Delhi

I've been in Delhi a week now, which seems like a very long time.
In truth a taxi ride from the airport to the centre where we are living was enough to convince me that I would love Delhi, everything was so different and refreshing - there was no strict code of conduct on the roads, cows have right of way, people were everywhere, and the amount of culture was evident even from within the confines of an air conditioned car...

However, by friday, as exaustion had slowly sunk in, I had found myself falling, rapidly, out of love with its backward ways.
It is mildly amusing for instance, at first, when everywhere you go, people stop what they are doing to stare unsmiling at you (and in Delhi this is quite significant as the streets are packed full of people from 6 in the morning until 11 at night), they stand unmoving whilst you pass and then, if you glance back, you will catch them whispering fervently to each other in large groups. After a week of this, the novelty has worn off (a little). Even I sit in this 'Cyber Cafe', everybody else is silent, and every now and then will exchange a significant glance or two with their Neighbours.

We have spent the week visiting all of the Ritinjali centres in and around Delhi. Rintinjali is an educational charity that was set up to create schools in tight knit poverty stricken areas of Delhi, where most of the children would be performing manual labour if they weren't now at school. It has been tiring, but satisfying.

India basically has the same laws and restrictions about education and child labour as we do, but there is no one to enforce them and so they are ignored.

One thing I have noticed about Delhi is that because there are so many people, jobs that normally take one person (i.e. you), in India take five or six. We visited an Architect's office today and there was: someone who opened the gate, someone who opened your door for you to get out of the car, and someone to open the door into the building (the gate and the office were within 4 metres of each other).

I am having a good time, it is just that everything is so different and takes a bit of getting used to!

I am living at the moment in a 'Second Chance Centre' for boys from broken families, it's a good project and the boys are wicked. Spent the weekend with Arun Kapur, the man who invited us out here, where we were exposed to a very different side of Delhi.
There are streets of Shopping Malls that beat anything I've seen in the UK, and they are located only 100 metres or so from one of the Slum schools that we teach at. It was a good weekend as we met Mr and Mrs Singh, who are Architects in Delhi and entertained us on Monday. They have just finished building the 'Ministry of Sound India', which we had a look around and managed to get tickets to the opening night.

Hope everything is well in England,
Jimmy x