Going to the City

September 24, 2008

Monday we went into the city to try to find a new video-cassette tape. We went to Mahindrah Hills, but no luck, so we had to go buy one, but we were afraid that the formant was going to be different, so we were hesitant in buying one. Finally we just decided to try it and we got one at a computer store. While we were in the city, we did some food shopping and also we went to a fabric shop to pick out some fabric to make Ratnam’s Christmas clothes. Yesterday we went to the office just to pick up a couple of things, and then we came back an finished grouping the kids by their sizes for the Christmas clothes. We had all the kids even the ones that didn’t normal go to school come to school so that we could merge them into groups. That took a lot longer than we had expected. For only like thirty kids, it took over 2 hours! During I got a little frustrated. A couple of girls we were trying to merge stepped out of their height line, so as we were going by group and had dismissed the girls after they were supposed to be done. We had to go around getting the past groups to come back so that we could backtrack and get these short girls into a line. After the girls we merged the boys. The little boys who we needed to merge were completely crazy. One of them kept touching the water motor, which easily broken. I told him to stop at least 5 times even a teacher told him twice on Telugu incase he didn’t understand “no” and then once he stared right at me and touched it just to annoy me. I threatened him twice that if he touched it again I would have to beat him, even though I really hoped I would have to, but I finally had to slap the boy in the back. I didn't do it hard at all, but I felt so bad, however it didn’t faze the boy at all and he continued to touch the motor, I gave up. Then there was another boy that asked to go to the bathroom, which was fine, but then ten boys all decided that they also had to go. I just let them all go even though they were all giggling when they asked. After we finished I was exhausted. I told Lynne about slapping the boy on the back and how I didn’t want to ever have to do it again, but she said that it was going to happen again. The boys don’t respond to anything else. Hopefully that is not true. We just worked at the house for the rest of the day.
Today we worked at the house in the morning, We then went on the school bus home with the girls and measured them for nightie sizes so that when we go to the old city in the next couple of days we can get some for Christmas. I was really impressed with the amount of things they get for Christmas. The get brand new hand tailored to them clothes, belts for boys and nighties for girls, new school bags, pens, pencils, soap boxes, a special toy, a couple of other things. After we finished at H3 we walked over to H1 and Lynne found out that there were 7 huge bags of boys clothes that were unclaimed after laundry just sitting in the storage room, which understandably got her a little angry, because the boys often come crying to her that they have no clothes, so she tries to find them new ones, but all of this unclaimed clothing is just sitting there. Lynne, Jaypaul, and I sat for about an hour sorting through the clothes to see whether it was worth passing back out to the kids, if it needed new buttons, or needed to be stitched. We then had the older boys help figure out whose clothes they were. Before we could finish though, some very important men came to visit. They were training to be the top government officials, and if we could get them interested in Agape it could be invaluable, like getting grants for land, which is so incredibly expensive it is ridiculous. A plot just big enough for a house is over $200,000 without any building. The boys were very quiet I think because they were still scared about the fact that Lynne found all of those clothes. We then brought them over to the girls hostel, where they were much more lively. The talked mostly in Telugu, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but everyone seemed to be having a good time, which is good all around.

September 26, 2008
Things have been quite crazy. Yesterday after getting back late to host the guests the night before, a woman called and 8:30 in the morning to say that she was on her way to see Agape. She hadn’t never told Lynne or Ratnam that she was coming and just showed up expecting to be shown around. She was from the SSA department (the things I was working on for the Bridge program). Not only did she arrive early, but she would not leave. She stayed until 5pm, making Lynne and Ratnam starve until then for lunch and she expected to be served. It was really weird. Luckily I didn’t have to go with them, so I got a lot done at the house. Then after she left we went into the city to shop. Ratnam dropped Lynne and I off at the wholesale nightie shop to pick up the nighties for the girls Christmas presents. Unfortunately, they only had a couple of different colors and patterns, which doesn’t work with over 60 girls trying to figure out whose nightie is whose after they do the laundry. Also they didn’t have nearly enough, so we have to go back on Monday. While we were there though, I got two new nighties for under 5 dollars. We then went into the general bazaar. We dropped off our nightie bags at a plastic waller that Lynne knows really well because she buys all her plastic things there. She put a couple things on hold there and then we went shopping for clothes for Christmas and new years for Thanuja, Laxmi (as known as Srilatha Ratnam’s niece), Lynne, and even me, which was really nice of her. It took us a while before we found things that we liked and even when we did, they were too expensive. Finally we found a really nice pink Punjabi for Thanuja. We then went to another store, which seemed a little more upscale, but it was actually part of a chain of two other stores in the area we were in before. In there we found a couple of really nice tings, but we ended up getting a Punjabi for Lynne, which was nice. It was a bluish green plainish top and black pants with block printed pattern of the same color as the top. While we were checking out though, we saw a lighter green one that was basically the same idea except a different color and a different print on the pants. Lynne decided to get that one for me. I really like it. After that Ratnam picked us up from the bazaar and we went home. Ratnam had been picking up medicine for Agape kids and a ridiculous amount of diapers, but they do have three babies in the house and they are leaving for 6 weeks, so they need that many. On the way back Ratnam made a stop to pick up some Haleem for himself and me to try. It is a very weird type of food. It is the texture of like melted cheese that you eat with a spoon, but it has mutton in it and a lot of spices. I took a couple of bites and I tried to eat some more because it really appreciated that he got me some to try, but I couldn’t eat a lot. It was so heavy, and it had so many bones in it.
Today I stayed in my nighties until after lunch and just worked in the house trying o finish off odd jobs. There are so many things that are so close to being finished, but we have to wait on one thing that is holding the project up. After lunch Thanuja, Lynne and I headed off to Monda market, which is were Thanuja gets all her vegetables for meals. Hafeez was driving us in the ambulance because their little car has officially died. But when we got in, it wouldn’t start. Luckily the boys were still at school waiting for the bus to come back to take them home, so we got a couple of the big boys to push us so that we could start the car. Then about 5 km out Haffeez pull over and says that there is something really wrong with the car. He goes out to look under the hood and he literally pulls out the fan belt, which is completely shredded. He turns around and drops us at a road so that we can walk to a supermarket. We walked there and got a couple of things while Hafeez brought the car to the mechanics. On our way back from the shop we stopped at little place that served freshly made potato chips and other junk food. We actually saw a man making the chips and we got to take them from the fresh batch. They were really good. We took an auto back to the house. After we sat down and went through all the pictures Lynne pulled out for the calendar and did a first run through to cut the number because she had too many.