My boys and their teachers.

All school children in India call their teachers "Didi" which means "older sister" Shopkeepers are called "Uncle".
Enzo's teacher's name is Manju and Owen's teacher name is Neelam. They are so beautiful!
The boys are learning their "maths" ! Owen is multiplying 3 digit numbers!!! His latest task is long division. I need a primer to be sure.

Owen and Enzo are pioneers at Karuna Vihar. Karuna Vihar is a school for children with special needs. My sister is the director. The boys are under a program called "reverse inclusion". They are the first kids without special needs to attend Karuna Vihar. It was overwhelming for them at first but they are really getting into the swing of it. It helps that their classes are small and there are 3 teachers for every 11 kids! The boys are getting a first class education. A lot of one on one. I am amazed by Owen's grasp of multiplication. Watching him "carry" his numbers fills me with such pride.

I am also pleased with the compassion my boys are showing for their classmates. I have thrown them into such a foriegn world and they are rising to the occasion and finding out that everyone and everything has a place in this mad mad world. Their eyes are so big now. It is good.

My Moy and My Jo

I am so pleased that these two women are mine. My sister and my niece. The loves. Jo? I see her all the time. Always so excited when I do. She has been to America over 1,000 times this year. No exaggeration.

I always miss Moy. Moy is the best. She is like the well placed breeze. You are always so happy in her presence. She is good. She has cerebral palsey and doesn't speak anymore. This girl has changed the lives of countless Indian children. My sister Jo recognized a need for children with special needs. They all seemed to be hidden away.

A School For Moy Moy. A School for Moy Moy has turned into so much more. It has turned into an early intervention program, a grammar/high school and what is referred to as a "college" Moy is in college. She is 19! My little Moy!

Another program has sprung out of this. This program is called Latika Vihar. It is an after school play place. All kids are welcome. Special needs, servants children, rich kids, anyone in the neighborhood. For 60 rupees a month (gosh, that is about $1.00 US) these kids can have supervised play from 4:30-6:30 M-F! If they can't afford it, they can skate. Latika Vihar is that kind of place.

Supervised doesn't even come close to what is actually provided. There is a potter one day instructing the kids how to throw pots, a woodworker another day allowing the kids access to his homemade tools, dances and cooking are taught. My boys LOVE IT!
A school for Moy Moy has come up trumps. She is the sweetest of loves. My Moy. My Jo. I am so proud of both of them.Changing Lives, really changing them. I will write another entry about this one girl. Her life is changed.

Monsoons and The Forest Research Institute

I was walking to the vickram stand with the boys yesterday. A vickram is a shared ride, it is also a popular boys name. Another popular name that I found surprising? "Swastick".

Owen and Enzo love their Friday after school treat. We were going into town for a mango milkshake. It was raining. Or "monsooning" as Enzo likes to call it. We were chatting about their day at school as we puddle jumped and avoided cow dumpings. A car swerved around another car (as they tend to do here with alarming regularity). The boys said what happened next was straight out of a cartoon. I am so glad they were amused.

I have never been splashed so grandly in my life. It really was larger than life. This great huge wave of dirty water hit all of us, but mostly me. Thank God my camera was safely tucked away in its case. Owen begged for it, so that he could document me immediately. Somehow, it doesn't look as bad as it was in the photo. It was pretty funny. I am so glad I was wearing my old western clothes, and not some new Indian garment that would have bled all over the place.

The cow dumping statement paints a horrible portrait of this picturesque little Enclave that we are living in. The roaming street cows add to the quaintness of it all. Vasant Vihar Enclave. How green is my valley. It is lovely here. We can see the Himalayas from our front yard. It rains a lot, but the rain makes everything so lush. We live a few blocks away from The Forest Research Institute. It is a beautiful gated forest. For one rupee, you are free to roam around.There are lots of monkeys there but they keep to themselves, unless you are a dog. On our first walkabout we saw an amazing monkey/dog fight (from a good safe distance,darling). If the rain slows down, we may venture over there this morning.

Aloo Parathas

There is nothing better than learning from a master! Vickram, one of my sister's cooks is a master. Despite what my grandfather wrote, Vickram is good enough to be my master in this instance. What a great guy. Always smiling. He speaks English well, and is always wanting to improve it. I asked him if he could give me some cooking lessons. We began with Aloo Parathas, which is flat bread stuffed with a mixture of mashed potatoes(aloo), minced onions, ginger, cumin, salt and pepper. You start off with a chapati dough, which is just flour and water mixed together until it "feels right". Then you roll a little ball out, spread it with the potato mixture, roll another little ball place it on top, seal the edges then roll some more. Next, you place it on a hot pan, give it a few flips and enjoy!

The boys had a lot of fun too, it actually turned into a party. The boys and I have a new housemate, a fabulous Scottish gal named Bridget. She and Jo's housemate, another fabulous gal named Shelly joined in. We took over Jo's kitchen. It was so much fun. Vickram had endless patience with us. Our first attempts were full of holes but great for a laugh.

