Holi

Holi. The coolest festival in India. Possibly, the coolest in the world. Everyone gets the day off work and school and has a huge water fight for the whole day, playing with lots of multicoloured powder!

Best. Day. Ever.

It started the day before Holi, actually. Holi was March 11th this year (which was last weds). The creche closes for the day so the afternoon before (on Tuesday) we played Holi at the creche with the kids! The colours cost money so we didn't actually have much at the creche - a few of the older boys had a little pink. I brought green with me, but if I had known the teachers wouldn't bring any, I would have brought a whole lot more!! So we mostly played with water, which was still lots of fun!!!





The next day we had Hindi lesson in the morning, but the rest of the day off, so once we had finished up with class, we went out in the garden at Sangam and started off our day with Darsh's family. After that we went around the local neighborhoods and visited some of the sangam staff, and the guides who we know, as well as lots of random kids and adults! Everyone was playing with colours :)

Later in the afternoon we went to the Poona club which I guess is like a sort of "country club" kind of deal, but every year they have this huge Holi party with food and drinks and a huge dance floor where it's constantly raining (they have mist-ers above the dance floor). It was great fun and i wish we had things like that at home!!

All in all it was a great few days. My skin was stained a variety of colours for a few days (it's mostly gone now). Lindsay still has a little green in her hair but it's slowly going away.

There's more pictures of Holi here

We're heading into our last week at the creche. So we're just finishing up some projects, doing some review and crafts with the kids. Next week the kids are coming to sangam (each creche is coming for a different day) for an afternoon of games, swimming and treats. We will go to the creche for one last day to say goodbye on next thursday and then we're finished! I can't believe 3 months have gone so fast. I'm looking forward to being done at the creche as it's a lot of work, and very exhausting both physically and mentally. However, it's been a very interesting experience and I'm so happy to have met all the kids! (even Puja.... lol)

The Thursday that we finish, Myself and Lin, as well as Maddie and her boyfriend Gabo are taking the overnight bus to Goa as a treat to ourselves! Goa is the beachy-resort area in India, so we're going to spend 3 days lying on the beach, eating seafood, partying in the evenings and I may even finally get to go parasailing (since it only costs about 18 dollars...)! We're really looking forward to having the break.

and then - BIG NEWS!! Bretta's coming on the first of April!!! I'm so excited. We're going to have a most awesome trip - Pune for about a while, Delhi and Agra for a few days, then off to London and Germany! It's going to be grrrrrreat! :)

I'm also really getting excited about getting home. I will miss India SO much, and i know I will be back as soon as I can afford to return, but I am also ready to come home and see everyone again, eat the food I miss, wear my normal clothes, have weather again!!! (I miss fog. and rain. and drizzle. and wind. and snow.... shhhhh. don't tell anyone)

But! I still have over a month to go, so still lots to see and do and experience!

Missing you all!
Holly

Thinking day at any world centre must be a pretty cool experience, but I'm glad I was able to experience it at Sangam in particular. World thinking day was actually Feb 22, but since that was a Sunday, the Bharat Scouts and Guides held their celebrations on the 21. Sangam played a significant role in the event, Donna garlanded the photo of Lord and Lady Baden Powel, and did a speech. As well, there were participants here for the thinking day program, so they planned activities to be done with the guide and scout troops. Myself and Muriel (Lindsay was sick) attended as well, and got to jump in on some of the activities. We joined a guide group and had a lot of fun playing games and teaching them this weaving thing. The actual ceremony itself was also very nice. There was even a marching band! (to my delight..)

On actual World thinking Day (Sunday) We had a candlelit evening ceremony in the Thinking day courtyard at Sangam. The local guides came to help, and of course, the participants were there. There was a song, and a poem, and some little speechy things. We garlanded the portraits again (the garlands are still hanging on the portraits). There was a lot of messages sent to Sangam with thinking day messages, so they hung them from the branches of the tree in the middle of the courtyard. Overall, it was lovely. And the biggest thinking day treat? We ticked out for supper that night and made our own - chicken nuggets and REAL whipped potatoes. They were really good. lol.

