Each of us chose one child to bring along--I chose Caleb and Rose Bud chose Hannah. Other children who came were Shalene, Rachel, Isaac, Christopher, Rebecca, Wendy...I'm not remembering the others off the top of my head.
The kids had a GREAT time! Many of them had been before, but for some of them, the experience was new.
Leslie has a friend who had given her $100 in rupees left over from a previous visit to India and wanted Leslie to use it for the kids. This was a perfect opportunity, so the cost of the fair was covered for all involved.
Tickets to get in were 20 Rs. apiece and once inside, everything cost 15 or 20 Rs. (about 50 cents).
Seriously, this was one of the scariest things I've ever done. First of all, the bucket you sit in rocks back and forth. And has no side or gate or bar or whatever you want to keep you in the bucket.
Secondly, this thing WHIPS! It went SO fast!
Thirdly, you know how much a ride like this costs in the States? About $3 or 4, right? And how many times do you go around? Maybe 4 or 5? This ride went on FOREVER! We must have gone around 15 times and I think someone finally asked Theresa to have them stop it because they were sick. Definitely got your money's worth.
Oh, and not only did it go around (and around and around and around) really fast, but it was run by a diesel engine. cough.
HOWEVER, about half the kids LOVED it! (the other half cried and hid their faces)
Caleb liked it.
The view from the top was pretty awesome.
Next ride was on the train. More diesel, more circles. I just can't do rides. The kids loved it, though and laughed and laughed!
Oh, look. There's me. Pretending I'm enjoying going in circles!
Next, Caleb wanted a snack. As you can see above, Christopher had had ice cream, so I asked Caleb if he'd like ice cream. No! Much hand waving and head shaking. He definitely did not want ice cream. He dragged me (because he was so excited the whole night! We moved at hyper-speed! :D ) over to the snack stand where they had a snack mix with onions and a sauce.
Oh, my goodness, did it smell GOOD! It must have been good, because Caleb snarfed it up. I did not eat any. (Faye ate snacks and fruit at the fair though. Ask her how she felt on the plane ride home!)
The next ride was on the airplanes, which Caleb did not like. He cried the whole time and I felt so sorry for him. I, of course, was not on that fast-moving, circle-going ride. Sim and Sweety were up there with him.
There they go!
The next 3 rides were all on the car/motorcycle ride thing for which I, thankfully, was too big. It didn't bother Caleb. He just kept going on it.
The ride operator made Sweety sit in the trunk. Because she was a girl? Or to balance the ride. I don't know, but she didn't want to. She wanted to drive!
I carried the money in my purse, but let Caleb buy all the tickets. He was SO cute and so proud to do it. He'd take the money up to the ticket booth and shove it through the window. "TWO!" he'd say (or "one" once I couldn't handle any more rides!) Then he'd hand me my ticket. He even let me get on first. He really is the sweetest, most helpful boy. All week, he was offering to help clean up or open doors or get chairs for us to sit in.
It was such a pleasure to give him this fun night. I offered him ice cream again, but no, he wanted a different crispy, spicy snack. This one was a giant deep-fried thing, bigger than a frisbee. I tasted one corner and it was pretty good.
Rose Bud, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found all this time. I was a little worried about her, wandering around the fair alone with just Hannah for company. Hannah is probably the highest-functioning child at SCH, but still, Rose Bud is 14, a girl and white. I asked around if anyone had seen her and no one else seemed concerned that she was off by herself.
Guess where they were? SHOPPING. RB was buying Hannah toys and trinkets and also things for herself. She got Pepper the headband you saw earlier, a necklace for Hannah and another for RB's friend back home and I don't know what else. Hannah was in heaven!
She came back with a pink Barbie cell phone that rings and talks. Once one kid saw that, they ALL had to have one, so off Caleb and I went in search of the phone. They had a more boyish looking one, but it didn't do anything, so Barbie for us, it was! He also grabbed a pair of purple sunglasses which he put on, then quickly took off again and instructed me, "Bag!" that I should put them in my bag for him. And he bought a toy car. Also went straight into the bag. But the cell phone he "talked" on and wore around his neck.
Caleb, driving his car and wearing his phone
I didn't experience it, but others in our group said many people at the fair were very curious about the Americans and wanted their pictures taken with them and also asked for autographs. RB said she signed 3 autographs. Someone else said that 3 Indian girls (young ladies) came up to them in tears and thanked them for bringing these kids to the fair. The ride operators and ticket sellers were all super nice to the kids and helped them onto the rides and seemed patient with them. I did notice lots of stares by other fair-goers at our kids. Not sure if they were for us or the kids or the combination of the two. Didn't really care.
All at once, all the rides shut down and everything went dark. I thought it was a power-cut, but actually, it was the end of the fair. Done for the night! I got Caleb and ice cream and we all headed for the cars. Packed everyone up and we were ready to go, when I noticed RB wasn't with us. Hannah? Missing also. I had a minor panic attack and several of us went back into the fair to look for them. (the place really wasn't all that big. Maybe an acre, tops) I imagined her crying and scared that she couldn't find the rest of us.
Someone quickly found them. Shopping.
I'm so glad we did this with the kids. They enjoyed it so much and it was fun for us, too. Several of us had been dreading this late night adventure as we were so tired, but we got our second wind and had a really good time. There was even money left over (no thanks to Caleb--he spent all but 60 of his 330 Rs.!) so that they were planning to take a different group of kids another night.
Please read Erin's post about how much fun Shalene had at the fair!
1 comment:
Awwwww....I so enjoyed your version of the night @ the fair and all the great details and photos! Sounnds like everyone had a GREAT time.
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