Final days

Eight days since I last updated, and I won't bother with the usual apologies
- suffice it to say that I kept telling myself to post but just never had
the time or energy. We went to "Asia's Largest Water Park," Essel World,
with our Indian friends on the next to last day. Very interesting to make
comparisons between this park and parks we've all experienced in America..
It wasn't THAT impressive, but of course we were all too overjoyed to be
swimming in any body of water to notice much of a difference. On our last
day with the delegates, we went back to the deaf school and split up into
teams to play games with the kids. Aaron, Harish, Amey, Vijay, Anne, and I
played Chairs (Lights Out) and Charades with one classroom of students,
whose ages seemed to range from 7 to 16. Apparently the students are grouped
by English ability rather than age - I wonder how effective that's been thus
far. They seemed quite comfortable with each other regardless of age though,
but one thing we couldn't help but notice (well, speaking for the Americans
in the group) was that the students always automatically grouped up by
gender. When we would explain the rules of a game, the boys stood together
and the girls stood together - never mixed.

The children all knew how to play Chairs, but Charades was surprisingly
difficult to get across. Most of them seemed to have a shaky background in
Hindi or other native languages like Tamil or Marathi, and their English was
JUST beginning to develop. Aaron had made slips of paper with English words
like "samosa," "turtle," etc. on them, but each time a student came up to
act a word out, the teacher had to come along with us to explain the concept
of the word, AND how to act it out. Many of us said afterward that it was
disheartening to see the lack of creative expression they all seemed to
have. Of course I was pleased to see the strong focus on English at the
school, but what about everything else? Yes, English is important in terms
of ensuring a positive career path in India, but educators of the deaf
should also be considering the arts, math, and sciences. None of the
students really grasped the concept of acting words out, but it was fun to
teach nonetheless. We also played Elephant at the end, which they ALL
enjoyed very much! Some games are always a winner with deaf kids :)

At the closing ceremony, each of us shared what we had learned from the
experience, and what we would do in the future related to the missions
established by GRO. Hopefully Alim can post this information for our beloved
readers on the website.. I will ask him to do that, if possible. The deaf
teachers from the English school brought henna, which many of us girls had
been dying to have done on our hands, and very kindly did henna for some of
us Americans, boys AND girls. I got a design done on my left hand and on my
right foot/leg. The hand is almost completely faded now, but the leg/foot is
still going strong! Hopefully you'll be able to at least see the henna on my
foot, Dad! (Mom, don't worry: I took pictures of both.)

That night, the Americans boarded a flight to Delhi, and arrived at a guest
house at a medical school very late at night. We already noticed a huge
difference just from our cab rides to the guest house; Delhi was a lot
cleaner, the streets were much bigger, sidewalks were often lined with
streetlights and trees, and there were many more bicycle-cabs, for lack of a
better term. Alim's uncle, who owned the medical school/hospital, was nice
enough to let us all stay two(?) nights at the guest house. We visited the
Red Fort on an extremely HOT day, but I was excited to see this because it
was the homeplace of Shah Jahan, whom I had read about in the book "Beneath
a Marble Sky" (which I keep recommending to everyone, including you - I
loved this book!!). We also went to Connaught Place, an expensive shopping
area where I just browsed, and definitely did not buy.. The next day, Vai, a
fellow student from RIT who lives in India with his family, met up with us
to take us shopping at some of the bazaars. He showed some of us a very neat
store called Fabindia, and that was when the monsoon rain really hit. Wow!
The streets were flooded with water very quickly, and when we left the store
we all had to take off our shoes and run through the streets to prevent
losing our shoes. Fun :)

That night, most of us donned some kind of traditional Indian garb for a

dinner at Vai's family's house, where we finally met up with the members of
Group 2, the Monsoon Riders. It was strange to see so many fellow Americans
again! Vai's house was beautifully extravagant; servants greeted us at the
door and we were given a variety of drinks right away. Their backyard was
amazing - I didn't feel like I was in India anymore, at least not the India
I had been seeing for the past two or three weeks. That night, we boarded a
coach bus for Agra, and arrived at 5:30 in the morning for a walk to the Taj
Mahal. Unfortunately, my bladder was about to explode so I wasn't in the
best of moods.. but once we finally got into the gates at the 6am opening, I
was awestruck by the beauty of the Taj. There are really no words to
describe the whole place.. I hope everyone I know gets to see it once in
their lifetimes. It was especially meaningful to me considering I had read
that book, "Beneath a Marble Sky," which is the partly historical, partly
fictuous account of the story behind the Taj Mahal. I was so excited to be
at the place I had read about!! We spent over two hours just exploring the
Taj and its surrounding mosques and gardens. Lizzie, DJ, and I accepted the
persistent hocking of Taj Mahal t-shirts by a salesman who followed us as we
walked back to our bus, and I have a t-shirt commemorating my visit there
haha.. thanks Lizzie!

The coach bus drove us all to Jaipur, and we stayed a night at Vai's
family-owned hotel called the Om Tower - quite a different experience from
most of the hotels/hostels we'd been staying at. We were definitely sititng
in the lap of luxury - the hotel has a revolving restaurant, and a pool on
the very top of it! We went shopping at a few bazaars, and the next day we
went to the Amber Fort, a BEAUTIFUL fort with maze-like structures that many
of us got lost in and/or hit our heads on.. so much fun, though! Most of the
group departed that day to Delhi to make their flights back to Mumbai and ..
America. Greg, Anthony, David, and I are the remaining GRO'ers still in
India. It's been quite a trip, and it was hard to say goodbye so abruptly to
our fellow teammates. My bonds with a few people definitely strengthened
through traveling with them, and I learned a lot about myself and
others. And what can I say about India at the end of it all? It's a land
full of extreme contrasts, and a diverse population with respect to
religion, dress, norms, and attitudes toward deafness. Three weeks seemed
both insanely long and hopelessly short - I admit I hated it at times, and
loved it at others. I won't be going back for a while, but I doubt I will
never return to the first country I visited outside the USA. I hope to keep
in touch with the Indian delegates through e-mail and letters, and we do
plan on sending them some additional information that we didn't get a chance
to touch on during our workshop week, like information on HIV/AIDS
prevention and awareness. One thing the deaf community has in common on a
global scale is its tendency to spread information fast, so we hope this
will help in some way!

Tonight we're visiting a Rajasthani village with Vai, and who knows what the
last few days have in store for us.. Friday brings David and I a bus ride to
Delhi, a flight from Delhi to Mumbai, a flight from Mumbai to London, and
finally our last flight in what will hopefully be a very long time.. to New
Jersey. I'm not exactly looking forward to all that traveling - God knows
we've had plenty of that during our trip in India - but I'm looking forward
to seeing my family again, taking hot showers, seeing captioning on
television, and reading in English again! Hope the blogs have been
entertaining and informative for whoever's been reading these; I know we
could've updated more, but hope you all forgive us for our lack of time
allocation and energy throughout the trip!

Namaste :)

-Avi

Alim C.

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