Finally Back up

Hello everyone,

I am sorry it has been forever since I updated. I have not been able to get onto the internet for over a week. It just got fixed and hopefully for good. So here is a very very long post.

September 11, 2008
Yesterday was not all that exciting. Lynne and Ratnam went into the city to work on some things so I stayed home and worked on the medical records all day. By 5 o’clock I had finished all of them that I had so far. I then went over and played with the kids, but they were all going a little crazy, there was a point at which James screamed for about 10 minutes straight because Srilatha (Ratnam’s niece) who is living with them went into the kitchen to help Thanuja cook. We thought that maybe it would be good to let him cry for a while so he doesn’t think he can just cry and get whatever he wants, but after 10 minutes none of us could take it, and James’s screaming made Luke and Sweetie start screaming. We finally calmed them all down. Today, Lynne, Ratnam, Thanuja, and I all when into the city to start to pack up the flat. They finalized the lease agreement with the people that are renting them the new house, and we went out to lunch. The house they decided on is quite nice. It has two floors and 4 bedrooms and a big kitchen. It is in a little bit of a sketchy area because there is a slum behind it, but they call a neighbor that they happen to know from their church who says that no one has ever had a problem. Packing up was a little daunting. None of us really knew where to start. After packing for a little while we went out to lunch at a very nice restaurant. The food was quite good, but it was really spicy. It pretty much poured the whole day, both on our way to the city and on the way home. The way home made it a little difficult to unload things into the house, but it worked out ok.

September 12, 2008
Today was very cool. I got to go to the hospital with one of the kids for their ARV checkup. Jaypul, an Agape employee, who speaks very good English, took me and K. Prashanth a 12 year old, HIV positive boy, to the hospital. Usually, a whole bunch of kids go together in the van to the nice, new Gandhi hospital for their regular check up and to get their supply of medicine, but because K. Prashanth was on ARV medication before coming to Agape and went to this older hospital he has to continue to go to the same hospital, so that the doctors can keep track of him and know that he is still taking his medication. We went by auto to the hospital, which took a little over a half an hour. Because of the amount of rain from yesterday and last night many things were flooded, there was one point at which one side of the road was so full of water that the cars had really trouble going through it, and so many just came on to the other side to go around it. There was also a lake that over flowed into a slum, so there were a bunch of people all standing on the side of the road without anywhere to go. Also on the way there were a lot of Ganesh statues. Since I have been here it has been a festival for the Hindus in which they create these big structures to hold their families Ganesh statue, which they decorate. On the third, fifth, ninth, or eleventh day, they through the Ganesh statues into the huge lake between Secundrabad and Hyderabad. They have huge cranes to throw the big ones in. When they are about to go to the lake they bang these drums and dance around to celebrate. I think today is one of the last days, so all the rest have to be thrown in soon. We saw one last night, where they were taking their Ganesh to the lake and were dancing around, but when the statue came out it was only the size of a Barbie doll. Some are huge and some are tiny, but they all get the same huge celebration. When we got to the hospital, we went up to the second floor, and Prashanth led the way as if he had been there a million times, (which is not far off, since they have to go every month). We got a door that had ARV written above it and we went in. There were about 20 people waiting in the waiting room. Prashanth went up the desk and handed them his journal type book to the woman behind the desk and then we all sat down. The waiting room was not big, but there was enough room for everyone to have a seat, and not have to sit too close to anyone else. There were benches that went all the way around the room. Off to one side there were a couple of counseling rooms for people that are just about to start ARV. Jaypul was telling me that the counselors are also HIV positive and they talk about the seriousness of the disease. They also talk about protecting themselves and others. After waiting about 20 minutes, Prashanth was called. They gave him back his book and gave him his chart that they keep on file. We then went back and waited another 5 minutes before we went into this other room, were Prashanth had his weight taken and these men signed him off. We then went back into the waiting room where we waited to get into this tiny room were it was literally just a man and a desk and a couple of boxes. When Prashanth got to the front the guy wrote down Prashanth’s name, Prashanth signed, and the man gave him his free month supply of medication. We were done with in 40 minutes, which I was impressed by. While we were there we ran into a girl who has a sister at hostel 3. The girl was still living with the mother to help her get her medication. The mother came in just as we were leaving; she looked very sick and so incredibly skinny it was scary. We then left, caught another auto and headed back. On the way we came to the place where the water was too high to drive through. They had now blocked it off. Their solution was to take the water out by shooting it out on to the other side of the road, which was a little strange. We then had to go through another flooded area where both sides were flooded. Our auto made it through, but another one stalled in the water and both the passengers and the driver got out into the ankle deep water and pushed the auto until it was out of the water. Luckily we made it back to the house without any more excitement. At around 3 Jaypaul picked me back up and we took an auto to Lynne’s house so that I could help pack, and Jaypaul left.

