Following a month of travel, I spent most of the last two weeks of April volunteering again at the Khar Danda school at One! International. It was great to see the kids again and to meet some of the volunteers who had arrived while I was gone, including Amy from Canada, Shawn from North Carolina, and Norman from Australia, who were all lots of fun. Those two weeks I also found time to read several books and enjoy being back in Bombay—in one place--for some time, all the while I continued to plan upcoming travel for when my friend Randy came and my brother Bryan in May.
A few days after I returned, we took about a dozen of the younger kids at the school to do a program with some other young students at The American School in Bombay, which is the school that all the children of various diplomats from around the world who are working in Bombay attend. The facilities at the school were impressive, surpassing many schools I have seen in the U.S., and the kids had a lot of fun going there, even though some of them were cold because of the high levels of A.C. that were pumping out in the building. The kids danced to Jai Ho! A song from Slumdog Millionaire, and really did a great job.
Practicing for Jai Ho!I spent a lot of my time at school tutoring Sunil, our oldest student and also the first from One! International to take the 10th grade exam, which in India you must pass to go onto college. We were studying computers—a book on Windows 95, to be exact (I kid you not) but he was a very diligent scholar, and despite the fact that he insisted that over and over again “Didi, sooooo many cards!” (I made him a lot of flash cards) his hard work was paying off. Plus when he did well, he was able to play some songs off of my computer, favorites being the “Na Na Na” song by Akon and various Bollywood numbers. Also around the same time, one of the older girls at the school who is around 16 named Dilshad had been watching my habit of buying a samosa from my favorite Samosa Men after school each day; concerned, she told me “Didi, very bad for the health to eat a samosa everyday. I did and I got sick. Very bad. Every few days, but not every day.” Turning red, I knew she was right—and I loved that she called me out on it. I cut back on the samosas after that (but not completely).
So you know that I wasn't just being studious and diligent during this time, I also joined in some dance parties with the other volunteers from One! We found that the Boat Club in Bandra, seemingly has theme nights, or at least sometimes they change the posters on the wall—my favorite being when we showed up and there were framed rap/hip hop stars everywhere—nothing like seeing Snoop and Fifty Cent adorning the walls in India. Regardless of the music played that night though, it seemed that a fog machine was often involved. We danced there right before Amy went back to Canada, and again before Shawn went back to the U.S.
Though being back in Bombay was nice for a sense of stability, my body wasn't used to riding in the Riks again with all the pollution, and I got what I think was my fourth or fifth bad cold. That, however, didn't stop me from traveling to the Hill Station of Matheran with some friends from the Hash running club the last Saturday in April. Matheran is about 3 hours south of Bombay, and up a very windy road—the catch is though, motorized vehicles are prohibited after a certain point, so the last 45 minutes you have to either walk, or ride a horse. We chose to walk, and met about 10 other Hashers and stayed in a bungalow for the night before the run. Being sick, I spent much of the afternoon resting, but did rally to meet a few American Hashers who were traveling through and joined our group. What I thought was going to be a quiet night quickly turned when my friend Elizabeth's friend Mary Lou revealed she had brought karaoke. The TV was wheeled out onto the patio and the monkeys all around us settled in for a concert, as the night air soon filled with raspy renditions of the familiar words of Bryan Adams (Summer of 69), Cher, Britney Spears, Journey, and the list went on and on (for about three hours, I think). It was good fun, and the run did not disappoint the next day either, as the route took us to one particularly breathtaking panoramic view of the surrounding landscape of hills and valleys.
Though the red clay dirt (a trademark of Matheran) stained my shoes beyond recovery, and the ice was late so our beer was a bit warm, I fought off my cold and busted out the wigs for the first time in India, where they were very well received. We also turned the blocks of ice into a literally very cool slip n slide.
The 30th of April was voting day in Bombay, and elections in India are run with a surprising efficiency that lacks in so many other areas of the country. I walked down with Sunitha and her family in the morning to the polling place a few minutes from their house, and their fingers were promptly stamped with ink as to prevent voter fraud. Results are not revealed for a few weeks after the elections, however, but voter turnout here is actually very high, with lots of the poor coming out in droves to cast their ballots. A few photos below showcasing a bit of the action.
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