Eugene's School

While we were in Lucknow, Eugene had told us about her school, which has nursery school through 10th grade. Most of the students are Hindus and the school sees itself as an instrument of social change. I asked her specifically what kind of social change she meant, and she answered, "Particularly in the status of women." She said they try to teach the girls that the dowry system is wrong and that they should have some choices in their lives. They also teach sex education and AIDS prevention. I was amazed. "What about birth control, how do you deal with that?" I asked. She said they teach it. A couple of years ago they began to bring a woman physician in to teach AIDS prevention, and they kind of figured that the children (don't know what grade) were pretty innocent and they'd have to go slow. The doctor came back after speaking with the kids and said "They're not innocent. They know about everything." So, according to Eugene, they cover the whole subject.

Eugene talked a lot about the frustrations of running a school. She had to fire a teacher once, because the teacher was giving her students questions in advance to a standardized test. Then she also tried to tamper with the answer sheets. That was 4 years ago, and even though the teacher is not there anymore, it isn't over yet. It has involved at lot of effort and time, multiple layers of proof and bureaucracy, and will wind up in a court case which the school could lose. Eugene isn't sure that she would do it again, and she offered it as a symbol of why wrong-doing is so rarely punished in India. The school was only authorized for 10 grades, and they wanted to expand to 12 (11 and 12 are considered Junior College). This involved a visit from an abusive inspector from Indian Administrative Services (IAS). Normally the IAS are the elite of the bureaucracy, polished and sophisticated people who grease the wheels of the Indian government. Why this man was such a jerk is unknown, maybe he had somehow slipped into the IAS by unconventional means. The man was so bad that the other IAS officer who came with him took Eugene aside and apologized for his behavior but he could not initiate a complaint against the man because that might have a negative effect on his career at some point. Eugene and her colleagues also decided not to complain because it could backfire. The man wrote a negative report which demanded some conditions that the school could possibly meet before he would certify them for the higher grades. Later that year, the school had its annual school day, something every school has, which involves a parade and prizes for the best students in many categories including sports. All of the parents come too, and there is a guest of honor. This year they invited a high official in the education department. He was most impressed by the school and wanted to know why they didn't have the higher grades. Eugene explained and he said "Don't worry, I'll take care of it," and that very day, in his speech to the parents, he announced that the school would expand to the 12th grade.

We arrived in Dehli in the early afternoon and didn't have to wait very long at the airport. We took a pre-paid cab for a 45 minute cab ride to the convent at 140 Rs, although the cab driver tried to demand more money when we got there. The air seemed better than it was when we arrived in the evening last time. We drove past small, walled country estates, belonging to rich Dehlites. There's some sort of tax dodge involved with these, because they have to pretend to be working farms. Finally, we turned off a main road, the watchman opened the gates, and we were in another large compound, containing a large dirt schoolyard with a multi-storied school on the left. The road ended in a yard in front of a large two-storied convent.

The convent was relatively new, probably built in the last 15 years, masonry, of course, with high ceilings and a lot of light. At the convent we had a large downstairs room, probably 1 1/2 times the size of our bedroom at home. We had our own bathroom but the hot water wasn't hooked to the shower there either. We slept on twin cots with thin mattresses pushed together. There was a built-in closet on the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom. It was a little bit chilly indoors, but with warm thick quilts at night, and extra sweaters during the day, it was not uncomfortable.

Most of the time there it is very, very hot and power fails regularly. Eugene told us a story about that. There is a famous Indian writer name Khushwant Singh. Well, Khushwant Singh has done what I kind of do on the internet, which is collect jokes that people send him. Only he publishes them in a series of paperback books, called "Khushwant Singh's Joke Books." We bought one to read at the Delhi airport after my lap top battery died, and wondered if the jokes would be too racy for Eugene. Anyway, one summer it was really hot and the power was out so there wasn't even a fan. The sisters were absolutely losing their minds. Finally to keep from going crazy they sat down on the cement floor and took turns reading jokes to each other from a Khushwant Singh Joke Book.

Downstairs there is also a chapel, a dining room, and the kitchen. All of the silverware is kept in sealed containers because it is so dusty there. It amazes me, in retrospect, that I always approach these places on a need-to-know basis. There were more rooms beyond the kitchen but I never went past there and never found out what they were. Upstairs, were the nun's rooms. Eugene showed me her room, which was about 10 X12, with a bed, a small desk with a lot of things piled on it, and a built-in closet. She had her own bathroom. She showed me the sisters' sitting room and their library which filled a closet and had quite a respectable number of soft back books on a broad range of spiritual and self-help topics. They also had a washing machine and Eugene generously did our laundry, once power came back on.

