Below are the 18 most recent journal entries recorded in wrysprygoat's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
5:15 pm	Taj Mahal, Holi, time in Delhi nearly finished Well it's raining in Delhi, it feels quite homely - just like an English summer. It's the festival of Holi today and tommorrow, the 'festival of colour', which means you cover everyone you know in coloured powder and probably have a big water fight. Since it's raining it's a bit of a damp squib so far, but apparently tomorrow is when it really gets going. Not that we'll be venturing far afield, as things can get a bit carried away, so the rooftop is the best place to see the carnage of Holi from. We've arranged to 'play Holi' outside the house with some of the students tomorrow (no school as it's a festival) so I've got some old clothes ready. Then back to school for a two day week, then the weekend and the outreach projects again - it's all flying past and in under 3 weeks time we'll be on holiday in the Himalayas wondering where all the time went. Ah well, I'm missing England. This morning I really felt like a pizza. Not a pizza that you trek for an hour and a half to the westernised area of Delhi and sit in a restaurant waiting for, but an actual, authentic, *frozen* pizza! Got back last night from visiting Agra and the Taj Mahal. Being so near to the Taj for five months we couldn't really not have visited it, as it's quite spectacular, and you've just got to have that photo of you in front of the Taj in an 'I've been to India' kind of way. Anyway, the Taj was indeed a very impressive building, the sheer size of it was breathtaking and the white marble made it look like a fairytale castle - or, as was intended, like an lamic impression of heaven. The most impressive thing was the precision with which it was made and the absolutely perfect symmetry of it - almost like an actually existing platonic idea of a building, if that makes any sense. Probably not. It was a very detached, perfect sort of beauty that you wouldn't believe really existed, and for me this gave the whole thing quite a cool feeling, especially as the building's only purpose was to serve as a gigantic mausoleum. Well worth a look though. Outside the Taj, we were back in real India, with the interminable waiting at train stations, the food poisoning, the hassle etc; but we met a funny old guy with a 'suitcase shop' full of essential oils and bought a bagful to take back to England, and went away smelling of roses, jasmine, sandalwood, amber... We also found a couple of kids with a camel and got a ride on the back; it actually seemed more comfortable than riding a horse but that's probably because the camel was walking very sedately after its hard day of carrying tourists. I was amazed by the length and versatility of its neck - it felt like you were riding a brontosaurus, or that the neck had the same structure as an anglepoise lamp that you can point anywhere. Back in Delhi I'm sitting around feeling shattered from travelling and various stomach wobbles, but looking forward to the final stretch, the holidays, and coming home. Take care everyone. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
4:48 pm	Pondicherry and leaving the Sakya Hostel We had a few days off last week and went to Pondicherry, the former French colony. The city itself has some historical interest, a cathedral, a botanical gardens and a museum. What we really went for, though, was the food. South Indian food is tasty – lots of forms of fried wheat with spicy curries - but often completely devoid of vitamins! So we were feeling weak and unhealthy and craving anything fresh, preferably a pile of raw salad. The other drawback of Indian food in general (and I really like Indian food) is that the ‘western style’ bread is sickly-sweet and tasteless. So the promise of baguettes and croissants lured us towards the French-inspired cafes of Pondy. We weren’t disappointed, and three days of crunchy salads, fresh rolls, cakes and croissants seemed to have recharged our immune systems. Not for long, unfortunately. On the way back from Pondicherry we went to a bird sanctuary, a large flooded plain on which thousands of birds had settled. We had a lovely evening looking around but in the night Alison was taken ill and we stumbled back to Chennai the next day, finding when we got there that the other volunteers were all ill as well! So the end of the weekend was passed with all of us sitting around in the flat comparing symptoms – some of which were quite fascinating, but I’ll spare you the details. We’re all perfectly well again now. Yesterday we went down to the hostel for our last evening with the kids. When we first arrived I took my camera out for a few snaps and it turned into a lengthy photo-shoot. Their big gleaming smiles are very photogenic and as always in India the chance to be photographed with guests is very popular. We'd spent the day in a bit of a panic getting things together for the party we’d planned and got quite stressed, so it was lovely to arrive and simply hang around spending time there for a bit. Geeta (one of the hostel wardens) then set up the main room for a puja (service). This was partly in honour of our last night and also of the three children who had had birthdays this week. I had never been at a Buddhist puja with a large group of children before; there were over fifty children in a small room with a shrine at the front with the wardens and birthday children sitting on either side of it. The room hushed and took on an atmosphere of calm and energy that was the more noticeable because these are usually such bouncing, romping kids. A focused calm with adults is one thing, but with all these children it was somehow quite different – perhaps more straightforward. The puja consisted of a short session of breathing meditation and some