Hosanna and Sophie Fuller spent last year in Delhi, India with their parents. Hosanna will be a sixth-grader at Lakeview Elementary School this fall and Sophie will be a fifth-grader.
A Day in Delhi
By Hosanna Fuller, age 11
"India has changed me" I wrote to one of my friends back home in Kirkland. This is what I meant. Daily life is very different here, more colorful and spicy, but also sometimes sad. Here is a look at a day in Delhi.
I wake up without mom calling me because the sunlight is so bright. I turn off the fan and the air conditioner and tie up my bed net. Dad makes "tea and toast" which is a British thing that we never did before but we don't have cereal or Poptarts or hardly any food from boxes at all. Our driver, Nadhan, picks us up and we head to our international school.
"Beep! Beep! Honk! Mooooooo! Money ma'am pleeeeze money." I look out and something catches my eye, it's a girl my age with a baby clinging on to her hip. She has henna colored hair and dirt blots on her face. Her clothes are ripped and she has no shoes to stand on the road. It is 80 degrees already and will go up to more than 100.
Tap, tap, tap she goes on the window of our car as Nadhan stops at the intersection. "Money for bay-bee." I ask myself why am I blessed with a good school and she has to work for her life. Dad slips her rupees when mom is not looking. Mom says they don't get to keep the money.
Our school has three swimming pools and a theater. There are kids from all over the world. Most of them have lived in many places. Some of my American friends have never lived in America. My best friends are Rogane who is Indian, Cheyenne who is American and Rebecca who is Irish.
I play soccer on a team with all Indian boys. Indian girls do not really play sports. I scored the first goal of the season and the mothers of the boys cheered really loud.
At home I do my homework and read. Not much, but Gilligan's Island reruns in Hindi on TV. Susan Rita, our cook, makes Kashmiri chicken, my favorite. We all love spicy food which is good because Indian food has lots of rice, vegetables and spices. We talk about our day and laugh with Susan.
Delhi taught me a great lesson on the world - you take the good with the bad. My year in India was special because I found that you can take my heart out of Delhi but you can't take Delhi out of my heart.
My Favorite Indian Festivals
By Sophie Fuller, age 9
There are many festivals in India, but the two I liked best are Holi and Diwali.
Holi is an exhilarating mix of sport, like ball tag, and a water balloon fight. During Holi, people throw bright colored powder on each other and on anyone who dares to go outside. We spent Holi with our Indian friends, Madhu and Sanjay, and their son, Akshay.
Driving to their house, we saw lots of people with bright orange, purple and green splotches. We even saw cows and dogs with spots. We pittied parents against the kids, and of course the kids won. The two moms kind of hid inside and it was the dads who came after us. We mixed the colored powder with water and used squirt guns. At the end of the day we looked like we were tie-dyed all over.
I also really like Diwali. To me it was like a mixture of the Fourth of July and Christmas. People can set off fire crackers at any time and anywhere so we didn't really sleep at all that night.
We went to Madhu's house and she put flower petals and candles everywhere. During Diwali, people make special prayers to their gods and we did a puja ceremony with our friends and drank water from the Ganges River which is holy to them. After that we lit all the candles in the house and outside. Then we went out to the street and lit sparklers and fire crackers. As you can see, festivals in India are cool![[In-content Ad]]