We were served lunch on our arrival and then, after getting settled we decided to go out and explore. We had our last roll of film in the camera (the one that we lost) and we needed some more. The convent is on a main road and half a block from the market area. If anything, this market area was more densely packed than any I had been to before, or maybe the dirt road made it seem that way. It was the usual arrangement of permanent small shops, and then about 5 feet in front of them and about 5 feet apart, vendors with carts, on both sides of the street, with dense traffic and an occasional cow or dog in between. There were a lot of women in saris with their children and a lot of young boys out by themselves. There were no young girls out by themselves. The egg man was interesting. Clearly he was the egg man, since he had eggs piled on his cart. But, he actually sold cooked eggs. He had a small stove on the cart and I guess after people told him how they wanted their eggs, he made them, and they ate them right there. Another kind of street food involves called panni puri involves small puris (crisp fried puffed chapatis about 2 inches in diameter). The top of the puff is broken and the vendor puts some spicy garbanzo beans in it. Then, a watery tamarind sauce is ladled into it. You pop the whole thing into your mouth. If you try to nibble on it, you will create a huge mess. Vally coveted panni puri, but last time he was in India and had some on the street he became horribly sick, so he had no trouble resisting. Most of the rest of the street vendors were selling produce, usually one variety per stand. We saw apples, oranges, guavas, chikoos, chili peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers and string beans. There were also chai stands. We bought some chikoos. I can't remember if I explained what they were, although I know I did in the Mexico letters, s once again. They grow on trees. They look like kiwis, except they are smaller and more elongated. They have a thin skin which feels like slightly stiff suede. You can peel them and eat them or cut them and eat inside the peel. The flesh inside is soft, like a very ripe peach, and a light caramel brown but not juicy. There are two dark seeds inside, very shiny and about 5 times the size of a watermelon seed. The taste is somewhat sweet and rich. I wish we could get them here.

We found some film and then returned to the convent. I think we had chai at that point. They put a little bit of grated ginger in the milk when they made the chai and it was fantastic. Eugene wanted us to meet a friend of hers, a former nun, who now runs a school for rag pickers at the YMCA. When she said this, I suddenly understood about the little boy I had just seen in the market who was picking up plastic bags, and pieces of cardboard. The children work all day and Eugene's friend runs a school for them at night. We also wanted to try to find some Larium. Larium is the current favorite of malaria-preventive drugs. It was one of the things that Vally had forgotten to pack when he was in Bombay. Eugene knew where the chemists's shops were, so we followed her. The shops were exactly like in the south, with their counter next to the street. Unfortunately, we were not sure of the generic name of Larium-something like methylquinine. We stopped at 3 different chemists. None of them had every heard of Larium, and all they had was the older, less effective form of the drug. One very kind and helpful chemist had a battered drug reference book, at least 6 years old, where he attempted to look it up. I knew if wouldn't be there. In the end we decided to wait two more days 'til we got back to Bombay and take the Larium then-we hadn't been bitten that much.

We decided to take a bicycle rickshaw to the YMCA. The charge was 10 Rs for both of us, and Eugene paid 7 Rs for her single-passenger ride. Once again, as in Nagpur,I felt much safer in the rick. No need to dodge the cows, the people, the goats, the bikes the scooters, the cars, the autoricks and the other bike ricks. It was the driver's problem and I trusted him to solve it. Nothing bad happened, although there were many tight squeezes and we almost hit a cow and one wheel of the rick almost fell into an open sewer. The slippery seat sloped downhill so badly that we wound up sitting on the seat back. Unfortunately, Eugene's friend was not there, and we never did get to meet her. We heard later that she was very disappointed that she missed us. We took another bicycle rick back to the convent and then had to wait for Eugene to get back too because Vally didn't have enough 1 Rs coins to pay the driver, and the driver had no change.

After dinner, we went out to see the camels and take pictures of them (I really wish that roll would turn up!). We had seen the camels on the way in. They are enormous! I think that my head comes to the top of on of their legs. They are used to pull wagons loaded with animal fodder, chopped sugar cane and wheat stalks, out to the country. The loads are huge. Picture an enormous, muffin, 10X12 at the bottom and maybe 15 feet high at the top, the whole thing wrapped in either burlap or blue plastic and loaded on a wheeled wooden cart and pulled by an enormous male camel. Sometimes we would see the same load being pulled by a tractor. We walked through the evening dust and smoke to where the camel trucks load. Some camels were tied up in an empty lot with their drivers nearby. We were warned not to get too close. We took pictures (same roll!). I had the sense that the drivers and the camels were somehow equal in their stupidity and brutality, and the phrase "mutual combat" came to mind.

We saw another unique thing in Najafgarh. The cauliflower trucks. They carry cauliflower pyramids. Somehow, they pile the cauliflowers up, face down, in the pick up, and hat they wind up with a load that is maybe a dozen cauliflowers wide at the base, and maybe 20 cauliflowers high. They don't tie it down at all, despite the bumpy roads. And the cauliflowers don't fall off either.

We returned and went to bed, luxuriating in the incredible hospitality that we had been shown and were being shown. Although we were always surround by surrogate Indian mothers trying to stuff us with food, we always felt comfortable and welcomed.