chanting. A puja is really quite like a church service in many ways – a time for communal prayer – and the atmosphere was quite comparable to a good service or mass. One tradition common in Buddhism is to offer flowers to the Buddha figure (since they are things of beauty which decay) and towards the end a couple of children came round distributing handfuls of fresh flowers. I was wondering what we’d do with them. Would we go up one at a time and offer them? That would take all night. Suddenly my question was answered as a prayer finished and with a loud shout of “Sadhu!” (performs a similar function to ‘amen’ in this case) the children all threw their flowers into the air, over the Buddha and the birthday children! It was a lovely moment. Then we had the party – we’d made a couple of pass-the-parcels and, as in Delhi, it went down very well. One of the wardens (a cool dude called Brother Bhim) got the ‘have your face painted to look like a tiger’ forfeit and I got a great photo of him being held down by a flock of children as Leslie (another volunteer) smeared him with orange face-paint. After the party they thanked us in the effusive Indian way and gave us presents – a touching and wonderfully tacky memento each, featuring a couple of model birds, some false roses with pretend drops of dew on them, and a red plastic heart bearing the words ‘Best Wishes’! I’m definitely going to bring mine home, but I’m not sure quite where I’ll put it... We then had a final dinner at the hostel (the food there has been delicious, simple and nutritious which was really hard to find in much more salubrious locations!), said final goodbyes, and left. It was sad, but it had been great, and one of the best things is that it’s laid the foundations for people to come here for five months next winter, and hopefully for years to come, which would make a definite difference to these kids. We’re on the train to Delhi tonight, to spend the last five weeks of the project there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 9th, 2006
2:42 pm	Tamil Nadu We arrived in Chennai at 9am on the 20th January, and were met by a very small, very friendly and completely disorganised man called Venkat. Over the next couple of weeks we spent a fair bit of time phoning Venkat (and getting someone completely different who spoke no English), waiting for Venkat (for up to three hours after the time he'd promised to arrive), and trying to explain to a bemused Venkat that when he had said he would arrive at '5 O'clock sharp', we had somehow, foolishly, got the impression that he would turn up at 5 O'clock. Anyway, we are staying in an apartment in north Chennai. The primary project is to work at a hostel in a village just outside Chennai. The hostel houses 54 children aged 12-18, whose families had been affected by the Tsunami. The families are either unable to keep the children, or know that they will stand a better chance of a decent education away from home. The project is run by the Sakya Foundation, an organisation aiming to improve the conditions of the Dalits (or 'untouchables') in India. It is also a Buddhist organisation, since the Dalits in this part of India converted to Buddhism en masse in the 1950s under the leadership of Doctor Ambedkar (author of the Indian Constitution, Dr Ambedkar was himself a Dalit and became a very significant campaigner for Dalit rights and empowerment. One of his main concerns was that Hinduism was structurally oppressive towards the lower castes and outcastes, and he therefore converted his followers to Buddhism as a means of escaping the caste system. In practice Buddhism in India has now become strongly associated with untouchability, so the label has changed but much of the stigma remains. Buddhism has, however, become a rallying point for many Dalits. It's interesting (and novel) to find Buddhist practice with a political edge. Hence the link with the Amida Trust, which focuses on the idea of 'engaged Buddhism'; there are definitely shades of liberation theology in there as well if you want to see them...). The Sakya hostel comprises two small houses, one for the girls, one for the boys. The largest room in either house is about 10'x15' and most of the girls sleep in there. It's also the main teaching and gathering space. The hostel is run by several extraordinarily commited wardens, who are volunteers from the Sakya foundation. They are locals and Dalits themselves. Two of them stay there pretty much 24/7 - Sister Geeta (not a religious term - everyone is known as 'brother' and 'sister' at the hostel) is a lovely woman who provides a firm hand in keeping the children organised and well-behaved. Brother Shreeda told us that being a hostel warden was 'the only job I have ever wanted' and seems to do more of the administration of the place as well as working with the children. Our role is to go there two evenings a week (Tuesday and Thursday) and all day at the weekends. We do some English teaching and some fun sessions. It's been a wonderful experience. When we first arrived, we were greeted by choruses of 'hello brother!', 'hello sister!' and big wide smiles. Then they gathered in the main room and gave us the phrases they'd been taught to ask guests - 'welcome to the Sakya hostel!' 'do you like our hostel?' 'how are you?' 'please come to our hostel again!'. It was quite an overwhelming welcome and I found myself hoping we could do something to justify the expressions of expectation in their faces. We've been here nearly three weeks now and it's been great. This is really a pilot project for Amida - they're hoping to send people for a full five or six month placement here next year - so we've been improvising and finding out what to do as we go along. The sheer enthusiasm of the children has made the sessions and the effort of organising and getting to them very worthwhile. We've taught them some English - a quick grammar course based on the beginner's grammar course that Alison had experience of in Delhi, and some reading and comprehension. I've been doing stuff like the letter sounds with the younger ones - they've been taught that 'dee is for dog', but of course it's not! They're great at learning songs - we've had them singing some nursery rhymes and silly English songs in a round - the ones with actions go down particularly well! 