Spring Break India: Jaipur, Ladli, and Monkeys . . .

I left for my second trip to India with a curious thought in the back of my head . . . Should I be repeating a trip? Going somewhere that I have already been? I only have one year left in Singapore, so repeating trips seems a bit of a waste when there is still so much left of Asia that I need to see. But I've been to Bali twice and I'm planning on going again. I loved India the first time around, so I got on the plane and hoped for the best.

I arrived in Delhi at 10pm. It's always crazy to arrive in Delhi because hundreds of drivers are waiting for people after you walk out of the airport. Hundreds! All carrying little signs with printed names in small font. I would imagine it's like being a celebrity and having hundreds of photographers waiting for you. But there were no cameras for me, only tiny signs that my sleepy 39 year old eyes were having a hard time deciphering. Then--in a sea of white signs--I saw a young man holding a yellow sign with my name handwritten in large letters. It was even spelled correctly. Success! My driver, Gajendar.

I hopped in the car and he took me to my little AirBNB flat that I booked way back in December. It was completely dark out, but somehow we made it. I carried my one bag up three flights of a spiral staircase, found the bed and crashed.

The next morning, Gajendar picked me up at 5am. He had packed a cooler full of juice, water, and diet coke. We were off to Jaipur.

Side note: Jaipur is about 5.5 hours away from Delhi. Road trips in the US are very different than road trips in India. It's really important to have a great driver, one who is kind and drives safely but efficiently. In December when I went to Jaipur and Agra, I had the misfortune of having a horrible driver. He was cranky and very unpleasant. But Gajendar is super nice and conversational and interesting. He knows where fun things are and very rarely has to ask directions. He is the perfect driver for long road trips. Call him when you go to Delhi! I will hook you up!

We made it to Jaipur in record timing and went straight to the room I booked that very same morning (at 3am mind you: I was a bit behind on my travel accommodations). I was staying in a room on a private floor of a family home. The lady of the house loves having visitors, so she sort of turned their home into a bed and breakfast. Once I checked in and unloaded all of my things, Gajendar took me out to Ladli.

Ladli was the reason for my trip to Jaipur. 

"Ladli is a self-owned social enterprise of street children, young adults, and women belonging to disadvantaged communities. Ladli ensures empowerment and sustainable opportunities for its beneficeries by creating quality handmade products based on the principles of fair trade." 

I will be working with Ladli during the 2015/2016 school year, teaching creative workshops and entrepreneurship skills. So I was meeting with the organizers of the program to discuss next steps and get an overview of the housing and programs being provided to the participants.

What an incredible organization . . . I loved meeting all of the young people there and they were all so welcoming!

The vocational center has two open-air classrooms and a computer skills room with 10 donated desktops.

The boys' home was located in this amazing art deco-style home at the end of a street, several kilometers from the vocational center. The boys were all so lovely! When we walked in, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to us with their hands in prayer and said, "namaste". Then they went back to running around and playing, as boys do . . .

The top floor of the boys' home has a studio room filled with sewing machines and fabrics. The boys do a lot of sewing work for their contribution to the social enterprise side of Ladli. When I walked in, they were working on piping for beaded necklaces and tote bags. An expert tailor measures and cuts everything and facilitates the items being made in the room.

The girls' home was about 40 kilometers down the road from the boys' home. When I walked in the front door, they greeted me with a shower of flowers all while marking my forehead. Some of the girls were working on schoolwork, some of the girls were playing, and some of the girls were drawing in their sketchbooks. The girls' portion of the social enterprise focuses on designing greeting cards, jewelry-making, and various other fabric and paper-based products. I love the picture above: the girls look completely worried, but two seconds earlier they were smiling and giggling. On the other hand, I look like a regular crazy person. 

The last home I visited was for little girls, maybe ages 4 - 7. They were absolutely precious. They were so active and happy to see me. They all showed me their workbooks where they were learning to write numbers. I kept looking at their happy, smiling faces and thinking: how did they get here? What is their story? Where are their parents?

The young people working on the Ladli social enterprise side of things get paid for all of the work that they make, and the money is put into a savings account for them. When they leave Ladli, at the age of 18 or 20, they have a bit of a nest egg to work with. One of the girls I met had been at Ladli for 10 years. She was now in nursing school. It's an amazing organization, and I look forward to working with them.

