Nanaji (simran’s grandfather) insisted on driving us to work the first day and the trip soon became an all out adventure. Nanaji loves to tell us all the history and interesting facts about anything he sees when driving…it just gets a little scary sometimes since we are driving in INDIA! But somehow people always make it by the skin of their teeth (or in Indian terms the skin of the milk aka malai..which is apparently delicious according to simran…im testing it out tomorrow). Anyway we finally make it to Bandmajra village alive…and well informed! We realize soon that the roads into the village are narrow, uneven, and lined with trash, and debris. Nanaji insists on trekking through..so challo?!
Continuing the drive through the slums in a nice 4 door Ford, we know we’re bound to attract some attention. After nearly reaching the end of the road we see a large truck blocking passage. It is nearly impossible for two cars to be on the narrow road at the same time so a few villagers had to come help us back up and move forward…back up and move forward….and back up and move forward -__- until we gave the truck enough room. We finally get to the end of the road and see Neelamji (YTTS staff) waving us over to the YTTS office. Before we could meet her we had to get Nanaji reversed and back on the road. After another 10 minutes of struggle we made our way towards the ‘office’.
The YTTS office consists of a small dirt floor classroom with a table, cabinet, and a couple of chairs for the teacher and visitors. But it does have a fan---hallelujah! The kids ranged from 1st to 6th grade but the morning group only went up to 3rd grade. They were adorable! They all sat on the floor working on their written Punjabi, Hindi, and English. (sidenote: No wonder international students make the rest of us look like jackasses—they start learning 3 languages in first grade….even in the slums!). After observing for a little bit Neelamji took us on a walking tour of the slums. While not as exciting as slumdog millionaire, it was definitely interesting to say the least. We didn’t jump in a vat of poop or meet amitabh bachan but that is on my to do list—well maybe not the poop part…maybe. We met many of the ladies in the village who were actually quite beautiful. (I can see Billy Mays now: “Wrinkles? Muffintop? Stretchmarks? Try a week in the slums of Punjab & rejuvenate yourself! *Malaria may be included*”). We finished off the tour with lunch back in the classroom. Kamleshji, the 2nd YTTS teacher was there and she insisted on sharing her phulka’s & sabzi (chapathi and curried vegetables) with us. So in true Indian fashion we all sat around the table and broke bread (or chapathi in this case). I would say all in all this was a pretty good first day.
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