Shishur Sevay

For those who have followed this saga, you know what an achievement this is, and what a relief!!!!  And guess what, I’m not so tired!!!!

As for stuff wearing me down, the laptop could not be fixed, so I’m using an older back up one for now, and I was able to take the hard drive out of the broken one and keep the data.  The printer, after many false starts, finally went to the printer hospital, where I learned that mice had eaten the ink tubes, and that’s why ink spilled out all over.  This was not covered by warranty, of course.

The audit is done!  This was another major achievement.  Now we are apreparing for our Annual General Meeting.  Creating the society, registering it, keeping up with the records needed– all takes time, energy, and always new learnings for me.  In my next posting I’ll write about the actual NGO we formed.

Typepad regularly sends out apologies for technical difficulties, but it remains cumbersome and slow, and I recommend it to no one.  But i’m here so I stay with it.  The apologies, made in the name of improved composing of blog entries, are as if that is only a minor part of blogging.  But the word processing or non-processing is a real obstacle.

The girls are fine, as usual.  They talk more and more about their pasts as their English and my Bengali improve.  My current staff really engages with them — as the aunties i’d hoped for.  We have started English classes for the massis each day.

We kept alive a baby crow who had fallen from the nest.  It was doing so well, developed feathers, began to recognize us, and then died last night.  We just had a little funeral for it.  I dug a hole in the garden, near the back wall, and we stood and cried.  The girls had never seen me cry before.  I was quite close to Paki, as I called the bird.  Paki is Bengali for bird.  I have buried so many pets in back yards and gardens — dogs I’ve loved, cats, gerbils, guinea pigs — with monuments and prayers for safe journeys, and hopes that no one ever digs them up.  Paki is along the back wall, beneath two trees, where it is unlikely anyone will dig.  The girls want to plant flowers around the grave.  We will.  In some ways, life is the same everywhere, and so are children with their pets.

 The things that really wear me out:

My printer has spilled ink all over its base.  I put in a new cartridge and it seems to have spilled.  A red light blinks.  The printer doesn’t print.  It is an HP Inkjet.  I bought it here on 5th June, 2007.  Therefore it is 11 days out of warranty.  I buy new cartridges all the time — not refills.

My laptop died about a month ago — needs a new motherboard.  I was able to take out the hard drive and put it in a casing.  I’m using an older laptop from the US.  I had it here but when it broke I had to find ways to get it to US as NO ONE will repair a computer if not from India.  The trouble is a friend tried to upload Explorer 7 and it loaded with an error I can’t get rid of.  It’s a standard error and there are pages of references about it online so it must be a common, and unfixable problem.  So I have to work around that. 

My virus program expired so I got a security program which included virus (the same brand).  I loaded the software but the key won’t work.  I get error messages.  I sent them to the help desk.  They tell me to do things i already tried, and which don’t work.  So, I”ve spent the money buying it online.  I can’t get it to work.  Within the next seven days I MUST do something because the trial is running out for the one I bought.  That will take another day… a day when it feels like all I got done was to fix or play with the computer.

ON THE OTHER HAND… some very good things are happening.  Today we started English lessons for the massis.  They are so happy!  It will be 45 min a day, mid morning, when  other things can be put on hold, and before any kids come home.  The English teacher who teaches the children will teach them.  I really want this place to be good for everyone.  I finally have a very good team and last week I raised their salaries.  Sunday one of them brought her granddaughter for the day and will do so again.  For those with children and grandchildren, I help with school.  This is how I’d always imagined it.

The pictures never were posted — I guess a combination of Typepad trouble and my internet trouble, but i just found out, so here are the pictures… Again!

  End

End

We had a quiet weekend, which is to say mostly we just hung out in the house — well, what I mean is that the kids didn't have work to do — well, what I'm really trying to do is defend myself from anyone who thinks I make the kids work ALL the time!  For many reasons, teachers were now here and some of the usual scheduled things didn't happen.  What do the girls do when they have unstructured time?

They play in the garden.  And you can see from the accumulated familiar plastic that we are well stocked in plastics.

They set up a classroom for the little ones.  They teach, and have fun with plastic.

Read the phone book?  She really enjoyed reading out the phone numbers.  But then she got more interested in playing with the rabbit.  Of course I had to take pictures: