June 26th, 2009 –Friday
It was POURING outside. There were rumors that it’s going to be a huge flood since it was also high tide at the time. My sister had been stuck in traffic for 3 and half hours and my dad for 2. Zohar and I decided to wait it out, called Gangadhar, checked with a few people and decided to go regardless of the parents’ concerns. This is important, last 2 days. We can’t let the children down. The fact that Sriya was assertive with her parents meant a lot to me..
We got on the road. It really wasn’t as bad..although we did take 2 and half hours to reach. I fell asleep in the car since I didn’t get much sleep the night before, instead of feeling fresh, I was more tired..chugged some tea and shook myself awake. What really woke me up was the heap of trash that we decided to walk over. It was the short cut and we though it was a brilliant route that we hadn’t taken full advantage off! Walking on it while it was pouring wasn’t a good idea at all..all of a sudden those extra 20 muddy minutes of walking didn’t seem so bad. The trash smelled of urine and I couldn’t stop thinking of the lady who told me that she threw the dead white/yellow cat in the trash! Everything was coming back to me, I was about to throw up and didn’t have the courage to look up at how Zohar and Sriya were doing. I just screamed out to them to not think of anything..it was hard considering my shoes were letting in all the dirt..i could feel it with my toes. While I was staring at my feet after the walk, a boy looked at us and said ‘kitna bekar hai nay eh jaga?’ (isn’t this area disgusting?) I don’t know if he was mocking us, or laughing at the situation – since there’s nothing else he could do. It struck a chord with me..can’t say how, but got me thinking..
Anyhow, we made a collective decision to never do that route again..
We reached the class late because of the traffic. Gayatri teacher was teaching, but yet the children screamed at the sight of us and ran over to shake our hands as we entered !! I’d never seen them so excited to see us!! It threw me aback, but I was extremely thrilled. After Gayatri teacher was done, we practiced the play once.. it was OK. Gave them a break, came back and practiced again. COMPLETE chaos. I was slightly disappointed in the lack of progress..but it was still nice to see the children high in sprits. Their ability to sustain that level of energy ALL the time always amazes me. We wrapped it up, not feeling the same as yesterday, but still happy. Zohar said that she was really glad with the way things went. I couldn’t say that for my experience.
We met up with Manjul at Sriya’s house. He made us write down 10 points of achievement from a perspective of ‘life’ or ‘theatre intervention’ for the students, organization, community and ourselves. We then shared it with each other.. I realized that there was a lot more that we had to be proud of than thought of before. In discussion, I realized that when we started this project, all the organizations involved- Parivartan, AID, ETF, Brandeis University, Revive: Mumbai and us had a different purpose in mind. Now, they all connect through us. Another reason for pride. We talked a little more about some of the issues with a few students and the most diplomatic way of handling them. Speaking to Manjul helped clear out our options. We were all set for the weekend!!!
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