The orphanage trip last Sat. (the 12th) was filled with mixed emotions. Sadness to see the 35 residents, ages 4-17, joy, in knowing they will be happy with the clothes, frustration, leaving and feeling it almost impossible to change their situation.
The gentleman who runs it is Ashish. He greeted us at the door. IT's located on the top of a mountain above Catherine's school, we took a cab up and walked down. The boys all came out. We didn't see the few girls who are there. We took pictures, other students from Woodstock came with us. The little boys started roughhousing, trying to show off! I met one boy whose name is Sandeep and he took me all over to tell everyone that I had the same name as him, Sandy!! He is 11. I have a picture to post of him later. His head is shaved because, he decided he would convince the barber to shave it from ear to ear over the top. Then it looked so ridiculous that Ashish made him shave the whole thing! He is a rascal, says Ashish! I had a chance to spend some time alone with Ashish and spoke with him about the boys. He said most are there until they are 17, they try to get them trained in a vocation, so they are able to live on their own and support themselves. The last two years he was not able to have Christmas presents for any of the residents. He said his prayers were answered when we came to the door with the huge bag of clothes. He was going to wrap up a present for each one of them to have under the tree.
Train travel in India is something. I pulled up a map of train travel before I left and the routes completely cover India. However, when our train pulled up at the Dehradun station, it looked as if many people had whacked it ALL over with sledgehammers. They are far from the sleek Amtrak trains of the US. Windows have bars on them, if they need to be closed, a plastic white"window" can be pulled down.
The smell is quite pungent, they are incredibly old and still dispose of waste on the tracks once out of the station. They are on amazingly on time, though. Even early. I"ve never been on an "ontime" Amtrak train!
Catherine has been careful not to let me eat from street vendors until my stomach gets acclimated. In Mussorie, she got her 2 favorite things from an open food place:
gulab jamun and something else -= dough dropped in grease and fried, coming out like a translucent pretzel and dripping with grease! Gulabs are round balls, deep fried and then soaked in a sweet syrup for 30 minutes or so... yummmmm I'm sticking with the restaurant food for now... Although I have enough Immodium and pepto to stock the entire city of Delhi, if need be....More later... Sandy