'If you're happy and you know it...' can become quite raucous! At the weekend we've done some games outside (we can't run for more than a couple of minutes in this heat, but they enjoyed endless games of stuck-in-the-mud) and some art - Tammy had them doing Tibetan style drawing the first weekend, and last weekend they did those butterfly pictures where you paint half of it and then fold it over to make a lovely splodge! So we've decorated the walls a bit. Alison and I have just a couple of evenings left at the hostel. It's been excellent - hard work, but we'll be sad to leave. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
2:41 pm	January in Delhi Back in Delhi we had new students and a new volunteer, Andy, who had just joined us from the UK. Andy worked alongside me in my class because he was supposed to be taking it over. I was sad that some of the students from before the New Year hadn't stayed on, but the classes were still good. On Friday 13th we had a lesson about the supernatural and got a good debate going - does it exist? The plumbing in the house is quite erratic and the water supply is linked to a pump, so the water will come on only when the pump is turned on. There's a tap in the kitchen which someone had left in the 'on' position when the pump was on; during the lesson someone turned the pump on downstairs and the water started flowing in the classroom of its own accord - surely a poltergeist! I managed to set up the same trick for the afternoon session too :-) We had quite a hard-working ten days as some of the others were away on holiday. While we'd been away the two advanced classes in the evenings had been proving tricky and Modgala decided to amalgamate them - a fair decision, but a shame especially for Alison who'd done a lot of work with the drama group. In the outreach work, Alison and I took the lead at Ashok Nagar - leaving Joy to focus on a new group she had established nearby. This was a group of 'pavement people', who live in tents on the side of the road. They're actually very skilled, producing stonework and carvings, but their standard of living is very low and most of them are illiterate even in Hindi. Perhaps we'll be able to recruit Indian volunteers to help them with basic literacy. It was quite impressive how Joy managed to get the group going - she's an incredibly energetic woman and built up a relationship with them by saying 'hello' each time she went past after teaching at Ashok Nagar. Ashok Nagar is a local Buddha Vihara in a rather poorer area than where we live. It's a small temple - just one room about the size of a large living room in the UK. Each Sunday around 80 children aged 4-8 cram into it to learn English. They're chaotic and you can't do a single thing with them for longer than ten minutes, but they're very good fun and keen to learn. It's also very rewarding because they really need the teaching, and it's very much appreciated. We do lots of nursery rhymes, Simon Says, heads-shoulders-knees-and-toes, and when we're finally too knackered, colouring in. The teaching at the main project is rewarding too but it's helping the lower middle classes rather than the poor. However, some of our students are idealistic and want to use what they learn for the good of society; we have some who want to be social workers and honest police officers - honest police officer being a near oxymoron in India. They're not all so worthy - one of the most popular occupations they cite is 'a rich man/woman'! There's an urgent desire to become richer amongst many lower middle class people in India, and given the very real difference that more money can make to your standard of living here, it's completely understandable. Whatever the overall impact of the project, I really enjoy the teaching and talking to the students, and if it has a few good knock-on effects for some poor people here, that's all to the good! We also did some work at the other new outreach, in Harsh Vihar. This was similar to Ashok Nagar but with some teenagers as well. There was a mix of backgrounds here, and it became a problem because the children from the richer backgrounds were able to do the work a lot more easily; eventually we decided to turn away those from English-medium schools. Harsh Vihar was initiated by some students of ours at the main project and we went round to their house after teaching there one Saturday. It was fascinating - the area was incredibly poor, but they were clearly from one of the most influential families. When we arrived all their relations gathered round and someone got out a tabla (Indian drum); we ended up singing them English songs and they sung us Hindi ones. Then it was time to board the 36-hour train to Tamil Nadu. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
