A good night's sleep....right?

My mother always told me (yes, I actually listened) that things will look different after a good night’s sleep and she has so far been right. So, I woke up determined that it would be a good day. It would take much more than determination to make it through this day.

After a cold shower, because there is also no hot water, my throat felt like sandpaper but we decided to try some breakfast before heading out. After all the commotion last night, I figured they would be careful. No hair.

There was indeed no hair in our white, wonderbread-like substance that was smothered with a paste they called jam. To this delicacy, we enjoyed a glass of tap water neither of us dared to touch. But, it was eatable so we ate our breakfast, while 5 people stood around watching our every bite. We really were the only ones in the hotel.

The good news was that we noticed that the eating area had napkins and since our “deluxe” hotel room apparently did not come with toilet paper, well….

We headed out to the producer and maybe I haven’t been in India long enough, but the conditions under which some of the kids exist are so hard for me. The producer lives is a comparably well-to-do area and yet I saw a little boy, 10-12 years old, working on the street, welding with no protection.

We really enjoyed visiting with this producer too. Even though they didn't know for sure what to do with us, they were so kind and friendly. At the end of the day, they offered us to pick out blocks and design our own scarves and they printed and dyed them just for us. But, the cultural and language barrier was much greater here and we quickly figured that getting to our actual assignment would be very difficult. We tried carefully to open the conversation about inconsistency, but the door was very quickly closed. After a long day, we headed back to the hotel to a very confusing evening.
Very, very long story short, Hanna had by 11:30pm spent hours on the phone trying to figure everything out, but when we talked to the airline on the phone, they said we were flying out Wednesday morning but our email confirmation stated Thursday. Then suddenly, the hotel was apparently full and had no more room for us. What was going on???!!

The conclusion of all this confusion was that we were leaving Wednesday morning, missing out on visiting the producer, being in Delhi much earlier, and costing each of us nearly $100 in fees (after all the fees Hanna got reversed!). We were so tired, confused, and frustrated after two very difficult days. And then the power went out. Again.