Mathru School for the Differently-Abled
Bangalore, India
Monday, 12/16/2013
Andy writes
Yesterday we woke up to a heavy fog (well actually we woke up to darkness first) which was a surprise. We can see across the way to the other building but not much further. But it’s still only cool, not cold. We haven’t had any clear days yet, mostly partly cloudy with just an occasional darker cloud. In other words, perfect weather.
As Mary mentioned, Saturday was a busy day. After I helped Harish remove some broken window panes, he asked me to go with him to the glass store – on a motorcycle. I’m thinking, okkkayyyyy, that’s going to be interesting, holding on to six glass panes about 18x45 while riding over a rutty bumpy windy dirt road. Fortunately, I learned that we had just gone to order them and that they would call when they were ready. However when they were ready, he still planned to get them on his motorbike. At the time I was busy cleaning some of the tiles so he suggested the gardener go with him instead and he got no argument from me. Sure enough they showed up later with the glass wedged between them on themotorbike. Such is life in India.
Between the heavy Indian accent and the use of some British terms that are familiar to us, it is an effort to understand everyone. I really have to focus on listening, hard, and waiting to detect certain words that give me an idea of the topic so I can try to guess what they are saying. Mary is understandably having a much harder time so in a way I am acting as her translator. Hopefully by the time I leave she will have grasped enough to get by on her own. Can’t complain though, we Americans refuse to learn anyone else’s language no matter where we travel so we should be thankful that most everyone else accommodates us.
We do miss cold drinks. We have been drinking from a 5 gallon jug of boiled water that is at room temperature but we are so used to drinking from the fridge that it gets old after a while. Yesterday it occurred to me that we could fill a couple water bottles and put in the refrigerator in the kitchen. It was very satisfying having that with breakfast to go with our tea.
To Mary and me there is no distinguishing difference between breakfast lunch or dinner. It’s always some type of vegetarian dish with some type of Indian bread (chappati, dosa, puri) or rice. It’s all very tasty and we haven’t had anything that’s too spicy but it does take some getting used to. Even nuts are not used very much in their cooking.
Yesterday Harish came to pick us up and take us to his house for lunch. His wife Jyoti made special chicken and goat dishes for us. Unfortunately Mary woke this morning not feeling well and had to reluctantly decline.
Harish's home is about a 1200 sq ft flat with a spacious living room but a relatively small kitchen along with a laundry room and a children’s room. It's on the third story of a building that’s also occupied by his brother and in-laws. The bathroom was comparable to what we have here – no tub or showerhead. All the flooring was either ceramic tile or terrrazo and the walls were painted apricot. The ceilings are white except for a gingerbread trim around the perimeter that was painted blue.
They have 2 daughters age 10 and 12 along with an infant son. Apparently one of his daughters is very fond of chocolate so I brought along a small gift package of some of the dark chocolate covered almond & dried cherry sweets I bought with us.
(I’m glad we packed the chocolate, along with some fruitcake because we get essentially no sweets here other than sugared tea and they satisfy my craving every so often.)
Before serving the main dishes, Jyoti and Harish brought a tray with almonds, raisins and cashews to snack on. I was surprising to taste cardamom, It was a great way to enhance the flavor of the nuts and raisins. The goat was prepared in a curry sauce and served with chapati bread and was the best I’ve ever had. The chicken was prepared 4 ways: with lentils in a curry sauce, in another curry sauce, with rice and vegetables as a biryanil and lightly fried in sunflower oil as a pakora.
Needless to say it was more than I could eat but that didn’t stop them from piling more and more on my plate as I sat at the table with Harish (the women ate separately in the kitchen or parlor). Finally they brought a drink call paysam (sp?) made from coconut milk, cardamom seeds, raisins and jaggery (a raw form of sugar). It tasted much like the kheer we get for dessert, very sweet and delicious.
I finally decided to leave some food on my plate or have my stomach explode before their eyes. I couldn’t eat another bite of food until the next morning. The pressure to please your hosts by eating all the food they put on your plate is ever present and if you don’t eat much they seem to think that you dislike it. Fortunately it isn’t the high fat, high sugar food that Americans are used to eating.
