was at LIFE Orphanage, a children's home in walking distance from my apartment. I have been going to LIFE in the evenings this past week to help with the occasional homework woe, but mostly sing and dance with the energetic youngin's.
LIFE is more like a foster home, with many of the children having broken families. A few are orphans, and unlike Balagurukulam, the kids don't call one another "brother" and "sister." If they have biological siblings, they are usually aware of it and there are even a few pairs of siblings living together at the home. I was taken aback on the first day when one child pointed to another who looked a lot like him and said "that is my brother." His good English is what really shocked me, but also the fact that he knew the difference between his brother and the other kids. The cuties range in age from 5-11 and all attend a good school taught in English. This means I can carry on a decent conversation with most of them, tell stories, and sing songs without recieving blank stares. It's wonderful- almost like I'm back in the States. They like to tell me intricate (often hard to follow) stories and act as translators between the workers and I. There are 34 children and two live-in staff, one of whom is all too willing to hold onto my purse for me. Maybe if she hadn't first explained the high price of her "medical bills (only to find my wallet remaining zipped)," then asked if I had stacks of rupees in my home, then asked how much money I carry with me, only maybe would I let her "hang up" my purse. I have grown severely wary of lower-class Indians these days. From the doormen begging for tips, to the maid only completing her duties with extra cash bonuses, to rickshaw drivers charging me at least three times the original fare, I have come to doubt the sincerity of so many around me. Just today I went to pay for some tender coconut juice from a coconut thwacker. I knew how much it cost- a coconut is the same price everywhere. There were four or five people standing around the cart and just as one was about to say "twenty," the thwacker, who didn't see him, said, "ten." The other guy shut his mouth quickly and went back to sipping his tea. I wanted to take a 7-8 km ride to another part of town today. The first guy was "giving me a deal" at 120, when the second guy eagerly accepted 60. The ride home was 50. This kind of thing is definitely to be expected, but when it happens so much (particularly with the doormen and the worker at the orphanage) it almost makes me sad.

I have been going to Balagurukulam less and less frequently. About 7 weeks ago, I loved going there. I loved playing with the babies and eating a delicious lunch. Some things bothered me- like the corporal punishment and the owner, but I was having a great time there. It could have been getting sick numerous times from the food, the disciplinary system, or the general feelings of tension, but my love for being there faded and is almost gone. In reaction to that, I have started going to LIFE in the evenings, the Pranic Healing Home in the afternoon, and a nearby Montessori school in the morning. The school is called S.M.I.L.E. Montessori for Affluent, Rambonxious, and Spoiled Little Children. I tacked on that last part to give you a sense of the place. On my first day of observation there, one teacher told me Indian parents don't believe in punishing their children. This explains the screams in otherwise quiet restaurants and the small bottle of Tylenol other volunteers would carry around for such situations. On a recent Monday morning: Two mats are laid out in different ends of the room, one with blocks, the other with large Legos. One boy I nicknamed Godzilla ran from mat to mat kicking over someone's tower, leaving another child in tears after each pass. The teacher grabbed him by the arm and told him to stop, then released the young monster who continued on his path of destruction. He was stopped by one brave child who took hold of his leg, but he kicked free. His reign of terror was finally put to a close by the teachers calling for clean-up. I must have seemed lost or something because just then, one teacher informed me of the "no punishment" law of society. Going from strictly-disciplined children to undisciplined children was like my first few days in this country- shocking. It is almost humorous that orphans have better manners than the children of dentists, doctors, and other upper-caste parents, or that they simply have better manners than children with parents! In will say this is a Montessori preschool, so the kids are very young. I think I got my first taste of what the lower school teachers at Brookfield Academy go through. I got interested in S.M.I.L.E. because I loved my Montessori school and wondered what an Indian one was like. Turns out, many of the materials are the same and the teaching methods are the same, as well. I do enjoy seeing how the system works as an outsider. Being a student and being an observer are strangely different, but I do get nostalgic when I see a young child playing with the same pink tower of blocks or set of number sticks as I did. I have only two and a half weeks to myself in Chennai, so I will pass my mornings doing the sighseeing I never did around the city and trying to have patience at S.M.I.L.E., my afternoons healing, and my nights at LIFE. Of course I will be throwing in the occasional must-try restaurant. I truly cannot resist the urge to eat out when I can get dinner for a dollar or a fancy meal for three. One of my favorite treats is fresh juice. Pomegranete juice is all the rage in the States right now and at 3-4 bucks a bottle, who wants to be a part of it? Here I can quench my thirst and stay hip with Western fads for around 30 cents a cup. That's when I love India.