Silly elephant statue in Mumbai
Flora fountain
Sugar cane juice
View from hostel window
Gateway to India
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Mumbai
Silly elephant statue in Mumbai
Flora fountainSugar cane juiceView from hostel windowGateway to India
Mobile Creche
All is going well at the two creche sites, it is getting easier to communicate in basic words and phrases and sign language along with a tiny bit of Hindi. I played parachute games with the children yesterday, we have made origami boats, done dot-to-dots, maths, songs, colouring, fruits and much more. The children are getting to know us and it is good fun. I thought I would show you some pictures, so that you can see what I have been doing at the Clover site (Mon-Tues). Sorry don't know why it is underlined!
Fulabai with her lunch
This is where the children live
Playing games
The white block on the far right is the creche
Monday, 20 September 2010
Other blogs
Well, if you want to find out more about what I am doing (when maybe you don't hear from me for a few days), some of the other CVs are writing blog too:
Kristen who will be my room mate:
http://kralingen.livejournal.com/
Gerda, a girl from Sweden (you need to use google translator)
http://www.gerdapaaventyr.blogspot.com/
Had first full day at the creche today it was tiring but good, we did name badges, drew and coloured fruits (that is their current theme of the month), we did exercises, sang songs (alice the camel, incy wincy spider, a few marati ones) and the younger kids slept and played games/toys. We taught the kids about tickling which was great fun, and one little kid constantly wants to be lifted up she is really cute and loves being tickled and is always smiling :) Back to school again tomorrow, the teacher said about doing orgami and showed us a frog but this looks really complicated so we might do simple boats and/or fans and colour them in.
See you soon xxxx
Kristen who will be my room mate:
http://kralingen.livejournal.com/
Gerda, a girl from Sweden (you need to use google translator)
http://www.gerdapaaventyr.blogspot.com/
Had first full day at the creche today it was tiring but good, we did name badges, drew and coloured fruits (that is their current theme of the month), we did exercises, sang songs (alice the camel, incy wincy spider, a few marati ones) and the younger kids slept and played games/toys. We taught the kids about tickling which was great fun, and one little kid constantly wants to be lifted up she is really cute and loves being tickled and is always smiling :) Back to school again tomorrow, the teacher said about doing orgami and showed us a frog but this looks really complicated so we might do simple boats and/or fans and colour them in.
See you soon xxxx
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Gerda wants a tiger, a bear, oh deer! She wants to adopt the whole zoo, I want a baby elephant!
We went to Pune zoo today, well actually we thought we were going to the snake park but the rickshaw drivers dropped us at the zoo instead. We later found out that the snake park was within the zoo so we might go back another time as we had to leave for lunch. One of the park rules was that you are not allowed plastic inside the zoo, this includes crisp packets. I had brought a packet of tomato crisps for 5RS (about 7p!) and the later opened the bag and tipped them into a paper bag made of of newspaper that was sewn up! It was pretty strange! The zoo cost 10RS for Indians (about 13p) and 25RS for foreigners (about 32p!) So as you can see everything is pretty cheap, a half an hour rickshaw costs about GBP2 max and that is between two or three of us!Every time we saw an animal, Gerda decided that she wanted one, be it a tiger, a bear or a deer! We even found one type of deer that apparently poos in one place so she thought that was good as it was toilet trained! Hehe. Anna (who will be her roommate) thought this was funny and I suggested that maybe Gerda should just live at the zoo!
We saw monkeys playing in the trees...
The was a lovely lake in the middle of the zoo, it was such a nice view.
Then we saw elephants, sorry there were no baby elephants that I could take home but they were elephants! They were so cute, especially these two who were playing together.
On the rickshaw on the way home, we saw an elephant being ridden along the road! This was the first time we had seen this, Anna was on the side of the rickshaw closest to the elephant so she took the photo. It is slightly smaller than the other pics as the rickshaw was moving quite fast and she accidentally got her finger in front of it, but we still got the elephant, so all is good. :)
Hope all is well with you,xxx
Friday, 17 September 2010
The day we became celebrities in Pune!
We went to Pune festival, which was joint with the Ganesh festival, we were picked up by a bus (by organisers) and taken in through VIP entrance, we kind of felt like we were gate crashing but we were later told that the organisers know Sangam and so we were special guests. We were taken past a big drumming band, then had large flower garlands placed on us and the red dots on forehead! Then flowers thrown over our heads, we also realised we were being filmed and everyone was watching us on the big screen. It felt very strange, we weren't expecting it at all!
