Who Would've Ever Thought?

Since we got to Dubai, Nate has talked about traveling to India.  My wealth of knowledge about the country came from episodes of Amazing Race where they are rushing through incredibly crowded, garbage strewn streets, and the infamous Delhi Belly that plagues many visitors.  So when an opportunity for me to travel to Delhi came up, of course my initial reaction was "No Way!"  But the temptation to go off on my own for a few days, and help with the Sr. Fine Arts (choir, band, drama, art) kids was also there in the back of my mind.  

With a little organization of childcare for the weekend, support from Nate and a few rehearsals with the singers I was supervising (and a lot of help from our choir teacher) I was off.  The theme for the weekend was Bollywood and it turned out pretty cool.  For the art students, they had a real Bollywood sign painter do some demonstrations for them, as well as painting a huge sign for the school.  

It was so green there, and a bit chilly, kind of like the weather in Spain, so a nice change from Dubai.  I guess a big rain storm a few days before our arrival had cleared up the air, so we were lucky to not have to taste it.  I will say the smell of India is not that awesome though - kind of like that whiff of sewer smell you get every once in awhile, but it's kind of everywhere there - as was the garbage on the streets, and cacophonous horns from all the cars, buses, trucks and tuk tuks on the roads.

After our first morning of rehearsals, we took a field trip to Humayun's Tomb - apparently the Taj Mahal is modeled after this tomb.  On our drive, we saw some of what I expected in India - shantytowns, small and large.  One park was pretty much taken over by tents and shelters, and there were small groupings or individual shelters scattered on the roadside.  As we drove back and forth to the school from our hotel, we also saw little families huddled around fires on the sidewalks, and even a mom trying to give her toddler a sort of bath with breakfast as he sat, half dressed on a wooden cart.  (at 7:30 am, with temperatures around 45 degrees)  I thought about trying to take a picture of any of these things, but it just didn't feel right to be snapping photos of their struggle to survive.  Anyway...

Wild-life encounters:  monkeys!  One street we drove down was completely over-run by monkeys, and another teacher was out for a walk with a friend who lives in India, and unfortunately got pooped on by one.  Gross.  Of course he loved telling and re-telling the story multiple times though.  One man was riding his horse through all the traffic, just trotting along, and another bus of our students saw an elephant being ridden down the street under the freeway.  Crazy!  Of course there were stray dogs everywhere too.  And not exactly wild-life, but we drove past what initially looked like a bus stop with those old white enamel drinking fountains, but something about them wasn't quite right, so on our return trip I looked a little closer, and realized, yep, those are public urinals.  A man was making use of one as we drove past.

Bangura dancing demo & lesson - all the kids got a lesson in the local style of dancing, and added some to the finale number of the concert.  The art kids took a photo of themselves in Indian costume, and then drew self portraits - they turned out so cool.

My very amateur video of the band and choir concert's Bollywood finale won't upload, but the compilation of popular movie tunes turned out to be pretty cool.  When we were trying to learn it back in Dubai, the Hindi words and super fast tempo had us all nervous for how it would end up.  I got to meet some fun teachers from other schools in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman, and read a couple of books while the kids rehearsed, then hear the cool final concert.  I also ate some delicious Indian food - and knowing me and my food issues, who would have ever thought it?!