Hello World!
Well...this time next week I'll be back home in the rain, cold, Christmassy place we call England. Naturally, things here are winding down slightly; yesterday we had a treasure hunt with the Kids, today we played party games (Pass the Parcel was such an Alien concept at first!!)
It's clearly been the best 10 weeks of my life (cliche or what?!) and I'm sure I'll blog my post trip thoughts when I get back (It'll be a long post I'm sure) but for now I'd just like to leave you with a short story from today.
Over the 10 weeks we've gotten really close to our community (much closer than the other 5 teams) partially because our construction project allowed for this. Yesterday our hole was 100000% finished and so today it dawned on the community that we were finally going home. The widow whose toilet hole we dug broke down physically into tears in sheer sorrow that we were leaving. Other members of the community were crying too and offered words that were both encouraging and saddening. I think we'll be remembered in a tiny Indian village named Malainta for many many many years because of the toilet we've left behind ( In the words of one village teenage: "We will know that India is a developed country when every house has a toilet") but I'd like to also think we'll be remembered for our being there. When Brother Andrew visited churches in the Eastern Block during Communist times one preist remarked " It's not your sermons that make a difference here: it's your being here" and I'd like to think the same applied to us.
See you all very soon!
Love,
Callum x
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The Last Crusade...
Good evening all!
How's is going?
It's a very strange thought that this time in 2 weeks I'll be somewhere over Europe on an aeroplane. Things are coming to a close and we're starting to finalise all sorts of things with our classes and rushing to complete construction projects on time because there are no more volunteers coming to this project after us. The sadness of it all was that last night was the final time that we'd experience the creme de la creme of Indian cuisine that only rolls around once on the two week food cycle...
CHIP NIGHT!
Not such a shame really eh!? The past week's been pretty productive (no weddings!) at work. I did a fruit day with my class last Thursday. The "curriculum" says that they should know the names of fruit etc. so I bought a load of fruit so they could taste it at the same time. I even bought fruits that I'd never tried before such as guava (YUM!) because what are expensive, exotic fruits at home are just the norm in India ( 4 Rs for a guava- that's like 5p and I think that they're at least 70p at home!). I thought that the best way to teach the names of the fruit was to write the name on the board, say it, have the class repeat it and then when they could successfully repeat the name then they get to eat the fruit. This method worked great through all 9 fruits, until we arrived at the 10th fruit. The dialogue goes as follows:
Me: Okay Bulo (say) "Pomegrannate"
Class: (Silence)
Me: Suno Suno (listen) "Po-me-gran-nate"
Class: Sir Ji....
Me: "P-o-me-g-r-a-nn-a-t-e"
Class: P-P-Po..... Anar!! (Anar is the Hindi word for pommegranate)
The last two days have been spent not at work, but instead doing International Development sessions. At first I kind of felt abit opposed to this, after all I wanted to just get on with the work but now I see the point because I've been able to relate the Mellenium Development Goals to the people I work with and the community in which I work. The farmer whose crops harvest too soon, the girls who don't come to school because they have to work in a gender imbalanced society, the family who took an 1100 Rs loan to cover their daughters medical treatment all make sense when we look at development in the wider context.
In other news, we discovered a tiny, backstreet, dirty spoon style cafe round the corner that does the BEST SAMOSAS IN THE WORLD for just 5Rs. The sun is still shining (although it's getting abit cooler again) and I'm still amazed at God's creation every time I look out the window and see the snow capped Himalayas. That view will never grow old.
Love and blessing!
Callum x
P.S. Both photos are taken from outside our house...
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Nothing Much...
Hey everybody!
While changing earlier, I noticed the huge tan lines I'm getting... Tan lines in December?!?!
Anyways, things in India remain pretty fine and dandy!
Havn't got enough time to update you on my week, so I thought I'd leave you with a couple of pictures from today and yesterday :-)
Callum <><
Monday, 30 November 2009
Eid Mubarak! (Merry Eidmass...)
Hello Friends!
The past few days have been pretty eventful, fun and rewarding! First, let me fill you in on the school beautification project! What was once a drab, dull, building with grey cement walls, prison bar windows and peeling cement has been transformed into a haven of learning, with jungle and ocean themed rooms. The classrooms are, though I say so myself, AMAZING. (See Images below- hopefully they work!) It's amazing what yoyu can do with primary colours, primative paint brushes, a couple of girls who are good at art and a bucketful of enthusiasm.
The past few days have been pretty eventful, fun and rewarding! First, let me fill you in on the school beautification project! What was once a drab, dull, building with grey cement walls, prison bar windows and peeling cement has been transformed into a haven of learning, with jungle and ocean themed rooms. The classrooms are, though I say so myself, AMAZING. (See Images below- hopefully they work!) It's amazing what yoyu can do with primary colours, primative paint brushes, a couple of girls who are good at art and a bucketful of enthusiasm.