Last week, on our wednesday "cultural activity" we went to visit one of Sangams community partners - Ishwari - and a place called Anand Gram. Ishwari is a school and home for young women learning skills such as cooking, craft, needlepoint, etc. They even have a nursing program. It was really nice to check it out. It's a fair distance out of town, so it was very quiet and peaceful.

Afterwards, on the way back to Sangam we visited Anand Gram which is a community for Leprosy patients (/people cured of leprosy). It was originally established as a place for treatment, and a place to live once cured. They would all work in the fields, or the kitchen, or the mill, or making shoes, etc... Now, since Leprosy is almost eradicated, it's mostly a home for the elderly people and their families who have lived there for a long time. They are mostly too old to work now, so instead they're taken care of by staff. There was a school established on site back in the day for the children of the patients, and it has been recognised by the government, and now takes registrations from outside Anand Gram, even having a residence for students to come and live there.

You can check out photos here: Click Me!!!!

Today, we only had work for a half day and then we went to the Mobile Creche office to have lunch with the head and the supervisors. It was wierd because our first day we went to visit the office, and when we walked in it felt like we had been there yesterday - not two months ago. It's so hard to believe that we only have 2.5 weeks left in the creche and then the last week and then that's it! The last week, we're having the kids from our creche's come to visit Sangam to go swimming, play games, etc. Should be fun!

There's also more creche photos here: Click Me!!!

And now I'm off to bed! I'll update next time i have interesting things to talk about!!! lol

Holly

Okay, so it was brought to my attention by a certain gal whose name starts with Mer and ends with cia, that once I again I have slacked off on the blog responsbilities. To be honest, we never seem to stop and when we do, I seem to forget about the blog.

There's only 5 weekends - 4 weeks of work at the creche left. This week I seem to have finally gotten into my stride at the creche. The entire week, as a whole, I can say was a success. I mean, I still hate going in the morning and I love leaving in the afternoon because it's such a long day, but i'm enjoying a lot more of the in-between. This week we learned about beavers (where they live, what they look like, and of course, the beaver crawl song. That they now insist on singing 50 times a day), The parts of the body, our bones, what an x-ray is, made cross-stitch ambulances, and of course, continuing to review the shapes, the colours, the alphabet, numbers and counting. The older kids (some that go to school and some that don't but are very clever) get worksheets on addition, subtraction, multiplication and long division.

There's still so much to do and see in Pune, as well as a trip to mumbai to check out the art gallery and science centre and a weekend trip to a hill station. So we've got to get busy!

This past weekend, Lindsay went to meet her mom and a family friend - Mrs. Holmes in Delhi and saw a lot of the sites there as well as went to see the Taj Mahal. Then the three of them came back here for a few days to see the sites in Pune. It was cool to meet her mom - she seems awesome.

Since I last wrote, we have also done some interesting things. We visited a site called Maher, where women and children that have no other place to go live and learn skills to help them gain independance. It was a very interesting place to visit, especially the fact that they accept all religions and all live in harmony. it's really cool.

Well, I'm getting all sorts of new mosquito bites so I'm not going to stick around much longer in the volunteer lounge. Plus, we have super early breakfast tomorrow morning because we have thinking day celebrations with the Bharat scouts and guides. I'll come back, I promise. In the mean time, here's some new photos!

Click Me!

P.S. Happy Thinking Day! if I don't get back to this before Sunday :)

More facebook albums


More India photos

More Creche photos

Hi All!

Okay, so I know I've been falling down on the job of keeping this blog updated - but it's hard to find the time!

The participants from Australia/UK are gone, which is a shame because they were so much fun! (they were all about our age so it was nice to hang out with them). There's a larger program starting on weds (35 people!) but they have a huge range of ages... 12 up to 85! so it should be pretty interesting!

