After visiting the tea factory on Saturday we explored the Himalayian Woods on Sunday. Those woods are not to mess with!
It was a sunny and beautiful morning as we decided to explore the hills north of our camp, but the rain season is still here and the weather is unstabile. When we started walking the fog had covered up the hillside and who knows what it was hiding...
After we left the last houses in the village behind us we found a narrow road that we decided to follow, but we were soon to find out that there was tings that were crawling around in the gras and bushes. It was Ida who commented on the blood on my leg and asked if I was hurted. I had not felt anything and could not understand why I was bleedning before Ida felt something on her leg too. A leech had attached itself to her leg and was sucking her blood! We looked around and saw several leeches on the ground together with several other suspicious creeps. We decided to end our nice breake and keep moving.
The fog was all the time getting thicker in the woods. We kept on walking until we found an old ruin. What could it be? The place had a strange aura of oldness and loneliness. We looked around for a while before we took a look in the water... Three water spirits streched their arms out towards us and tried to grab us from the green water!
This was not a place to stay...
I ran as fast as I could away from this green old place, found my self a tree and hided until I was sure the water spirits didn't follow us.
Fore sure; those woods are not to mess with!
Far away up in the hills we found the main road again. A bit shaky from our exploration of the woods we sat down and calmed ourselves with some Ferrero Rocher chocolate. We met a Indian couple having a picknick and they could tell us that there was one bus on this road every day, and that it would soon come. What a relief. After 10 minutes the bus came and took us back to the camp for 10 rupi (1,20 NOK). And what a happy ending on a scary story!
mandag 27. september 2010
How to get time to blog?
I'm sorry for not blogging more! I had big plans for blogging this weekend, but then we went to Palampur, had a wedding party for Sirvej's friend in Norway, I cooked some dessert for the whole camp, went on a 7 hour hike where we met a priest and ate dinner at a restaurant. So you see, it's not easy to get time to do the blogging.
Today I had again plans for this blog, but now I have just spent 2 2/1 hour on decorating Ida's back with henna tatoo.
Tomorrow we, the four Norwegians, are going on a 5 days hike in the Himalayas up to 4500 meter above sea level, so no blogging this week either...
Then you know that when I am not blogging it's because I am very busy having a good time (and working as English teacher and prepearing next days classes)!
Today I had again plans for this blog, but now I have just spent 2 2/1 hour on decorating Ida's back with henna tatoo.
Tomorrow we, the four Norwegians, are going on a 5 days hike in the Himalayas up to 4500 meter above sea level, so no blogging this week either...
Then you know that when I am not blogging it's because I am very busy having a good time (and working as English teacher and prepearing next days classes)!
fredag 24. september 2010
Where does chai come from?
From Palampur Tea Gardens! (among others)
Palampur, the town where I live and work, is known for the tea gardens that suround it. The gardens are own by one man who had a clever great grand father (I don't know if it is all of the gardens or just many cause I don't always understand everything when I talk to Indians). The great grand father managed somehow to retreave all the land around Palampur from the British and now the great grand son is a very wealthy man.
The town also have it's own tea factory. The tea "industry" employes about 500 people in this area. First the new tea leaves are picked from the gardens and taken to the factory where it is dried in big containers by hot air. And then I don't really know much more then what my pictures show, but it is probably possible to find out on the internet...
Well, the first weekend we visited this factory and they let us come in and look around.
Palampur, the town where I live and work, is known for the tea gardens that suround it. The gardens are own by one man who had a clever great grand father (I don't know if it is all of the gardens or just many cause I don't always understand everything when I talk to Indians). The great grand father managed somehow to retreave all the land around Palampur from the British and now the great grand son is a very wealthy man.
The town also have it's own tea factory. The tea "industry" employes about 500 people in this area. First the new tea leaves are picked from the gardens and taken to the factory where it is dried in big containers by hot air. And then I don't really know much more then what my pictures show, but it is probably possible to find out on the internet...
Well, the first weekend we visited this factory and they let us come in and look around.
tirsdag 21. september 2010
Chai!
They serve us chai every where here in India. Twice a day in the camp, 2 pm and 8 pm, along the road and in the Himalayas 3250 meters above sea level. I love it with lots of ginger, sugar and milk!
torsdag 9. september 2010
So, what am I doing in India?