Dwatika

This is Dwatika. She is my maidservant. What? My grandfather once wrote, "No man is good enough to be another man's master". Of course I am not Dwatika's master.Of course not. I did not ask for Dwatika. She came with my house. If I let her go, which was my first thought, she would lose a job. That would be the end of the world for her. Her husband is very sick. My sister thinks that he may have AIDS. Dwatika told her he is just skin and bones and cannot get out of bed. They have 2 children, younger than mine.

It is so weird having another person come in and do my dishes, laundry, and floors. I try not to have any dishes. I make my bed as soon as I get up. Having a maidservant has made me more diligent about keeping my space clean. I hate to see her do anything. I am not just saying that. I really do.

She is such a hard worker. Last year she ran a sugarcane juice stand and got her hand stuck in the press. She is just now regaining use of her hand. For awhile Jo was just giving her money because she really couldn't do anything. She is a proud woman and I am sure it pained her to receive a stipend for doing nothing.

At night I see her at her vegetable stand down the street. She never seems to stop. We communicate with sign language. She is probably younger than me, I am not sure.

Dwatika is a daily reminder to me that I should never,ever take my lot in life for granted. I am a lucky,lucky person and all of you who are reading this from your very own computers should feel the same. It is so easy for us to take our creature comforts for granted. I have never been one to preach (I swear to God), but this cries out to me everyday. It is amazing how easy it is for us to plod through life,and how hard it is for others. We are all in the same world, but you would never know it.

Gadgets and Grace

I was so frustrated this morning when I realized that the jack I plug my ipod into my computer is the very same jack I use to plug in this device that gets me on line.

What that means is I cannot change any of my NPR podcasts. I am stuck listening to Terry Gross interview Seth Rogen again and again?

You can only imagine my pain and suffering.

I went into town a few hours later and got an eyeful of true pain and suffering. I felt gross and greedy. My ipod isn't up to date for the next 10 weeks? The horror!

I got so lucky in this life, yet I still manage to complain. I have to knock that off. I have too much.

The Monkeys in Musoorie.

The boys and I just returned from a place that I believe is the closest you can get to Heaven here on this Earth. It is absolutely enchanting. Musoorie. Breathtakingly beautiful. Mountain upon mountain. It is the Himalayas for goodness sake! Jo and Ravi rent a cottage at the end of this pretty little lane. There is a family living there as caretakers. They speak very little English. What I should say is that WE speak very little Hindi. The father is the cook. He is a cook who should win some kind of award, just for making eggplant sing. He can say "Dinner" and "Breakfast" and "chai" in English. I JUMP up the minute he says any of those words knowing full well that I am in for a big treat.

They have 3 kids. 2 girls and a boy. Even with the language barrier my two boys had tons of fun playing with them, acting out their words. The boy, Rohit, could say "Ready, Set, Go" in English. Apparently that is the only phrase you need to have fun. They went and went!

Just about a quarter mile up the lane (back towards where we came from) is a general store. I needed to get some bottled water for our dinner. The boys did not want to accompany me because big big monkeys can appear out of nowhere.I left them with their new friends and their mother. I wasn't scared. Ha! The walk to the store was uneventful, apart from the view.

I got the water (alright, and some earrings and 3 kurtas and a purse) I started back. About half way down the scenic lane, I spotted a HUGE monkey lumbering toward me. I freaked out. Seriously freaked out. I wasn't quite sure how to react, seeing as this has never happened to me before. Freaking out seemed to be my only option.

I ran back towards the store. The woman who I had just purchased all my items from saw my distress and piled me into her car. Even she was scared. She said that the monkeys had gotten very, very aggresive of late.

It was worth it just to be in Musoorie.

P.S. That first picture is of a teeny tiny monkey. You have no idea what I encountered! I wasn't stopping to photograph.Ha!

Connections

Only Connect!
There are all sorts of connections. My brother,Chris was able to get the boys, my dad and me on first class for both legs of our trip. Boston to Chicago and Chicago to New Delhi.Which is just crazy if you think about it. Never in my life have I experienced such oppulence. The boys had to push their eyemasks up to receive their hot fudge sundaes. They could not believe it. We slept in beds for 8 of the 14 hours. I am just a poor girl, though my story is seldom told.

When we arrived at The Indira Gandhi International Airport, still on the plane, we heard our names being called and we were asked to meet the grounds crew immediately upon deplaning. My sister knows this guy... They had a wheelchair for my dad and they whisked us past this whole line of people plopped our passports down and ushered us into the country. Next they asked for our baggage claims and located our 7 bags and hauled them for us to where my sister was waiting. Connections.

My computer needs a pep talk in connections.

I have to bring my boys to tour their new school, more later. Much more about India.