September 14, 2008
Friday was spent helping pack pretty much all day. Saturday, Lynne gave me the day off from packing, since the kids had a day off from school since they had had exams all week. Because the kids were out of school I went to each hostel and a drawing competition for the front of the holiday card. Also because the kids were out of school, Lynne asked the older girls and boys if they wanted to help her move and a bunch volunteered. She took four girls and four boys. One thing that went a little crazy was that the school bus didn’t get the message that there was not school, so the boys from hostel 1 arrived and all the teachers were in meetings. It worked to my benefit though, because I got to see Ratnam’s weekly checks to make sure that they had no medical complaints and that they are washing well enough. I then went back on the school bus with boys, and met Jaypaul there, who was assigned to be my translator. It stopped at hostel 3 and Jaypaul and I got out to get the supplies for the project then we hopped back on the bus and went to H1. We got organized, and Jaypaul set the kids up so they would have space to draw. Because last year when I was doing the thank you letters everyone copied pictures out of their schoolbooks, I had to give them options of what to draw, like their hostel, the school, the school bus, or their friends. Most got the idea, though some still copied things out of their school books. One boy started to copy a lion, but luckily I saw him before he drew too much and re-explained it to him. Even those that got the idea, had the problem of drawing everything I suggested on one page, which meant every thing was too small and it was very cluttered. After each boy had finished I gave him a dum-dum, and then I headed off to H3. It was pretty much the same drill there, and the same problems. After, Jaypaul and I had lunch there. The girls were very excited and they all wanted me to sit with them. We had lunch and then we took and auto to H2. When we arrived the kids were so cute. They started singing and dancing that I had come, reinforcing my opinion that H2 is the best. That were all so incredibly happy. We had the same drill of the project, but there were a lot fewer kids copying from schoolbooks, which was good, because some of the drawings were really nice. They really got the idea. Jaypaul them brought me back to the house were I got to relax, so I read my book. Today was spent packing the whole day. We got up early to start, we picked up the girls and boys again, because there is no school on Sunday, and we set off to pack. We packed from 10am to 10pm, it is really close to being finished. Just a couple more hours tomorrow and them we are done. Everyone was so tired, but on the way back we went to go see the final day of Ganesh, where they drop all the huge ones with the Cranes. It was completely crazy. There was so much noise and so many people and so many Ganesh figures. All the kids were really excited to get to see it for the first time, and I was too. We forgot about being tired for a while. We then drove back to the house and the girls slept on my side and they slept on the other, so that the little girls and boys at H1 & 3 wouldn’t wake them up at 5:30am, since we finally got to sleep at around 1am.