Saturday saw the official opening of the classroom which was deffinately an experience! The politician arrived late, looked very uninterested and showed very little enthusiasm to anything. The Himachal Aggricultural Dept. were present at the ceremony also to give out free seeds to farmer (and I think that was what made the ceremony so well attended!). Also at the ceremony we managed to get coaxed into making a speech (I don't know how we did, but we did!) and ended up on local T.V. and in all the local press. Only in India...
As you probably are aware, Saturday was also the Islamic festival of Eid (Eid of Sacrifice- to do with the story of Abraham nearly sacrificing hislong awaited Son Isaac but in the end God spares Abraham the trauma and permits Abraham to sacrafice of a Goat- it appears in Genesis in the Bible). There's 2 Muslims in the house and so we were planning on celebrating Eid the tradtional way-with our own goat sacrifice. This plan fell through at the last minute when the goat seller refused to sell the goat if it was going to be killed so we decided that we'd BBQ chickens instead (don't worry guys- most of us bought our chickens dead, but the Muslim guys did kill their chickens to ensure they were Halaal). We maranaded our chicken Tandori style and cooked it on a fire outside the house, using a gril we made ourselves and served it up with some yummy veg steamed backwards style. I can 100% say that it was the BEST chicken I've EVER EVER EVER eaten and I'll deffinately be whipping it up when I get home. The Eid atmosphere in the house was surprisingly (?!) similar to Christmas and it felt pretty good!
On Sunday a few of us headed out for lunch to quite a posh place in Palampur (if the same restaurant were in England I don't thinkI'd be able to afford to eat there!) and then hung around town for a little while- playing basketball with the kids and learning how to fly traditional Indian kite (it's pretty difficult!) All in all a pretty great weekend!
In other news, I've finally had a shave (I was growing abit of a beard , just to try and prove my masculinity but it wasn't really working for me!) and I'm currently hooked on the T.V. show "24". We've been watching 4 episodes a week for a couple of weeks on DVD and we're currently on episode 13/24. It's really good but addictive. Also, went to yet another wedding today. It's strange that I've been to one English wedding in my whole entire life, but 5 Indian ones in the space of 6 weeks! Can't complain though... the food's good and Indian hospitality is amazing.
Hope everybody's feeling happy, well and blessed by life!
Callum <><
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Paint and Politics.
Good Evening!
How y'all doing?
So far, this week's been pretty rewarding!
We got to school on Monday to find that Saturday's going to be the inauguration of the new classroom (that's been built a couple of years...) and that a top local politician's going to be there. Although we don't normally work Saturdays te teacher was very pesistant that we attend to it looks like this weekend will be full of ceremony! I've found that in India politicians mean alot. Their 'photos are up everywhere and people generally respect them (they've probably not asked about expenses or anything yet...) so it's quite a big deal. Infact our teacher is normally pretty lazy and unmotivated but one wiff of a local big wig and she's pretty enthusiastic. The children have been allowed to skip class to practice traditional singing and dancing and the teacher's even finally agreed to buy some paint so that we can draw pretty pictures on the wall and boy- do the pictures look good! (Although the teacher bought 4 cans of blue , 1 can of brown and a can of red paint- nowhere near enough to do the task in hand so we had to get our own too :-) ) It's incredible what politics does to people.
My class are still cute and has grown by 2 members (that's 100% increase!) although one of them fell, broke her hand and spent a week in hospital and can't come to school for 20 days. Her family have had to gt a loan to cover the crippling 1100Rs (about 150 pound) medical bill, so we're going to see if we can help with that before we go. The other new addition to my class is a persistant homework cheat- she always somehow manages to bribe an older sibling to do it so that she gets 100% and a sticker. But alas, her plan has been foiled. Callum 1. Sneha 0.
Apart from that, the sun is STILL shining (haha.), the food is STILL amazing and everything's pretty good! I hope you're all excited for Christmas (has the Coca-Cola advert started yet?). I'm a tad disappointed that I won't have an advent calander this year!
Love to all,
Callum
How y'all doing?
So far, this week's been pretty rewarding!
We got to school on Monday to find that Saturday's going to be the inauguration of the new classroom (that's been built a couple of years...) and that a top local politician's going to be there. Although we don't normally work Saturdays te teacher was very pesistant that we attend to it looks like this weekend will be full of ceremony! I've found that in India politicians mean alot. Their 'photos are up everywhere and people generally respect them (they've probably not asked about expenses or anything yet...) so it's quite a big deal. Infact our teacher is normally pretty lazy and unmotivated but one wiff of a local big wig and she's pretty enthusiastic. The children have been allowed to skip class to practice traditional singing and dancing and the teacher's even finally agreed to buy some paint so that we can draw pretty pictures on the wall and boy- do the pictures look good! (Although the teacher bought 4 cans of blue , 1 can of brown and a can of red paint- nowhere near enough to do the task in hand so we had to get our own too :-) ) It's incredible what politics does to people.
