Amistad International: With Rajan's family at the Museum of Science

It may come as no surprise to you by the time she left the Museum of Science at closing time yesterday, Daisy knew nearly every employee at the museum. I'm almost exaggerating. Their experience yesterday was probably the peak experience that the museum designers had hoped for in their dreams. My problem was moving them on from exhibit to exhibit, and no, of course we didn't see them all, but we saw most including the rainforest, planatarium, aquariums and lab and teaching center. The woman in the silver coat (auburn hair) you will see in some photos is Donna Peters, who came from Florida to meet Rajan. Donna has been a sponsor of Buddha's Smile School since 2005. She was in love with Rajan before she ever met her and after yesterday they are sisters. Donna bought a large sack full of science DVDs for BSS in the gift shop including the BBC's marvelous many-hour series Planet Earth. After presenting them to Rajan, who was overwhelmed, Donna and I were told that the school doesn't have a DVD player or screen. So guess what Donna has now offered to provide? Thank you, Donna!!!

Each of them saw the museum through a different lens. Rajan as a teacher, Daisy as an enviromentalist-in-the-making, Rosy as Alice-in-Wonderland, and Sukdev as a man on another wonderful planet. Daisy was just fascinating to observe. She made sure that after the museum guide had finished their presentation, or anytime she saw anyone at a desk who looked like they might have the secrets of this magical kingdom, Daisy would introduce herself and tell where she was from and why she was there in San Francisco. It went something like this, "Hello. My name is Daisy Saini, and I am from Varanasi, India. I am visiting San Francisco because my mother (who would be standing beside her) is being given a beautiful honor by the Dalai Lama for her school for poor children. I am going to be an enviromentalist. I very much appreciated the wonderful information which you just presented to us. I would like to know________? Or would you happen to know how I could learn more about ________? Or would you be able to share any of those brochures with me? By the time she left she had their e-mail addresses and everyone was going to be in contact. Daisy our networker. I stood back in awe. I told Rajan and Sukdev "Your daughter is going to be the president of India someday." He said "shhhh, don't say that in front of Daisy" as he smiled.

The Academy of Science is something we in the Bay Area can be very proud of. It truly lifted this family from India off into another realm of dreams for the children in India. Daisy, intent to the point of ignoring the African lion and gazelles we were standing near, had a light burning in her eyes asking me, "This city is so clean, the air is to pure, the streets have no garbage. You have something called recycling. How does this work? You have bins where people put their bottles and glass. Where does it then go? How do you get people to put them in the bins? We want to do this for India. How can I do this for India?"

What would you have said?

I hope that next week Daisy can have at least a few minutes with some of the enviromental movers and shakers who are coming to the fundraiser. I confess I did tell Daisy that Stanford has a fabulous Enviromental Science course of study. I told her that she will be able to see the campus next week :)

Karen