After leaving Ladli--almost crying happy tears--Gajendar and I went to the Monkey Temple. This is the same place I went on Christmas day last year. And it was even more amazing then I had remembered . . . And unlike my irritating driver in December, Gajendar hiked to the top of the mountain with me. We bought peanuts to feed the monkeys. But much to my dismay, a smallish monkey walked over to me, looked me square in the face and slapped the bag of peanuts out of my hand. Three monkeys proceeded to eat all of the peanuts. A cow lumbered over to get in on the action. After a few bites, the slap-happy monkey smacked him in the face. I couldn't help but laugh because it was a straight-up, open palm bitch slap. From a tiny monkey! Hilarious!

We got to the top of the mountain a lot faster than I remember getting there last year. Perhaps it's because I knew what to expect. But we got there right at sunset. And it was just the most sparkling view. Jaipur glistened in the sun below, like little flecks of pink and teal glitter. It was beautiful! After the Monkey Temple, we went out to dinner at a restaurant that featured puppet shows and Rajasthani dancing. Good times . . . 

The next morning, I slept in a bit and had the most amazing breakfast where I was staying: omelettes, toast, mango, bananas, cookies, and tea . . . Gajendar picked me up at 10:30am and we made our way over to the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing. I had to see that space again! I loved it so much the first time around.

We took in some roadside sites on the way out of town . . . 

Once we got back on the highway, we started on our way back to Delhi. And I saw the sparkly beauties hanging from the bottoms of trucks again (just look how fabulous they look when in action, below right). I wanted them really badly when I saw them last December, but my driver wouldn't help me get them. I just couldn't take it anymore: I had to have them. So Gajendar stopped and I bought 6 of them from the young man in the picture below. He asked me to take a picture of him. It was the only time I saw him act like what he was: a child. Before that, he was all sales. No smiles. I'm going to use my sparklies in a video I'm making this summer in school. I can't wait . . . 

Next up? Saree shopping for the big wedding and other fun things.

Multi-talented: A Brief Interview With One of My Third Graders . . .

I'm so sad. My computer finally stopped responding to me. It said to me (I'm paraphrasing):  "I've had enough of you, woman; you and your thousands of images. I'm done." Teasing me of course, it would turn on like any regular laptop would, but then the spinning wheel of death wouldn't stop. And after so many spins, the computer would shut itself off again.

To make a long story short, this little snafu has put me behind in my life on the blog. 

I took my laptop to the IT department at my school, and with the help of my trusty ol' Mac-obsessed friend Jason, we turned my laptop into a hard drive and transferred everything over to a substitute Macbook for me to use until they can suss out the issues with my personal laptop.

Thank god . . . Because now I'm in India. And you know how blog-happy I get in India, right? Just you wait. Patience is a virtue.

Today I am posting an interview I did a few weeks ago with one of my most prolific and driven students, Anna. She is always experimenting with new ideas, asking lots and lots of questions, and finishing her work on time. She loves art class and is always invested in whatever it is we are inquiring about. I asked her to bring in some of her favorite pieces for me to look at, and for she and I to talk about. (Some of the work she brought in she made in art class with me and some of it she made on her own at home.)

So without further ado, I present a brief question and answer interview with the lovely Anna.

Please introduce yourself: My name is Anna, and I am in grade 3.

How long have your been at Stamford? 3 years. I may be staying one more year or longer.

How old are you? 9

Where are you from? Rio, Brazil

What languages do you speak? I am learning Chinese. But I speak fluent English and Portuguese.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an artist or an actor or a vet or a biologist.

What is your favorite subject in school? Art. I like making things with clay, using clay. And I like to sketch, like to draw.

If you could make anything in the world, what you want to make? A giant piñata pig. No! A sketch of a pig. A giant pig!!

When did you start making artwork? When I was pretty young, about 3. But my artwork was just lines, they did not form anything like a face or a heart.

Do your parents do art? My mom is an author. She draws how her pictures should look. My dad works in a company. So my dad, no; but my mom sometimes.

Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yes.

Do they make art? Yes. My brother likes to make circles, faces. My sister is better than me. She makes . . . You know in Italy? Those buildings with the monsters on the top? Yeah, gargoyles!! She makes those.