My class are still cute and has grown by 2 members (that's 100% increase!) although one of them fell, broke her hand and spent a week in hospital and can't come to school for 20 days. Her family have had to gt a loan to cover the crippling 1100Rs (about 150 pound) medical bill, so we're going to see if we can help with that before we go. The other new addition to my class is a persistant homework cheat- she always somehow manages to bribe an older sibling to do it so that she gets 100% and a sticker. But alas, her plan has been foiled. Callum 1. Sneha 0.
Apart from that, the sun is STILL shining (haha.), the food is STILL amazing and everything's pretty good! I hope you're all excited for Christmas (has the Coca-Cola advert started yet?). I'm a tad disappointed that I won't have an advent calander this year!
Love to all,
Callum
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Long Time No See!
Hello!
Firstly, for anybody who may be reading this... sorry it's been 11 days since we last met but last weekend there were so many lighting storms (a fork landed right next to us- near death experience!) that the internet modem blew and so we've been without internet all week.
The last 11 days have flew by pretty quickly. You have to be really careful here that you stop and pause occassionally because everything's so go go go! If you're not careful you'll miss out. Last weekend was our first long weekend so we went to Kangra for a night. We got the bus after work (in the dark- what an adventure!) and rolled up in Kangra at around 8.00. After abit of haggling over a hotel room for the 6 of us (we're getting good at it- the tourist board price for the room was 1100 Rs... we paid 500 ;-) ) we checked out the town, got invited to a rather glamourous wedding (as you do), declined aforementioned invite and then got some rather yummy tea.
The next day, we planned to visit the historical Kangra Fort and Temple however the weather was shocking! I've noticed that India's a country of extreemes and the weather is no exception. Unable to venture much further than the bus station we decided to save the fort for another day and so headed up to McLeod Ganjj again (I've blogged about it before- it's the place where the Dahli Lama lives in excile). I really like McLeod-- it's full of backpackers, volunteers, and even some people who went for a holiday in the 80's but never made it home. After trudging about in the rain for a little while to secure an even better deal on a hotel room we headed out for some food. (You knew it was coming....) We went to a little Itallian restaurant called Jimmy's that we found last time, which became our eaterie of choice for the whole weekend. Seeing as I like food so much I'll reel off what I had to eat at Jimmy's (over the course of three meals, naturally)
* 4 Cups of Ginger, Honey and Lemmon tea
* 2 lemmon Ice Tea's
*2 Pepsi's
* Chicken and Mushroom Alfredo Penni Pasta
*Garlic Bread with Cheese
*Minestrone Soup
*Chicken in White sauce with mashed potatoe and steamed veg
*Chocolate Brownie with Ice Cream
*Hash Browns
* American waffle with Maple Syrup and Ice Cream
* Fresh fruit Salad with honey and Yoghurt and Museli
And the amount of money I spent at Jimmy's? Just over 900 Rs (around a tenner!)
We met loads of different people from all over the world in McLeod including 2 Australlian Girls, a Canadian guy who used to live round the corner from where Berri lives in Chester, and a German couple- one of whom was on the national Skiing team. I'd also like to add at this point that my German's not turned as bad as I feared it may have- Frau Spreeman would be proud!
On the Sunday we headed up to the waterfall in McLeod (breathtaking), did some shopping, ate more food and then got a great deal on a Taxi back home. (Every deal's a great deal.. right?)
Work this week's been pretty good. Construction was difficult at the beginning of the week because of the previously mentioned weather but the weather's back to good old sun so it's all good. The children in my class are getting better and better at English and both got 90%+ on this week's test which was a very proud moment! Went to another wedding this week which was even better than the last one, even though I did eat a particularly hot green chilly whole and got laughed at by the kids in my class who were also present!
This weekend we went back to McLeod Ganjj, met up with some of the friends we made last weekend and did abit of Christmas shopping. (It's far less stressful here!)
So as you can see... everything's great here! Had abit of a cough this week but Indian herbal honey cough medicine did the trick. We're more than half way through already... doesn't time fly.
Sorry about the mammoth post... I did try to be brief!
Love to all,
Callum <><
Firstly, for anybody who may be reading this... sorry it's been 11 days since we last met but last weekend there were so many lighting storms (a fork landed right next to us- near death experience!) that the internet modem blew and so we've been without internet all week.
The last 11 days have flew by pretty quickly. You have to be really careful here that you stop and pause occassionally because everything's so go go go! If you're not careful you'll miss out. Last weekend was our first long weekend so we went to Kangra for a night. We got the bus after work (in the dark- what an adventure!) and rolled up in Kangra at around 8.00. After abit of haggling over a hotel room for the 6 of us (we're getting good at it- the tourist board price for the room was 1100 Rs... we paid 500 ;-) ) we checked out the town, got invited to a rather glamourous wedding (as you do), declined aforementioned invite and then got some rather yummy tea.
