Udaipur + Just another day in the slums

Hi again! I just found out something pretty cool: there's a movie that just came out in US theaters called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that's set in a pretty familiar location. The film is set in Jaipur (where I'm staying) but was actually filmed in Udaipur, the city that I visited last weekend. So in both cases I'm familiar with the area, and I can't wait to watch it at home to see if they did a good job portraying the city and if I recognize any of the landmarks!

Speaking of Udaipur, I've decided that it's my favorite city so far. It's technically still in the desert, but engineers created a couple of man-made lakes in the 1300's that surround the city and allow it to be green and beautiful. It's especially famous for the Lake Palace, which was actually built right in the middle of the lake and is only accessible by boat. It's been called the "Venice of the East", which totally fits because it's very quaint and beautiful, which can be hard to come by in crowded, noisy, dusty Indian desert cities!


I spent a day and a half in Udaipur with another volunteer from Holland, and it was a ton of fun. We saw the City Palace (second biggest in India and famous for it's stained glass, murals and mirrors -- super beautiful), took a boat ride on the lake, visited a 500 year old Hindu temple, rode a  camel, explored a spice market, and had a great time just walking around the city. Of course, it took between 8 and 11 hours of driving by bus through the impoverished countryside to get there and back (everything in India seems to take a really long time), but it was still my favorite trip yet! Totally worth it. I'll post a link to some photos once I get an album together.

Speaking of photos, I'm also posting some photos that I have of the street kids' school! I took some of them but the kids get a real kick out of using anything electronic, so some of them were taken by them.

Today one of my kids came to school with a baby in tow. She's only about ten (most of the kids don't know how old they are, so we guess) and I hadn't seen her in about two weeks, so I wondered why she had gone missing and why she was now coming with this little boy. I found out from the teacher that her mom had gotten in an accident and has been in the hospital, and her father's been spending all of his time with the mom. So Pooja has had to stay home to cook, watch the baby and the other three children, and run the house (actually a tent) while her parents haven't been home.  She could only come today if she could bring the baby along because she didn't have anyone to watch it if she went to school. And then she showed up to school, did all of her math work perfectly, kept an eye on the baby and her younger brother and sister, and then marched back home again like this was a perfectly normal thing to do.

I can barely get myself together in the morning. I can't imagine running a five-child household on my own at ten years old. But here this doesn't really seem to phase anyone; it's just another part of living in the slums. Crazy, huh?

But anyway, here  are the photos I promised:

Street Kids School

Udaipur pictures soon!