Other side of India

November 12, 2008
So this weekend was a lot of fun. It took a little time for the driver to find the house, but once he found it we headed back to TT’s apartment where I met his wife, Lakshmi and two boys. One is in 8th grade, Arvind, and the other is 2 and a half, Rakov. They are all very nice, but Rakov is a little shy so he hid from me most of the time. We had lunch and then the girl that is sort of Rakov’s nanny, who speaks very good English, and the lady that does the cleaning, took me to a market really close by where the craftsmen and women sell the things that they make. It was a really nice green area and I got a couple of nice things there. We then came back and got ready to go to the movies. I was a little unsure as to what they were going to wear so I packed everything. Luckily, I brought my jeans, because I would have felt a little funny walking around in my Punjabi while Lakshmi was in capris. TT, Lakshmi, Arvind, and I, all went to the movies. It was a little far away, but it was a nice IMAX theater. We had good seats and it was a fun movie. It is interesting though because apparently in every movie there is an intermission even though the movie was only 2 hours long. It wasn’t like other James Bond movies, since there was no “Bond, James Bond” and there were basically no gadgets, and there were a lot fistfights, unlike Bond’s usual one shot wonder. As TT said and the critics said the following morning, it was more like a Borne Identity movie. Nevertheless it was a good, entertaining movie. We came back to the house for a quick dinner and then I headed off to bed. It was a really nice room. Their apartment has two floors and is in a complex that has a “clubhouse” that has a swimming pool, a fitness center, badminton courts and basketball court. It was nice because it meant that Arvind had a lot of friends to hang out with. Sunday morning was very relaxing, I got a massage from a woman that comes to give Arvind one every week. It felt so good and I was very relaxed afterwards. We then just hung out for the rest of the morning. Rakov finally warmed up to me and we play hind and seek for a little while. We then went off to have lunch at a place called “Little Italy”. It was really, really good. It is an all you can eat gourmet buffet. They could make any kind of pasta for you and stir-fries and they had really good breads along with amazing appetizers. Also, their dessert were not half bad. I think I ate more in that one meal then I have in any one day since I have been here. We then went back for little while before I headed back to Uppal. It was really nice vacation to a different side of India. Monday I had to miss my first class because the power was out. I tutored math and then let them use the computers, however in the middle of my of that class, with 7th class, the power went out again. While we were waiting for the power to come back on they asked me questions about school in America. They asked if we took all the subjects they took, and they were surprised that we had social studies and science like they did. It was nice to talk to the older boys for a change. Finally we gave up and I went back to the house for a little. The power didn’t come back on until after lunch, but the kids were taking their unit tests. I got one more class in before the power went out again. And while we waited they asked me about the US election. After school I had 10th class try to do one of the writing sections from the 10th class exam from last year. The power was out for most of the rest of the day and it was a nice temperature outside, so Srilata, Laxmi, and Deepika had some running races while Thanuja and I took the kids. It was fun day, even though the power was out. I got to have a conversation with the older kids for a little while instead of just teaching them. And playing outside was quite fun also. But that didn’t last long. Yesterday, Hafeez took me into the city to help me pick up some things that Lynne had ordered for Christmas, which meant that I missed my morning classes and the kids were not that happy with me since I missed Saturday and the power was out the day before. Also, as soon as the first group started the typing program stopped working on two computers. I set one of the groups on another computer, but the others had to wait and a person came to tell me that the group’s computer wasn’t working every 5 minutes or so, which got me really frustrated since I was working on the other one. I decided that I needed a little quiet to figure out what was wrong with the programs so I closed the computer lab. I finally fixed the first one, but before I could fix the second I started to feel sick. I slept for a while and I felt a little better. This morning I felt even better, but am still not 100%. Today I finally got to have all my classes and I picked up some more of the dresses.