The Indian children in this area find us extremely interesting, us big white girls.
If there’s a camera, it’s the end of the world. They can hold that smile for up to an hour, but then they attack you and surround you because they know that (in 99 cases out of 100) you have a digital camera and they can see themselves in the photos immediately!
There’s a cook who knows me by now and every morning I go over my Hindi lesson with him. I have to put down my tray and put my hands together to salute him, “namaste” – it’s not complete without the gesture.
MomComm: I wonder if this cook recognizes me in my daughter. All the staff have phenomenal memories, and when alumni return they are proud to introduce us to their sons, now serving Woodstock themselves. At our class reunion in Mussoorie last November (I wasn’t present), one of the bearers said to my classmate Durjoy: “Sahib, you have all grown old and fat!”
Aug 13, Monday – Though still tired and sore from our strenuous hike the day before, I went to the Sun gym to do the physical part of my fitness assessment. Even more tired after that!
Aug 17, Friday – Took a 6 pm flight from Denver to Albuquerque, where Steve Ediger, a long-time Woodstock friend, picked me up and drove two hours to where he and Sharon Seto and their son Robin live. Steve and Sharon work at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico. The school year was just starting, so Sharon had to be at her dorm to welcome the kids (she supervises a dorm of 45 girls, and also runs the school’s outdoor program).
The hummingbird feeder on the porch is refilled daily, attracting dozens of birds from several species. Heard close to, hummingbirds sound disturbingly like very large insects.
Sunday Sharon and I went to Santa Fe, then Steve drove me back to the airport in Albuquerque.
Another busy week at Sun ensued. I was intensely disappointed to learn that the fitness assessment had been a mistake – as a contractor, I’m not allowed to use the gym! (I hope the nice guy who did it for me didn’t get in trouble for having done the assessment – he was supposed to have checked my badge, apparently.) All my motivation to start getting into shape had to be postponed. I do have his detailed assessment and recommendations to work from, at least.
Aug 26, Sunday – I survived a scary (for me) drive to Conifer, Colorado, to the mountain home of my colleague Charles. He and his wife Elaine had invited me and a long-time friend of theirs, Marj, who graduated from Woodstock in 1978 (she was a lofty senior when I was a lowly freshman, so we hadn’t really known each other in our schooldays). Marj and Elaine had met years before when both were teaching in El Salvador.
It always seems to happen with Woodstockers that we find plenty to talk about even if we didn’t know each other well (or at all) while at school. Marj had brought albums of fascinating photos from a trip she and her husband had made to the far corners of the world – fuel for conversation. Charles and Elaine are no slouches in the travel department, either – they’ve even lived in Antarctica!