2:38 pm	Christmas, New Year, Bodh Gaya and Varanasi It's been ages since I wrote anything in this journal, which I'll have to put down to busyness and general incompetence - ah well, here's an attempt to fill in the gaps. Christmas in Delhi was a slightly strange day. There were elements of English Christmas around - some of the cultural tat has got over to India - so there was a man dressed as Santa Claus outside the shop across the street, and Christmas cards on sale in the Post Office. The students wished us a Merry Christmas ("but sir, why are we always saying 'Merry Christmas'? Why not 'Merry New Year'?"). We bought presents for the youngest members of the household, Batu (10) and Rinku (15), and, just like in England, one of the presents didn't work. The next week was 'fun week'; well, it's all fun isn't it, all these tenses and prepositions, but the week between Christmas and New Year was devoted entirely to serious fun. I taught my class some songs (they thought 'Penny Lane' was 'so beautiful!') and on the last day we created a pass-the-parcel game for the whole school (this means 40 students, it's not quite an English school) in which there was a prize and a forfeit in every layer. So we saw some great impressions of farm animals and bollywood stars, a couple of good dances and one lovely Hindi song. It was great to have fun with the students for a bit and let them enjoy themselves. Parties with young people here are quite different to in the UK - there's no alcohol, but there's plenty of Bombay mix. Apparently a favourite party drink is milk! So the end of the week was a real high point and I felt really proud of the teaching we've givien to the students and the relationships we've established with them. Then it was time for our long-awaited holiday. We celebrated New Year on Most of the carriage was asleep but we stood up and whispered Auld Lang Syne with the one Indian man who was awake - and who obviously thought we were completely mad! So not the most spectacular New Year. We then stayed in Bodh Gaya for three nights. Since this is where the Buddha was enlightened, you can imagine it's a peaceful and spiritual place where you find a sense of oneness. Of course, since it's located in modern India, it's a bustling, honking, stressing, smelling place, with no shortage of hawkers and touts to separate the unwary tourist or pilgrim from his/her money/sanity. We'd booked a hotel room at a (to us) extravagant 5 pounds 50 a night, on the promise of hot water. To give them credit, after two days of requesting, reminding, pleading and finally shouting (this was Alison; I was past caring at this point) the management did deliver an intermittent service of tepid water. Outside the hotel, we waded through the touts and beggars towards the temples. End of moan. The Maha Bodhi temple, on the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, was quite a spectacular building (covered in scaffolding when we were there, but impressive nonetheless) on a site which has been in continuous use since shortly after the Buddha's death. It was an interesting combination of a place of pilgrimage and a tourist attraction - for every devout Buddhist prostrating and turning a rosary there was someone posing in front of the Bodhi tree with a camera. The temple was in a large complex of shrines and stupas and the place did have a feel of history and significance to it. It was peaceful to be there early morning or late at night. The other temples are much more modern creations with each large Buddhist community around the world strutting their stuff. The Thai temple was lovely and very reminiscent of the retreat centre in Wales (since Samatha is a Thai tradition). We also found a nice bookshop and an area in which a whole group of Tibetans had set up restaurant-tents selling Tibetan stews (thukpas) and dumplings (momos), so we had a nice change from curry. Mind you the thalis we ate on holiday were fantastic. We then went to Varanasi (aka Banares), the holiest city in Hinduism, a stretch of temples and Ghats (long steps next to the river on which they cremate people) alongside the toxic Ganges, a drop of which is said to absolve all sin. It's also supposed to be a very good idea to go to Varanasi if you're at death's door - if you die there, you get a very good rebirth. After our Bodh Gaya experience we decided to go for the most peaceful, out of the way place possible and found a lovely little family run guesthouse for a pound a night. We walked along the river and through the maze of the old city, and went on the river on a rowing boat at dawn. It's very atmospheric on the Ganges with all the pujas and cremations going on along the ghats. There wasn't quite as much ceremony going on as when I was there in 2003, but still many people bathing and blessing themselves - quite interesting, but slightly strange to see as a tourist. It's very public, but somehow you feel irreverent observing people practicing in such a devoted way, in a tradition which you do not share. When we got back to Delhi I mentioned to my class that I'd been to Varanasi and some of the students were very impressed and talked about how they would love to go as pilgrims to the Ganges; it made me feel somewhat humble that I'd had the opportunity to experience this as a complete outsider. Sarnath is a small place just outside Varanasi, where the Buddha made his first teaching after becoming enlightened. It was a hive of Buddhist activity from shortly after his death in around 500BC to 1100AD when it was destroyed by Muslim invaders. It then lay almost deserted until British archeologists took an interest in it in the 1800s. Gradually, the remains of some huge monasteries were uncovered, and in them some very significant and well-preserved examples of Buddhist stonework from the various dynasties that had had a presence in Sarnath. It was a peaceful place to visit, more of an historical site than a place of pilgrimage; lots of Indian families seemed to use the clean, grassy area as an excellent picnic site. We came for a day-trip, then back to Varanasi and overnight again by train to Delhi. On the train we met a couple of British backpackers who had travelled overland from Russia to India. They were having a good time, but said they'd yet to meet an Indian who wasn't after their money. This was the unfortunate reality of much of our experience on holiday in India. When working and living in a suburb you establish some genuine contact with the people, but as a traveller you're constantly preyed upon for the quantities of cash you're known to have. So going back to Delhi was back to work, but also back a much more rewarding way of living in India. Does that sound pretentious? I'll be off to polish my halo then... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
