We were up early on Monday morning, ate breakfast, and then met everyone for our group photo and a meeting with the Program Director, Mrs. Bela Singh. Bela started this Delhi program in 1995. She saw visitors coming to India, spending a few days taking photos of the Taj Mahal and leaving without understanding anything about the Indian culture. She decided that there should be a better way for tourists to come and understand the complexities of her country – thus the birth of Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS). Bela then gave us insights into social values, etiquette and expectations from the staff and our placements. This discussion was followed by a fascinating and informative talk by Professor A.K. Ray, a former head of the political history department at Jawaharlal Nehru University; he gave us a cursory, but candid, overview of India’s 5000 year history and the importance of knowing this history in light of current social structure.
After the talks, they surprised us by taking us to a wonderful restaurant for lunch. We were served many Indian vegetarian foods; we were delighted that every dish was one we learned about in our Hindi class. After lunch, we went on a shopping trip for the women (although all the guys tagged along). We went to a shop selling the traditional clothes that we must wear at our placement – the kameez (long top with split sides), salwar (there are two types of pants: tight and incredibly baggy – I chose door #2), and dupatta (long scarf that I’m sure will strangle me or get caught in every door). See photo!! I only bought two tops, one pair of pants and one scarf to start. I plan on shopping some more. Harold bought a traditional white shirt, too. We then took a walk around the outside of the apartment complex and experienced Indian rush hour traffic – horrific! We are going to record the sights and sounds one evening. We had dinner, chatted with some of the other volunteers and got ready for our first day at placement!
I feel like I could write a book about our day today, Tuesday. We rose early and met our driver for the ride to our placement. After a 25 minute ride, the road that led to the placement passed some very nice houses then turned to gravel and was adorned with a dead cow. Welcome to Hindu dominated India. Mr. Ravi Kalra is a dynamic social activist who gave up his corporate job and all his money about 2.5 years ago to start an organization called “The Earth Saviours Foundation.” His organization addresses many humanitarian concerns: fighting noise pollution through an anti-honking campaign; running a charitable old age home for needy senior citizens; organizing blood donation camps; campaigns for the care of stray cows; efforts to control the use of wood for cremation; efforts to improve the quality of drinking water; and, finally, our placement, running a charitable day school for underprivileged children. Many of these children come from the homes of migrant workers. They don’t have a permanent home so the children cannot go to school. Mr. Kalra goes out in his car and rounds them up – most are begging in the streets. He is providing an education for them from 9 AM – 2 PM, Monday through Saturday. He also provides a nutritious breakfast and lunch. He would like to expand this to a boarding school someday. The school and old age home are located on a farm which someone has rented to him. There are caged goats, mice and birds which the children care for. There is a big center field surrounded by temporary buildings where the classes are taught. The buildings are only cut poles lashed together and roofed with corrugated plastic sheets. The children are divided into two groups: the little ones (ranging from about one year to five years old) and the older group (ranging up to about 12 years old). Harold and I are working together with the little ones and the other volunteer with us is with the older ones. We sang, colored and played games today. When we left we were told to cover teaching the numbers 1-20 and the letters A-D for tomorrow. We spent about 1.5 hours preparing our lesson plans. We got back to CCS tired, sweaty and hungry. A great first day!
After lunch, we had a Hindi lesson, then a kind of scavenger hunt. Each group of three was given a task: buy some groceries at a market, find out about the phone system in India, visit a travel agent and get prices for a weekend trip, buy the bread, cheese, tomatoes to make 10 sandwiches and give them out (this was my task and I was amazed that everyone to whom we offered a sandwich smiled and said yes – try that in the U.S. – a foreigner walks up to you and offers you food), find out about an upcoming festival (Harold’s task – a woman explained the entire ritual and invited them all to attend with her next week). We then had another delicious dinner and we are getting ready for another day.
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| Carol in her Salwaar, Kameez and Dupatta |
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