Busy day

We had bought a few things to send to my nephews back home for Naw-Ruz (the Baha’i and Persian New Year), but when we started to put them in boxes we noticed that the sizes were mismatched. So back we went to the store this morning to get the right sizes and then off to the post office to mail the boxes.

The post office here will not accept any package that has not been sewn up in a cloth wrapping! Strange, but true. Of course, parcel sewing shops have sprung up around the post office and will wrap your packages for a fee. We went into one shop and negotiated a price for wrapping 2 packages – we ended up paying half of what they were asking, but I think we still got ripped off! Then the guy patched together a few pieces of what looked like discarded shirt sleeves to make little bags to put the boxes in and sewed them up.

We had read that Planet X, an amusement park near Chamundi Hill, is open from noon to 11 p.m. on weekends. They have go karts, mini golf, etc. So we took a rickshaw there, only to be told at the gate that they did not open ‘til 4 p.m. Aaaaahhhh! The weekend here means Sunday, because schools and offices are open half day on Saturdays as well. So we returned to town and had some lunch, then stopped to visit St. Philomena’s church, which is the second biggest church in India. We went in for a few minutes to look around, and also finally found some postcards of Mysore.

This evening we visited a home for deaf and mute children, and donated clothing and rice. It was so touching to see all the kids there. It is a boarding school and has 96 students from grade 1 to 10. The kids were called into a meeting room and the Baha’is said some prayers. Then we did an action song “Ye are drops of one ocean, ...” a song we sing at our virtues playgroup at home. The teacher said some of the kids can hear the tune and repeat it even though they don’t hear the words. As we sang, we heard all kinds of crooning and monotone sounds. It was kind of bittersweet. They looked so happy about it all. We all clapped and made more noise at the end and they were also very excited to have their picture taken. Khodayar is a dentist and said some of the kids from this home go to his clinic every Wednesday for free cleaning, checkup and any dental work that they need.

Then off we went to Khodayar and Naseem’s home for a dinner party. We had some devotions and music, then had a game of pass the parcel, which is very similar to hot potato. Basically, you pass something around the room while the music is playing. Once the music stops, the person holding the parcel picks out a task that they have to do from a bag. It was a lot of fun.

We had invited an Iranian couple that we had met while visiting Ooty to the dinner and they came as well. They are students in Mysore. I think they really enjoyed the evening, and now we are invited to their home on Tuesday night. We’ve got quite the social schedule these days!

NM