2:36 pm	The Red Fort Less than a week until Christmas but it doesn't feel very Christmassy here. We'll try and make some sort of Christmas breakfast on Saturday though. The Red Fort On Saturday we went to see the Red Fort, the most significant historical site in Delhi, which is a collection of marble pleasure palaces surrounded by high red-sandstone walls. Built largely by Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) it is still a very spectactular set of buildings attesting to huge power and wealth. It was slightly strange to experience it as a visitor attraction - some of the stone has started to look shabby, and of course the gold, silver and jewels that encrusted the ceilings and thrones has all gone. The Fort was built next to the Yumna river and a stream was diverted to flow through a marble channel along the middle of each palace, keeping them cool; it was known as the river of paradise. These days the river of paradise is dry and the Yumna river was diverted by the British to make room for a ring-road. So the palaces now overlook a three-lane highway rather than the holy river. Even so the Red Fort was a peaceful place to visit and the calmest place we've been since arriving in Delhi. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 19th, 2005
2:34 pm	November - December in Delhi The Jain Parade There's a large Jain community locally and they've been celebrating a 15 day festival. Last Sunday we heard the now-familiar sounds of a parade starting up in the street outside. Out in front were four white horses in red and gold livery, followed by a noisy brass band in uniform. We all rushed out onto the balconies when someone shouted 'Elephant!', and we could see a decorated elephant come into view up the street. Then we realised it wasn't just one but several elephants. All of them were decorated and bearing large howdahs with several very important looking Jains on top, in glittering robes. The central elephant, as they moved up the road 3 abreast with 2 behind, was painted white, and on top of this elephant sat a man covered in dazzling gold. He was obviously the most important person on the parade, and could have been a raja returning to his city after a victorious campaign, or something similar. Behind the elephants, the parade continued for several hundred yards, taking about 45 minutes to pass our door. There were 5 brass bands whose din merged into a deafening cacophony. Amongst the bands were people dancing, the most raucous of whom were setting off firecrackers and fireworks which showered the street with confetti. There were floats and decorated horse-drawn carriages carrying other dignitaries, and the whole street had been decorated with banners and tinsel. Teaching Things are going well here. There's just four of us left now (Joy, Maggie, Alison and I) since Modgala took the other three volunteers down to a project Amida is tentatively starting in Tamil Nadu. So we're working at full capacity since we run four classes at any one time through the day (beginner's 1, 2 and 3 and my intermediate class). It's going well though, I'm enjoying the teaching and finding it great to have complete responsibility for my own classes and what I teach. What makes it really good, though, is the commitment of the students and their determination to learn, which makes me want to give them the best I can. I also like having the more advanced students as we can spend time discussing aspects of Indian culture and Indian society - good practice for their English, and very interesting for me. It is also sometimes eye-opening for them to hear about British society. We've talked about things like poverty and illiteracy in India, gender roles and how this is changing, the dowry system, corruption, the idea of 'real beauty', the meaning of the Indian slogan "unity in diversity" (this was, I think, one of the key concepts of the founding of the new republic in 1947 and has some of the resonance that 'liberte, egalite, fraternite' does in France) and other areas. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005
2:24 pm	Yamuna Vihar, Delhi I've been here for nearly 2 weeks now, it's been very busy and at the weekend I was struck down and ended up making offerings to the stomach gods! But I'm in good shape again now. So here's a general update/introduction. We're staying in the top flat of the house next door to the house which hosts the project. The flat is in Yamuna Vihar, a lower middle-class area of north-western Delhi, across the river from New and Old Delhi and the historical and fashionable districts. We are above the main road so there is a constant hubub of noise starting with the daily march of the Jains to their temple at 5.30am, clanging their drums and chanting - the effect is a cross between a religious processsion and a very large toddler with a very large frying pan. One day we were lucky enough to see the arrival of a naked Jain - having cast off all worldly attachment, the naked Jain strode down the street as his creator made him, flanked by drummers, horn-blowers, boys on smartly decorated donkeys and women in co-ordinated saris. This was a sedate parade compared to the weddings - it's the start of wedding season here. In my evening class on Friday i had to shout over the din. The constant background noises are horns, jingles (from reversing cars - 'jingle bells' is popular), shouts, engines and, at night, stray dogs howling and fighting. Thankfully I bought some earplugs! The flat has two rooms - a bedroom