Before they left, though, we did a few typical girl guide things - like have a campfire! I did the great big moose song and helped jemma out with rattlin bog (apparently they sing it around campfires in ireland!) I also learned some great new songs! can't wait to teach them to the girls at home! We also had a special guest for the week - Flat Paige! A brownie in texas sent her over for a project or badge or something, so we took her around and took pictures of her at different places. You can see her there in Jemma's hand.



before they left, we also went over to Eszter and Einard's apartment for a "grah pravesh" (house warming)party. They have lived there a while but they had just finished painting and stuff. This is a photo of our hosts, hanging out on the patio. They sleep out here in the hot season.



Speaking of weather, this is the end of their winter, and it's been consistently 35 degrees all week. Although it doesn't feel as hot as 35 degrees would at home since they haven't had rain since the monsoon season, it's a very dry heat. It isn't too bad, but it's going to get a whole lot hotter the longer we're here, and when Bretta comes in early April it's going to brutal. (I have the advantage of "working up to it" at least... Bretta comes more or less "cold turkey") But I'm really excited about her coming and I can't wait to take her shopping and to check out all the cool places around here and just share some of my India experience with her.

So, since I last wrote we had camp (you can see pictures on facebook - check out my last blog entry for a link to the facebook album. You can still look at them even if you're not on facebook) It was a little crazy - approx 20 kids from each of 14 creche sites attended the camp, so there were a lot of kids!! We didn't really have much to do at the camp since it had all been organized ahead of time, so we just kinda helped out where we could, and occupied children during long waits.

I've also had a few more weeks in the creche (minus 2 days cause i was sick with a cold. normally I'd go to work anyways with a cold, but these days are just too brutal). It is getting a lot easier, but it's still just as exhausting and frustrating. The teachers don't seem to teach, it's really aggravating. I teach the older kids in the morning, and that seems to be the only teaching done. The younger kids just scribble on slates all day long and the infants just sit around. At first we thought it was just because they were getting ready for camp, but since camp it hasn't gotten much better (the other creches have, so maybe it's just mine??). So I've had to get used to the kid just running mad all afternoon since there's no way i can control them all without their language and with the huge variation of ages and abilities. So in the afternoons I tend to hang out with the infants who aren't napping - calm them down if they're crying and try to play with the ones who stare off vacantly. Most of the babies like me and like being up with me, although a few are still terrified of me. Including the one who cries ALL the time, so there's not much I can do for her... she just cries more if she sees me.

Friday, one of the supervisors came for an hour to do a special project - The kids put their hand prints in red paint on a giant sheet of paper protesting the lack of respect for child rights.



Running out of typing steam... it's kind of difficult on the little keyboard...

We went out for dinner on Saturday night to a restaurant in Koregan Park called Malaka Spice. On the way there, we happened to cross the bridge right as the sun was setting so the rickshaw driver was nice enough to pull over to let me try and get picture, but we were on the wrong side of the bridge, unfortunately, and I had to try and grab the photo between busses and trucks... so it's not good. Soon I'll get a proper picture of the Indian sunset because it's absolutely spectacular every single evening.



After supper we went out with Maddie to a bar called North Main for drinks and a chat. It was nice just hanging out and the bar was really nice. She called a "friend" (aka, someone she met at some point and had his number) and he (his name is Amit - tallest Indian I've seen yet) and his friend, Beni (probably the shortest Indian I've seen yet) picked us up and brought us to a club called Gaia to meet up with their friends. It's way across town and is right on the bank of a river, under a huge canopy of trees, all lit up with coloured lights and white mini lights strung through the trees. There was a visiting DJ from Mumbai playing house music. She must be pretty popular cause the place was packed. Above the stage there was a wooden platform that felt just like a treehouse - great place! We danced a few hours and then crammed ourselves back into their car - with one extra person (hence the photo)


i also need to get Maddies photos that she took that night - there were some ones of us with the guys!
I was still working on that cold of mine so I got them to drop me at the rickshaw stand at the end of north main road and went home - Which was a good thing, cause I didn't get home until 2:00 am but Maddie and Lindsay went out again so they didn't get home til 4:30 am. I slept through breakfast as it was... I don't think I would have done too well with that late a night!!

