Tuesday 15 June 2010

Being 21!!

Today is the last day for me to be 21. I kind of like this age and had a lot of interesting (good as well as not-so-good) experiences in this year. Some major highlights for me are:

  1. Getting Jane into my life and being a mother :)

  2. Travelling to two different continents (North America and Africa) making my count to be 5 continents so far. Now, I am only left with Australia and Antarctica to reach my goal of all the continents by the age of 25 – I can write an entire blogpost on my travel experiences but will leave it for now.

  3. Living with a couple of important relationships across continents.

  4. Graduating from university and ending the long phase of being a student.

  5. Working in slums for the very first time in my life (and that too in slums with HIV positive inhabitants)

  6. Giving some job interviews and reaching the final rounds for them – still looking to get selected :P

  7. Driving at 110 miles/hr and for 12 hrs at a stretch in US where we had to drive on the left for the first time in my life.

  8. Experiencing the uncertainty that life offers after you leave university.

  9. Developed some new strong friendships – Archana, JD, Flora, Julie and strengthened the already existing ones.

The year had a lot of firsts for me and I enjoyed being 21. I hope that the coming year also brings with it millions of new opportunities and many more firsts. I hope I get to travel, learn, love and laugh in the coming year.

Leia Mais…

Sunday 6 June 2010

The most memorable day of my stay in Kenya!!

I can with full confidence call yesterday as the most memorable day of my stay here. It was a Parents’ Visiting/Prize giving day in Jane’s school and I decided to go. This time Julie (one of the interns at Living Positive and a very close friend of mine) also decided to come along. I was happy to see that Jane recognized me even after I had opened my braids and this time I could feel her exercising her authority over me, a pleasant change from the last time when I was finding it hard to explain to her that I am hers.. She was trying to talk to me with whatever limited English she knew showing me around, telling me how a snake entered their dorm and telling me that she has lost her plate already.




Apart from the normal Mom-Daughter bonding, there were some other aspects which made the day memorable for me:


Giving the awards


The Ceremony: African schools have a pretty fun way of singing hymns.. They all dance and they use a broken water barrel as drums and everybody sings.. Julie and I also joined and danced with the kids and the teachers. There were some plays in Swahili and poems and traditional dances. It was a good peek at the standard of the school, and the general running of the schools.


Helen, Jane and me

Prize Giving: Most of the awards were given by teachers and the manager but there were a couple of categories which were to be given by parents to appreciate their support and effort towards their child and to the school. And the Emcee called for “Shubhu” to give the awards for Best Teacher in each class. After 10 seconds, Julie and Lucy started tapping me to go. It was then that I realized that they had called me forward. Julie and I burst out laughing at “Shubhu” with every eye in the hall at us. I found it amazingly difficult to stop the fit of laughter which I was getting. And we pretty much laughed the whole day at the name..

Motorbike ride: Jane didn’t have a lot of daily use stuff so Julie, she and I went to the market to buy her stuff. Our mode of transport was a motor bike and this was the first time I quadrupled ever in my life. I was the last one on the bike and was sitting on the steel handle at the end of the bike. Every bump on the road was accompanied by a distinct squeal from me. And the entire village was running after us or making noises or jeering at the two Msungus. But all in all, it was the most memorable journey..

Goodbye: I had to tell Jane that I won’t be visiting her for a long long time now but I will call her and write to her regularly. The last image I have of her is wiping tears by the sleeves of her sweater, trying to wave bye to me and being held by her matron so that she doesn’t run after my vehicle. It took all my will-power to not go back to her – that would have made it even more difficult for her and me.

I probably didn’t do much justice to this post. Some things can just never be explained in words.

Leia Mais…