September 17, 2008
Monday we finished packing. I thought it would only take an hour or two, but it took over five, but we finished and we got back a lot earlier than the night before. Since we got back early (and by early I mean 8pm). We ate and then Ratnam, Lynne, and I watch a movie called “Because I Said So”, which they both had seen but I hadn’t and they really liked it, so we watched it. It was very cute. It is funny cause I think Ratnam is the only guy I know that really likes chick flicks. Also they have the most amazing DVD collection, it was kind of ridiculous for the amount of time they have to lounge around and watch a movie, but they are good movies so I not complaining. Ratnam got out his LCD projector and we watched it on a wall on my side. Yesterday we tried to catch up on everything that went on hold while we were packing, so we finally took the invitations and the sponsor cards to the printers. We also made a stop at the bank. On our way from the bank to the printers we made a stop at a very nice coffee shop. We sat down in such a way that I had my back to the windows, and I looked exactly like America. They were playing American music, there was no Telugu anywhere, and while we were in there four girls a little younger than me came in athletic gear, like shorts and t-shirts, which is definitely not acceptable in many places in the city. India is the opposite of America; the wealthier you are the more casual you can be. At the coffee shop we each ordered a coffee frappe type drink. Mine was amazing it had vanilla ice cream blended with coffee and chocolate fudge and in addition they had an extra scoop of ice cream in it. It cost about 2 dollars, which is very good by our standards considering if Starbucks made something like that it would be like 7 dollars, but 2 dollars is more than some people make in one day even if they work the whole day, which is really sad. After that we went to the printers, which was a fairly small operation and if you didn’t know exactly where it was you never would have found it, but we went upstairs to a room full of computers, a mix of Macs and PC, which was the first time I had seen an apple computer besides mine in India. A guy set up the things I created in a way so that the printers down stairs would know what size to print and which fronts go with which backs for double sided printing. We then went back, but it was early again (8pm) so we went to H2 & 4 to play with the kids for a little while, and Ratnam did his check to make sure that the kids were all washing well and had no health problems. He checks hostel 2 and 4 more often then the other hostels obviously because they are HIV positive hostels. I first went to H4 ,which is the girls, and they were very excited to see me. Ch. Renuka, the girl I sponsor and I talked for a while and she showed me the letters she had kept from Mom and Dad and she had a picture of Dad, which was funny. A bunch of other girls came around and then started testing me on my Telugu, which I did pretty well considering. After that I went over to the boys side and they were just as excited to see me, if not more excited. I picked up Deepak, the boy that is in the picture that everyone has seen with him sitting in my lap, and then all the others wanted to be picked up. Finally I got too tired and I sat down and all of them tried to sit on my lap at once and I think that seven fit, but one had an incredibly boney but that was going right into my quad which was cute painful. Also everyone is very all the kids are very interested in my sports watch. They have seen many watches, but for some reason this one is really exciting for them because they can press a bunch of buttons. They also think that since it is an American watch, it has to say what time it is in America and not in India. After hanging out that for a while, we came back to find that James had some kind of allergic reaction or something. He had welts all over his body that looked sort of like bug bites, but they were everywhere, but he didn’t eat anything unusual, and he had a fever, which made the diagnosis very suspicious. Ratnam drove back to H2 to get some medication for James, so by the time James got the medication and went to bed, we started to eat dinner at 11:15. After dinner I went straight to bed. Today I did pretty much nothing. Thanuja had to go to the market and all the girls staying here went to school, so we had to stay home for the babies. We were about to so something, but then I started to get sick, Nothing serious, just motions and nausea. Ratnam gave me some medicine and I am starting to feel better already.


September 19, 2008
Yesterday, I spent the whole day at the office working on the things that Lena hade worked on while she was there called SSA. SSA is a letter to the government with some of the recites so that Agape can get a little money from the Indian government. The only reason that they give some money is because of a school program called Bridge classes. Agape has Bridge I which helps kids who have never gone to school to get all the way up to a third grade level in one year. And Bridge II gets a kid from 3rd grade to 6th in just one year. The government gives some money to everyone that has this program. What I had to was separate the recites by category for each month since April, such as food, medical expenses, cleaning supplies like shampoo and soap, supplies, rent, electricity, and even hair cutting. There have to be just enough recites to fulfill the minimum number that is stated on the request sheet. There are a huge number of recites that are not included because the government is only paying for the approximate 100 children in the Bridge classes and Lynne spends a little more per child that the national average on things like she pays a little more on rice for the kids because the other stuff is like mush, so the government only helps a little, but it is better than nothing. I then photocopied every recite that was being given to the government because they never give them back. After I finished that I tried to go online but it has been a complete nightmare. At the beginning we had internet at both the school and the office, but the school box blew a fuse and the office is so incredibly flakey We tried pretty much the whole day at the office to get on and I got on for about 5 minutes and Lynne just barely got on for 5. Also today Lynne had to go into the city with Ratnam to register their new vehicle that was donated to them by Lynne’s old boss. It is a nice mini-van, which will be good if they every want to take the babies anywhere. It turned out that the registration was a little more complicated than they expected, but they worked it out. The only problem is that no one is really feeling comfortable driving it. Their old driver, who now does a lot of things for Agape is to afraid to ruin it, and Ratnam too. Lynne is not scared to drive it, but the insurance isn’t covering her because she doesn’t have an Indian license, only an American one, so if she were to crash they wouldn’t pay, so until Lynne gets her license or they get over their fear of scratching it, it is going to stay parked. Just before we left to go back home, the boys had gotten back their marks from their unit exams. One boy in particular, Lynne had found out was basically failing every subject, and she had him show her. At first I felt really bad for the boy because she was openly talking about his bad grade in front of everyone else, but she then went through every grade asking their scores on math and science. I guess Lynne does have to be their mother that talks about how to improve. She paired up some of the struggling boys with some of the boys that were doing well so that they could help. After a while though, it seem that it wasn’t all the kids fault it was more the teachers, who really were not teach, but just reading from the book, or going way to fast and then the boys could not keep up which is really bad for math since everything go on top of each other. So on the way back I suggested that I hold a tutoring session for math while the boys are waiting for the bus to come back from dropping the girls.
Today, we did a lot we grouped the boys by size so that when the tailor come to measure to make the boys Christmas clothes and uniforms, he can just measure the middle boy in each group and they don’t have to measure each boy individually. Then we started to film the new Agape video. I filmed the kids on the bus and we got some of the kids playing at H2, which was fun. We then cleaned up the playroom so that we could do some more shooting tomorrow. We then got to relax for the rest of the day and I am going to bed early.


