july 18 mumbai
my daily routine in mumbai:
(about 75% of this is in the rain, but always a different 75%)
7:30 breakfast at the salvation army. same every day: three pieces of white bread, butter & this terrible sweet jam they serve everywhere, 1 hardboiled egg, 1 small green banana, chai
9:00 run errands, buy cheap pants on the street, check email, etc.
10:30 get takeaway lunch, put in tiffin box
11:30 bus to churchgate railway station
11:45 train to dadar
12:15 walk down the street where they slaughter the chickens and everything is in hindi (marathi?) and everyone stares at me
12:30 school
6:00 walk back down the street where they slaughter the chickens and everything is in hindi (marathi?) and everyone stares at me
6:15 train to churchgate
6:45 bus to salvation army
7:00 get dinner/ go on adventures with people from the hostel
12:00 s.a. curfew, bathe in the unheated water of the dormitory bathroom
but now things are changing, as my 7-day-limit at the salvation army has expired and i am moving to the ywca. despite the bad jam and cold water, i'm glad i spent my compulsory mumbai-traveler's week there. everyone was so cool, besides this one russian lady who woke me up at 1 am to ask something about laundry, or windows, or electricity, i'm not sure.
and akanksha! i am working at the actual school, not an after-school center, which is nice because i get to spend a longer time there each day. it's a primary school, jr kindergarten - 3rd standard, and i am working in the first grade classroom. the teacher is precious and has a strange but kind habit of bringing me food and/ or making me try her food. the children could not be cuter. this week i've been pulling them out individually for assessments ("what sound does M make? where do fish live? draw a circle") but monday i start teaching phonics to the whole class. sometimes i have to affect an indian accent so that they understand what i'm saying ("where do fish live? no, not face, feeesh. stop pointing to your face.") also, akanksha is run out of the same office as teach for india. the 3rd standard teacher is a tfi corps member and got his masters at UT! so small, this world of ours. ALSO, akanksha is totally kipp-ed out. apparently they had some kipp people come over and do trainings or something a few years ago, but it's still weird to see kipp culture in india.
anyways, mumbai is great. i wish i could stay here longer, and all of you (amelia, my mother) who were convinced i was going to spend this month getting lost and kidnapped can apologize now. the only thing that's hard to get used to here, as in the rest of india, is that every store/ restaurant/ etc is way overstaffed, and everyone is way overhelpful, so sometimes when you order a veg club sandwich the waiter points to every item on your plate and tells you what it is (maybe he thought they don't have carrots where i come from?) and then watches you attentively as you eat the sandwich. and after all that, i still didn't get an answer to my only real question: why are there maraschino cherries on this?
