As I talked about earlier, navigating the labyrinth that is India is an arduous process. Sanju has been known to match speeds of rickshaw drivers and ask for directions in moving traffic. This time she pulled that stunt on a highway. In any event, the lack of signage and the winding, un-gridded streets make navigation very difficult to plan in advance. As such, finding out way to a small suburban town, and making sure we didn’t drive past it, was tough. When we finally got to the town, though, which of course had few powered street lights, finding the “Aditi Malia International School” was nearly impossible. There were no signs for anything, the school was small and on an off road, and few people had ever heard of it. One guy outside a busy “diner” actually went inside to try to find directions for us, and even inside, nobody had heard of this school. We finally found some young people who’d heard of it, after a string of about 10 minutes and 5-6 people who hadn’t (at this point on semi-country roads). We arrived an hour late, as the hour long session was emptying.
It seemed to be standard college recruitment fare, with gunners staying late to ask meaningless questions of the school rep. And free banana bread. When we finally got in touch with the woman from the U of C, one of the heads of College admissions who was on a tour of India, we had a good chat about the school and its direction. Their efforts to find the right kids for the right school are far from dead, but rather are ramping up. Hence the recruitment trips near and far. And their efforts to find enthusiastic admissions staff who believe in the product seems to be going great, too. But in true U of C fashion, they mucked it all up by making the session unreachable. What’s C-H for?
At least we got to follow her driver back. He got lost 3 times on the way there, but fortunately not on the return.
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