The School Situation : Pictures

Top row (L-R): The ongoing construction; The Main Building from the front;
Second row (L-R): the 3D model of what will hopefully be the ultimate result; Part of the entrance foyer;


Bottom row: the McNamara/McKenzie('interim') accommodation

Some Pune pics

Cam on the balcony of our apartment overlooking a green area of Pune







Ladies and gentlemen going through a yoga session in our local park. They are not blowing out snot!







The kids on their fabulous new bunk











The view from our balcony down onto the central green area

First Impressions Pictures

Pune First Impressions

I was pleasantly surprised by what greeted us in Pune. It has a very green feel to it with far more trees and shade than I had anticipated. Compared to Mumbai, it presents as far more spread out and neat, but there is no logic to the layout of the streets so it is very difficult to find your bearings. In both cities I expected to be overwhelmed by the smells and chaos but so far I haven’t been; I feel like I’ve been here before.

Pune reminds Chris and I very much of the Philippines – the climate, the streets, the constant noise and beat, the curious stares, the over familiarity between men. But in place of the multitude of statues of Catholic saints in varying poses of gruesome martyrdom dotted all over the Philippines, in India there are little shrines and statues of Indian Gods captured at far more peaceful moments.

Pune apparently has a large ex-pat community, but much like in the Philippines, you do not see them – except around the Osho where the odd hippie in a purple robe has nicked out of Club Meditation (or the’Cashram’ as it is known here) for a cheap latte. Consequently we are a source of interest and comment wherever we go. Sebastian is particularly admired with his juicy white flesh and chubby limbs (it may be his resemblance to Buddha). In cafes and restaurants where Chris knows the staff, Seb is often taken off to meet the other waiters and half the patrons – he enjoys this experience in the morning but by late afternoon, Seb is pretty much over being deified. The 3 older children have learned some basic words such as Namasca (hello) and Dunyawad (thank you – Chris and Cam remembered this word initially because it reminded them of a typical Derby Day i.e. “Done your wad”). The locals get a real kick out of the children thanking them in this way, which of course makes the kids even keener to speak the local tongue.

In terms of attire, the men tend to wear shirts and long pants with very little variation on this theme, except perhaps that the younger men have a more western dress sense. You may see the occasional older man in more traditional dress and no one dresses more ‘Indian’ than the young western male tourists who take authentic ethnic dressing to the extreme (kind of like Patrick Tehan circa early 90s). The women are a different story. It is Saris all round with the odd Salwar Kameez (Tunic over pants with floaty shawl) gracing the younger, wealthier ladies. The women look lovely in their gorgeous fabrics and hues. The roads are awash with vibrant color as women stream past in rickshaws and on bikes trailing a rainbow of shawls and dupattas behind them.

I have seen a few younger women in western clothes, especially at night in the restaurants and in the modern shopping malls and they have been dressed in tight pants and shoe-string tops. However, I do not feel at all comfortable showing my shoulders or any part of my legs (any flash of white female flesh receives stares of absolute astonishment, possibly even horror). The issue of baring shoulders is particularly bizarre especially when you consider how much stomach is exposed in Saris and that the Sari undershirt was relatively recently introduced by the ladies of the British Raj seeking to raise levels of modesty among the local women (presumably to keep the gentlemen of the British Raj in check). In any event, it seems the more cotton you wear, the cooler you feel so I am more than happy to cover up.

There are no cabs in Pune, only auto rickshaws and buses (Chris particularly enjoys the Pune municipal transport acronym ‘PMT’, as mature as ever) for public use with many of the locals getting about on bikes and little ‘indicas’ (think Suzuki hatchback). The auto rickshaws are everywhere and have proven to be a very convenient and inexpensive way to get about. A rickshaw is basically a 2 stroke 3 wheeler motorbike with a covered bench seat attached. The six of us fit very cozily onto the bench seat and there is even room for our bags and hats on a little bench behind. I nurse Seb, Paddy sits in the middle with Eliza in front of him and Chris has Charlie on his lap. We can travel from our apartment to most parts of town (about 5kms) for under $1. Excellent. The ride is noisy and dusty and people are constantly beeping their horns but Seb falls asleep more often than not and when he is awake, he is all smiles. The rest of us love these rides with the breeze rushing through and the action right in our faces, the drivers are always friendly and let us practice new phrases with them. Other motorists peer in and wave or stop for a chat. Tonight two very cool young men on a motorcycle en route to a funky destination whistled at Seb and said “Hey good looking baby!” Two young bucks coochi-cooing a baby is lovely (can you imagine it happening in Chapel Street?), except I wish they would keep there eyes on the road. The way people drive is absolutely chaotic and apparently without any due care or diligence; the fact that no one ever crashes is amazing. But what keep me completely agog are the families that ride on the motorcycles. You can sometimes see a mother and father and up to 3 children all perched on a motorcycle, happily weaving between unpredictable trucks and swerving buses without a care in the world, or a helmet for that matter either.

