India Standard Time

On Tuesday, I planned to go see Deep Griha’s rural school.  Their work originated in the city and most projects focus on urban slums.  In the past few years, they have expanded their vision to include some of the rural areas west of Pune.  I thought it would be neat to see surrounding region.  Since I’m also writing the May newsletter, I wanted to see what I would be writing about.

I usually leave for work at 9:15 or 9:30. The minibus to work planned to pick up me and Kassie, the other volunteer, later than usual because the special needs kids had to go to school early.  On the way back, the minibus broke down.  Kassie and I had tea until the car arrived at 11:15.  We got to work at 11:30.  We could have taken a rickshaw.  However, I was supposed to take the same car out to the rural areas so there was no point in rushing.

City of Child

Since we got to work so late, everyone else had work to catch up on before we left.  Eventually, we left the office around 3.  We picked up several people and six watermelons along the way.  Our first stop was City of Child, an orphanage/children’s home for 40-50 kids from the slums who don’t have adequate care at home.  

I got a tour of the place while everyone else had a business meeting.  The ladies in the kitchen gave me fresh buttermilk, chapatis made with millet, and watermelon.  The highlight was watching the kids eat watermelon and showoff doing handstands.

At 4:30, we finally headed out for the entire reason I had come on the trip, to see Deep Griha Academy/City of Knowledge.  The goal of the school is to provide quality English education in the farming region near Pune.  The property is a former poultry farm and some of the old hen houses are still standing.  So far, there is a preschool.  Soon, they will be adding first and second grade classrooms.  They recently installed a solar-powered rainwater harvesting system to provide water to the school.  Deep Griha grows millet on the property to raise money for the school and hopes to provide vocational training to locals.

In the light of the late afternoon, a sense of peace and promise settled across the property.  The timing was perfect.  Sometimes running on Indian time gets you to the right place at the right time.

Welcome to India

I landed in Mumbai at 9:30 pm on Friday.  Around 10:30, I found Anil and Ashok with the help of three different people who let me borrow their cell phones.  It was reassuring to be greeted by people who were looking out for me. 

As we were leaving the airport, I realized that I needed to pee.  I figured that when we stopped for sodas, I could take care of that.  For the next hour, I got an interesting tour of Mumbai as we tried to find the correct road from the airport to Pune.  We pulled a number of u-turns.  I would have sworn we were going in circles.  By the time we finally found the right road, I was sweating profusely, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and my kidneys were aching.  Ashok took pity on me and pulled over on the side of the highway underneath a billboard where there was a small alley and a mound of dirt.   I hopped out of the car without hesitation.  There I was, peeing in an alley/drainage ditch on the side of the highway in Mumbai.

What a welcome to India.

An hour and a half later at 1 am, we finally reached the gas station.  It reminded me of the rest areas along I-95, only bigger and busier.   In some places, it may have qualified as a village or small city.  Leaving the gas station, we hit traffic going over the mountain pass.  The highway was jammed with trucks and buses.  Sick of the nearly standstill traffic, Ashok decided to create a fourth lane of traffic on the three-lane highway.

At 3:30 am, we reached Pune and the Deep Griha Cultural Center.  After  29 hours of travel, I was glad to have a place to put my feet up and sleep.

Wake me up before you go

I left Denver at 8:30 on Friday morning with a 37.5  lbs backpack, a smaller backpack with a laptop and a purse stuffed with “essentials,” none of which turned out to be essential other than my passport.   I managed to fit everything that I wanted to pack with some extra room for souvenirs.  Here are some of the interesting things made it into the bag:

• Dental floss- I was told that it makes a great makeshift clothes line or sewing thread
• Grapefruit seed oil extract and tablets-apparently this will work wonders for the inevitable traveler’s sickness
• Pass the Pigs-entertaining game
• Cribbage board-I finally managed to find my board in a desk drawer.  Ainsley, get excited.
• Cell phone-vintage 2004.  I needed something with a SIM card and this was the only one I could find in the house that worked.
• 8 bottles of sunscreen-four Coppertone Sport bottles, four SPF15 face lotion. I’m worried about getting sunburned.
• 6 novels set in India- all recommendations  from Mom

At the Denver airport

I couldn’t quite believe I was leaving for India.  Granted, I wasn’t.  I had a four hour flight to Newark first.  At the Newark airport, I started to realize that I was actually leaving when the boarding area filled up with Indians.  My last view of the U.S. was the New York City skyline at night.  Fifteen hours later, I landed in Mumbai.

Leaving Denver

Last Thursday, I finally bought a ticket to India.  I leave this Thursday.  I've wanted to go to India for some time and everything came together recently.  I am going to spend six weeks volunteering with the Deep Griha Society in Pune, ten days on a silent meditation retreat, and 24 days traveling with my very good friend Ainsley.

Putting everything together in a week is a bit nerve-wracking. My brother's room (aka my staging area) is a mess but by Wednesday night, I hope all my belongings will fit into a big backpack, a small backpack, and a medium-sized purse.  I'm ready to test my spatial reasoning skills.