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Monday Nov 02, 2009

First post from India

I have been in India for nearly three weeks now and it really has just flown by in a whirlwind of travelling, strange food and even stranger people! We flew from Heathrow on the 13th October in the evening, arriving at Delhi at about lunchtime India time = a bit of jet lag! From there we all piled on the oldest rustiest least ever MOT'd bus around (well maybe not quite) with 44 suitcases piled upon the roof and set of on what turned out to be a seven hour sweaty cramped bus journey to Jaipur.

Once we arrived in Jaipur it was late and we literally went straight to our host families, which was where we were to stay for the next three nights with three other volunteers. Even by this time friendships were forming and our stays with our host families really reinforced such friendships. I was fortunate enough to stay with quite a wealthy Indian family. They had two children, both whom had got degrees and moved away from home; one to New York and one to Delhi. The father was a doctor and he owned his own practice and the mother was a housewife - a housewife with a cleaner may I add! They had both lived in Manchester for about three years I think it was about ten years ago and therefore spoke good English and were very aware of the differences in culture we were experiencing. They do prep you for a bit of culture shock but I was genuinely upset and intrigued by what I had seen already, one day into the trip. Obviously as a bus load of English people we were continually approached by beggars; in particularly mothers with children. The one time which stands out in my mind is when we had briefly stopped at a toll station and a mother came running over to our open windows with her naked, skeleton-like baby in her arms and an empty bottle, screaming and shouting "please, money, milk PLEASE". We had been told that all beggars are not genuine cases, there is a lot of almost gang culture (begging for money for milk then taking back to families for other things) and it was best that we did not initiate eye contact or give any money to these beggars. My heart was aching inside having this woman and baby reaching up to my window to grab me and me having to look away. I wondered at that point what I had let myself in for.

Within the coming days around Jaipur and staying with the host family I did become ever-so-slightly hardened to such things. I think the thing that did it for me was when a friend of mine offered a young girl, aged about four of five a packet of crisps when she was begging for food. The young beggar frowned and said NAHI (no) and said "money". She was turning down the food, insisting on money. That made me realize that actually there is a lot more behind the front of these children; their lives are much more complex that what we appear to see on the street and by us handing over money we are not actually helping their lives as we think we are doing.

While we were in Jaipur we watched a Bollywood movie, went shopping for traditional clothing at the market, celebrated Divali with our host families and visited Amber Fort for an elephant ride/tour. After three days in boiling hot Jaipur we said goodbye to our families and got on a sleeper train; which was an experience in itself. Locals must have had a right laugh at us all trying to lug suitcases and rucksacks onto a narrow small train and find our seats. We blocked up aisles and got ourselves in a right pickle! Eventually sorted we settled down for an evening of cramped fun on our bunk beds of three, all paranoid about the mice and cockroaches spotted just about everywhere on the train! After a very long journey, a total of 14 hours we got off the train at about 6am and half-asleep got onto another bus for a lovely bumpy journey up into the Himalayan Mountains! Some amazing views, wildlife and some mind-blowingly-annoying snoring were seen/heard over the next few hours while we crept up and up as the roads got narrower and narrower and we all began to go "argh!" and "eekkk" louder and louder. The bus driver, obviously used to driving like a centimeter away from a cliff edge found us all very amusing! At last we arrived at our house in Bandla, Palampur! We all sleepily got off the bus and sat down to our first meal together in what was going to be home for the next nine or so weeks!

I will skip the boring-normal-settling in period and get onto some juicy stuff!
A few days after arriving at our house we chose and visited our new work areas. I was working at Rajnali which was about a (gradual) forty-five minute walk up the mountain in front of the house. I was based in the school with four fellow volunteers and two more were going to be working in the Day Care Center. Me and two other volunteers were going to be teaching Grade One in the morning and then we all joined together to do community work and construction in the afternoon. All was hunky dory, apart from legs which were going to go on strike and my tummy which felt like it had been cut off from the world! (I'm officially not a fan of traditional Indian food - only of our takeaways at home which are just completely different in every possible way!)

Our first day of work soon came upon us and we set off on the lovely walk to Rajnali village to meet our class. We had eleven in our class aged between three and six and as we soon learnt a wide range of abilities. Some children were writing and reading english words and doing addition and subtraction whilst others were unable to write or recognise numbers one to ten or A-Z. So to say we have a challange on our hands is an understatement right now! But hey, thats what I'm here for - a big fat challenge and I've sure got that!!
More to follow . . .

Posted by Ashley ( 2:27 PM )
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