We are currently living in town in a 3 bedroom apartment that is part of a large group of apartments called “Hermes”. It is very nice with granite floors and bench tops in the kitchen. The children have their own bathroom and we have an ensuite. The living area is large and basically like a standard modern open plan extension with kitchen overlooking meals area and family room. The living area leads out onto a very large paved balcony and we have great views (we are on the top floor). There is a swimming pool, playground and a games room in the complex and the children very quickly made friends with some of the other residents. The kids all meet at the pool in the afternoon and play pool tiggy (our kids are very proud of the fact they introduced this game to the others). At around 7pm, Paddy plays soccer below our balcony with his ‘best friends’ and Eliza and Charlie tend to scooter around if one of us is free to go down with them. Charlie is outraged that we let Paddy play downstairs unaccompanied but there is a big difference in age between 8 years and 5.5 years. The bedrooms and the living area all have air conditioning (all our appliances are LG so they must be made here. Having never owned a new appliance Chris and I are quite chuffed with the huge TV with cable including coverage of all AFL games, the sparkling fridge and even the nifty clothes washer). A lovely lady called Ooma comes 5 mornings a week to clean while we head out for a coffee. When we return, the apartment is immaculate (I am in heaven). A nice young man knocks on our door each morning and takes away any clothes to be ironed. He returns with them beautifully pressed and I pay him the equivalent 5 cents a piece. Unfortunately, all this may be short lived because we are due to move out to the construction, sorry, ‘school’ site around June 10 (The school story is a whole other blog post). While ultimately, this will be a terrific thing, at the moment we would all rather stay put, at least until things are further progressed at the school.

During the day it is very hot here. I haven’t seen a weather forecast but I imagine it must reach low to mid forties most days. But it is a different type of heat to the white, searing heat of Melbourne on a 40 degree day. It is somehow softer and more bearable. Having said that, the middle of the day is strictly a siesta zone and you don’t see many people out and about. Washing dries in less than an hour, so that is handy. We drink loads of water and I spend most of my time boiling and re-boiling, then cooling and bottling water (that is one thing I will not have to do at the site because the water there is UV filtered). Unfortunately, the power is shut down here at least twice each day for a couple of hours at a time and for most of the day on Thursday and we then get a taste of Pune without respite from the heat. Needless to say, I count down the minutes until the power clicks back on. The evenings are divine. Once the sun starts getting lower in the sky at about five, the atmosphere morphs into a balmy sweetness with a gentle breeze drifting up out of nowhere. Suddenly, there are people everywhere and the streets have a very festive feel as everyone makes the most of the best part of the day in an amazing part of the world.

Mumbai Pictures

Chris's mumbai experiences

April 19
You know the activity you do with kids where you take a jar and put in some rocks and then you say is it full before proceeding to tip in some pebbles, then into the tiny spaces that are left you fill sand, and then when it really looks like you can’t possibly fit in anything else you tip in water to fill all remaining gaps? Well, on my trip from Mumbai Airport to Hill Spring School, I discovered the living equivalent – The Mumbai traffic.
The roads are filled with buses and then in between the buses are the slightly smaller delivery trucks, carrying anything from rocks to water to sewerage, then there are the small four wheel drives driven by private drivers, the smaller cars and ever present black and yellow taxis. As you sit there watching you driver fill gaps you didn’t know existed, you think that there couldn’t possibly be room for any more when weaving their way through (often coming in the opposite direction come bicycles and motor bikes and scooters – usually carrying a family of 5). Struggling to cope with what you are seeing, and questioning not only how this can be possible, but also how it can move, you see people crossing the road through all the mayhem. Surely they are the water, the last possible thing that can fit on this pot-hole riddle, half made, always under repair roadway, but no! There, right beside you, you notice tiny children appearing in the non-existent gaps between the vehicles, carrying tins of water, bricks and each other.
All of which may explain why it took almost 2 hours to cover the not quite 20 km from the airport to the school.

I think the theory is that if you see a space you are obliged to fill it. After all, this is a city of 15-20 million people; space is a luxury you can’t afford.

