scheduling

I'm going to complain about something now. In order to leaven the negativity, I'm including some interesting photos that don't really have anything to do with my complaint.

 For example: here is a bejeweled icon of St Sebastian, in the church next to the village school that I visited this week (a story for another day). They are very big into St Sebastian here! We've seen several processions.

My complaint is about scheduling. It's hard to schedule stuff, and it's hard to find out what has been scheduled. It's hard to communicate about schedules. It's hard to get stuff to happen at a particular time and place.

Back in early January, I thought I understood why neither the kids' school nor the college had published calendars: because there are so many hartals! We had three hartals our first week; of course schedules got turned upside down. But now we have gone five weeks or so without a hartal, so I'm not sure that's the reason anymore. One frustration is with the lack of clear information about what is happening when. It doesn't matter what the institution is-- college, school, temples, cultural centers-- I cannot get reliable info. I've tried asking others, how do they find out what is going on? There are WhatsApp groups and email lists, and I've been added to some of those, but not many. I sometimes find out about things by seeing posters stuck to walls and bus shelters, just like in 19th century Paris. That's how I found out about the play we're attending this weekend.

Agatha has made a friend in the building! And the friend has a dog! So now every evening, she and her friend and dog meet on the communal patio to play.

Another frustration is that things are planned last minute, and constantly changed. Sometimes without telling me. Things are very fluid. I'm trying to be flexible, but it is hard sometimes. I do like to be prepared, and I also like to avoid conflicts where possible. As the teaching period is drawing to a close here, it is becoming clear that some promised or hoped-for collaborations or events will not happen because they weren't adequately planned. That's too bad.

Here are two 1 rupee coins and two 2 rupee coins. Notice how different they are! And yet how similar the 1 and 2 rupee coins on the right are to one another. 

Finally, the things that people do want to plan with me sometimes seem like a waste of time. They are very big on ceremonial "international seminars" here, partly because those get them kudos when they go into their annual reports. I'm glad to help, but they seem like rather empty affairs to me. I'd rather engage in other, more intimate and interactive ways, and it has been surprisingly hard to make that happen.

Here's a bus. They are all carefully decorated, hand painted, and named. 

I feel bad about the crossed wires and the missed opportunities, even though I've been trying to instigate such planning for weeks, foreseeing the short time horizon and the conflicts that would result. 

Here is my teacup. You can buy a very sweet cup of tea downstairs from a lady, and bring it up to your desk in the history department. When you are finished, you return the metal cup. Zero waste (except for the teabag).

This is one of the aspects of India that I truly don't understand. I'm sorry not to have cracked the code on it; I think the issue is exacerbated by the deference and deflection in people's communication with me, which is a great deal to overcome, and can even inhibit the intellectual and cultural exchange that I'm here for.