Can you tell me a little bit about the mask you made here? Well when I was designing the mask, I was thinking something like two colors that would look good together. First I thought of blue and green, but it didn't look well. So then I thought the yellow and orange. It's just a design. On the rays, I did a pattern of light yellow, orange, darker yellow, and red. And on the eyes, I did a bit of orange and smaller yellow. And the smallest of all was a not-so-dark orange. And if you look upside-down, I did a pattern under the eyes: white, red, and yellow. It symbolizes a lion because lion is . . . Singapore means "lion city", I wanted to do something like Singapore. Not to look like a lion, but resemble one.

Can you tell me a little bit about the painting you brought in? The painting is me and you mixed. And I chose to be you not a cat or something else because you're my favorite teacher and we were in school. So I thought I should do something about school. In the ground, I was going to make a person. But I decided to color over it with dark green. Yes, it's me as an artist.

Anna is also enrolled in my fiber arts CCA, where we build things out of fabric. We recently finished a series of felt houses. Anna's was the tallest! She was very proud of it!

Do you have any questions for Anna? If so, please leave them in the comments section below and we'll answer them as soon as we can . . . And check out my first student-focused interview here. Happy day!

Holi Smokes!

A few weeks ago, a friend from school posted on Facebook that Singapore would be celebrating Holi at a club on Sentosa. Tickets were discounted, but "they will sell out quick" she said. So I decided to spend $18 and see what this was all about. 

I have always been intrigued by Holi--primarily because I love color--and originally I had hoped to plan one of my Spring Breaks around it, to be in India during that celebration. But it always fell on dates a few weeks ahead of our scheduled off time. So Singapore's Holi celebration would have to suffice.

I had another event scheduled for the same day, so I woke up on the morning of the festivities thinking that I would just cancel and not attend. Ironically, it takes so long to travel anywhere in this incredibly small country. This tends to make me lazy on occasion. Plus I was worried about getting to Holi before having to turn around again and leave. And I realized that I might need to shower in between the two events . . . (Might need to shower was an understatement.) 

Thankfully, my friend texted me several times and coerced me into attending. And, man-o-live: it was totally amazing and crazy. I loved it! 

We arrived to find this giant line snaking around outside of the club. But because we had purchased our tickets early, we jumped the line and got right in. Some drummers were just inside, playing music for the people waiting in line. They were so much fun to watch, each of them having a great time. With my ticket, I received a bag of organic colored powder and a house pour (drink of my choice from the bar). Due to my time constraints, I ordered my drink when I walked in the door. And almost within seconds, I looked like the following image. 

People--anyone--began smearing color all over everyone and everything. It didn't matter if they knew you or not. All over clothes, faces, legs, everywhere. 

Holi is the Hindu celebration of color and love, welcoming in Spring. So with the color and love comes a little water. Part of the reason I couldn't take as many pictures as I wanted was because water was coming at me from every direction. Random people would dump giant buckets of water on our heads. People were spraying water from a hose on the second floor. One guy followed me around spraying me with a water gun for at least 20 minutes. It was nuts! And heaven! But mostly nuts! I loved it!

And it got super crowded really quickly . . . When we arrived, there were a handful of people inside. But it got packed. And the more packed it got, the louder the music got. At one point I was even dancing to Gangnam Style, and I can't stand that song. But there was something really great about being surrounded by all of these people covered in color, writhing to a dance beat. I don't know, it just worked.  

It was like being at Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza, but there were no bands involved (and it was way smaller and cheaper). That's what it reminded me of. It was great. And freeing. And so full of life!

Of course I had to leave at 12:30 to be able to make it to my next event at 3pm, showered and somewhat clean. You can see below the progression of color. Some guy was walking around with a huge bag of red powder. I got excited by the color and let him smear it all over my face. The red powder was different then the other powders. So it didn't quite wash off the same. 

I scrubbed up for a bit before leaving the festivities, but still ended up with pretty much a bright pink face for several hours. It's always fun to shake things up a bit in Singapore: riding the train home from Sentosa while dripping wet and completely covered in color was hilarious. If I had a dime for every dirty look I got, I would be a millionaire (and I'd actually be able to afford to live here). 

After my second event of the day, I came home around 9pm and sat around my house with cold cream all over my face. I realize this makes me sound like a 1950's housewife, but it worked (and my face feels amazing)! I was able to get all of the color off of my mug. Sadly, I kind of miss it. Next year, folks. And I'm gonna do it up big. Huge. No secondary events, I'm staying as long as I like and dancing forever! 

Inspiration: My Head is Here Now . . .

Progress Report: Community Painting Party (Image Only Post) . . .