Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday, Steven!
(Alright, the birthday is tomorrow. But Wordless Wednesday is today!)

Sheer delight

Ruthish, Vicky (Vigneshkumar), Manimegalai, and Jayachitra.

I miss you all from here to the Ganges and back again!

Thanks again, CJ, for the beautiful pictures.

Wordless Wednesday

Housemothers Gandhimathi, Venillamary, Saraswathi, Rajakumari, and Jeyanthi (Dec 2010)

Missing Durham

Still waiting for the visa! In the absence of any new Indian pictures, allow me post a few favorites from 2010, taken before my tumble down the elephant hole.

I regret that this situation has kept me from visiting dear friends in North Carolina. It always seems as though I will be flying to India at a day's notice.

The beautiful house-sitting arrangement.

An enraptured day thanks to the unbelievably kind and sensitive friends who saw me through The Abyss. Can you tell who got to blow out the candles?

Not merely a cake: a labor of love from a thoughtful person who has deeply impacted my life.

Bidding farewell to Justin.

Chapel Hill Philharmonic Orchestra, warming up for Spring concert.

This post didn't seem complete without a little tribute to my Durham running companions. Around twenty of us met for years every Saturday morning in Umstead state park. Caroline (on the left) organized the route and was an entertaining interlocutor, hour after grueling hour. I knew there was a picture out there somewhere, and am so glad that a long internet search actually turned this one up! On Saturday mornings I still become wistful when I think about missing these runs.

Wordless Wednesday

Lucky in Kentucky?

I was recently asked when I would finally come clean vis-a-vis the bloggerworld and admit that I am not at all here:

but here:

Since I am running out of old pictures and new ideas, I will reveal that my current abode is actually rural Kentucky.

The housemother Saraswathi sent me off in style, with my very own henna embellishment. Unfortunately, it wore off all too quickly, and the artist's signature stretching across my calf was already indistinguishable by the time this picture was taken. But this and the ones ambling up to my elbows did elicit plenty of comments at the doctor's and dentist's office when I first arrived.

I returned to the States to renew my visa (and to eat). Now my visa application has been rejected not once, but twice! What was supposed to take a matter of days has stretched into weeks. This all seems too strange and unprecedented.

School started two weeks ago, just as American kids were getting out. Because May is the hottest month in southern India, we hold our summer break at that time.

My mood oscillates between calm and collected (while inhaling my gift of unexpected extra moments with all that I love and is unattainable in India-family, library, gym, pool, Whole Foods, temple) and sleepless and distraught over reports of children who didn't return to school and other heart-wrenching issues.

Yet what is unattainable here are those incomparably trusting, unpretentious Rising Star faces! Forfeiting a few this-worldly comforts is not only worth it, but it actually renders the whole experience more worthwhile. The utter simplicity is all part of the journey.

I'll conclude with one of the endearing letters children handed me as I was leaving:

I can't decode all of it (help me if you can!), but what looks like "I like you mattress" probably means "I like your mother" (she visited a few months ago and was universally loved).

Wordless Wednesday

Sports Day, Feb 2011

Waste Not, Want Not

Finding these chubby little stubs around the school building made me chuckle, and so I started a collection. The children are so careful not to lose or waste their pencils that it actually took me several weeks to come up with this amount of loot. And they weren't lying about in plain sight, but hidden in nooks and behind doors. They use that lead down to the bitter end.

When I first arrived in India, I made the rookie mistake of disbursing pencils to anyone for the asking. But then I found that those same children would return and ask for another, and another, every day (or every hour!). I finally smartened up and started trading the children's "stars" (reward points) for every pencil given out. I soon found that the kids were not so eager for new pencils after all. Some students will ask for one and then declare that they were "just kidding" when I tell them that it will be costing three stars, thank you very much.

Thank you to my friends Anita and Talmadge who initiated this brilliant star system last year to teach responsibility and accountability. I think it's working!

Wordless Wednesday