Time to run! still things to do before bed.
I hope all is well at home, believe it or not, i miss the snow! I can't wait to feel cold again - I love snuggling up in warm pjs.

Photo albums!

Here are THREE more facebook albums of photos

creche photos (click me!)

Snake park/zoo photos

NEW: Overnight camp photos

Namaste!

Since I last wrote, wednesday we had our first Hindi lesson! We learned things like yes (Ha), no (nahi), good (achha), that's nice (accha hai), thank you (dhanyavad), etc.

We also had a meeting with Eszter and Mina to chat about the challenges we're having at the sites and stuff.

in the afternoon we went to an orphanage where the participants in the program that are here right now were painting a mural on the walls of the bedroom of the kids. We helped out for a couple of hours to help them finish it up. I don't have any photos since i didn't want to get paint on my brand new pretty camera, but i'll try to get my hands on some photos from the participants. They painted two walls plain blue, then one big wall was a nature theme and the other wall was mickey mouse and donald duck in space. it was cute, and definitely more colorful than it was.

On saturday, the kids from the orphanage also came to sangam for the day. The participants had a bunch of games and activities and crafts, and they went swimming and everything. We were actually out for most of the day but it looks like the kids had a blast!

On Sunday, the group also brought the kids to the zoo so we tagged along as well. It's actually called the snake park because it started out being just snakes and things but then they added more animals. Photos wll e added to facebook shortly - i'll post the link to the album when i get it done.

As for work last week, it did get better later on. On Thursday I had a really good day because only about half of the kids showed up for school. the festival was still kinda going on, so the older girls also brought us sweets and paid us respect and asked us to " talk sweet" (part of the festival).

This is a picture of the construction site I'm working on. For those who don't know the background, Mobile Creche is an organiation that sets up a school/daycare on construction sites. Most construction workers just move from construction site to construction site and their kids don't go to school (both mother and father work on the site). So Mobile Creche works with the builder to build a small school and gives the kids an informal education (as much as they can) and takes care of the younger kids. It's beneficial to the builder because the parents work harder when they're not worried about the kids, and the older children aren't burdened with taking care of the babies (as much... you still see it though). The construction site I'm on is building large upscale apartment buildings.




(the tin houses are where the kids live, the apartment building behind is what the new ones will be similar to)

The building is the builder's part. They build the school and pay one worker (usually a mom) to cook the meals and clean the creche. (The creche also provides 3 meals a day to the kids). The building tends to be a concrete box, so they put pictures and stuff on the walls to make it cheerier.

Here's the creche i work in. Keep in mind that the typical day has about 75 kids in this room for the entire day.



Here's the kids eating their lunch before heading home for an hour


Here are a few of the girls in the creche... during lunch when most everyone is gone home for an hour or so.


The babies literally just "hang out" in these hammock type things. They just set them swinging and the kids quiet down and go to sleep amazingly fast.


Today (Monday) was a little better again. I was prepared, and we went through weather vocabulary in english (and introduced the concept of snow!)Which is great, cause this month's theme is types of houses so I'm going to do igloos with them later!

We played a memory/matching game where you had to match the word to the picture.



My laundry is probably well done by now so I better run and hang it up to dry!

And it begins...

I apologize for not having written in a while - it's been a very hectic and exhausting few days.

Saturday we went into Laxmi road to do some exploring and shopping. I regrettably don't have any photographs, but I'm sure they'll come eventually. We went to Bangle Alley where all the sellers call out for you to buy from them and when they see a foreigner they start shouting out "big sizes! big sizes!" which offends a lot of people, but it only means that foreigners tend to have larger hands than indians.


Lindsay and I in a Rickshaw!


Muriel and Roberta in another rickshaw!

I also finally bought a sari, along with a petticoat and blouse material. It is currently getting sewn up by the tailor, and i'll be sure to post photos of me in it once it's done. It was a cheaper one, i figured I'd wait a while before going all out on a really nice expensive one. Still, it's silk with a simple but pretty pattern on it.

