Day One - A Vistit to the Astrid Rowe Memorial High School (ARMHS)

Sarah and I had trouble sleeping. I never respond well to sleep ultimatums, so knowing that we had just 6 hours to nap, shower, change  money and be dressed and ready to go was enough to keep me awake. We both managed to get a little sleep between 6 and 9:30 am, but then just decided to get up and get on with the day.

We headed down to the lobby just before noon to change some money and meet our group. By 12:15 pm everyone in our group was assembled and we boarded the bus for ARMHS. Our trip to the school took us through mostly poor neighborhoods, but in the distance we could see the outline of a more cosmopolitan city. As we approached the school, we passed by a large tent city. Sarah was stunned. "Do people live there?" she asked. "Yes," I answered. "Do the kids who go to the school we are visiting live there?" I didn't know the answer to that question, but I suspected they did.

Note: Although the school is referred to as a high school it is a high school in the British, not American, model. The school begins at pre-K and goes through 10th grade. Students wishing to continue their education past 10th grade must test into Intermediate School for 11th and 12th grade and then qualify again for University.
 

There was a loud din of children's voices as we got off the bus, but I didn't really take in why until someone else from the group pointed up to a series of balconies and said, "Oh my God, look at them all!" The ARMHS kids were gathered along every inch of the open stairwell and balconies trying to catch a glimpse of our arrival. As we headed off the bus, they shouted and waved to us. It was really something. We had been told that our Indian hosts were very excited about our visit but, somehow, I had not pictured this level of excitement.

We went straight from the bus to the home of Sagar, ARMHS principal, which adjoined the school. Sagar's wife, Pushpa, had prepared an amazing Indian feast for us. For some in our group who had no tolerance for spicy food this was the first exercise in learning to survive an Indian meal. In fact, we were missing one from our group because she was already not feeling well. Emirates featured curry prominently in its meal offerings and she had not been able to find much to eat during the 24 hours of travel. She had stayed back at the hotel where she could drink some bottled water and nibble on snacks she brought from home while she tried to re-gain her sea legs. I was actually looking forward to eating authentic Indian food and Pushpa's first meal didn't disappoint.

After lunch we went over to the school. We were asked to stop in the street just short of the school gates and we watched as some of the school children set off a fireworks display. Alida commented that this was her least favorite tradition and said she always watched in horror and dread. A teen from our group, Will, said, "Can you imagine this happening at an American school?" It was a good point. We were beginning to learn that there were different standards of safety and protection here and, who knows, maybe a lot fewer lawyers, too.

When the smoke from the fireworks cleared, they signaled us through the school gates and into the school yard which was decorated with streamers, banners, and beautiful welcoming chalk drawings called rangolis. As we entered a student came up to each one of us and placed a flower garland around our necks. We were treated to several welcoming performances, including 3 dances and a yoga demonstration. When the performances were completed they split us up into small groups and assigned us to a student leader. The leaders took us around to various classrooms where students were prepared with science, history and art projects and demonstrations.

The students were very eager to shake our hands and get their photo taken. They were proud to show off their knowledge which they recited in excellent English. They seemed particularly pleased when they were able to stump one of us with a puzzle or riddle they had prepared. I didn't let them down. They stumped me pretty much every time.

For some students the recitations in English were really quite remarkable in terms of their length, detail and the student's obvious comprehension of the subject matter. I was also impressed that no matter what kind of ruckus was erupting around them, the students who were reciting material remained laser-focused on the material and their listeners. Other students had a lesser command of the English material they were reciting. Alida found this out the hard way when she asked a question in the middle and the student got flustered and had to start over from the beginning. It was definitely best to save the questions for the end!

The last stop on the tour of classrooms was the school's brand new digital classroom, complete with smart board. It seemed wildly out of place in the primitive concrete and open air setting of this school, but I admired the effort to keep up with the times.

After our classroom visits were done we met with the teens from the school who would be joining us for the trip down to the rural village of Khammam, about 250 kilometers south of Hyderabad. Many of these teens lived at the school's hostel and several had not been out of Hyderabad. They were excited to be chosen for the trip and the American kids were looking forward to getting to know them.

We ended the visit to ARMHS by making visits to some of the homes of the students who attended the school. We stayed in the same small groups that we had traveled around to classrooms in and were accompanied by two teachers. Each group went to visit three homes from the slum area that surrounded the school.

The first home my group visited was the home of a truck driver and a seamstress who had four children that attended the school.  The home was concrete and comprised of two small rooms. The entry room was about 6 X 6 and the back room only slightly larger than that. Officially, there were 6 in the family living in that tiny space, but a peek in the back room revealed a number of other inhabitants, who we gathered were extended family. There was a small indoor cooking space in the second room, but no indoor sanitary facilities. The space was tidy and clean, especially given the dirt road right outside the door step.

The other families that we visited were living in just one room. In each case these rooms that comprised the entire home were about the size of my office at work, maybe 6 X 6. At each visit we were offered Thumbs Up, an Indian version of Pepsi, and some cookies or biscuits. Word of our visit quickly spread to the neighbors and they congregated in the doorway to gawk at us. You could tell this was something they'd be talking about for a long time to come. The same could be said for us.

We ended our first day with a shopping trip to a cultural center that featured a sort of flea market of merchants selling rugs, pashminas, bangles, traditional Indian clothes, and other wares. We walked up and down the rows and were accosted by vendors who saw us as easy prey. In my case, they were definitely right. Fortunately, Sagar and his son and daughter-in-law came with us and helped us with the required bargaining. By this time, we had had a full day and the shopping trip put me into full sensory overload. I was really happy when we were heading back to the mini-bus.

Getting back to our bus proved to be a difficult feat, however. First we had to make our way through the gauntlet of beggars that capitalized on this tourist location. Next we had to cross the busy Hyderabad street to get to our bus on the other side. Bear in mind, there were no traffic lights or traffic cops. Crosswalks are unheard of and drivers feel free to use the shoulder or opposite side of the road if it will get them where they're going more quickly. You are literally risking your life when you cross the road. Nonetheless, the 15 of us managed to get across safely with two very persistent beggars still in hot pursuit. The coins we had given them had just encouraged them. Even after we were on the bus and the bus began to move, one of them continued to knock on the windows of the bus.

The ride to and from the cultural center took us through a major retail area of Hyderabad. I recognized the names of many of the American and European retail establishments, but the rest of the surroundings were quite foreign. The roads were paved at the center, but generally had disintegrated into dirt and rubble by the time they reached the shiny store fronts. There were no sidewalks to speak of and crowds of people were interspersed in what to my American sensibilities seemed like very dangerous proximity to cars and motorbikes. None of the traffic, pedestrian or automotive traffic seemed to be following any rules. It was a free-for-all, and after our long, exhausting day, I had to stop looking.

 We got back to our hotel at about 8 pm and hadn't eaten dinner yet. Both of the hotel's two restaurants were packed and couldn't seat us immediately. A group of us put our name in at one of the restaurants and were told we'd be seated in 15 minutes. When 45 minutes went by, we looked for another option and settled on eating in the hotel's nightclub. It was a very bad choice. The music was pounding, the service was slow, and when our food finally arrived I couldn't tell if the chicken was thoroughly cooked. Sarah and I decided to throw in the towel and eat something back in our room. It had been a long, exciting, and exhausting day and we were more than ready for bed!