Last Day in Vijayawada

Today Ila said goodbye to her classmates of three days. They love her! She loves them too and loves the teachers.

She likes the English class time much more than the Telugu class time. It's basically like a dual immersion class, but in First Grade, they still do a lot of Telugu. Surprisingly, Ila and Kavi have not shown any growth in learning Telugu. They may be understanding, I'm not sure, but they are saying nothing. My Telugu is better than theirs, and that's not saying much!

When we left school today, we took an auto rickshaw home. We had promised them a ride in one and had not had the opportunity yet.

This may be my last post for the trip. We'll see...maybe one more. We are basically traveling from here on out and may or may not have the computer/internet time. See you all soon! Happy New Year!

Visit to Living-In School, Nekkalam

Yesterday, Parimi Uncle took us to Nekkalam, where they are building a new school in a mango orchard. They call it the Living-In School. It is meant to be an operating farm school for high school students.

Here we are on the drive there. It takes about 45 minutes to drive there. We had to stop for a train crossing.

On the way there, we saw a group of monkeys cross the road. That was fortunate, because we have promised the kids monkeys, but have not seen any. We took a photo, but you can't really see anything.

Here is the site of the mango orchard school. You can see that it's still under construction, but it is in a beautiful location, and the architecture looks really nice.








The site is surrounded by these beautiful hills.









Yesterday, being Christmas, there was no school for the kids. And today is Sunday. So last night we watched a movie then played games with the kids here. Here we are playing "Wig Out."

At School

Today Ila had her second day of going to first grade here in India. She seems to like it. Meantime, Kavi went to pre-K, though he didn't have as much staying power.

At Vikasa Vidya Vanam school, the kids in the primary grades have half day instruction in Telugu, their native tongue, and half day instruction in English. This is highly unusual for a private school. Typically the only schools that have any instruction in Telugu at all are the government run public schools, whose job is to impart some basic literacy to poorer students.

So Ila has been attending the morning session, in English. Meantime, Gopal and I had some meetings with the teachers about education. We tried to leave Kavi in the preschool, but he kept getting lonely and having to come out with us.

From two days ago, here is Kavi and Strahlia in the pre-K class. Jini and Strahlia left India today. Kavi keeps asking where Strahli is (and what she will eat.)

VVV is a very special school in many ways and also unique here in India. There is a very warm atmosphere. The kids say it's a great school because they have more freedoms, they can be friendly with their teachers, they have small group instruction and project based learning, and best of all, the teachers don't hit kids.

In addition to that, their school day lasts from 8 or 9 until just 4:30. At most schools around here these days, they are keeping kids in school from 8 am until 8 pm! Actually, I just asked Virinchi (Kavi's favorite person in India) and he says one residential school he attended had study hour until 10:30 pm and they had to wake up at four am.

We have also visited another alternative school called Vidhyarthi. We had some interaction with the students, then they performed songs and dances. They also gave us some of their handicrafts.

Today when I thanked Ila's teacher for having her in class, she said, "Don't say thanks, she is our child." How sweet is that? People don't like it if you say thank you too much. They feel it is their duty to take care of guests, so why would we thank them?

I learned recently that the Telugu word for guest, "athidhee" means literally "one who comes anytime, unannounced." This is part of the whole philosophy of life here.

Kavi's favorite thing about India: rough play with big kids.

In Vijayawada

We feel as if we have "come home" to Jabilli, the house/hospital of our dear friends in Vijayawada, India. This is the place where we stayed for the better part of a year in 2000. The young kids here have grown up, but otherwise most things look the same, with improvements. This is a big community of family and friends that is extremely welcoming, and it's great to be here. Everyone is disappointed that we will only be here for 8 days. (Now only five left.) We have had just one visit to the school we helped work at and we were so happy with the atmosphere and the positive changes they have made. Today we are meant to go look at the site of the second school they are building, which will be a residential "farm school."

