The air smells of gasoline and oranges; the temperature has cooled somewhat to the mid-eighties. I feel very far from home as I read on my computer that New York City and the northwest have a foot of snow. I wonder how my grandson Sylvan is faring in his first real snowfall now that he is in Boston after growing up in sunny Florida.
There was an announcement in the local paper about a series of new infrastructure projects the government is starting. There seems to be a division on opinion on whether these projects will actually help the economy here. The people we’ve met are charming but it seems difficult for many of them to climb out of poverty. The various small (very small) entrepreneurs you see lining the streets with stalls, kiosks and carts although they seem very hard working, and some working on electronics seem very skilled, don’t appear to be able to get more than a hand to mouth existence. And many of them have their young children working with them, which means they are not going to school and consequently not getting much of an education. Not a good formula for upward mobility.
Last night at a sort of working class restaurant a local man sat down at our table to drink his coffee and chat with us. He seemed optimistic about India although he’s currently looking for work and we chatted about various aspects of life in India and America.
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