Travelogue

Where to begin?  Perhaps with our host Sam Singh who has taken such good care of us and shown us so many things in India we forget what happened the day before. 

He grew up in the house where we are staying, the descendent of a local prince. He went to the U.K. To study engineering and then on to the US with a job as a textile engineer for DuPont.  He worked there for 40 years, and I think I can remember him saying he moved 29 times

When he retired he decided to return to his home town and he started a school for girls in 2000. He believed you educate a girl, you educate a family. With 40 girls the first year, there are now 1100 girls with side projects like textile factory for their mothers, milk cooperatives, latrines, solar electricity, all for families who send their girls to the school. 

So he's taken us to each of these projects, after we spend the day teaching English.  We've gone to the monkey temple and a temple commemorating Lord Krishna's marriage. We've driven the city streets and back roads, checked out sugar cane production and cow patties. In this picture, we are on a sunset cruise on the Ganges. 

You may ask why?  Not really sure, other than he's genuinely touched people come all the way from the US to work with the girls. He's a great promoter of his dream and yesterday brought in a big donation from an Indian businessman. Today we participated in a fund-raising half marathon race (we walked). 

Teaching is not as easy as we thought even though it's a lot more gentle than fixing up schools. The girls are happy and enthusiastic. Very rewarding, but it's kind of hard to pop in and make a difference. Not sure it matters though since one of his primary goals is not just remove the girls from a difficult environment and let them enjoy themselves and dream of possibilities. 

Food is plentiful but very different. Living conditions are very comfortable but we wake up each morning to loud Hindi music blaring from the temple next door. 

We will be here until Thursday morning when we start the site-seeing portion of the trip. 

We hope you all are well. We hear we missed much snow in Pittsfield but we've managed to keep up with the man who everyone is laughing at here. If only it were funny.  So sad. 

So love from over here. 

Hope

This, just in from Dundee.  Wish I had a photo, or even an audio!

"We went up to Hope this weekend to see Claire perform at the annual Hope Musical Showcase, which highlights Hope's music students. It ranged from orchestras to jazz bands to the Appalachian String Band (which was tremendous). Two of Claire's roommates were featured soloists, and blew all away. One with the viola, the other alto sax. A student played an amazing song on the huge church organ with just his feet. Amazingly, out of the hundred or so performers, only a third are actual music majors. Some were Biology, some were Engineering, and some were Pre Med. The college prides itself on giving access to the Music department resources to any student who wishes. 

A moment you will probable appreciate was the opening remarks by the President, who is an ordained pastor. Keep in mind the audience was mostly older individuals and conservative. The President announced that the new music center which all were in, just received a national award for being a "green" building. The audience clapped loudly. He then remarked that he was going to tweet out this to all Hope alumni, stating "it is about time that there is a tweet that is affirming and positive."

The audience clapped and CHEERED loudly. Quite a moment."

 

bon voyage

Writing this before kick-off, with no way of knowing how I'm going to be feeling in a few hours.  Did you ever notice that a loss for your team stays with you longer than a win?  I've been spending the last 24 hours wondering what Tom Brady was doing at this precise moment.  What did he do while I took a nap?  While we went out to an Italian restaurant?  While we watched Ben Affleck and The Accountant?  While we slept in late and had blueberry pancakes.  Mary assures me he was not dong any of those things.

Great news from Joe and Leonor (below).  When we went down to DC for the Women's March, Leonor was just beginning to show.  And a boy.  A healthy boy.  Wonderful.  

We had planned to go down for the inauguration of the first woman as President, but alas.  So we did the next best thing and joined the half a million of other people on the day after.  Pretty moving and fun.  Margaret helped steer us through the orderly chaos of the metro ride and walk across the mall.  Then we stood up on the steps of the East Gallery which turned into a kind of a reviewing stand for the crowd.

We stayed with Margaret and Andrew in their nice, comfortable new home, with kitties and Dee.  We picked up Marj at the airport on the way down and there was a bedroom for her too!  Margaret and Andrew are super busy as Andrew is into his second semester of a master's program.  

After the march, we Google mapped it over to Melodie and Jeffrey's new home, which is also quite nice with a sizeable backyard.  We helped move some furniture and gave too much interior decorating advice.  They joined us the next day at Margaret and Andrew's for the football game the next day.  Leonor and Joe who had just flown in from India, also came over the festivities.

On the way down, we stopped in Hightstown for the night, and Peter and Janet joined us at the Americana Diner for dinner?  Remember that one?  They still have Grandma's favorite - a quesdilla - on the menu, and Mary ordered that one  By the way, Peter had sent down a website which said that the Americana was ranked the best diner in New Jersey.  But we knew that already, at least ranked in our minds.  Talk was mostly about what lay ahead on the political front, and their pessimism against my trying to be hopeful looks like has so far won out.  In between, we managed to hear about Johanna's new job and Sean's promotion.

This past week, the running theme has been coughing.  First Mary was sick, and we had to call off our visit to Boston for Burns night.  Luckily, since that day I also got whacked with the chest cold, and it put me in bed for most of Sunday (what a baby.)  Mary's also had this lingering stomache-dizziness issue that she thinks she may have figured out, just in time for our airplane ride this week.

We also played host to John Boyle, who had come up for a week of skiing.  And did he pick the right week.  Last week was rainy and warmer than usual; this week was cold and we even got about 6 inches of snow one day.  Marilyn, for some reason, preferred to stay down where the temperatures were climbing to the 80s.  Colleen came over with Robbie and Julie and Robbie's girlfriend Jamie one night for dinner.  Johnny left this morning on the long drive home, with guess what?  A cold and cough.

I am beginning to see how Facebook does it.  My feed right now is full of nothing but anti-Trump tirades.  Wonder why?  Because I like every one of them, and even post a few of my own.  I see I'm not the only Dickson-Boyle in this cycle.  I should probably like a few more animal or vacation posts.

So, this time next week, we'll be in India.  We depart Wednesday and are back on March 8.  We'll send along our phone number when we get it and we'll have plenty of photos for Facebook and the weekly letter.

Love from up here,