One thing Mary misses is raw (or lightly steamed) vegetables which they don’t seem to do here.
At the end of the day, I was feeling extra tired and also had a sore throat so it was obvious I was coming down with something like Mary was. I was hoping it wasn’t anything more than a virus cold and not something more serious that one can easy get here. Thankfully, this morning I felt much better after a long night 's sleep and hopefully am over it already.
During my ride to Harish’s flat, we passed a newly built apartment that was being painted. Three stories up, the painter was suspended by a rope harness that was being held from above by another worker while he stroked his paint brush. No ladder or scaffolds. All of the shops are abutted to each other and most are quite small. One shop had goat and chicken carcasses hanging from hooks ready to take home to cook, another had live chickens in cages. There were many stores selling medicines (pharmacies), quite a few selling various building materials, produce, clothing, electronics, a furniture store and very few restaurants.
Most buildings are 1 story, about half the housing units are 2 or 3 story (especially government apts). We only saw a handful of multistory buildings that were either government apts or office. It may be quite different in other parts of the city. Landscaping is almost non-existent except for occasional trees and pottery. The two Mathru schools are an exception. Much of the vacant land is barren or littered with trash or clean fill and the few places where there is scrub are occupied by the wandering goats and cows which sometimes are in the middle of the streets being dodged by the maniac traffic.
Everyone here is very polite and mild mannered, I’ve never overheard any loud voices other than the Muslim prayer loudspeakers. Other than Muktha who is comfortable calling us by our first names, everyone else addresses and refers to us ias “Sir” and “Madam." We both feel a great respect, perhaps a reverence, from others.
The practice of having shrines and references to Elephant Gods, Monkey Gods, Snake Gods and all other kinds is ubiquitous and is clearly a force in their culture and value system. Every house has a small closet called a Puja room which is filled with small statues, photos, candles, incense and offerings to the Gods.
Today we hope to get out to shop for the things we need.
Bangalore, India
Monday, 12/16/2013
Andy writes
Yesterday we woke up to a heavy fog (well actually we woke up to darkness first) which was a surprise. We can see across the way to the other building but not much further. But it’s still only cool, not cold. We haven’t had any clear days yet, mostly partly cloudy with just an occasional darker cloud. In other words, perfect weather.
As Mary mentioned, Saturday was a busy day. After I helped Harish remove some broken window panes, he asked me to go with him to the glass store – on a motorcycle. I’m thinking, okkkayyyyy, that’s going to be interesting, holding on to six glass panes about 18x45 while riding over a rutty bumpy windy dirt road. Fortunately, I learned that we had just gone to order them and that they would call when they were ready. However when they were ready, he still planned to get them on his motorbike. At the time I was busy cleaning some of the tiles so he suggested the gardener go with him instead and he got no argument from me. Sure enough they showed up later with the glass wedged between them on themotorbike. Such is life in India.
Between the heavy Indian accent and the use of some British terms that are familiar to us, it is an effort to understand everyone. I really have to focus on listening, hard, and waiting to detect certain words that give me an idea of the topic so I can try to guess what they are saying. Mary is understandably having a much harder time so in a way I am acting as her translator. Hopefully by the time I leave she will have grasped enough to get by on her own. Can’t complain though, we Americans refuse to learn anyone else’s language no matter where we travel so we should be thankful that most everyone else accommodates us.
We do miss cold drinks. We have been drinking from a 5 gallon jug of boiled water that is at room temperature but we are so used to drinking from the fridge that it gets old after a while. Yesterday it occurred to me that we could fill a couple water bottles and put in the refrigerator in the kitchen. It was very satisfying having that with breakfast to go with our tea.
To Mary and me there is no distinguishing difference between breakfast lunch or dinner. It’s always some type of vegetarian dish with some type of Indian bread (chappati, dosa, puri) or rice. It’s all very tasty and we haven’t had anything that’s too spicy but it does take some getting used to. Even nuts are not used very much in their cooking.
