July 14--work at the school and a bike trip to the Junction

     Today our assignment was on campus.  It was our “education rotation,” meaning we worked with the kids at the school.  Our day was spent with kids from pre-K to 7th grade.  I felt like I had a pretty good experience teaching a fourth-grader some math, but a lot of the time I felt like a substitute—I’m gonna be gone in a few days, and they know it, so it’s limited how much you can help.

     My ATM card hasn’t been working in any India ATMs for the past several days.  It’s getting to be a problem because I bought some paintings from a couple artists at a leprosy colony, and I owe them some money and I can tell the people here are getting nervous I’m gonna skate without paying.  Sheesh.  But anyways, they encouraged me to go down to the ATMs at “the Junction” about 5 km away to get some money.  Except there’s a rule that we’re not allowed to ride in the little rickshaw taxis to get there.  Sheesh.  And they won’t authorize one of the vans to take us.  Sheesh.  So we had to ride down there on bikes, except there were seven of us and only four bikes.  Grr.  So we figured that three of us would ride double (hey, plenty of Indians do it, right?).  Except that about 100 yards into the ride, my bike (with another volunteer on the back) blew a tire after hitting a rock.  So one person agreed to stay behind, we switched bikes, and the six of us kept going on three bikes.

     It took maybe half an hour to ride down to the Junction.  I have to say, it was worse to ride than to pump.  The rack is very uncomfortable to sit on, and when riding you have to use weird abdominal and oblique muscles to keep your feet up off the ground, since there are no pegs to rest your legs on).  It was kinda funny to trundle along on those bikes, with natives gaping and waving—all in all, one of those experiences that’s rather more fun in retrospect than while it’s happening.

     At the Junction, I tried both ATMs and neither of them would give me money.  Grr.  After we came back, I called BofA and they say that everything’s fine with my account.  We’ll see if I can get the stupid card to work tomorrow; I’m told that Indian ATMs can be tricky.  The issue of the deadbeat painting purchaser seems to be weighing heavily on the administration here, so my assignment’s been changed—I’ve been attached to a medical group that’s passing by an ATM on the way to the colony where it will work.  I’ll take the photo printer along, and that should be a good time.

The Junction

Video from today