This was a Ganesh statue made of lots of men holding up pieces and dancing him around.
This was a Ganesh statue made of lots of men holding up pieces and dancing him around.
There was lots of singing and dancing on stage and many colourful costumes! Here are two clips, including some very well behaved horses who didn't even flinch with all the drumming and loud music! I was very impressed! It was a great night, but very strange, we saw other white people which we were all quite surprised at. We wondered if they had rounded up all the white people in town and put them in one place!
Thursday, 16 September 2010
First day at school
Today we went to our Mobile Creche site for the first time, we got a local bus then a rickshaw to the site. This wasn't quite as manic as we had expected the buses to be, yes the first two buses were very full with people hanging out the doors, but the third one was better and we all managed to get a seat straight away for the whole journey. The site was quite remote, with the typical metal sheet houses and the construction sites in the distance. The kids were all well behaved but a few of them were obv quite scared of us as we were the first volunteers from sangam visiting this partucular site. The younger ones cried, they probably hadn't seen white people before cos apart from Sangam people, I have only seen one other white person in Pune! We played with some of the older kids and they were smiling and hopefully the younger ones will get used to us. There are three of us going to mobile creche together (google tara mobile creche) Te, Anna and myself. Kristen and Gerda are going to the doorstep school. I have found out I will be sharing with Kristen :) Had first Hindi lesson yesterday which was good but a bit confusing, we need to do lots of repetition to learn it, but it should be fun and we have loads of people to practise on.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
End of feasts and festivals, beginning of a new adventure
So the feasts and festivals event finished today with a wonderful closing ceremony which talked about new beginnings, starting CVP, new Sangam volunteers, new travels and new friendships. We all talked about what we had enjoyed to the sound of the Ganapati drum beats. There were 5 winners of the Ganapati/Ganesh photo competition (see facebook) and I was one of them.
Yesterday we went to the Mobile Creche site for the first time, it was not the site we will be working at but the same organisation. I will see my site on Thursday when I start working. We played with the kids, sang songs with them (they sang incy wincy spider in Marati which was very cute) and they welcomed their homemade Ganesh to their creche whilst we were there. We also had a walk around their homes, which was a slum, so their homes were made out of sheets of metal and were very hot inside and were only about 3m by 3m. The first thing that most people noticed about the site was the slum was in the shadow of the Radisson hotel, whether this was one of the buildings that they had built I am not sure but it was a stark contrast. When I was sitting with one of the girls, she showed me her school books (some of the children go to a government school in morning or afternoon and go to creche when not at school). She sang a beautiful song to me in Marati.
Out in the slum they had a Ganesh statue and this was when it struck me quite how much the Ganesh festival means to these people, as even though this people had so little they had all donated some money and brought a Ganesh for the community and they had put up flowers around and tinsel and I thought it was the most beautifully decorated Ganesh that I have seen so far which really touched me the amount of effort they had put in.
In the afternoon, back at Sangam, I did some Indian embroidery, I will take a photo when it is finished, there were some lovely stiches that we learnt. It is a flower design. In the evening we had a campfire, which unfortunately was indoors as the campfire circle was still wet, even though we have had quite a few very hot days now. However, the staff and volunteers came to our rescue by having sparklers and standing around the pool whilst we sang the first song, land of the elephant. This was to the tune of 'land of the silver birch', it is a lovely song and the first chorus goes like this:
Land of the elephant, home of the rickshaw,
where still the sacred cow wanders at will.
Sangam an open door, I will return once more
Boom didi i di, boom ddii i di, boom didi i di, booooom
We then headed into the hall and continued our campfire sitting in a circle with candles in the middle.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, will be our first Hindi lesson and more information about Sangam/our projects. On Thursday and Friday we will have half days at the creche to get used to everything then weekend free, then Mon we start with the full days and will continue with Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri full days at mobile creche and Wed cultural and Hindi lessons.
