Days 16, 17 and 18: The application is in + traditional Indian dance and the garbage jingle
Why yes, that is a completed and spiral bound teaching partner application to the Skill Sector Council for Green Jobs that you see in our hands. Yesterday, we collected the very last documents, photos and signatures required, and today the hard and soft copy applications were sent to the council.
If you would have told me last Monday that we’d send the application before we left, I’d never have believed it. The Vatsalya staff spent hours or days away from their regular work to provide the information required. We couldn’t have asked for better partnership.
This week, we also completed a short marketing deck that the CEO can use to pitch the community college concept to potential donors (financial support) and partners (expertise and network).
Traditional Indian Dance
This week also featured a ladies night of traditional Indian dance followed by dinner and a new ice cream stop — the best I’ve visited so far in India. (Lemon ginger ice cream from Molly Moo).
The dance featured two acts. I was relieved that they explained the story lines ahead of time.
Act 1: Woman and Shiva (a god) fall in love and plan to get married. Before the wedding, another god decides the wedding cannot happen and diverts Shiva, so that he never arrives. Woman gets very angry. The other god visits the woman to explain her true destiny. Woman fulfills her destiny by defeating a demon. Woman still spends the rest of eternity pining for Shiva anyway.
Act 2: An only-child princess realizes that her father is unhappy about not having a male heir to rule the kingdom after him. The 14-year-old princess becomes determined to take the throne. She learns all the arts of war, succeeds in battle and assumes the throne after her father dies.
The Garbage Jingle
Every morning at the hotel, I have heard the voices of small children singing followed by an adult voice and more singing. What could it be? Maybe a religious ceremony or school ritual? Nope. I learned yesterday that it’s the jingle the garbage collection company uses to encourage people to put out their trash. Apparently, the Hindi words translate to something like “Please bring out your garbage to be collected and help keep our city clean.”