The next day, we planned to visit the historical Kangra Fort and Temple however the weather was shocking! I've noticed that India's a country of extreemes and the weather is no exception. Unable to venture much further than the bus station we decided to save the fort for another day and so headed up to McLeod Ganjj again (I've blogged about it before- it's the place where the Dahli Lama lives in excile). I really like McLeod-- it's full of backpackers, volunteers, and even some people who went for a holiday in the 80's but never made it home. After trudging about in the rain for a little while to secure an even better deal on a hotel room we headed out for some food. (You knew it was coming....) We went to a little Itallian restaurant called Jimmy's that we found last time, which became our eaterie of choice for the whole weekend. Seeing as I like food so much I'll reel off what I had to eat at Jimmy's (over the course of three meals, naturally)
* 4 Cups of Ginger, Honey and Lemmon tea
* 2 lemmon Ice Tea's
*2 Pepsi's
* Chicken and Mushroom Alfredo Penni Pasta
*Garlic Bread with Cheese
*Minestrone Soup
*Chicken in White sauce with mashed potatoe and steamed veg
*Chocolate Brownie with Ice Cream
*Hash Browns
* American waffle with Maple Syrup and Ice Cream
* Fresh fruit Salad with honey and Yoghurt and Museli
And the amount of money I spent at Jimmy's? Just over 900 Rs (around a tenner!)
We met loads of different people from all over the world in McLeod including 2 Australlian Girls, a Canadian guy who used to live round the corner from where Berri lives in Chester, and a German couple- one of whom was on the national Skiing team. I'd also like to add at this point that my German's not turned as bad as I feared it may have- Frau Spreeman would be proud!
On the Sunday we headed up to the waterfall in McLeod (breathtaking), did some shopping, ate more food and then got a great deal on a Taxi back home. (Every deal's a great deal.. right?)
Work this week's been pretty good. Construction was difficult at the beginning of the week because of the previously mentioned weather but the weather's back to good old sun so it's all good. The children in my class are getting better and better at English and both got 90%+ on this week's test which was a very proud moment! Went to another wedding this week which was even better than the last one, even though I did eat a particularly hot green chilly whole and got laughed at by the kids in my class who were also present!
This weekend we went back to McLeod Ganjj, met up with some of the friends we made last weekend and did abit of Christmas shopping. (It's far less stressful here!)
So as you can see... everything's great here! Had abit of a cough this week but Indian herbal honey cough medicine did the trick. We're more than half way through already... doesn't time fly.
Sorry about the mammoth post... I did try to be brief!
Love to all,
Callum <><
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Pride Before a Fall...
Hello Readers!
How's everybody doing?
There's that expression, 'Pride comes before a fal' and I must admit that I've been very gloating in the Indian weather of late. As the saying would suggest things have meterologically changed here (briefly, I hasten to add) and we woke up on Monday morning to rain, heavy rain, wind, very fast wind, coldness and rain; a stark contrast to the sunburn acquired by many the day before! We braved the elements to go to work, although the bus could only manage to take us half way. Waterproofs donned we trudged through mud to make it to school where we found around half the children had made it in and were huddled together in a classroom getting smoked out by the fire while the teacher warmed herself. Since starting work I've never felt sorry for the children before- they're happy, playful, intellegent but just lack excess money, however on Monday, seeing them shivvering away with runny noses and woolley hats really tugged my heart strings.
Needless to say, a couple of rounds of the Okey Kokey and all was well with the world.
Sorry for the short update- computer time is scarce!
Callum <><
P.S The weather's back to full on Sun now and the mountains are snowcapped.... bliss.
How's everybody doing?
There's that expression, 'Pride comes before a fal' and I must admit that I've been very gloating in the Indian weather of late. As the saying would suggest things have meterologically changed here (briefly, I hasten to add) and we woke up on Monday morning to rain, heavy rain, wind, very fast wind, coldness and rain; a stark contrast to the sunburn acquired by many the day before! We braved the elements to go to work, although the bus could only manage to take us half way. Waterproofs donned we trudged through mud to make it to school where we found around half the children had made it in and were huddled together in a classroom getting smoked out by the fire while the teacher warmed herself. Since starting work I've never felt sorry for the children before- they're happy, playful, intellegent but just lack excess money, however on Monday, seeing them shivvering away with runny noses and woolley hats really tugged my heart strings.
Needless to say, a couple of rounds of the Okey Kokey and all was well with the world.
Sorry for the short update- computer time is scarce!
Callum <><
P.S The weather's back to full on Sun now and the mountains are snowcapped.... bliss.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