Yesterday Harish came to pick us up and take us to his house for lunch. His wife Jyoti made special chicken and goat dishes for us. Unfortunately Mary woke this morning not feeling well and had to reluctantly decline.
Harish's home is about a 1200 sq ft flat with a spacious living room but a relatively small kitchen along with a laundry room and a children’s room. It's on the third story of a building that’s also occupied by his brother and in-laws. The bathroom was comparable to what we have here – no tub or showerhead. All the flooring was either ceramic tile or terrrazo and the walls were painted apricot. The ceilings are white except for a gingerbread trim around the perimeter that was painted blue.
They have 2 daughters age 10 and 12 along with an infant son. Apparently one of his daughters is very fond of chocolate so I brought along a small gift package of some of the dark chocolate covered almond & dried cherry sweets I bought with us.
(I’m glad we packed the chocolate, along with some fruitcake because we get essentially no sweets here other than sugared tea and they satisfy my craving every so often.)
Before serving the main dishes, Jyoti and Harish brought a tray with almonds, raisins and cashews to snack on. I was surprising to taste cardamom, It was a great way to enhance the flavor of the nuts and raisins. The goat was prepared in a curry sauce and served with chapati bread and was the best I’ve ever had. The chicken was prepared 4 ways: with lentils in a curry sauce, in another curry sauce, with rice and vegetables as a biryanil and lightly fried in sunflower oil as a pakora.
Needless to say it was more than I could eat but that didn’t stop them from piling more and more on my plate as I sat at the table with Harish (the women ate separately in the kitchen or parlor). Finally they brought a drink call paysam (sp?) made from coconut milk, cardamom seeds, raisins and jaggery (a raw form of sugar). It tasted much like the kheer we get for dessert, very sweet and delicious.
I finally decided to leave some food on my plate or have my stomach explode before their eyes. I couldn’t eat another bite of food until the next morning. The pressure to please your hosts by eating all the food they put on your plate is ever present and if you don’t eat much they seem to think that you dislike it. Fortunately it isn’t the high fat, high sugar food that Americans are used to eating.
One thing Mary misses is raw (or lightly steamed) vegetables which they don’t seem to do here.
At the end of the day, I was feeling extra tired and also had a sore throat so it was obvious I was coming down with something like Mary was. I was hoping it wasn’t anything more than a virus cold and not something more serious that one can easy get here. Thankfully, this morning I felt much better after a long night 's sleep and hopefully am over it already.
During my ride to Harish’s flat, we passed a newly built apartment that was being painted. Three stories up, the painter was suspended by a rope harness that was being held from above by another worker while he stroked his paint brush. No ladder or scaffolds. All of the shops are abutted to each other and most are quite small. One shop had goat and chicken carcasses hanging from hooks ready to take home to cook, another had live chickens in cages. There were many stores selling medicines (pharmacies), quite a few selling various building materials, produce, clothing, electronics, a furniture store and very few restaurants.
Most buildings are 1 story, about half the housing units are 2 or 3 story (especially government apts). We only saw a handful of multistory buildings that were either government apts or office. It may be quite different in other parts of the city. Landscaping is almost non-existent except for occasional trees and pottery. The two Mathru schools are an exception. Much of the vacant land is barren or littered with trash or clean fill and the few places where there is scrub are occupied by the wandering goats and cows which sometimes are in the middle of the streets being dodged by the maniac traffic.
Everyone here is very polite and mild mannered, I’ve never overheard any loud voices other than the Muslim prayer loudspeakers. Other than Muktha who is comfortable calling us by our first names, everyone else addresses and refers to us ias “Sir” and “Madam." We both feel a great respect, perhaps a reverence, from others.
The practice of having shrines and references to Elephant Gods, Monkey Gods, Snake Gods and all other kinds is ubiquitous and is clearly a force in their culture and value system. Every house has a small closet called a Puja room which is filled with small statues, photos, candles, incense and offerings to the Gods.
Today we hope to get out to shop for the things we need.
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