Over the past two days we have done several village visits. First to Mussilipatnam where Suvarna's great aunt lives. She is "Kanamamma" to Gopal and Jini. Then yesterday we drove to Mudenepali, Rao's home village. Also went to Ajay's father's house in Gudivarda. (Any Indians reading this will be appalled at my spelling--sorry.) At each place, the kids have been so happy to play with each other in such peaceful places. The houses always have a high cement wall around them, with generous patios and small gardens full of plants and flowers. The children can just wander around and play. One day they got carried away feeding sugar to the ants. Another day collecting flowers. Kavi and Strahlia also like to climb the steps to the flat cement roof and and look around from up there. Meantime, we grownups are being fed enormous Indian meals in the kitchen. Our hosts are not satisfied until we are stuffed.





Another highlight was going to the village temple in Mudenepali, where there was a puja for our family. It involved, first washing feet, then walking barefoot around the temple three times. Then going inside the temple, where the pujari (priest) performed a ceremony, honoring the gods and blessing the members of our family. I would not be able to explain the significance of all the different parts, but there were chanted blessings with flowers, water, smoke, food. He cracked coconuts, saved the milk for the ceremony, then gave us the coconut halves. After the ceremony, we sliced them and ate them. Strahlia loved it.

In Mudenepali we visited both of Rao's cousin-brothers, Ragarao Pedenana and Ramarao Pedenana. Jini and Gopal's cousin Vijaya delighted in showing us around the various animals they keep: geese, chickens including a brood of three day old chicks, and cows. Of course, the kids loved it all. It has been a joy for all of us to bring them here, despite a few hardships. It feels like our time remaining is so limited!

Goa, December 18

Tiny Christian chapel on way to beach.

Kavi and Strahlia share a coke

More days of beach and sand. All along the beach are little shacks selling drinks and snacks. They have chaise lounges and umbrellas that you can use for a few hours if you buy something. Our little place is called Dreamers Shack. Yesterday as we left, they said, "See you tomorrow."

Gopal relaxes on the beach

Kavi gets a coconut

Anjuna Market, Goa

We arrived in Goa two days ago. We are staying in a lovely rental house that is perfect for the kids and all of us to relax in. The beach is a five minute walk down the street. Yesterday we all packed up our lunches and towels and headed over to the beach. Kids played in the water and sand; adults relaxed under palm frond umbrellas; really is couldn't be any better.

After that we hired a taxi and went to the Anjuna flea market. This a market that for years has been frequented by western hippies, and continues to be. In the traffic jam on the way in, we saw lots of Euro-Americans riding their scooters in to the market. The market itself has many vendors who are gypsies from Karnatika, selling beads and bags and items that are decorated with little glass squares. Ila was entranced by much of it.

Finally a dinner in nice restaurant on the beach. Crab curry with coconut milk, mutton curry, and spicy shrimp. It was really good. By this point our poor children were wiped out exhausted, so that was a slight downer, but we all survived.

Turns out Kavi is a very game world traveler. Eats everything. Is interested in everything. Ila on the other hand is less enthusiastic. Food is a big issue and I'm working on not being mad at her all the time for her fussiness. Also, when she's tired she gets overwhelmed by noise. At the restaurant last night, there were disco dance party raves starting in some nearby establishments. She said the noise was going to make her throw up. Well, in a way I can't blame her--it was pretty awful. I'm very relieved that our little house is not in the midst of a party-central like that. Yuck. Strahlia, despite her many food allergies, is doing fabulous too. Going with the flow and having a good time. All the kids are playing together a ton, enjoying each other's company.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Greetings to Everyone from India!!!

I arrived here on Sunday after three days of travel--an overnight to London, a day in London, another overnight to India then a flight from Delhi to Hyderabad. We have been busy seeing family since I arrived--that's why there have been no new posts. Everyone is doing great. We are all adjusting well. Today we are  getting on a plane for Goa. Beach vacation awaits us. I think the kids will love it.

Here are a few photos of the kids waiting at our guest house in Hyderabad for the car to airport.

Gopal's cousin Rishidar got married to Gita Shree. Sounds like it was a beautiful, low key ceremony in the temple in her hometown in Assam. There is always meant to be someone from the next generation involved in a wedding ceremony. Kavi was that person. You will see a photo of him with his foot all painted as part of it.

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They went on an outing to the Brahmaputra River... Beautiful, isn't it?

Here is a tea plantation. The tea plants are at the bottom. There are shade trees above, with pepper vines growing on them.