and a sitting room which doubles as a classroom for my classes during the day. My students are polite, earnest young Indians with an average age around 20. Most are male but I have a few women as well; some are from the local area but most come from the poorer areas, as the project is attempting to help young people who would otherwise be unable to learn English. I am teaching intermediate classes during the day and advanced in the evening (but they are actually all at a pretty similar level). Alison has been working with Joy (who taught here last year) in the beginner's classes during the day - we have several laptops so she spends a lot of time supervising the students playing fun language games designed for English children! Alison also has the excitement of the drama group in the evening, it seems to have evolved into more of a discussion forum, with some very well-informed and passionate individuals. They've talked about the problems of India and the Pakistan issue. My classes too contain some well-informed people. The difference in culture is huge, but I have had few problems with this so far. As I type there are occasional pop-ups, most of them advertising BharatMatrimony, which is a way of arranging marriages online... I've not got far out into Delhi much since I've been here but I did go into town on the first Saturday and meet my friend Tom who happened to be travelling through. I went into Delhi on the Metro and saw a huge mosque in Old Delhi - a remnant of Mughal India. The scale was incredible, and the whole building was crafted out of the pink-red Agra sandstone that characterises many Mughal buildings. Old Delhi is built on the remains of a lavish and wealthy Mughal city, the heart of that Empire in India. That city declined in the 1700s and throughout British rule, and is now submerged under a mixture of shabby modern buildings. My asthma has settled down now, I was allergic to the matresses we had at first and was then allergic to the beds, but I'm now sleeping fine on a mat on the floor. We keep meaning to scrub our floor but the dirt is pretty much ingrained... it's a good excuse if you're not fastidious about tidiness. The food has varied, I've had some delicious samozas and some excellent daal, but there's a certain spice they put in some of the curries that turns my stomach. In the last resort we have a jar of precious, precious marmite we brought with us from the uk... (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 12th, 2005
7:11 pm	News from the smog capital of India I've arrived in Delhi, exhausted after 36 hours in airports and on planes, but all in one piece. The house is nicer than I was expecting - we have a clean bathroom with (squat) toilet (I like squat toilets though, and they're actually better for your colon than western ones, so good news all round...) and a big balcony overlooking the street - a good view of the bustle below. And the cockroaches are only in the kitchen :-). Haven't cooked at all so far, food is being provided by some of the people in the main house and it's very tasty. I'm exhausted - jetlag plus lack of sleep due to pollution - the whole city is covered in a 24 hour fog of fumes and soot and it's taking my lungs a while to adjust. Went into the centre today on the ultra-modern metro they've just built - had to take a cycle rickshaw to get there though, it's the third world and the first in one. Enjoy the UK and more updates when I have more energy :-) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 4th, 2005
11:30 am	counting down - flying out in 6 days We're counting down the days to departure - all jabs jabbed, malaria tablets taken, we're now just visiting relatives and picking up a few final useful bits and pieces, making laminated cards with basic English verbs on them, etc. Finished the training last week with a final session on groupwork (a bit of argument or 'storming' in a maturing group is normal and useful, apparently). We've just visited my parents and are off now to see Alison's dad and (extremely cute) little step-sisters. Everyone I know seems to know someone who's having a baby, it's quite astounding - I was even accused of getting broody by proxy the other day. And the ones who aren't having babies are having kittens (it's amazing what they can do nowadays). I was sent a link the other day I found highly amusing, if you're into euphemisms click here... http://walkingdead.net/perl/euphemism If you need me, I'll be freeing the enchilada... (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
6:17 pm	training, graduation, merekats Last week was something of a filling in the gaps week and I'm now looking forward to finishing the training and getting on the plane out to India. Learnt some Hindi, though my knowledge is still tore tore and I should really be motivating myself to do a bit more work on it. Also had a couple of First Aid workshops which were useful (obviously) and quite enjoyable from the point of view of lying around pretending to have a broken leg, etc. I'm sitting in the same room as Alison and she is asking whether I have been writing in my blog about how wonderful and amazing she is, so I hereby mention the fact. Also the greatness of the volunteer team, Sarah (who is also in the room) included. At the weekend I went and graduated in Oxford, meaning that I now officially have a degree for the first time, and also, apparently, the 'power of lecturing', which makes me entitled and liable to leap up and start an oration at any moment. I had a very nice lunch in Balliol and received two small merekats, with whom I can apparently claim some distant kinship, as an unconnected present. This week we've had 2 days of movement based work. Yesterday we used movement and drawing to explore ideas of peace and conflict which was quite strange and uncomfortable - today's session was a lot