We're living in the embassy district, with the embassies of China, Russia, Bulgaria, Germany, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia (pictured) nearby.  They are all multi-hectare plots walled and gardened.  The American Embassy has a pool, bowling alley, a couple of bars and restaurants, an espresso bar (where you can view the Olymics from the American perspective), and a grocery store.  It's also a hangout for teens and happy hour teachers seeking burgers and camraderie.  It's pretty happening on a Friday evening.  As faculty of AES, we can shop at the commisary in the embassy, but we're not allowed to purchase the tax free alcohol.  The Russians have filled a nitch here in a relatively 'dry' country by providing a black market booze delivery service.  Make a quick call, and they are at the door in 10 minutes.  

The other scenes are of our neighborhood.  The garden is the one across the street from our place.  I figured out why it's kept so trimmed and pristine, unlike several of the other gardens around us, which are lovely green spaces, but refuse and untended plants and pathways are typical.  One evening, the elderly Mr Singh introduced himself during his ritualistic stroll. He was very approving that I was Canadian, as he has many friends there, and has made several visits. At 84, the most traveling he does now, he explained, is around this park.  He proceeded to name many species of birds and flowers, as if it were his own private garden.  He has introduced himself to me three times now, as he suffers a bit from Alzheimers.  Each time I learn a little more about the local flora and fauna, and each time I'm affirmed for being Canadian.   I wonder if I told him I'm American how the lesson would go. Anyway, I learned that he was a senator for 7 years, and as such, has the government catering to him for the rest of his life, including the care of his favorite garden.  He is driven around in the traditional white Indian-made Ambassador, a reliable car whose styling hasn't altered since the the 1950s.  They are everywhere in this sector of the city, as we are only moments away from the monumental parliament and government ministries.  Government chaps are well looked after, assures our neighbor Sagar.

We enjoy walking to school each day, barely a five minute venture, and we've all become quite adept at dodging traffic at the one intersection we have to cross.  AES has hired a crossing guard, but his hours seem patchy, and no one pays any attention to him anyway.  We simply time it so that we all get over to the median safely, take a breath and go for the final dash.  We used to run across, then jog, now we stride without breaking our pace, timing it like all the others to slip behind the speeding cars and ahead of the three wheeled taxis and motorcycles.  Middle class school children in ironed pink and gray uniforms meet us on the way to their own schools in our neighborhood.  They're walking, or if very young, riding on the bar of their families' servants' bicycles. Wealthy executives from the Norwegian, Israeli, Korean, and Italian corporations (my students) have their children dropped off at AES by their drivers in luxury sedans and four wheel drives. And the very poor children enter the rear gate of the school walking in barefeet to accompany their mothers as they head to their jobs of carrying bricks and mortar on their heads for the construction of the new high school facility. All classes converge at this crossroads.