I hope you are still enjoying my blog and everyone is ok at home.
xxx
Yesterday we went to the Mobile Creche site for the first time, it was not the site we will be working at but the same organisation. I will see my site on Thursday when I start working. We played with the kids, sang songs with them (they sang incy wincy spider in Marati which was very cute) and they welcomed their homemade Ganesh to their creche whilst we were there. We also had a walk around their homes, which was a slum, so their homes were made out of sheets of metal and were very hot inside and were only about 3m by 3m. The first thing that most people noticed about the site was the slum was in the shadow of the Radisson hotel, whether this was one of the buildings that they had built I am not sure but it was a stark contrast. When I was sitting with one of the girls, she showed me her school books (some of the children go to a government school in morning or afternoon and go to creche when not at school). She sang a beautiful song to me in Marati.
Out in the slum they had a Ganesh statue and this was when it struck me quite how much the Ganesh festival means to these people, as even though this people had so little they had all donated some money and brought a Ganesh for the community and they had put up flowers around and tinsel and I thought it was the most beautifully decorated Ganesh that I have seen so far which really touched me the amount of effort they had put in.
In the afternoon, back at Sangam, I did some Indian embroidery, I will take a photo when it is finished, there were some lovely stiches that we learnt. It is a flower design. In the evening we had a campfire, which unfortunately was indoors as the campfire circle was still wet, even though we have had quite a few very hot days now. However, the staff and volunteers came to our rescue by having sparklers and standing around the pool whilst we sang the first song, land of the elephant. This was to the tune of 'land of the silver birch', it is a lovely song and the first chorus goes like this:
Land of the elephant, home of the rickshaw,
where still the sacred cow wanders at will.
Sangam an open door, I will return once more
Boom didi i di, boom ddii i di, boom didi i di, booooom
We then headed into the hall and continued our campfire sitting in a circle with candles in the middle.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, will be our first Hindi lesson and more information about Sangam/our projects. On Thursday and Friday we will have half days at the creche to get used to everything then weekend free, then Mon we start with the full days and will continue with Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri full days at mobile creche and Wed cultural and Hindi lessons.
I hope you are still enjoying my blog and everyone is ok at home.
xxx
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Saris, caves and adventures
Yesterday we went to some Buddhist caves which were man made over 2000 years ago and were beautifully carved out with elephants and designs. They had a main room for a temple which was huge and many smaller rooms for the Monks dorms, with stone beds which had been carved out and stairways. It was amazing to see how much they had created with such basic tools.
For more info about the caves see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_caves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaja_Caves
This morning we have learnt about Hindu Gods and Goddesses. We had a session where the volunteers dressed up as various gods to show the various outfits and signs of that God. We then learnt about the story of Ganesh, as it is his festival starting on Saturday for ten days where he is welcomed into the Hindi houses. The story goes that his father, Shirva, had gone up to the mountains to meditate and his mother, Parvati, stayed at home and had a wash. With the muck, she created a son, Ganesh. Some time later, his mother was having a wash and asked Ganesh to not let anyone into the house as she was bathing. At this point, Shirva returned from the mountains and was unaware that he had a son and requested entry to his house. Ganesh refused as he was obeyed his mother and this resulted in a fight where Ganesh's head was chopped off. His mother had the commotion outside and came out to find her son without a head, she told Shivra that this was his son and he was so upset that he asked a servant to find the head of the nearest animal he could find and bring it back. The servant found a baby elephant and so that head was placed onto Ganesh's body and he returned back to life. So in all the statues and pictures of Ganesh/Ganesha/Gannapati (same God, different names) he has an elephant head! There are variations on the story, but this was the one we were told.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha
http://groups.ku.edu/~kuindia/ganeshfestival09.shtml
My sari material (pink with blue embroidery) has been sent to the tailors. A tailor came to sangam to measure us for the sari blouses and petticoats. If anyone would like a Sari, I have found out what measurements you would need:
1) length from waist to floor
2) around bust
3) around waist
4) length from top of shoulder to bottom of ribs
5) top of shoulder (midpoint) diagonally across to breast bone (this can be guessed from other measurements)
6) Round biggest part of top of arm
7) length from top of arm to sleeve length (about 2/3 way down top of arm (ie. before elbow)
Also, I would need to know preferred colours and patterns, whether you want it highly decorated, embroided or patterned. There is lots of choice, too much! I am planning on visiting a western tailor at some point to see if I can get a suit made, as Mina said you can in some parts of town.