On Sunday morning, we joined the UK women on their visit to the SOS Children's village nearby. It's an excellent set up there, and it was great to see one in person and how it all works. Minakshi has a guide group there, so we visited the group to share games and crafts that they could then share with their "families". (the village is set up with 9-11 kids in each house with one "mother" and they grow up all together so they actually become like real brothers and sisters) It was a whole lot of fun, and most of htem had at least a few words in english, making it easier to explain the games and crafts. It also helped to have a few people there who were able to translate.


Some of the guides - in uniform (kind of like our old school guide uniforms!) - doing crafts.


I spent a lot of time with these two girls - Prachi and Shilpa.

Sunday night, the UK women were having their traditional maharastrian night/dinner, and since we didn't yet have our saris done, we thought we'd skidaddle so as to not ruin the surprise. There's a group just starting a program who did the same, so the three of us CVs, 2 of the PA (Sarah and Jemma) and the 7 girls in the program (mostly from australia, new zealand and england) went out to dinner and a movie! However, before we even got into the mall, a very important thing was checked off our "plane list" (like bucket list, but instead of "kick the bucket" it's "catching our plane out of india"... basically, stuff we want to do while in india!) Anywho - we saw an elephant!!! And lindsay gave it a coin (it's like a blessing or something if you do, but it was cool cause the elephant takes it in its trunk and passes it up to the guy riding it). There's still another elephant-related item on our list - to ride an elephant - but it was nice to at least see one!!)



But getting back to the movie. We couldn't get tickets to the real bollywood movie, so we went to one called "the President is coming..." that's about the search for "a young indian" to shake george bush's hand when he comes to india for a visit. It's set up like a documentary/reality show.... it was strange but hilarious! and going to the movie was interesting. Everyone stands up and sings the national anthem at the beginning, and there's an intermission in the middle.

After the movie, we were waiting for the other girls to grab supper (we weren't all that hungry since we had eaten so much movie junk!) so we went to McDonald's. I know I have a policy of avoiding restaurants that we have at home while traveling, but I had to see an Indian McDonalds!! So I got a veggie burger, and it was really good! way better than a real hamburger. It was kind of like a flat, circular vegetable Pakoda on a bun with lettuce. yummm.


Us in McDonald's!


My burger!

After the participants were safely returned to Sangam, Lindsay, myself, sara, Jemma, Maddie and a couple of their local friends went to a club for some drinks. It was great! A lot like the martini bar, actually. it felt like we could have been at home. except for the fact it closed at 11:30... apparently indians don't party very late.

Monday was my first day of work, in the morning we went to the main office and in the afternoon we were at our sites. It was exhausting, but kind of fun. It was nice to see the creche "in action" and I was able to help with the math, since the older boys were doing their math work in english numbers. At one point, we were playing a version of soccer where one person from each team runs forward to kick the ball and whoever gets to it first and kicks the ball gets a point, I suppose. I, however, didn't compute the fact we were playing on gravel and instead of kicking the ball when I got to it, I slid and fell flat on my back - the ball remained where it was. I wish I had a video of it, because I'm sure it must have been absolutely hilarious! It did, however, result in a cut elbow and hand, as well as a bruised back and perhaps my pride.

Today, however, was my second day and it was a lot worse. The teachers I don't think realised that I would need some time to work up to the level where Johanna (the CVP at this site before me, who finished in December) was when she left.... so they just gave me the middle group, of about 40 kids aged 4-7 or so (it's hard to judge ages...) for the morning and didn't give me or the kids instructions or materials... It was very overwhelming. and in the afternoon a bunch of visitors came because it's a holiday, so the teachers visited with them and left me nd the woman hired to do the cleaning and cooking and stuff to make sure the kids didn't kill themselves. It was an insane, very difficult day, but tomorrow is a break! So that will give me some time to recharge before returning on thursday (we work Mon, Tues, thurs, Fri, and we have hindi lessons and meetings on wed, and we're off sat and sun)

I'll get some pictures up once I get up the nerve to actually take out my camera while at the creche... I'm afraid of how excited the kids will get!!