I am definetly not on holiday, not at all. I have just finished my preparation for tomorrow's English class and the time is 10 pm. The last hour I have been drawing pictures of fruits. We are going to show them to the pupils when we teach them the names of banana, mango, coconut, orange, pineapple, apple, lime and watermelon. (OK, it's not only fruits.) Yesterday I was doing preparation until 9:30 pm, finding a text for the adolesent girls to read. This volunteer thing is not just travelling, fun and nice experiences, we are actually the only teachers the kids have in English. This is hard work.
We arrived our work area on Sunday the 5th, just to discover that we are living in a kind of a hotel building with nice rooms and a beautiful view. The town Palampur is located in the foothills of the Himalayas, where we are surrounded by green forest and in the North the scenery ends in steep mountains. The weather is hot and humid now in the rain season, even here on 1200 meters above sea level. Today was the first day we could see the peaks of the mountains since they have been hidden in clouds and mist for the last 2-3 months. But now the rain season is comming to an end, and the sun has been shining the whole day.
It is only now in the evening that the rain has started to pour down again, followed by thunder and lightening, which has resulted in power black out. I had to draw my fruits in the light of a head torch. So even if we live in a hotel where we are served hot meals three times a day we don't feel spoiled. For the next 5 months I am going to do my laundry by hand and shower in water from a bucket on the floor. But we do have hot water from a tap in the end of the corridor. There are four volunteers sharing each room, but every room has it's own bathroom, with western style toilets, a sink, a tap with cold water, and two buckets on the floor for showering and laundry. Our group consists of 20 volunteers living here at the moment, with young adults from Germany, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, USA and Norway.
The IDEX staff is only made up of Indians and consists of project executives, intepretators, the camp manager, house keepers, and drivers. I am not sure how many they are, but if our work as volunteers is failing, we are at least employing a bunch of people. So something good will come out of these projects anyway. They are making our life here as comfortable as possible, herding us around like sheeps, and do their best to make our volunteering useful. The kitchen is provideing us with healthy, nutritious and tasty food. So far I am not bored by Indian food, I actually like it very much. And my stomach is not giving me any trouble, as many others have had. There have also been some girls fainting, some with fever, eye infections, urine infections and head aches these first three days. So we are taking care to wash our hands properly.
On monday the 6th we chose our work placements. First we visited all the different places, and then we decided where we wanted to work. As I wrote earlier I had planned to teach adolecent girls in English and computing, but these classes are both in the afternoon so I had to choose another one in the morning. All the morning projects involved working with kids, so now I am teaching English in first and second class (5-6 years old) in Bindrabad public school in the morning. In the afternoon am I teaching adolesent girls in English. Well, maybe not only adolesent; the girls are from 6 years to 18 years. That makes quite a big gap in English skills. Because of the difference in skills we have to prepare at least two different programs for each lesson, and each lesson last for 2 hours. That is why I have spent the last evening preparing.
In the morning class there are 17 kids, and in the evening we have 12 girls joining the class and it is not as if we only are assistants for the teacher. There are no other teachers in these classes. Indian governmental schools are underfunded and there are too few teachers for all the classes, at least in this school. I don't know if they would manage to give the pupils a teacher if we were not there but we are anyway holding the classes in groups of three or four volunteers. The only help is an interpretator from IDEX, because the children of course do not speak English, and an executive, also form IDEX who go through our plans every morning. My expectations of how much we could be of help was very low before I got here, and now I also have to wonder if even my best might not be good enough. Well, the first day was better than I feared, and today was better then the first day. So I hope I will get to grips with this when I get some more experience. I will be doing this for the next ten weeks, so hopefully I will survive and it will be easier after a while. At least I think that our efforts are better than nothing for these kids.
And, ok, I have to admit that the kids are adorable.
We arrived our work area on Sunday the 5th, just to discover that we are living in a kind of a hotel building with nice rooms and a beautiful view. The town Palampur is located in the foothills of the Himalayas, where we are surrounded by green forest and in the North the scenery ends in steep mountains. The weather is hot and humid now in the rain season, even here on 1200 meters above sea level. Today was the first day we could see the peaks of the mountains since they have been hidden in clouds and mist for the last 2-3 months. But now the rain season is comming to an end, and the sun has been shining the whole day.