April 20
I picked up the Mumbai Mirror at breakfast this morning – the local newspaper, not me satisfying my narcissistic urgings – and noted with great interest the article on the front page.
It was about the reclamation of Cross Maiden. As the story goes, Cross Maiden was once a beautiful grounds and was part of the grand Esplanade grounds. Why it had to be reclaimed, was because it had become over run by ‘slums, garbage dumps, hawkers, unauthorized food stalls, an illegal temple and even a horse stable’. See, this is how things spiral out of control in a country that is not fortunate enough to have Neill Mitchell and 3AW to constantly bang on about things such as ceremonial fires in public parklands. Robert Doyle’s anger might be better placed in Mumbai, and for that matter so might Robert Doyle!

Mumbai’s best taxi driver
(Sorry, I have taken to the very wanky habit of titling my entries)
I went for a long walk today from Colaba up through Oval Maiden and Cross Maiden and then down to Victoria Terminus, which is a magnificent train station, that with my strong architectural background I would have to say is Neo Gothic, no doubt the guidebooks will differ.
From there I jumped in a cab to go to Crossroads, which is a major shopping complex. Of course jumping in a cab here you have less chance that the driver will know where to take you than you do even with the cab drivers in Melbourne.
My request to go to Crossroads was greeted with a blank face and the conversation proceeded thus:
Me: “Crossroads at Breach Candy, can you take me?”
Taxi driver: “Blank stare, quizzical look, wobble of the head?” (guessing that the ? is appropriate here, am still struggling to read the tone of each head wobble.)
Me: “Crossroads, big store, Breach Candy”
Taxi diver: “Yes, Breach Candy, near the mosque” A glimmer of hope.
Taxi driver: Yes, yes, Breach Candy Hospital you want.”
Me: “No, No”
At this point I resorted to my very handy Lonely Planet map, shoving it through the window and pointing to the Crossroads icon. I quickly realized by the look on his face that I may as well have stuck a map of Melbourne in front of him.
Me: “Crossroads, big shop, Breach candy”
Taxi driver: “Crossroads”
Me: “Yes, yes, Crossroads, big shop.”
Taxi driver: “Yes, crossroads, big shop, Breach Candy”
Excited by my breakthrough I quickly jumped in, having mistaken this final exchange for him suddenly working out where I wanted to go rather than the actual case of him finally working out how to copy exactly what I was saying in order to seduce me into the back of his cab, but still with no idea of what I where I actually wanted to go.
So buoyed with optimism that I was on the right track, I jumped in and headed for Crossroads in Breach Candy, me in the back trying to follow our journey on my trusted map. My naivity here is of course breathtaking, as we quickly headed in completely the opposite direction than I expected.
I consoled myself with the thought that he knew a shortcut and was simply trying to save me a few Rupees. Either that or we were in search of a relative who could either give directions or interpret.
Wrong on both counts.
As it turned out we were simply in search of a traffic jam to sit in for 25 mins – not a difficult thing to find in Mumbai. Once found, my driver proceeded to cut the engine and nap for a bit – the metre of course continues to run. After his requisite rest, he kicked the engine to life, tooted a couple of times, did a U-Turn and we headed straight back past where we had started from to our final destination of Crosswords (a big Indian bookstore) not Crosswords (big shop in Breach Candy). At this point he turned triumphantly and charged me 85 rupees (a bit under $3) for the pleasure of his canny knowledge of Mumbai and his decent approximation of my English.


Interesting Reading
Tonight I went to meet a local Indian family who wanted to take me for Chai at the Tea House. I decided to walk so that on the way I could buy a copy of ‘Mistress of Spices’ from one of the street seller. This was of course inspired by the fact that the film opens here next week with Ashwaryia Rai, or Ash as we call her over here.
Whilst I was disappointed that I couldn’t find what I was looking for I did see ‘Surgery Simplified’. Now isn’t that a title that inspires confidence. It’s nice to know such a publication exists, especially if I need to operate on myself. I can’t imagine why it isn’t top of the pile in every surgery waiting room around Australia
Apparently it comes highly recommended by Dr Patil from QLD.

Cricket for the masses
Yesterday I went for a walk to Oval Maiden. This placce is a hive of cricket activity, it stretches from about the Basil St Oval to the other side of the next oval. On it they have about 4-6 proper cricket grounds, yesterday there were 2 games going on - as in two sets of people playing on the proper pitches and teams in whites. Then there are about 2-3 thousand people spead all over the place playing their own games of cricket. Each game sets up about five metres from the next and the fielders from one game might be fielding in an area about 4 games away. The proper games are not protected from the swarms either, as the adhock games set-up as little as 15-20 metres away from the main pitch and often the teams in white spend most of their time fielding balls from the other games. I thought I might get a hit, but this is serious stuff and teams are well set. From what I saw there is not a lot of getting your eye in or scratching out a slow innings, the only way is to charge the bowler. Looking at the bowlers, there are some seriously dodgy actions, I think even Murali would take issue. It was an amazing place to walk around and through, I fielded a couple of balls and in self defence even took a catch, which was greeted with much hysteria and not a little annoyance by the batsman, as I said, they take it fairly seriously. You seriously can't believe how many people were there all over the place. Sunday is also fairly quiet on the streets so they set up matches in the middle of the roads in the business district. The cars just kind of toot and then go around, because everyone has respect for cricket.