Either way. It's been an exhausting two days, and i can see that the next three months are going to be quite the challenge, but I'm sure it will get easier and more fun once I know the kids better and I get a better feel for the language and routine (if there is one, really...)

Anywho, it's 9:30 here now and that's almost bed time... sad really, but it's just so tiring that we need that much sleep to recover!!

I hope everything is going well at home. I hear the guides are heading to the provincial court this week - I wish I could be there with you, but I'll have to settle for photos!!!

Well, I left St. John's a week ago, but it feels like more than that. Although in a good way. It feels like we've been here a lot longer, like we've lived here for quite a while.

We haven't started volunteering yet - that won't happen until the beginning of next week. Instead we've been spending time at Sangam, and doing some cultural stuff. Last night was a dinner with an indian family (the family of one of the guides whose group meets at Sangam on Sundays) It was amazing. They were wonderful to us. See facebook for pictures! (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=201819&l=935bd&id=653130025)

Now, many people have been asking me about the food, the people, etc. at Sangam.

Let me first say, that any thoughts about losing weight in India an just fly out the window. The food here is AMAZING. Breakfast is always delicious, when we have eggs they're always great, but otherwise it's oatmeal and fruit and toast (with homemade jams and peanut butter! the best peanut butter i've ever had!)
Lunches are Indian - and I've been trying and loving pretty much everything placed on the table. My favorite dish so far is this spicy pumpkin stuff which is soooo good. And of course, we get chappati with every lunch :).
Supper is international, which means we can get a variety of meals. Tonight we had Hong Kong Chicken and rice and salad and veggies(with lettuce from the garden!) While a couple of nights ago we had sheppard's pie, and chinese another night. It's all so tasty!

And everyone here is very nice! all the other volunteers and staff make everyone feel at home and it's like one big happy family!
My room mate, Lindsay, and I get along very well. We have a lot in common and spend most of our time together and haven't yet gotten sick of each other, so i think that's a good sign!! she's really sweet and great fun, and we seem to share a lot of the same concerns and thoughts, which is great.
Muriel, the other CVP is a retired teacher (she used to teach autistic boys) and is really nice as well. She seems really fun and laid back and she's really easy to spend time with. We're an interesting trio, but it works!

Another program starts tomorrow - People are still arriving for it. They'll be here for 17 days, while the UK women will be leaving on Tuesday. Most of the participants for the new program seem to be from Australia - Another accent to hear around Sangam! I can't wait to meet more of them!

Anyways, we have all of tomorrow off so we're thinking about heading to Lakshmi Road to do some shopping!

Don't forget to send me emails/leave comments/message me! I love hearing from people at home :) And if it's not too late (my time), have a chat!!

Photos!

The Welcome Ceremony and MG Road

Hello all!

It's presently 7:40 in Pune, and relatively cool. actually, the perfect temperature for "mozzies" (a.k.a. Mosquitoes).

Today had been an interesting day! I have so many photos, i think I may add them as a slideshow rather than load them individually here.

But before I get to today, though, i have to go back to last night. It was amazing. we had our formal welcome ceremony to Sangam. It's a lovely ceremony where we light a lamp in friendship and go through the formal indian welcoming. First Aruna (the house manager... basically the mom-in-residence at Sangam) did the Aarti ceremony (a blessing for a good future) on the friendship lamp (which was donated to Sangam by the Sri Lankan guides when Sangam opened). She puts Turmeric powder and red kum kum powder the lamp, and sprinkles rice and flowers on it. She then circles the lamp with a Betal nut (clockwise and then counter clockwise) and the ghee lamp - this ensures life goes smoothly. Then a garland is placed around the top of the lamp. Then she does the same thing to a coconut that one of the male staff member cracks the coconut and leaves a piece and sugar at the base of the lamp. Then the same process is done to each of us (the powders as a bindi, rice on the forehead, circled with the lamp and the betel nut). Then a flower garland is placed around the neck and then Darshana welcomes us home. We are then each offered a piece of the coconut and some sugar to eat. We also get our Sangam pins (that you only get if you've stayed at Sangam). Then, in twos, we light wicks in the lamp and we all sing the world song. It was a great ceremony! Photos are coming soon, we couldn't take photos durin the ceremony, but there was a photographer taking them for us.