I have been going to yoga before breakfast every morning. This afternoon we have some rangoli practise (pretty patterns out of coloured sand on the floor to welcome people into the house) and then the international fare tonight.
Hope all is well at home.
xxx
For more info about the caves see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_caves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaja_Caves
This morning we have learnt about Hindu Gods and Goddesses. We had a session where the volunteers dressed up as various gods to show the various outfits and signs of that God. We then learnt about the story of Ganesh, as it is his festival starting on Saturday for ten days where he is welcomed into the Hindi houses. The story goes that his father, Shirva, had gone up to the mountains to meditate and his mother, Parvati, stayed at home and had a wash. With the muck, she created a son, Ganesh. Some time later, his mother was having a wash and asked Ganesh to not let anyone into the house as she was bathing. At this point, Shirva returned from the mountains and was unaware that he had a son and requested entry to his house. Ganesh refused as he was obeyed his mother and this resulted in a fight where Ganesh's head was chopped off. His mother had the commotion outside and came out to find her son without a head, she told Shivra that this was his son and he was so upset that he asked a servant to find the head of the nearest animal he could find and bring it back. The servant found a baby elephant and so that head was placed onto Ganesh's body and he returned back to life. So in all the statues and pictures of Ganesh/Ganesha/Gannapati (same God, different names) he has an elephant head! There are variations on the story, but this was the one we were told.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha
http://groups.ku.edu/~kuindia/ganeshfestival09.shtml
My sari material (pink with blue embroidery) has been sent to the tailors. A tailor came to sangam to measure us for the sari blouses and petticoats. If anyone would like a Sari, I have found out what measurements you would need:
1) length from waist to floor
2) around bust
3) around waist
4) length from top of shoulder to bottom of ribs
5) top of shoulder (midpoint) diagonally across to breast bone (this can be guessed from other measurements)
6) Round biggest part of top of arm
7) length from top of arm to sleeve length (about 2/3 way down top of arm (ie. before elbow)
Also, I would need to know preferred colours and patterns, whether you want it highly decorated, embroided or patterned. There is lots of choice, too much! I am planning on visiting a western tailor at some point to see if I can get a suit made, as Mina said you can in some parts of town.
I have been going to yoga before breakfast every morning. This afternoon we have some rangoli practise (pretty patterns out of coloured sand on the floor to welcome people into the house) and then the international fare tonight.
Hope all is well at home.
xxx
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Training
Hi,
Sorry I am not sending many updates or messages as we currently don't have access to the Sangam computers until after the feasts and festivals event, so at the moment I am borrowing the others girls computers. This also means that I will not really be able to arrange skype times unless I see that you are online when I am online, hopefully this will change after the 15th when the event stops and we start our volunteering. Today has been more training and orientation, we have done technical training today, check out our new video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHltc2YEFXE become a facbook fan at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Sangam-World-Centre/260230482829?ref=ts and see www.sangamworldcentre.org for updates as to what I am doing. Hopefully there will soon be an article and photos of the new volunteers on the website. This afternoon we had a self guided tour around the neighbourhood, we saw kids playing cricket on the street, using bricks built up as wickets, some people drumming and dancing who were apparently practising for the upcoming Ganesh festival and many cows in the streets and goats too! They just randomly walk the streets and lie down the middle of big busy roads! We visited quite a few Hindi temples, a Sikh temple and a Mosque. At one of them we were offered Chai (Indian tea but made with boiled milk and spices, it is good) and Indian sweets. We were also given sweets from another temple, we ate some of it but we were given a whole handful, we then walked past a beggar sitting on the floor and gave it to him, he seemed very grateful, so the sweets served many purposes! I went for a swim in the pool after tea with Malin (from Sweden) and Kristen (from Canada).
We have had lots of nice food, breakfast is normally cornflakes, toast, porridge, juices, banana, papaya and an egg dish like fried egg or omelette. Lunch is Indian which is generally a curry type dish (although Indians think that curry is not Indian!), chappatis, rice, a vegetable dish (today we had cauliflowers in spices or sometimes spices potatoes) and then an Indian dessert (Indian sweets or fruit). Tea is generally International, tonight we had spag bog, last night was an Indian dish then jelly and custard for pudding!
