First Update

The following was the first update email that I sent out to those that I had email addresses for. For those of you who didn't get to see it here it is:

Dear Friends,
I have arrived safely in Chennai, once more. This time I was picked up by people from the school and brought straight to my beautiful apartment which I just took pictures of for you all but was unable to upload them because I can't find the cable to go from my computer to camera. (mom, please take a look on that marble table in the living room) The school has made me quite comfortable in a furnished three bedroom apartment. I love the colors for the curtains and bedsheets, and I've got a very comfortable couch set with love seat and comfy chair, A/C in the common room and two bedrooms, and plenty of stuff in the kitchen to keep me happy until my shipment arrives.

Monday was spent just relaxing at the apartment and getting over jet lag. We ordered Pizza Hut for dinner and that was about it. Tuesday I had the joy of experiencing the wonder of the efficiency of the Immegration office. (please note sarcasm) We arrived around 10:30 at the office and were told to sit down. Every couple of minutes everyone started getting up and moving down a couple of chairs. It took me a minute to realize that this was not any ordinary game of musical chairs, you seriously had to move fast if you didn't want someone cutting your place in line and taking the chair you should have sat in. About 40 minutes later we got to the front desk and gave our papers and they wrote some stuff down and told us to go wait infront of door number one. We sat there for about another 20 minutes, and then it was my turn to go in, the guy asked a bunch of questions and reviewed my paperwork. "Phew, it's over" I thought to myself naively.. Unfortunately he handed me back my papers and said, ok, give them to that lady over there on the other side of the wall. I was like ok, thanks! when I turned the corner I realized it was another crazy game of musical chairs twice as long this time. Eventually I got a seat up at the front and was able to hand over my papers. She looks them over briefly, hands me them back and says: ok go through that door back there and wait for the lady at the second window, it's window number four. (no, i did not mistype that, the second window was, indeed, window number four.) Finally when I got to the window she took my papers for the last time, and said alright, come pick up your residency permit on August 12th. sheesh.. 3 hours later we left. and about half an hour later we were sitting in the Park Hotel. One of the nicest restaurants in the city with A/C and a buffet most Americans would die for! Incredible contrast!!

The next couple of days were spent getting my apartment more set up and getting settled. I bought a TV and DVD player on Wednesday (and promptly discovered that all of my DVD's are the wrong region to play in the DVD player) and I'm hoping to get a mobile phone soon. The Head of School arrived back in Chennai on Wednesday so yesterday all the new staff was invited out to dinner with him. (According to the grape vine, he's a great "wine and dine" kind of guy.) I sat next to the Elementary Principle (who is also new this year and I had met at the immegration office) and then several other teachers as well as the rest of the returning administration. It was a fairly surreal experience for me to be sitting around this huge table in possibly another of the nicest restaurants in Chennai with all white faces and drinking wine and beer and eating Thai food while discussing how happy we are to not be having to deal with NCLB (No Child Left Behind) but also the struggles of what we will be having to deal with (daily power cuts etc.) It's fascinating. I had a good time anyway. I had some pretty good conversations though about my previous experience in Chennai and a lot of people said they would be interested in talking to me more or visiting the children.

Today was my first day of a full orientation. We had a meeting with the Head of School and got to take a tour of the whole school. I found my classroom and I even went and got them to print out my class list! I've got 15 kids! (6 girls and 9 boys) only 3 of which are American. I can't pronounce the other 12's names because they are all from miscelaneous Asian countries with crazy hard to pronounce names. :-) Still I'm looking forward to it! I've met some great teachers and it's funny to see how different some of us are and how some people come just expecting to have so much. Someone commented to me the other day how great it was that my first experience in India was in what is called "the real India." Just very basics of living and no frills or trappings. So now I'm not scared to get "dirty" even in spite of being set up in a really nice apartment.

Well, tomorrow for part of our orientation they are taking us down south of the city to a very posh resort outside of Mahaballapuram (Ideal Beach Resort). So I better get some sleep before they come pick us up. I'd love to hear from you!
Blessings and Love!
-Becca