At tea this morning, it was reconfirmed: we should have started a blog. I just wish we would have thought of it sooner, because by now we have purposely forgotten much of what has happened to us. However, to give you a snapshot, here are the highlights from just the last few days:
- There is a group from Germany here using the space for an art program. Mercy thought it would be a good idea to do a workshop for them on women in India using Francois’ dolls. The date was set for Saturday. On Wednesday, Francois was talking with the group and they said, “No, it the workshop isn’t on Saturday. On Saturday we are going to Chennai. We have the program planned for Friday.”
- A Dutch program left yesterday. They had stocked the dining hall fridge full of Kingfishers and wine and have been drinking it openly during meals. Visthar has a strict no-alcohol-on-campus policy. Therefore the staff was quite upset. The question that we are asking, though, is Did they know about the policy??? Francois didn’t know, and she has been here 3 weeks. The Germans, who saw the Dutch drinking, are now bringing alcohol to campus. But the directors think they cant do anything about it, because the Dutch did it and they can’t stop the Germans from doing it now. So clearly nobody told the Germans…
- Visthar annually produces beautiful calendars to raise money for an outside cause. The Bandhavi girls do the drawings, and they are printed on the recylcled paper from our paper unit. David is really gung-ho about marketing these calendars and after a conversation with the Germans told us that if we could translate it into German before they leave on Saturday, the group will purchase 400 to bring back with them and sell. So poor Debbie spent all day yesterday trying to translate a Native American prayer (only to discover that only the first and second paragraph were the actual prayer…the rest had been written by Mercy…but that isn’t the issue at hand) and when she told the group this morning that she had done so and were they interested in seeing it? They told her that no, they had absolutely no interest in taking home calendars this year; it was too late to purchase anything to market for Christmastime and besides, they already have many calendars from other organizations. Perhaps next year they would be interested in some, but definitely not 400. But maybe they would like to take a few English calendars home for their own use?
- We are expecting a visit from the Gustavus professor who will be coming on SJPD next year. We are also in the process of expanding this program. At our last meeting, we decided we would have the proposal finished so that David could bring it with him to MN this winter. Sid and Roshen (my power team) are in Hyderabad with the students so we have been struggling to work together via email to cobble it together piece by piece. Sid has been really gung-ho, and on Tuesday night when I told him that there really wasn’t a rush, he had other things to do and we can go more slowly he said, “Wait, didn’t they tell you? They want the proposal ready to give to the professor when he comes.” I said, “Sid. The professor who is coming on Monday who I am hosting for breakfast and planning a welcome ceremony for? Monday as in 5 days from now?” Yup. One and the same.
- Along the same lines…Visthar is very busy right now. We have a lot of things going on, but everything was kind of stopping to revolve around the visit of this professor. We are inaugurating a new campus in Koppal, about 12 hours north, this weekend, but one of the directors stayed back to have breakfast with the professor and me. This morning what did we find out? That the professor has canceled his trip.
- Speaking of Koppal, have I mentioned that the campus buildings were supposed to be finished in August? And then in October for the SJPD program to stay in when we visited? Well…we stayed in a hotel. And I talked to Nasser last night, who went up to Koppal on Sunday, and he said that everybody is working from 5am – 12:30am daily to get things done and make it look nice for the inaugeral.
Yup, there it is. A snapshot into the wonderful world of working in India.
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