more fun as we explored things through group sculpture (doesn't mean taking a hammer and chisel to a group) and movement, which was more like conventional drama games. I got frustrated with some of the sessions which revolved around very very loose questions like 'what is culture?' or 'what is peace?' and the discussions were so broad they didn't have any substance at times. But we're now doing 3 days of groupwork - lots of stuff about the dynamics of groups as they form, respond to leadership, deal with conflict etc - and in Indian culture the expected ways of doing these things will all be different so we have a balancing act between riding with Indian cultural norms and creating an environment in which different norms can become acceptable. (e.g.: in state schools in Delhi hitting children is common as is caste discrimination, so we've got a challenge of establishing new norms around discipline and equal treatment in our project). (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
8:02 pm	Tea and Teambuilding Ok so here's the latest update! It's a bit long but then we've been doing much training and non-training related cool stuff. And eating! Lots of eating! So read on... Last week we, the volunteers (like we, the people, but less of us) went up to Sheffield for the much-vaunted team building week which we thought might be a festival of trekking through muddy ditches and building fires in the wild. Unfortunately Sonna and Jenny didn't make it because Sonna developed a stomach bug which turned out, after nearly a week of tests in hospital (which included a film of the insides of his intestines), to be the nastiest strain of e-coli. Yeah, the one that killed people in Scotland a few years ago. For a while the news was pretty grim and it looked like Sonna wouldn't be able to come out to India with us on the 10th November, but it now looks like he'll make it; it was terribly bad luck and quite ironic in that he would have been very unlucky to contract something as nasty as e-coli in India, let alone in Britain. Hopefully he's had his share of illness and will be prancing around like a spring lamb in Delhi when the rest of us are rushing to the loo. So just the four of us went on the teambuilding; first we went to Joy's house in Chesterfield and spent a day cooking Indian food, including making cheese out of milk which was very exciting - it ended up being cottage cheese rather than genuine, firm Indian paneer. We were also fed huge quantities of cakes and biscuits as Joy's vocation other than teaching seems to be feeding people (mmm), and indulged ourselves massively by actually watching a film on telly, which was great. We also sat around and felt rather superior watching Test the Nation doing English grammar. Then we went to stay with Mike and Gina (two more Amida people) who live in Sheffield (Apologies to Kev that I never made it to Sheffield while you were there; it is a lovely city), and from there to the cottage in the Peak District. We were given our task and marching orders; we had to find our way to the cottage (we were given the grid reference) and then solve lots of mysteries about the past and present of the local area, mostly by accosting locals and saying 'er, hello, we're random outsiders, what's it like living here then?' We were even given letters certifying that we were with the Amida Trust but I don't think anyone used them in the end - 'uh, I'm also part of a slightly odd sounding Buddhist sect if that's any help...'! We had a few issues with the task - for Alison it conjured up memories of dreadful Geography field trips spent in the freezing cold trying to measure the gradient of obscure hills. Likewise Sarah wasn't too keen on the mud and outdoors side of it. Alison and I both had colds and kept having to lie down and drink tea, so wondered if there was a way we could build a team around teapot-based activities. Tam loves being outside and couldn't wait to get out there and get walking and muddy. You get the picture. Given these differences we coped pretty well. Tam and Sarah went into the village on the first day and found out most of the information, so between this and what Alison and I had found in Sheffield Central Library the previous day we could afford to sit around stoking the fire for much of the rest of the two days! Hurrah! We sat around and sang along to some of the very cheesy music we found in the cottage. I learnt most of the words to Walking on Sunshine. We walked around the lake one day and talked to the local sheep, then went back to Mike and Gina's for the all-important debrief session. Mike is an occupational psychologist and Gina is equally wise so it was an interesting afternoon talking about what had happened and how we had all felt about it. We had sort of muddled through the exercise on the basis of mutual goodwill without establishing a real system for making decisions, because we were all reluctant to be the leader and two of us were sniffeling people with colds anyway; interesting stuff - I notched 'occupational psychologist' a few places up on my 'potential second careers' list. We then put 'big' Tam (she's called big Tam because she's little) on the train to London since she flies out to India on Tuesday. Anyhoo. I'm back in Narborough now having spent the weekend in Birmingham seeing friends of Alison's and a band consisting of friends of Alison's - y'know, Birmingham is actually really nice which is a surprise to someone brought up with the traditional London prejudices like myself. Alison and I are thinking of moving there when we get back, because it's a big, interesting city where we could both get jobs and it's also much more affordable than, say, London or Oxford. Fortunately I have Alison to show me round and give me the full local Brummie low-down. There are lots of interesting areas and a big ethnic mix - the area we stayed in on Friday night reminded me very much of Kensal Rise (although predominantly Muslim rather than Hindu), the centre of town has been improved a lot in recent years and is quite happenin', as they say, and there's a strong arts scene. So there we are. Birmingham: not the slag-heap you thought! Birmingham: more to it than dark satanic mills! Birmingham: you can get a fab curry! Oh, and we were supposed to be going to Alison's new half-sister's christening on Saturday but most of the family have come down with a tummy bug so it was cancelled; so she shall have to be baptised in our absence. Back in Narborough we discovered our room had been given to one of the psychotherapy students (there's been a psychotherapy course running here all this week) so I've spent much of today sitting in the kitchen learning the Hindi script - I've pretty much memorised the letters, but obviously my pace of reading is very slow - a bit like the cute 6-year-old reading 'Cat-er-pil-lar'! So it's three-and-a-bit weeks to go before we fly to Delhi (10th November), still looking forward to it, 2 weeks of training left then 10 free days, then we go. Er... ...might add some more in the next couple of days too. Well done on finding my web-log! Click on 'leave comment' if you want to, well, leave a comment...! Take care of yourselves all of you. 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Saturday, October 1st, 2005
4:27 pm	Training for India - team bonding and cabin fever I've been in Leicester (well, Narborough) doing training for going to India for the last couple of weeks. It feels like we've been here quite a long time, to the extent that we've spent quite some time today climbing the walls with cabin fever, needing to get out into the non-Buddhist Commune world. Alison, Sarah and I are going into Birmingham tomorrow and the prospect is very exciting...otherwise we've only been out a couple of times, once for chips one evening (it felt like we were sneaking out of boarding school! Then we got back and found the novice nuns had already gone out for chips earlier on!). The other time was on my birthday (which I shared with Jenny, another volunteer). It's been good fun here a lot of the time though. There are six volunteers - myself and Alison, another couple named Jenny and Sonna (Sonna is male, in case the name is confusing), and 2 other girls, Sarah and Tammy. We are all in our twenties (Tammy is actually 30 but there isn't a huge age gap there). The training has been making great efforts to meld us into a bonded unit (?)! Fortunately we all get on pretty well and I think we'll survive each other's constant company in India without serious strife. If anything our personalities are too similar - Buddhist volunteering organisations seem to attract chin-stroking/fluffy liberal arty types...Sonna and I are the only men involved in the project so I'll have to do lots of press-ups to keep my masculine identity strong :-). The training itself is quite fluffy too - lots of discussion and sharing activities including 'gatherings' - in which everyone sits in a circle and a stone is passed around - when you have the stone you can speak. Very hippy/lord of the flies. In the middle of last week I was getting quite fed up with all the personal sharing and craving a bit of nitty gritty! Fortunately we've done some very practical sessions since, on Indian culture, the project itself, and teaching English - from a lady named Joy who was in India with the project last year and is coming back this year to be in charge of the teaching (with us younger volunteers as the junior teachers/classroom assistants). Joy was the first ever female demolition foreman (hence: not to be messed with) and is a very energetic and practical woman, which is great when we need to cut through all the fluff (the team leader, Modgala, is a nun - very nice but sometimes overfluffy). Also I took a session yesterday on English Grammar - it was quite strange taking English speakers through English grammar and there were a few panicked expressions when words like 'preposition' and 'indefinite article' popped up! We've got a week to go in Leicester and then we go to Sheffield for the much-speculated-upon team building week with Mike and Gina (two Amida laypeople) - we had visions of mud, tyres and building bridges across rivers. Turns out we're going to be in a cottage in the Peak District and wandering around in wellies. Flights are booked! We fly out on the 10th of November. I didn't know the date before because they wanted to have us here for about 10 days before booking the flights, in case we turned out to be insane (or perhaps insufficiently insane). We fly back on the 15th April. All in all it's been quite good fun so far - more updates soon :-). Take care everyone. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, June 13th, 2005
9:51 pm	( here's my cutty cut cut ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:49 pm	trying to do a cut ( here ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
9:23 am	look, it works! see, I can make a new Livejournal entry just like this!! Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
8:07 pm	hello, this is my livejournal, and I'm unlikely to write in it, but since I have looked at it and found no less than 2 completely unsolicited friends I thought I'd do the decent thing and make an entry. so.... The icon's a goat, by the way, I have a thing about goats since I shared a house with one - there's something about fighting a kid off your breakfast that brings man and beast closer together :-) enjoy livejournal! ps kht I was very impressed to find myself so befriended... :-) Current Mood: mellow (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 30th, 2004
12:55 pm	this is my livejournal! Not that I write in it... Current Mood: cheerful (Comment on this)