FULL DAY ON FRIDAY - January 30th

Today, we were going to work a full day at the site, and it was an early day for us. We awakened to the sounds of the chanting of the priests from the Hindu temple located about a five or six mile drive from our motel, but almost a direct drop of six hundred feet straight down below. Having said this, however, I would not want to be one to take that plunge! The hillside is pretty rugged terrain and if I have not remarked about this previously, the abundance of thorny bushes and trees is overwhelming. It seems that wherever one walks, feet or pants or sleeves are being caught on one type of thorny bush or another. Although bougainvilleas are magnificent with their spray of colors, ranging from a creamy white through the oranges to magentas, they are also one of the thorniest bushes around. They do, however, provide splendor and beauty to what otherwise might be termed a rather dismal landscape.

We were at the farm bright and early, arriving before seven-thirty, and breakfast was mostly ready when we arrived. Linda Nicol had brought along a large plastic jar of peanut butter, and many of us spread the peanut butter on the bananas that Sandoo had put out for us. There were corn flakes that we could enjoy with hot mile, as well as rotis and scrambled eggs with chopped onions and cilantro. We finished breakfast and most of us decided to walk to the village. This is a wonderful exercise in the mornings, and one, which we enjoy thoroughly, because it provides us with the opportunity to interact with the villagers, particularly with the children, many of whom are up and walking to school. Some women and girls are washing their water buffaloes that are tethered to a stake or to the outside walls of their houses. One dog was nursing its four puppies, while fully standing up, keeping a watchful eye on any intruder that might come her way. Two mother hens were shooing their broods of day-old chicks away from the foot traffic along the road. Goats were braying. The village was also awakening to another sunny day. Sean and I walked by where the omelet guy has his afternoon station. There were a few older men sitting on the left side of the road, opposite where one of the tailors is outside pressing some of his creations, most afternoons. We walked over to where the old men were sitting and saw one of them making rope. He had a pile of what looked like bleached grasses in front of him and he would pick up a small pinch-full of grass and work that into the twist of one side of the two strands, then spin it between the palms of his hands, and twist, before picking up the next batch.

We walked along, trailing Kim, Cassandra and Kim, until we reached the sight. Boone, Dianne and Chris were following behind us. When we had left the dusty drive from the farm, out onto the road, we had begun with six of us walking, or perhaps seven. But Boone and Dianne road the bus through the dusty part, and then disembarked at the road and caught up with Chris. Along the way, we had also passed the troupe of monkeys hiding amongst the rocks, but still close to the road, expressing their curiosity about us, almost as much as we expressed outs toward them. As we got closer to them, the milkman, riding a motorcycle and carrying six large and three small metal milk pails, carefully balanced on both sides of his motorcycle, stopped and passed a small packet to three boys who seemed to have been waiting for him. One boy unfolded the newspaper wrapping and removed a handful of rotis (Indian flatbread) that he shared with his friends. They then tossed the rotis to the monkeys who snatched them up and then scampered to a safe place to eat them. One mother monkey, caught the roti in one paw, while her tiny suckling baby clung to her stomach as the mother walked on all fours to her rocky perch. When Sean and I approached the village, I suggested we might want to take a shortcut through a different sector, which would bring us out near the worksite.

We all finally arrived at the site, each one of us having experienced a different view of the village and its inhabitants. Dianne and Boone had a unique experience when they passed by the home where a small herd of goats is kept. One of the little girls passed a newborn goat to Dianne. She told us later that it must have been only hours old, barely dried off from birth, still exhibiting its umbilical cord. The children also passed her a small rabbit, but that was flopping around so much, she could not continue to hold it.

At the site, it was back to, “Masala, masala, masala!” We were once more in lines, passing basins of the newly mixed slop from one to the next, with the empty basins either passed back through the line or flung like Frisbees in front of us. I worked alongside of Ramish, laying brick and trowelling masala. I remembered one lesson my dad had taught me about laying bricks and that was NOT to place bricks evenly on top of one another. With a staggered pattern, the wall would be stronger. I communicated this to Ramish and he called out to the other brick masons and told them to follow that practice from then on. Nancy was over on our side, passing bricks and masala up to me. Ramish would raise the string line one or two score of bricks as we proceeded to build the wall. It was satisfying to see the height of the two side walls – remembering that on the first day, we faced a two-foot deep ditch, and from there laid a foundation of rock, followed by crushed stone, followed by a slurry of cement, sand and smaller rocks, to a brick foundation and then the walls. We really were progressing quite nicely.

After a full morning of labor, we returned to the farm for a shorter lunch, and then back to the site. The sun was quite hot, and some of us felt the back of our necks getting a bit warm from it. Sanjiv had told us a group of ladies from the village would like to meet with the ladies on our team, so at about four in the afternoon, the ladies, accompanied by Sanjiv, wandered across the lot adjacent to the work site and entered a home. We did not see them for quite some time, and when it came time to call off work for the day, I called him on his mobile and told him that Boone, Chris, Sean and I were going to walk down to the schoolyard and would meet them and the bus there.

We spoke to a number of the villagers, who were either carrying basins of clean laundry on their heads, or directing their goats or water buffaloes down the right paths. Sean and I stopped at the local tailor shop – one I had visited last year and the year before, and chatted with the tailor and his assistant. Sean asked if the tailor could make him a regular shirt, but he told him he was too “fit” and he did not have a pattern that would work for Sean. Fit meant that Sean is considerably larger in stature than the men of the village – he has broad shoulders and is very strong. We then heard some commotion over in the schoolyard and walked over to find Chris and Boone enjoying cricket with the locals. By the time I reached the cricket pitch (or what had been roughly carved out of the uneven landscape of the schoolyard) Chris was pitching to some of the teenaged boys. Lots of cheers erupted when the batter hit a fly ball and Chris caught it. “OUT!” they screamed and encouraged Chris to go to the other end and assume the position of batter. After about a half-hour, the women and the bus arrived and it was back to the farm for dinner.

Sanjiv had told us earlier in the day that the members of his Rotary Club had invited us to travel into Delhi the following morning, so we could visit another project of their club – one which I had helped gain a Matching Grant from The Rotary Foundation several years previous. The project is located in the slums of an older section of Delhi and was called SARVARTH SULTANPURI. Because of this change in plans (one always has to maintain a degree of flexibility in India) we would be coming back to the farm very early the next morning for a long bus ride into the city. An early night to bed and hopefully some decent sleep.