This entry is now slightly out of date but I will post it anyway because its focus is the first week of school – a very significant time for all of us. We have been off line since re-locating to site, hence the hiatus in posts. But we have been very flattered by the enquiries regarding pending installments on the blog. We seek to please.
On the first weekend in August, Chris and I and the children moved out to our accommodation on site and after 2.5 months of living out of suitcases in Pune, it was lovely to finally be home. It was very good therapy unpacking ‘our things’, especially seeing again the smiling faces of our families and friends in the photos we brought with us. The kids took great delight in re-discovering some of their toys that had remained in boxes and were very happy about seeing their names back on their bedroom doors.
The accommodation is great and far better set up than we anticipated. The furnishings are elegant and comfortable and with a bit of lateral thinking we have managed to create a home with 3 (sort of) bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, dining room, study/hallway, bathroom, laundry, and 2 toilet / powder rooms. Excellent. So far we have enjoyed a constant supply of power because the school has its own generator. There are occasional blackouts but power is restored within minutes so this is a vast improvement on what we were faced with in the city. On our first night when the power did go out for some time, we made the happy discovery that some of our power points continued to work which allowed us to watch television and drink cold beer for much of the evening. The accommodation we were ultimately allocated, while identical, is not the one we were originally given which is still some way from being finished. We needed to be on site from the commencement of school due to the logistical difficulties of transporting Chris and the 3 children, all of whom have different schedules. The accommodation we now have is quite central and so I feel far less exposed and isolated which will be good when Chris is away doing IB training. We also have a clear view of most of the school grounds so I can see the children playing (if it ever stops raining). Bizarrely, I can also see Chris from the kitchen window moving around the building and it is a strange thing indeed to wave casually to my husband while he is at work and I am taking a stroll with the baby.
So far each day 2 of the school maintenance staff have knocked on my door at 11am and proceeded to clean the home from top to bottom. I am not sure if this is a short term luxury while the staff accommodation generally is completed but while it lasts I am enjoying my constantly immaculate house. While they are cleaning I tend to locate myself in the lounge watching TV with my feet off the floor to assist them (considerate, aren’t I?). The cleaners usually sit with me for a couple of minutes while the kitchen floor dries and get quite a giggle out of Oprah or whatever morning trash I am watching. Although we did have a rather weird moment on Friday when they sat down just in time to see John John being very intimate with Darryl Hannah in a dreadful bio-pic on John Kennedy jnr.
There is still plenty to be done and many of the staff are yet to move on to site, but it seems already we will not be neglected by the local village. A man delivers a newspaper to our door each morning and apparently we pay him at the end of the month. A little ‘milkbar’ has set up just outside the gate and carries essentials such as milk, bread and sugar. Hopefully a grocer will set up beside it so we can buy fresh fruit each day, although I did notice a boy delivering fruit to another staff member so I must investigate that. Most promisingly, we have seen auto rickshaws puttering through the grounds but we are still not confident about transport being readily accessible. What we do need is a Café Coffee Day to arrive and I expect the Australian staff alone would keep it in business.
To date, we have eaten most of our meals in the school dining room and the food has been great. Breakfast usually consists of cornflakes and toast, eggs either scrambled, boiled or omlettes, savory pancakes (dosas) or doughnuts and of course, dahl and rice. There is also chai tea and coffee. Lunch is a mixture of western fare such as soup and pasta or noodles and Indian veg and non-veg dishes served with roti and rice. Dessert has been fruit salad, mousse, custard and jelly so far, as well as the delectable gulab jarman. Dinner is mainly Indian fare. The food is delicious and we are very worried about the fact we may need to be lifted out of here with cranes at the end of our time unless we learn good habits of moderation fairly quickly and start exercising.
We have now met all the local staff, many of whom will also be living on site. There are several families with children of similar ages to our own and as the children get to know each other, I am sure the constant presence of playmates will make this experience particularly special for them. Things have been extremely frantic over this week and there has not been much time for socializing but everyone seems warm and friendly and we will all get along very well once we can stop for a moment and take a breath.
It has been raining constantly and heavily for the past week or so and many parts of the state, including Pune have experienced extensive flooding. The rains have caused chaos on the roads as some bridges are completely submerged, others collapse and those that remain are choked with traffic as motorists simply park their cars in the middle of the road and head to the railings to watch the ferocious flows below. Apparently the monsoon starts abating on 9 August (the locals think I am mad when I query how they can be so precise about the weather as apparently the dates are determined with scientific accuracy according the phases of the moon). The rains have slowed construction here and there is mud everywhere. While matters continue to progress, it will be some time before the student will have any access to the sporting facilities.
The boarders arrived on Sunday to a very wet welcome (70 mls of rain fell in the 24 hours from Sunday to Monday). It was an extremely stressful day for the staff as parents made no secret of their frustrations with the unfinished state of certain things. The first night in the boarding house was awfully unsettled as students dealt with the reality of homesickness exacerbated by the incomplete state of some facilities and the clear reluctance of many parents to depart. By Monday it would be fair to say that everyone concerned with this venture was apprehensive about the coming week and particularly Wednesday when the school officially opened for business. However in the midst of this palpable anxiety it was becoming increasingly apparent that, not only were the boarders settling quickly for the most part, they were also having a pretty terrific time acquainting themselves with their new friends and teachers. At mealtimes we were greeted by laughing, friendly children who were only to happy to stop for a chat. They were warm and inclusive even to younger ones, such as our children, and at this stage they collectively present as a delightful bunch of students. Their attitude has served as a timely reminder to all of us that the strengths and virtues of this school are to be found within the people who inhabit it. Things are not as we expected and many of the things we were promised are very unlikely to eventuate. But there have also been many pleasant surprises about this school that we had not even considered, not the least of which is the increasing sense of camaraderie between the staff. As an observer I have been very impressed with how the staff have generally conducted themselves in very trying circumstances. I may be biased but the Australian staff have really hit their straps. They have taken matters in hand and rescued a situation that was rapidly dissolving into a crisis. I am confident this week will serve to consolidate the entire staff providing them with a sense of common purpose that will ultimately result in this school becoming the success it deserves to be.
Wednesday arrived and the school opened as planned. After Sunday, Wednesday was very much smooth sailing as the children settled into their classes and became acquainted with the day students. Of course, it helped that the classrooms were further advanced than the boarding house and the teachers were well and truly primed to start. The rain eased (of course it did, it was the 9th of August!) and the children even had some snatches of play outside. At assembly time, I went outside to check the weather and was delighted to hear the children’s voices as they learnt the school song in their very first whole school assembly on the very first day at a brand new school.
The remainder of the first week unfolded without incident. The McNamara children settled into Kindergarten (Eliza), Grade 2 (Charlie), and Grade 4 (Patrick) seamlessly and have thoroughly enjoyed being back at school at last. On Friday, Sebastian and I attended the first Junior School assembly conducted by the Head of School, ‘Mr Mac’. The children seemed chuffed when Chris congratulated them on being the very first students in a wonderful new school. When he drew their attention to the line in the school song, “…..we sing their praises; One and all who’ve come before,” and suggested that all future students who sing that line will be singing it about them, even I felt a tingle in my spine.
Undoubtedly there will be many challenges ahead but things will continue to move slowly forward and hopefully the worst day is behind us. There has been significant personal fallout and trauma to some of us and we have lost three of our Australian staff in the process. We are sad for them and equally conscious of how we will feel their absence. But in the midst of these lows, there are increasing highs – Would you expect anything else in the global epicenter of contradictions?
