The next episode

And we're back.  Thanks to you, the viewer at home, for staying tuned to Brad's Indian Summer.  I'm your host, Brad Dembs and I look forward to telling you some stories of what has been going on with me this past week.  I hope you look forward to reading them.  Please follow along below.

So far my job has been great.  As you can see in my pictures, the kids are very cute.  It has been a lot of fun interacting with them and learning about kids with special needs within a different culture.  One thing that they have in common with their counterparts in the U.S. is that they are all very easy to love.  I don't know why there is such stigma about mental disabilities in India, when the children are all awesome.  Yesterday I spent most of my time with the preschool kids at the "special" school.  One girl, Madiha (right), became very attached to me and wanted to sit with me all day.  We played with blocks and plastic fruit and I showed her pictures of herself on my camera, which amazed her.  One negative thing about my job is that I probably will not be able to meet with government officials after all.  I have been expecting a call from my boss for the past three days to tell me when a meeting will be arranged, but I don't think she is going to follow through.  Just another in a long line of broken promises and flaky business here, but it's alright.  I had a great time working at the schools.

One day last week I heard about a park just down the street from my apartment so I went to check it out to see if it would be a suitable place to play ultimate frisbee.  It turned out to be a pretty cool place, with lots of little hills (sort of like the wave field on north campus at U of M, except more spread out).  As I was strolling down one path I came across four kids tossing a disc.  I ended up playing with them for a while, until a security guard approached us and said we couldn't play frisbee in the park (which doesn't make sense to me because I thought recreation was one of the main reasons for having parks).  It was fun while it lasted though.  The kids were skeptical of me at first but I proved my worth with a couple of leaping catches and long distance passes.  It started to get a bit rainy and windy around the time the security guard kicked us out so I wasn't too upset about it.

On Saturday, I came to the conclusion that my hair was too long to deal with any more and that I would have to bite the bullet and get it cut.  If you know me well then you know that I have gotten my hair cut by one person for pretty much my entire life.  The guy who gave me my first trim as a baby is the same guy that I go to 22 years later.   In college (it's weird to say that in the past tense) my friends always gave me a hard time when I would drive from Ann Arbor to West Bloomfield just for a haircut, but for me it was worth it.  Barry knows what he's doing with my head.  He's had two decades to get familiar with it so what's the point of changing now?  Unfortunately, India to WB is a bit further of a journey than from AA, so I had to go to someone new.  I found a salon close to my flat that I had gone to once before for a shave and seemed like a nice enough place (no chance I was about to go to one of the roadside barbers).  My barber didn't speak English so whenever I would give him some direction he would have to leave the room and bring back an interpreter.  When he actually started cutting my hair it was comparable to how you see someone getting their hair cut in a cartoon.  He was snipping away at rapid-fire speed, circling my head in a whir of scissors and comb and hair.  When he finished, it looked alright, but it's too short on the sides and too long in the front.  I could probably style it in an Elvis-like coif, but that's not my style.  I guess I will just wait for it to grow back (or have Barry fix it as soon as I get home).

Later that night, I met up with a friend from work and a few of her friends at a nice cafe.  Then we went down near the Charminar, which is the premier landmark of Hyderabad, for dinner.  It was the first time since the night I arrived that I went down to the old city.  That night, I wasn't there until very late at night, so this was really the first time I got to see all the bazaars.  The lights were on at the Charminar as well, which made it look really cool.  Of course, my camera lost battery right before we got there so I had no chance to take pictures.  It's OK though because I plan on taking John there when he arrives next week, so we can take pictures then.  After the Charminar, I went with a bunch of AIESEC interns to a party for someones birthday.  They had delicious punch that was more like fruit salad and they actually played American rap music (Nelly, Mystikal, Missy Elliot) instead of just House and Techno.  There were a few new trainees who had just arrived that day, so I had a good time getting to know them.  There is a guy from the UK, one from Afghanistan, and three girls from America, Mexico, and Azerbaijan.  They are all pretty cool people and good new friends.  Actually, I will be going on a trip with them to Vizag for the rest of the week.  Vizag is a beach town, right on the coast of the Bay of Bengal.  At first, it was just going to be the six of us going, but since we started planning the trip, ten more people have jumped on board.  Now we will be traveling in a group of 16(!)  I'm really excited to see a new place that looks like it has some beautiful sights.  It should be a great time.  Once I get back, it will be Monday and I will be going to the airport to pick up John.  Time continues to fly by like a laser.  I'm trying to get as much as I can out of every day before there are no days left of this incredible journey.  I'm sure that the best is still to come.  Stay tuned.