Street Children and More

Breakfast!

Any idea why there might
 be power failures?

This morning, we went on a tour hosted by the Salaam Baalak Trust. "Salaam" is an Arabic greeting, and "Baalak" means "children" in Hindi. The trust was set up to help the street children of Delhi become productive members of society, and offers shelter, education, health services, and counseling to the children who have ended up on the streets.

A very typical balcony, with piercings on the walls

It was an eye-opening experience. One of the things the guide shared with us (a former child of the streets, the guides are uniquely qualified to speak of the issues!) was that getting food is actually NOT a problem for the children of Delhi. According to him, there are numerous religious agencies and governmental agencies that offer food. Rather, the difficulties are more that they run away to escape violence at home or with the dream of becoming a Bollywood star (did you know that a NEW movie comes out every single Friday?), have nowhere to stay, and then become addicted to drugs or entrapped in slavery or near-slavery.

A narrow alley. Yes, you can walk through
this space

Another  interesting point he made was that any money gained during the day must be spent that day or it will be stolen while the person is sleeping. So giving a large handout will be of no use whatsoever, because it will end up being used for drugs rather than contributing to rent or clothing or other "basic" items.

These tiles are in the alley because they were having problems...

...with public urination. No more!
Can't pee with God watching.

After our tour (which involved meeting some of the children of the shelter, who play a mean game of pattycake and thumb wrestling!), we had an extraordinary restaurant experience. Having asked our guides for a recommendation, we were sat down in this ...well, hole in the wall really doesn't describe it well. There were about 6 locals in there already, one of whom was seated at the only table big enough for our family. He was told by the waiter to get to a different table, at which point the waiter wanted to take our order. Of course, it would have helped to know WHAT to order. No samosas (easy name to remember). Hmm. There WAS an indecipherable menu board on the wall with about, oh, 50 items to choose from. None of which looked memorable except for aloo ghobi. A lot of non-starter attempts on my part were greatly simplified by Michael: he looked at our neighbors' food, pointed, and said (with fingers) "THREE." I ordered some extra naan, as well.

Formerly interior walls

We ate MORE than our fill, and had three liters of bottled water (he'd started off by handing out metal cups and sloshing a metal water jug on the table...looked like liquid cholera to all of us...and maybe he got the idea when he saw us opening our bottles at the table?). Total bill: 300 rupees, about $4.50. TOTAL. For SEVEN. Wow.

Part of Main Bazaar

Innovative street widening...

Loved the detail on this!

Wandering off to the "Main Bazaar," which we had seen during the walk but not had time to explore, was an interesting experience. To begin with, you have to understand the ambiance: The road used to be very narrow until the government had the bright idea of widening the road. Solution? Shave off about 10 feet of each building on each side of the road. Voila! Wide market road! Now, the way it was done makes it truly look like a bomb site. It's quite um something to see the lack of finishing. Interior doors on the upper floors open onto the streets (presumably nailed shut?). The walls are just unevenly broken off with the brick however it happened. Quite a sight.

Getting juice

The pineapple juice was orange! And delicious.

Take-out, transported home

Ashley enjoyed having her hand hennaed, while Florence and I checked out saris and other textiles. Eleanor cased out jewelry and purses. Michael and the boys watched people.

Hand lettering was everywhere...
even on government buildings

Oh, I haven't yet mentioned this, but we are now perpetually a party of eight. We can't walk anywhere without having someone come to "help" us find our way or otherwise be very chatty. It's unfortunate, but based on reading and instinct, it feels controlling and perhaps not prompted by the best of motives, and we're having to learn how to shake people off. Michael laughed about the fact that some try to make us feel better about them by telling us they have a real job (sometimes as a government employee...as though THAT would make us trust them!).

Anyhow, we went to Connaught Place after the Main Bazaar. I had hoped for a study in contrasts, because we'd been told that this is where all the high-end shops were, but we must have ended up in the wrong spot or something, because we didn't see much of anything. We were tired of walking, though, so we hired a taxi to take us to a mosque that supposedly had amazing chanting on Thursday evenings. We were there WAY too early, and jostled through the Muslim enclave, encoutering beggars, elders, small children, dogs, goats (with sweaters!), and more.

Shish-kebabs and more! This was our dinner.

Another warm goat

One goat with sweater

Well, it was a bust. That is to say, it was an interesting experience (including some rather salty but tasty shish kebabs, some yummy snacks wrapped in newspaper that described the symptoms of malaria, and some Indian funnel cakes) but the chanting didn't happen for whatever reason. Oh, well.

Getting home was promising to be an adventure, too. With so many of us, we really need two taxis (or a large one), so I was valiantly attempting to flag down a vehicle of the like. A tuk-tuk pulled up, and I explained the situation. "Oh, no, madam, you all fit in here!" said our driver, encouragingly. Now, mind you, Michael had already expressed his deep distrust of this type of conveyance, and I was working hard to protect him from the evils of tuk-tuk riding, so I tried to continue declining. Particularly since I knew the ride would be almost an hour.  Well, the driver WAS awfully persuasive, and lined up the buddy behind him to take half of us while he took the other half. With an eyebrow raised in question to Michael, he nodded an okay, and in we packed. Now, understand that this had been the boys' ambition since we had first seen "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," so they were perfectly happy to be crammed in and on laps and so forth.
Well, the two drivers stayed together remarkably well, and we did eventually make it back to the hotel, having seen several other enticing markets on the way! Total fare for an hour's ride (total for TWO tuk/-tuks, mind you) was 300 rupees, about $4.50. Amazing.  AND Michael admitted that he had had an AMAZING time! He thought it was a highlight.

Anyway, after chatting in our room for a while, we all decided to go have some dinner to fill in the corners. Although we'd snacked, we thought a little smackerel of something would be rather nice. Off we went to the hotel restaurant!

The restaurant affords some interesting views of the street below, and tonight's view was quite hilarious: we saw a cow placidly eating with its hindquarters jutting out into the street while cars were hooting and going within inches of its tail. We enjoyed seeing a motorcycle scoot through the one-foot gap between the cow and a car, and then I saw a pedestrian TRIP over the cow's hindquarters. This bovine never turned a hair. We were in stitches over this whole situation...better than television, for sure!

We ordered bits and bobs to eat, had a delightful dinner chatting about the day, and then it was time for bed.

Looking forward to further adventures tomorrow,

Alexandra