September 20, 2008
Today, Thanuja came and told me that I was going to ARV with the kids today. I was really excited, but that meant that our plans of grouping the girls for the tailors and shooting some more of the video was gone until Monday. I had to move quickly, so I took a bath, and checked my hair lice (or pelue as they call it). Luckily I was clear, but Luke and two of the girls staying at the house helping have lice, so it is only a matter of time. Jaypaul picked me up with the kids already in the ambulance, Lynne and my normal form of transportation up until yesterday when Ratnam got the little car back from the shop. There were 7 kids going for ARV and one negative boy go to get his eye checked out. This time we went to Gandhi hospital, which is the newer one, and is huge. There were a tone of buses, autos, and two wheelers outside, however when we got inside there were not huge hoards of people. Jaypaul had to take Sai Kumar the negative boy to get checked in, so I sat with the positive kids. It was fun because they are the youngest group on ARV and they are all doing really well: Ravali 11, Madhavi 7, Deepak 3, Chitti 8, Naga Rani 5, Shankar 12, and Shravanti 12. It was pretty much the same deal, except that the doctor was there to talk to the kids to see if there were any problems. Deepak charmed everyone, and everyone in the ARV section wanted to pick him up. It also seem that there were a lot more literate people at this clinic, because they were wearing nicer clothes and a lot of then tried to talk to me in English. We again got through a lot faster than I had expected. It only took about 2 hours total including driving there and back. It meant that I got back right as lunch was starting for the kids, so Lynne and I grouped the girls, as we had done with the boys yesterday, after lunch. Then Ratnam, Lynne and I went into the city to find a calendar that Lynne had bought in 2003, which she loved and wanted to create something like it with pictures from all over India and the kids to give as gifts at the benefit. We had to go to Mahindrah Hills, which is were their new house is to look though the boxes incase it was sent there instead of being brought back to Uppal. Our search was unsuccessful, but we got some other things at eh house and while we were in the city, so it wasn’t a complete waste of a trip. We then came back and tried to eat dinner as soon as we could so that everyone, including the kids staying at the house, Thanuja, Laxmi and every the babies (who were supposed to fall asleep) watched this big award winning Telugu film called Happy Days. It was cute. It had English subtitles, which was very good. The film was about a group of college students in Hyderabad and about their relationships.


September 21, 2008
Today we got up super early to go film. Because my watch alarm is so unreliable, at four I woke up because I was worried about sleeping through my alarm at 5:30 I tried to go back to bed at 4 but it didn’t really work. I got ready to go with the camera, tripod and everything and we headed of to H3 to get the girls waking up. That worked out ok and we went over to H1 to film the boys having breakfast. It was going well until all of a sudden we were down to one bar of battery even though the night before their had been four. With in about 5 minutes the battery died and we didn’t have a spare. We were very bummed, but we went back to H3 had breakfast with the girls and then went back to the house to charge the battery. We took baths at relax for a little and then we went back to film the boys having lunch. I finished that, but then it was flashing that I had a total of 2 minutes left on the tape, but I wasn’t worried because I had seen another one in the bag that was still in a case. We went back to the care to go to H2 do some filming there and I tied to switched the tape, but the new one I put in was completely full also, meaning we had not tapes left. We went back to the house even more frustrated, but we hoped that there were maybe some more in the house. We search for a while but there were none and we figured that they had to be back in Mahindrah Hills. We were too tired nd annoyed to go back today, so we decided we would go tomorrow. We got into our nighties and started watching a movie, but half way though we lost power. Loosing power is not unusual, but usually it comes back with in a half an hour. We were with out power for over 4 hours. The house got so hot and it was just unpleasant. To make matters worse was that today was supposed to be a special dinner of pizza, but unlike everything else that could have been made, it needed the oven, which runs on electricity. We couldn’t have dinner until the power came back on for at least half an hour. Every so often we would get teased by the power coming back on for a minute, but then it would go off. Finally at around 9:30 the power came back on and we got to eat. The pizza was really good, nice and thin. I then went off to bed.