Journey to Pune

should start by saying at the outset that I do not recommend traveling half way across the world on your own with four children 8 years and under. It is stressful and exhausting; my brow was constantly furrowed and my tone was relentlessly snappish. Having said that, the children coped extremely well considering at one point the 3 eldest had not slept in nearly 24 hours and they behaved beautifully for the most part.The leg to Singapore was the best part of the trip. Sebastian seemed to like the bassinet and slept for a good part of the journey. The crew were falling over themselves to keep Paddy, Charlie and Eliza fed, watered and entertained. The onslaught of toys and food was endless (as were the kids' appetites, apparently). If any of them looked even slightly bored, they were whisked of to some other part of the plane to meet and greet a very enthusiastic audience. Every time Eliza returned to her seat, she was sporting a different hairstyle. Sebastian had a terrific party trick of sitting up in the bassinet after a sleep and smiling at anyone who met his eye, he soon realized this afford him loads of attention, applause even, and there were plenty of willing arms to take him if I needed free hands.The female staff on Singapore Airlines seriously all look like supermodels. I have never seen so many amazing looking women in one spot. They flirted outrageously with Paddy and Charlie, neither of whom seemed to grasp the fact they were the envy of every virile man on the plane. They were so lovely to me, if a little concerned I was traveling solo. When Sharon (we were all quickly on first name terms) discovered we had a stopover in Singapore, she asked me the name of the hotel. I told her the name of the hotel and she responded that she had not heard of it. I could be mistaken but the look of her face seemed to convey a vague fear the children and I might be sold into an underground slavery market. Sharon surveyed all the crew and returned to me quite panicked because no one seemed to know this hotel. She gave me her home phone number (yes, that's right) and told me to contact her immediately if I found myself in any trouble and she would come and get me. It did occur to me that if I was in any trouble, the opportunity to phone her might not arise so I suddenly felt very ill. Sharon returned with the head purser, who scrutinized my voucher and agreed that he had not heard of this hotel either(thus making the black market a far more likely option, at least from my perspective. By the time we landed in Singapore, the purser had made enquiries and discovered that not only did the hotel exist, it was "quite good, really". The children and I were then escorted by 3 staff, including the lovely Sharon to the driver who drove us to the hotel. When we arrived, our penthouse suite and adjoining room were already allocated (I suspect that purser has a bit of influence within the Singapore tourism industry). How is that for service?The layover in Singapore very short and I had to wake the children at 2am because we were taken back to the airport at 2.30am. I didn't sleep at all because, although I had booked a wakeup call, I thought it might not happen or I would sleep through it. The leg to Mumbai was fine except our luggage was the last off so we missed our 9.30am connecting flight to Pune.Chris met us in Mumbai and watching the children run to greet him was truly a Hallmark moment. He booked us into the Hyatt for the day and took the older 3 for a swim while Seb and I had a divine sleep for a couple of hours. We decided to go to lunch at a cafe in a nearby (huh!) area Chris had read about. The trip there was horrible, it took about 45 minutes because of all the traffic and the baby was beside himself. When I asked Chris why we didn't go in a 'Cool Cab' (ie.with AC), he said, "I didn't know they had them in Mumbai". We rectified that misconception immediately. Lunch was at a 'Barista' cafe (the coffee was very just okay) and was pretty good. The trip back to the Hyatt in the Cool Cab was fascinating and exciting and awful and too much to detail now except to say I am pretty sure I saw a woman giving birth on the side of the road! That couldn't be, could it?The final leg to Pune was 30 minutes and fairly incident free, Security on internal flights in India is way, way, way over the top - but a great creator of jobs, if a little annoying. As we were leaving the Pune Airport, Eliza fell off the front of the baggage trolley she was riding on and about 90 people came running from every direction to see if she was okay. In the 24 hours we have been here, our children have been blessed, had their cheeks pinched, complimented, and greeted so many times, they barely bat an eyelid now. Indians love children! India and the McNamara family are off to a good start.