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.

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 <><

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

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 <><

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.

Remember Remember the Sixth of November??

Good Evening!

Firstly I hear that the weather in England isn't so great. I wouldn't like you to think that I was sitting here in totally amazing weather. No, that's right... the weather isn't perfect here. Today- there was a cloud. (for at least five minutes anyway...).

It feels like this weeks been quite short. Monday was a teaching-free day due to a Public Holiday for a Sikh Guru and today was teach-free to do the first part of our evaluation and lesson plans etc. Apart from that, it's been a really productive week at work (despite illness and losing team members to another school for part of the week). My class are now all fully able to recognise colours (although yellow sometimes becomes blue...) and one girl can even spell black! Progress! :p

As for the toilet building project... the pit is now around 5ft deep and so it's fun getting in and out. The lady whom we're digging for made us some pretty delicious Indian cake stuff on Thursday (which is really kind considering she had to feed her family and herself for less than 600 Rs / 7.50 a month!). I'd heard about Indian hospitality before I came here, but I never knew it would be this good! You can walk down the street and be offered back to somebody's house for tea and whenever you visit somebody you can be sure to leave refreshed. I really like this about India, although I'm pretty sure if I started inviting randomers for tea back home in England I'd gtet some strange looks!

Last night was a Bonfire Night with a difference. Rather than doning the waterproofs and attending a windy, cold, very busy, council run, public firework display (haha...) we set off the leftovers of our Diwali Fireworks. I'm pretty sure these sort of fireworks wouldn't even be allowed in England on the grounds of health and safety but in trusty old India there's no such concept! Here, if a firework explodes in your hand, it's not due to there being a large quantity of explosive inside, or a lack of taper. It's because you were stupid enough to allow it to explode in your hand.

Nothing much else to report. The other boy's room had a monkey attack today, the sun's still shining and I'm off on an adventure this weekend... but that's all I can say about that (Mum will have a heart attack.,. hahaha). I'll report back on it next week sometime... if I'm alive!

Love,

Callum <><

Hello World...

Not much to report today, however I thought you may be missing a good Callum Joke... so here it is...

Q: Why did the Scarecrow win a Nobel Prize?

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A: For being out-standing in his field.


Haha?

Callum x

A Sunday Stroll in the Park...

Hello one and all!

Writing to you at the end of a rather good weekend! We only work half day on a Friday (we don't just skive and drink Chai in the afternoon though- there's lessons to be planned!) which is probably a good thing because I was getting a little annoyed with the class on Friday morning. For the first time I actually felt like a teacher and was really disappointed when nobody had done their homework or got higher than 9/30 on the weekly test! Now I can truly understand when teachers in the UK get annoyed when students don't do homework- it really messes the lesson plan up! Either way, my annoyed-ness didn't last long as it's very hard to be angry with the cutest kids in the world.

So, after an afternoon of meetings and planning was the social event that everybody had been waiting for- the inter-school volunteer Pub Quiz (minus the Pub) organized by moi. Feedback was pretty good, and it was very close at the top although it did get very heated at one point with an argument between arch rivals Drovi and Malenta (my school) over suspected cheating!

On Saturday 35 of the volunteers went to McLeod Ganj (where I went last weekend) and a group of us decided that we'd avoid the crowds and do some local sightseeing (which proved to be a very wise choice!) We headed to Baijna to Lord Shiva's 1500 year old temple (13 Rs / 16p for the 45 min bus ride- I'm going to be so heartbroken paying Arriva prices!) which was very nice, although much like all of the other Hindu temples that are here but older! After a lush lunch of Chilli Mushrooms (I resisted the meat- but did have french fries on the side...) we headed back into Palampur, had a look around and then took the 40 minute stroll back to the house.

Today 5 of the Male species decided to go for a stroll / ramble / hike / mountaineering expedition up a nearby waterfall. After initial confusion with a Taxi driver we ending up starting off in the wrong place, but it was amazing nontheless (see the photos above). The waterfall itself was beautiful and the terrain was very hilly and high. We took some potatoes with us , lit a fire and the end result was a pile of beautiful jacket potatoes Ray Mears style.On the way back we took a short cut and came accross a little village where the people were living in tents on the side of the hill. The children were playing happily, the parents looked like normal parents but still- it doesn't quite seem like justice.

And so here endeth the lesson! That's my weekend in less than 500 words! I don't have much else to report, although I did get into all my univeristy places for next year so now need to decide where to go (although I may not go yet... gap years are fun!). Also, there's no school tomorrow (public holiday) so that means some time for community visits which should be pretty cool!

Hope all is well in England. Don't let rain or cold get you down, know that it's sunny somewhere :)

Callum x

p.s. you may get a sore neck looking a the photos because I can't get them to rotate... sorry! xx