Why might a PCV, supposed to be working with the struggling masses, hook up with a most prestigious college-prep school?
Protocol
My interpretation of our Peace Corps' Urban Community-Development training protocol went something like --- ID the needs, innovate, initiate, involve people, and then get out of the way.
That became the reasoning behind why I included some teaching at the Cathedral School, where long lines of long cars with tinted glass, air-conditioned windows brought students to school and often returned in the afternoon to deliver their hot, tiffin-walla lunches.
These were kids who lived above the masses in Malabar Hills with views of the Arabian Sea, with water pressure 24 hours a day, while my Worli Chawls rat-infested slum site got water for one hour a day.
These were kids who often invited this undernourished PCV to their lavish parties overflowing with food, while many restaurants in the late '60s were closed three days a week by law due to food shortages.
These were kids who should be doing what some PCVs were trying to do.
My deal with Headmaster Chigney was that in exchange for teaching some and doing a journalism project, I would be allowed to try to organize these kids from the richest families in Bombay to work on a social-welfare project.
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