Anyways, back to today!

This morning I took my first rickshaw ride! with Lindsay and Aruna. We went to MG road (MG = Mahatma Gandhi) to go shopping and to check out the markets there. The food market (Shiuvaji Market) was built by the english a very long time ago so is made of these really old buildings. Afterwards, we parted ways from the group of women from the UK and went off with Jemma and Sarah to check out some of the rest of the shopping. I bought the material for 2 punjabi suits (haven't found the right sari material yet!) and we then brought the material we bought to the tailor's. Everything here is tailored. They measure EVERYTHING and you can choose exaclty how long you want the top, the sleeves, the pants, how low you want the front and the back to go. You can look through the books and choose from thousands of possibly necklines, and they'll add beading or strings or complimentary bits of fabric, all sorts of things!

We checked out some more of the area and I can't wait to get back to do some more shopping. Hopefully we'll get out there on Saturday.

After lunch, we went with Mina (and an independent guest - Roberta from the UK - because she was interested) to visit the sites we'll be working on! Mine is within walking distance, down Alandi road a bit. It's a small building on the construction site that the builder builds for the creche purposes while the other buildings are under construction. There's about 70 kids, in three different age groups - infants/small children, the 5-10-ish age and then the older group. Some of the older kids go to school, some don't if their parents don't want them to go, or if they aren't yet prepared enough to enter the mainstream education. Mobile creche gives them non-formal education, and they recently had one of their students go on to college for the first time! a great success!

My creche seems good, a small room with a little kitchen at the back. the teachers don't speak like, any english, but they're very nice. The kids showed us a dance they're practicing for the mobile creche camp that's coming up in a couple of weeks time (that we'll get to attend!)

I didn't take any pictures at the creche cause (a) the kids get REALLY excited and it's hard to stop and (b) it's too much of a disruption to the work they were doing before we arrived. but on't worry, I'm sure there will be many photos to come later on.

We also visited Muriels creche (where the kids taught us special handshakes and I played duck duck goose with them - i took a photo here, not of the creche, but of the recently built) and Lindsay's creche (where it was story time so we just observed).

It was definitely an experience to say the least. It's crazy to see the situations they're living in, but how happy they all are! And VERY well behaved, it was amazing!!

Well, it's getting late now (10:15 here) and I'm quite exhausted after all that shopping and going about so I'm going to head to bed! (for a "kip" = nap)

i'll see if I have the time to upload those photos before heading off to bed....

My first few days

So I've been here at Sangam for about 3 days now and it's so comfortable. I think the wonderful thing about guiding is that no matter where you are in the world, other guiders will take you in as their family and instantly make you feel at home. When we met Eszter and Mina, the women who run the CVP, and the other volunteers, they gave us big hugs and they were so excited to meet us, it was great!

Yesterday was a day that was overflowing with information. It was our first official day and the morning as filled with a meeting with Mina and Eszter - lots of information to absorb!! In the afternoon we got the practical tour of Sangam- where to do laundry, how to turn on the pool lights, how take away lunches work, etc...

But after that I finally got to have a dip in the pool. yesterday was comparatively cooler and a lot of the girls were wearing sweaters (or "jumpers" :P), but it was still warm enough for a swim in my books... but i was getting some funny looks! especially from the local staff who thought I was crazy to go swimming on a cool day in winter!

A group of lovely older ladies from the UK joined us right before supper so it was great to meet them. For the rest of the week, we'll be having sessions with them, like going shopping on MG road and we have the option of tagging along to some of their sightseeing things.

