Tuesday, July 20; Andi's Room; 3:52pm

As much as I feel like a foreigner in my own city, I can't imagine this experience alleviating those feelings. As I grow familiar and fond of this surrounding culture, I can't imagine how I'll feel leaving it for home.
I've always felt socially displaced at home, never quite finding the fitting jigsaw ieces to settle between. India kind of helps put things into perspective. The common gaps ("Doors will open on the left. Mind the gap") between India's own people are social, all the same. Economics are also a big deal. I did feel a bit foolish carrying a huge bag of graceries from one of the upper scale stores. We went to the only known store to us with shopping carts today. Woopie! We found all the little items we'd been meaning to stock up on, like a loaf of bread, jam for Josiah, mixed crunchy something or other, detergent, and a replenish of Andi's biscuit supply. Our total came to 600-something rupees and I felt totally rich.. until we translated it to dollars. We walked out of that store with more than we could imagine, all for around twelve dollars. Total score. I set the items up to photograph our finds, mostly trying to stay mindful of our possessions.

I think something major for a lot of us is maintaining a mindfulness of what we've got. We make list after list of things we haven't got without making lists of all that we still have with us. Bottom line, I wish to always be mindful of what I have to avoid lingering thoughts on that which I do not.
Simple?

I was looking at a calendar an hour or two ago and realized how few days I have left here. As I was saying, I've grown a bit attached to the surrounding chaos of culture, beauty in poverty and empathy for minorities.
I wish I could elaborate on a lot more. I don't know if I ever will be able to.
I still don't really know what effect my being here will have on myself or those I encounter on the metro, on the streets, or in the makeshift classrooms. Oh well.. ..

Today I finally went with Josiah to Wazzipur. I didn't realize that's where I was until after, nor did I think to ever ocnsider it a slum.
I loved the setup of the buildings. I really have grown fond of a lot of the architecture. I noticed (couldn't help it actually) just how physically close everyone and everything was to eachother. They can't avoid it. The homes are so ridiculously set up, stacked up, right next to the other. Does this mean money buys us space? Keep us arms reach from neighbors? Close enough to have neighbors, yet far enough to avoid acknowledgment.
It seems nice not having a choice. Even if that equates to a slum here.

The kids in Wazzipur were wonderful. If it weren't for that pesky language barrier, we would have left knowing everything about eachother, I'm sure. They all seemed to want help in math, which is fun. We learned about Edges and Corners. Straight edges. Curved edges. Corners occur where two straight edges meet. They grasped that fairly well.
Then we progressed to the basics. Addition was easy-peasy. Subtraction took its toll on a few. There was some obvious competition amongst friends. Who can figure it out the fastest? It was fun watching them try. It remained difficult for a few so Josiah got to continue with that little group. The rest of us carried onto multiplication. That was better. At one point I made a question with an answer much too involved to get quickly and I struggled with the answer haha. We finished with giving them a few homework problems and all were on their way.