Base Camp 4! Of Rockets and Rackets
My mosquitoes `built’ a robot today they told me…all at once and all together, which is generally how they talk and do things. The robot one assumes has also been built this way. One therefore should also assume it would behave the same way. NASA might have to prepare itself for a whole new prototype. There would be no doubt about its origins as the little engineers informed me that they `wrote’ on it `made in India by Indians’.
The morning had more team building activities for my older lot. They were tested on communication skills, listening to and following commands, ability to think on one’s feet and team support and co-ordination. There were activities that included tubular mazes, walking together four at a time on what looked like long skis without benefit of the poles so you had to lift your feet together at the same time to move forward, getting from one location to the other using planks but with restraints on how you could use them, and so on, all of which necessitated the kids shouting directions at each other or only using gestures as per directions. I find that we Indians tend to think of solutions pretty quickly and competently but generally and typically have a problem in communicating it to others or literally in articulating our way out of a predicament. It’s not a spontaneous activity for us and hence an uncomfortable one. These exercises however are designed for addressing this very draw back and our kids have noticed that they need to be more vocal and voluble about their thoughts and feelings and that speaking up for themselves could also mean speaking at the right time.
The mid-level kids also had the `5 degrees of freedom chair’ activity which like all things that have the word freedom in them implies a curtailment of it somewhere. The freedom here refers to the 5 movements of the chair… you are strapped to. Aditya decided that he was a little too advanced for this and so decided to go last but Ashish was game and was one of the first on the chair. Freedom can be expressed in various ways especially in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, and Aditya decided to do this by squeaking a toy near Allison’s ears. Allison was not amused. Aditya was and I was trying not to be. But a few seconds later everyone was fine with one another.I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wished the parents of these kids could see how completely ingenuous they can be with the situations they find themselves in and similarly with the people and the places they find themselves in. It, for me, has truly been a continuing `distance’ education!
Some of the kids have been imbibing a little too freely of the cold sodas provided by the Coke fountains during lunch time and have reported itchy throats and a sniffle or two. The `Sick Bay’ here that has lovely people to nurse the kids has been taking care of them almost immediately and keeping us constantly updated on their progress. Some of the kids get to spend the night there so that the resident Nurse can monitor their progress. Pavan , who had a mild temperature following a cough, is in residence at the Sick Bay tonight. Do not worry parents, the nurses assure me he’s fine and when I spoke to him, he was sure he’d be fine the next morning after his dose of cough medicine. Vandana is proudly sporting band-aids in two spots on her legs courtesy the dear Nurses again, after she scraped her knees at the swimming pool. `Not to worry’, she breezily said, `It’s cool’.
Pepperoni pizza to some of the uninitiated has proven mystifying in terms of genre. I had to introduce a timely intervention by quickly pointing out its animal origins and that the term `pepperoni’ had nothing much to do with the humble pepper. I was profusely thanked by the `pure’ vegetarians.
Huntsville is proudly called the `Rocket City’ due to the inception of its major rocket programme here and the fully equipped and functioning `Us Rocket and Space Centre’ which is currently where we are accommodated. The city strangely, at least to me, does not have a subway system and the lack of trains makes it difficult to get around. However they have a `Trolley’ bus that does a loop of the city and for $2 you can sit in it all day and ride around as I’ve found some people do or get off and on wherever you want to. My kids have not experienced this 6th Degree of freedom yet. I suspect will only be a matter of time before they do, by when I hope we will be safely winging our way back to beautiful Bangalore.
My kids have introduced the Indian English and the Indian Accent in all their multidimensional glory to the Space Camp. I hear a lot of the Counselors go `Huh??’ after a particularly speedy question or remark by one of them. One of my kids, after one such encounter perhaps, mentioned that the `foreigners’, conveniently and perhaps innocently forgetting that we were the foreigners here, don’t always have all the answers.
Keep the questions coming kids, I thought. At the rate you are going the only racket amongst the rockets you hear here will have an Indian accent!!
Signing off for now,
hemaa narayan
