Last Day In India: Heading home

The flight home is something like 17 hours so already I am having trouble remembering our last day in Delhi.

I do remember that we spent the day with our incredible sewers. Cording and shoelaces arrived so we were able to teach the final steps of kit assembly and that felt good. I love completion as any of my siblings would tell you and agree. I’m bringing 600 laces home with me for MoonBees.

Mid-afternoon Sushma’s (one of the cutters) little son and daughter came into the sewing room with brightly wrapped packages, one for each of us. It will be Diwali next week and these were early surprises to honor the holiday. What a sweet thing to do. Later at chai time we gave out boxes of sweets and after hugs all around left to pick up our bags and head to the airport. Both of us felt sad to be leaving our new dear friends. Anju, the new supervisor, will take over now. 

We traveled through the streets of Delhi loaded down with suitcases. The air is especially bad at this time of year due to burning of the crops. We could see fires in the distance with black smoke billowing into the sky. One afternoon I was sure it was going to rain. You know the way the sky goes dark and the light gets grey yellow and then it just dumps? The thing is that the rain part doesn’t happen, but the color changes do. I worry for this city but read that new laws are being passed to encourage the end of crop burning and other polluting practices. I hope this works. I worry for all those school children who are breathing this air and all the people of Delhi  whose health is being compromised.

One last walk down the street where our new cooperative is located.

We are weary but as I sit here in Boston, ready to take a nap, I feel like we accomplished a lot. 

 We have a sewing cooperative in India!