Hangry

Raphaelle occasionally mixes words up a little when she speaks English, particularly "angry" and "hungry." However, this is really rather appropriate, as we find that the two feelings often occur in conjunction with one another. For instance, yesterday we had 6 students from Yale visiting the home, and at dinner they had their own table with a plate of fresh tomatoes and onions. Neither the children, the caregivers, or the other volunteers were given fresh vegetables. Ironically, the visitors didn't even want to eat the tomatoes, as most of them had only been in India for a few days and they still had the traveler's fear of raw fruit and vegetables instilled in them. We normal volunteers, on the other hand, have enough experience to know that it's probably not as bad for you to risk sickness from eating raw vegetables as it is to not have them at all, and when we saw that the Yale students had tomatoes and weren't even appreciating them, we felt a little bit hangry. Elysia and Raphaelle sat at the table and stewed for a bit about the unfairness of the situation, but I took some action about it in the form of going over and asking "hey, aren't you gonna eat those tomatoes?" Upon receiving their permission, I took a few tomato slices, after which Elysia, realizing that the tomatoes were remaining completely unclaimed by the Yale volunteers, went over and politely absconded with the whole plate. We who had felt so deprived reveled in our newly won fresh vegetables. My improvised wrap of chappati and beans was dramatically enhanced by a few tomatoes. Elysia ate whole slices with reckless abandon, caveman style, like she would never have another chance to eat tomatoes again. We felt slighly foolish and still rather annoyed but at least temporarily triumphant, and the hanger dissipated, at least until the next inevitable slight in our continuing line of kitchen-related conflicts of stinginess...

Other things you should know

I've decided to take a trip to Goa for a couple days with Elysia at the end of my trip, so my time in Delhi is rapidly coming to a close. The weeks go by soooo fast here. I figured I should add any other pertinent information about India now in case I don't get another chance to post while I'm here. For one thing, you may have known this, but they don't use toilet paper in India. Instead they use water and the left hand. This is one of those things that I try not to dwell on, especially in conjunction with the thought of all the small children I encounter on a daily basis, whose washing abilities sometimes leave a bit to be desired. Also, Indians don't nod when they mean yes; instead they waggle their heads to the side. At first this is confusing, because the same gesture would indicate ambivalence in the West, but you catch onto it slowly. Also, people tug on their ears when they are saying sorry, which is a reference to the way that people are physically reprimanded by being pulled by the ear. By pulling your own ears, you are demonstrating penitence by enacting the punishment on yourself.
One of the things that really strikes me about India is that it's actually pretty close to how I would imagine it in my mental stereotype. The women really do wear saris on a daily basis, many men wear the traditional skirt-like dhoti, and there genuinely are cows and wild dogs and monkeys and elephants roaming around in the street (the elephants less so, but still). Rickshaws are a common mode of transportation, although there are a lot more motorcycles than one might think. The one thing that's different is that I don't go around eating chicken tikka masala and naan every day...that kind of stuff is more of restaurant food. Probably I can eat some in Goa. Eating meat, what's that about?
My big project for the end of my stay is the talent show that we're organizing for the girls. They've submitted so many different kinds of talents to perform; it ought to be a good time. Raphaelle, Elysia and I plan to open the show with a combination act where Raphaelle twirls juggling balls, Elysia drums on her stomach, and I play the nose flute. Yeahhhhh. I'll see if I can get in a few more workshops/activities with the girls in the mean time. Curiously, there is actually a group from Yale at the home at the moment. They are only in India for 9 days, and they are also taking trips to Jaipur and Agra, so they're only actually at our home for like 2 and a half days. We incumbent volunteers have been questioning the point of coming to volunteer for such a brief time, and it's a little annoying that the organization is bending over backwards to do special things for the Yale group while trying to make us change our plans around it. Whatever, the Yale kids themselves are very nice, so I bear no grudge. I'm just happy to spend my last week of time with the girls and get lots of good things done and then have some sweet times in Goa with Elysia, living in huts on the beach and drinking fruity things out of coconuts and whatnot. It should be some super relaxing time, although any potential relaxation will probably be canceled out by the fact that I'm flying back from Goa to Delhi, then chilling in the airport for 6 hours until my 3 am flight from Delhi to Helsinki, where I have another 6 hour layover before my flight home...33 hours straight of travel, in total. I might be a little crabby coming out of that, so be prepared. Also be forewarned that I am probably not bringing anybody presents because goodness knows I already spent too much money in China. Whatevs, it will be nice for me just to be home.

Monsoons and Meetings

So the monsoon, after taking its sweet time getting here, has finally arrived, and its a little bit messy. It's nice because the rain cools things down, but there are problems with flooding in a lot of areas, and we got positively soaked coming in to Delhi today for the Mentor Mothers meeting. The Mentor Mothers work with the children in all the homes, and we get together to discuss all sorts of things, but today the big issue that was weighing on the minds of the three of us didis was the behavior of the permanent authority figures in our home. We try to encourage good health and hygiene, but the head Aunty refused to acknowledge or deal with the dead rat in the kitchen when we pointed it out. We try to work with the girls to solve their problems in a peaceful and constructive fashion, but Uncle advocates slapping the girls when they are disrespectful, and worse, the Aunties beat the girls for wetting the bed (which is a problem for some of the older girls as well). It's not like they're wetting the bed on purpose; surely it's a result of all of the emotional trauma they've been through, and beating them is only going to traumatize them more, in addition to the original humiliation of wetting the bed. We can't communicate much with the Aunties, who speak next to no English, and they ignore our input anyway. I think that since they are in the home all day, they can get very controlling over their small domestic domain, and view us as intruders. Uncle is easier to communicate with, but he is still a firm believer in corporal punishment. Fortunately, today at our meeting we were able to communicate our concerns to Dr. Modi, who is the head of the organization, and she is totally receptive to our input and really awesome, and she got right on the phone and gave Uncle the what-for. She is planning to have more workshops to train the caregivers and everyone who works in the homes in proper conduct (although they already had some where they were all taught not to beat the children, and look how much that helped). It's kind of frustrating to be a only a short-term volunteer in this kind of situation, but hopefully the organization can derive some permanent benefits from the concerns that we've raised. Next on the list: attempting to organize a talent show for the girls! Should be a good time.