I will sort out some photos in due course, but I am likely to be busy, we are all quite tired at the moment but having lots of fun. Tomorrow the Feasts and Festivals event starts, which should be good.
Talk soon xx
Sorry I am not sending many updates or messages as we currently don't have access to the Sangam computers until after the feasts and festivals event, so at the moment I am borrowing the others girls computers. This also means that I will not really be able to arrange skype times unless I see that you are online when I am online, hopefully this will change after the 15th when the event stops and we start our volunteering. Today has been more training and orientation, we have done technical training today, check out our new video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHltc2YEFXE become a facbook fan at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Sangam-World-Centre/260230482829?ref=ts and see www.sangamworldcentre.org for updates as to what I am doing. Hopefully there will soon be an article and photos of the new volunteers on the website. This afternoon we had a self guided tour around the neighbourhood, we saw kids playing cricket on the street, using bricks built up as wickets, some people drumming and dancing who were apparently practising for the upcoming Ganesh festival and many cows in the streets and goats too! They just randomly walk the streets and lie down the middle of big busy roads! We visited quite a few Hindi temples, a Sikh temple and a Mosque. At one of them we were offered Chai (Indian tea but made with boiled milk and spices, it is good) and Indian sweets. We were also given sweets from another temple, we ate some of it but we were given a whole handful, we then walked past a beggar sitting on the floor and gave it to him, he seemed very grateful, so the sweets served many purposes! I went for a swim in the pool after tea with Malin (from Sweden) and Kristen (from Canada).
We have had lots of nice food, breakfast is normally cornflakes, toast, porridge, juices, banana, papaya and an egg dish like fried egg or omelette. Lunch is Indian which is generally a curry type dish (although Indians think that curry is not Indian!), chappatis, rice, a vegetable dish (today we had cauliflowers in spices or sometimes spices potatoes) and then an Indian dessert (Indian sweets or fruit). Tea is generally International, tonight we had spag bog, last night was an Indian dish then jelly and custard for pudding!
I will sort out some photos in due course, but I am likely to be busy, we are all quite tired at the moment but having lots of fun. Tomorrow the Feasts and Festivals event starts, which should be good.
Talk soon xx
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Arrival in Sangam :)
Well, I arrived at Sangam at 4.30am this morning. The journey to Sangam took about 3 hours from Mumbai airport, there was lots of honking of horns, more to let people know we were undertaking/overtaking/just here! It got annoying as everytime I tried to sleep, yes you guessed it, the driver honked! It rained a lot on the journey over but today has been warm and slightly muggy. This morning we had breakfast of cornflakes, toast, bananas, papaya and an omelette (if requested). After breakfast, Molly and Cat (new Sangam program Volunteers, SVs) and Anna, Gerda and I (new community volunteers, CVs) took a walk along Alandi Road, the road Sangam is on. We saw many different people and little kids coming up to beg 'money, money'. We have been told not to give as they generally don't keep the money for themselves and it is best to give directly to the community partners who help the people directly. We saw goats having a fight and walking along the road, a bit strange! Lunch, was Indian, it was delicious, we have chappati (a thin naan), a dhaal curry (lentil), pumpkin and lentil dish, a cucumber and coconut dish and rice. Pudding was melon. This afternoon we took rickshaws down to Laxmi road in the centre of Pune. The rickshaws, were interesting, a couple of times I felt like I was on dodgems and felt I should, move out of the way of an upcoming vehicle but we survived! We went into a clothes shop and brought some material for some punjabi suits (200RS each, about £2.30). I have brought a pink/green one and a brown one both are decorated with gems. We have to visit a tailor now or wait for the tailor to visit Sangam during the upcoming event, Feasts and Festivals which starts on Sunday. Later we walked down roads, which seemed to be pedestrians, motorbikes (ladies were riding them sidesaddle!) and rickshaws all together. We walked around a temple, which was really good then went to a shoe shop as some of the girls wanted some nice sandals, I found some pretty gold jeweled sandals (300RS, about £3.60) which will go nicely with my new punjabi suits and hopefully saris when I get those!
It is lovely and peaceful here inside Sangam's grounds with lots of green space, a large pool, big palm trees (one of the branches fell of the trees as we sat by the pool earlier!) Outside it is much busier and nosier, but they do have green coconuts for sale, yummy, I haven't had one yet but I will :)
Talk soon, Hay xxx
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