It is only now in the evening that the rain has started to pour down again, followed by thunder and lightening, which has resulted in power black out. I had to draw my fruits in the light of a head torch. So even if we live in a hotel where we are served hot meals three times a day we don't feel spoiled. For the next 5 months I am going to do my laundry by hand and shower in water from a bucket on the floor. But we do have hot water from a tap in the end of the corridor. There are four volunteers sharing each room, but every room has it's own bathroom, with western style toilets, a sink, a tap with cold water, and two buckets on the floor for showering and laundry. Our group consists of 20 volunteers living here at the moment, with young adults from Germany, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, USA and Norway.
The IDEX staff is only made up of Indians and consists of project executives, intepretators, the camp manager, house keepers, and drivers. I am not sure how many they are, but if our work as volunteers is failing, we are at least employing a bunch of people. So something good will come out of these projects anyway. They are making our life here as comfortable as possible, herding us around like sheeps, and do their best to make our volunteering useful. The kitchen is provideing us with healthy, nutritious and tasty food. So far I am not bored by Indian food, I actually like it very much. And my stomach is not giving me any trouble, as many others have had. There have also been some girls fainting, some with fever, eye infections, urine infections and head aches these first three days. So we are taking care to wash our hands properly.
On monday the 6th we chose our work placements. First we visited all the different places, and then we decided where we wanted to work. As I wrote earlier I had planned to teach adolecent girls in English and computing, but these classes are both in the afternoon so I had to choose another one in the morning. All the morning projects involved working with kids, so now I am teaching English in first and second class (5-6 years old) in Bindrabad public school in the morning. In the afternoon am I teaching adolesent girls in English. Well, maybe not only adolesent; the girls are from 6 years to 18 years. That makes quite a big gap in English skills. Because of the difference in skills we have to prepare at least two different programs for each lesson, and each lesson last for 2 hours. That is why I have spent the last evening preparing.
In the morning class there are 17 kids, and in the evening we have 12 girls joining the class and it is not as if we only are assistants for the teacher. There are no other teachers in these classes. Indian governmental schools are underfunded and there are too few teachers for all the classes, at least in this school. I don't know if they would manage to give the pupils a teacher if we were not there but we are anyway holding the classes in groups of three or four volunteers. The only help is an interpretator from IDEX, because the children of course do not speak English, and an executive, also form IDEX who go through our plans every morning. My expectations of how much we could be of help was very low before I got here, and now I also have to wonder if even my best might not be good enough. Well, the first day was better than I feared, and today was better then the first day. So I hope I will get to grips with this when I get some more experience. I will be doing this for the next ten weeks, so hopefully I will survive and it will be easier after a while. At least I think that our efforts are better than nothing for these kids.
And, ok, I have to admit that the kids are adorable.
søndag 5. september 2010
onsdag 1. september 2010
First impression of India
It is really something special about walking out of the air conditioned airport, and to enter the Indian air for the first time; the heat, the humidity, the smell of the traffic and humans and garbage and fire, the sounds of a strange language and traffic in crowded streets.
My first impression of India is actually quite as I expected. Our plane landed on Monday the 31st at 06.30, and we met a man from IDEX at the airport. We went by taxi to a hotel in Delhi, where we met the rest of the group of 16 volunteers before driving to Jaipur, The Pink City. Indian traffic is crowded, with pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, scooters, cars, rickshaws busses and trailers. And along the road we could see people sleeping in shelters or only on a blanket. Poverty is striking, but after a closer look, much of what seems to be garbage or ruined homes are not. In many cases, the houses are not finished, and about to be built. What immediately gives the impression of being an all surrounding mess, are peoples’ lives, and it is the strangeness that makes it look messy to us.
And so far most here are strange; the food, the bathrooms, the classrooms, the traffic, the beds and all the people. But the food is tasting great, the bathroom is working with shower and water closet, it’s nice to sit on cushions in the classroom, we survived the traffic (I actually did not think that I was going to die even once in seven hours), it is so hot that we don’t need more blanket on the bed, and the group of volunteers are very nice even though I don’t know them very well yet, and IDEX are taking rally good care of us; herding us like a flock of sheep.
I will not start to work before Monday. Until then we are taking some classes in Hindi language and culture, and about the work and locations in Himachal. We are also being “herded” around to some attractions, like Taj Mahal on Saturday and Amber fort and elephant riding tomorrow, Thursday. Here in India it is perfectly fine to be “herded” in the beginning. I believe I am going to have enough chances later on to get lost on weekend excursions.
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