This morning we went exploring the phulenagar neighborhood across the street (Phule = Jyotirao Phule who helped a lot with getting education for women mainstreamed and Nagar = neighborhood). It's more of a middle-class neighborhood, Priyanka grew up there (she works here). We visited some temples and we visited the home of one of Sangam's employees. 11 people lived in this tiny little house that was so neat and clean and SO organized! It was amazing!



There was also a lot of beautiful Rangoli to be found. Rangoli is a design formed with coloured sand or powder that people get up really early in the morning to put on their front step. It welcomes guests and the gods into the home. (click on the picture to make it bigger)



We also saw a bit of the neighborhood next door but i can't remember what it's called... anyways, it's not as affluent an area as across the street. It's the same size as Sangam - about 7 acres, but 10,000 people live there, including some of the sangam staff.

I'll get some more photos off of Lindsay - she had her camera out more than i did.

For the worriers who are reading, I'm good! I haven't gotten sick or anything, and I'm enjoying it so far. I apparently didn't bring as many shirts as I thought, though. So I'm going to have to get some punjabi suits made up when we go shopping tomorrow (maybe a couple of plain ones for working at the creche and a nicer one for out and about). I'm also hoping to find some nice material for a sari or two!
I'm nervous about next week when we start at the Creche sites. The teachers apparently speak very little english, and we're going to be by ourselves at the sites so it will be awkward and nerve-wracking for the first little while.

I hope everyone is enjoying their time before heading back to class. I'm usually on msn in the mornings (my time) which is around 10:30 pm or so in NL. Sometimes I'm on in the evenings my time too which would be around 1:00 pm or so at home.

I have arrived at Sangam!

Our flight got in around 12:30 am in Mumbai. Myself and Muriel met up with two of the Sangam guys who drove us to the centre. Driving in india is an experience to say the least... even in the early morning hours the roads are super crowded. there are signs posted with the rules of the road, and then more signs posted to remind people to follow the rules of the road... and they're still not followed. Lanes, speed limits, red lights, commen sense... all ignored! And it feels like you're on the knight bus from harry potter sometimes... squeeing between trucks that you should not be squeezing between! Our driver was quite skilled and got us to Sangam safely :)

Lindsay was asleep when we got here so i just snuck in and went to bed... and slept solid until 9:30 this morning. When I finally got up, Lindsay was leaving to go into town with most of the other volunteers (their day off) so I spent the morning with Muriel and Eszter lookng around Sangam and also unpacking. Lunch was delicious and we ate with Eszter's husband, who also works here as the computer guy, and Priyanka. After lunch Muriel and I ventured away from Sangam and took a stroll down the road. While hectic, and somewhat depressing, it felt safe, everyone is happy and smiling and the kids love to come up to you and say hello and shake your hand. Walking by an area of tent and shack-like houses, we saw this sign which definitely deserved a photograph....

I don't know if you can see that, but the sign says "Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health"

Anyways, when we got back, the girls were back from their outting and we spent the afternoon just chatting and hanging out Also discovered there's wireless here, which is great!

Suppertime soon, so I better run. i leave you with photos of our room and the view from our windows. we're still working on how to add slideshows/photo albums to these things, but there will be more photos soon!!!

Sitting in Heathrow

Hi everyone!

So yeah, I was going to try to use facebook and email to keep everyone updated, but there were so many people interested, that I just couldn't keep track of it all! So I took a page out of Lindsay's book and I created this blog. So check back here for photos, updates, random stuff, you know!

Right now I'm hunkered down in Heathrow for the night... it's already 12:15 am so it's not going to be a very long night at all - I have all the shows/movies that Sarah so awesomely downloaded for me, plus an awesome book that Jocelyn gave me called Eat Pray Love, which I'm already halfway through, so I'm set!

So this is just my welcome to the blog and an update that I made it to Heathrow with no major hiccups and all of my luggage! yay!(Plus, I haven't yet thought of anything that I may have forgotten!)

I'll write again when I get to Sangam!