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It is night time in India. Geetha and I just finished watching Beauty and the Beast while Galen is over at the house watching Lord of the Rings (number 2) with the boys. The kids wait all week for the one night they are allowed to watch a movie. Tixon- for only being 28, not having had his own children and growing up in a boarding house- is a remarkably thoughtful father figure to the children has set up some rules that I think the children benefit from a lot. But it is night time here which means the noises in the trees outside our room have been reduced to a dull roar ( the birds can be pretty loud around here) the fans are whirring away, the wind causes our curtains to billow out and it has just begun to rain a beautiful orchestra of notes as it hits the tiles on the terrace. It has been raining nightly here which is a relief as it cools the night time down and allows us to sleep more peacefully. Today is my one saturday off with no workshop and Vanitha and I had big plans to go shopping in Pondi- however I feel terrible today and had a fever in the morning, so I realized that today had to be about recovering and I spent most of the day in bed watching West Wing episodes. Not very India-like but necessary. The week just flew by! I spent Wednesday morning visiting another school, Isai Amballam, and I will go back on Tuesday afternoon to hold a mini workshop with the teachers (at their request of course) on art and creativity- Deborah has already sent me some ideas which I am so thankful for!

Galen and Vanitha playing ball on an Sunday morning after idly for breakfast

I spent Monday morning walking through the village with Shankar and Amy and taking pics for a fundraiser in the UK for AIkiyam. Here is a little bit of what I wrote to my parents afterwards and some pics:

Yesterday I took photos of the village where most of the children that
go to Aikiyam School live for a fundraiser that is happening in the
UK. These children come from the poorest families in the village, it
is one of the pre-requisit for being accepted in the school. I just
wanted to send off some of these pics as it reminds me of how
important Aikiyam is to these children. School is a paradise, so clean
and beautiful and full of adults who take an active interest in them.
What a difference you can feel to walk from one side of the tar road,
where the village is and the children live, under the banyan trees to
where the school is.

The water source

A typical scene

Galen and I had a wonderful dinner with Amy, the new (new since the winter) administrator at Aikiyam and her friend Jason who lives at Sadhanna forrest. They have both been living in Auroville for 7 years and both came here by chance while backpacking around India- and somehow ended up staying. It was very interesting to talk with Americans who live here permanently and they are both fun, outgoing people.

A lot of my Thursday and Friday was taken up with trying to figure out why Geetha has been so sick. I took her to the health clinic on both days, checked up on her through out the day, and bought her some healthy food such as yogurt and kombucha. Finally on Friday afternoon the doctor told me that she needed to be taken to the hospital to see a specialist. So I called Tixon. I went even though I was not needed simply because Geetha really wanted me to go- so I served as the emotional support for her. Tixon and Janaki also came. PIMS- which is the hospital we went to is a teaching college also, so it is on a large campus, and the buildings are quite large and impressive from the outside. We went to the ER and were immediately shuttled through the doors into a room with only 4 beds with patients lieing on them. Geetha answered some questions by the nurse and then was told to sit on one of the empty beds while we waited for the doctor. There are no chairs and no waiting area so we all stood around (I finally sat on the bed with Geetha as I was too tired to stand) for about an hour waiting. While we were waiting an old woman was rushed in and immediately put on an IV and hooked up to a heart monitor. There is very little space between the beds so you can pretty much see whats going on everywhere even though they have very flimsy plastic curtains trying to separate them. After about an hour the doctor seemed to be coming to us when a man was brought in screaming- Tixon told me that he had been bitten by a poisinous wasp. The doctor rushed to help him. After getting that under control she turned to Geetha. She took a very detailed account of Geetha’s symptoms and told Tixon to leave and then tried to examine Geetha. Geetha did not like this so Janaki and I coached her through it and through having her blood drawn and other procedures- it turned out I was useful to some extent as Geetha definitely needed someone to be calm and hold her hand and tell her everything was normal. After all the tests had been done we were told to wait for the results. As the bed had been given away to someone else we went out side the ER and sat on a wall. Apparently this is quite normal as frequently doctors would come to the door and call someone’s name out and then that person would jump up and go inside. So apparently there is a waiting room- its just the wall outside. We ate peannuts and biscuits and drank coffee and sang songs and Tixon told me about the trip he and Vanitha went on that year for about 2 hours waiting before they told us that nothing had shown up, to go home and bring her back in the a.m. for a catskan. It turned out the next day that Geetha has kidney stones. I am quite happy that they figured it out finally- and the trip to the ER was just another experience in India.

This Thursday, JUly 28, was a momentous day for Galen and I for 2 reasons. The first being that in one year (July 28, 2012) we will be getting married. The other is that it marked the half way point for me on the trip. I have been trying not to let it send me into panic mode as I think of all I have to do at the school, and all I want to do before I leave, and wondering if I have enough time to spend with all the people here that I love, and when will I come back? On the other hand- I AM excited for arriving back in the US. It feels better I think knowing what to expect, my friends, my job – which I do love- our families- and we have quite a few exciting things that will be happening when we arrive back. Sarah, Uri and their kids will be there. Going to visit my parents in the beautiful Vermont summer weather, Haywood and Diana’s dinner party to celebrate their marriage…But esepcially with how fast the last week went by, I know that I have to just take each day and each moment for what it is.

Book club with 6th graders- happening on Tuesday mornings!

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