Fantastic Darjeeling - F*** Racism

We escaped from the confusion and eerie quiet that over-swept Mumbai not knowing what we were stepping into (I have never ventured north or west of Delhi before). We arrived at the airport and met a Dutch guy who had been sitting opposite us on the plane, it seems we were sat on the wrong side as he had some fantastic views. Chatting we found he was also heading for Darjeeling so we shared a lift and enjoyed the 3 hour crawl up the foothills together (hills here would definitely be considered mountains back at home (and the roads could not really be classed roads with all the rubble, pot holes and twists and turns)). But as we were making our way up we laid our eyes on the mountains... and o my gosh what i sight... its something where the cameras couldn't quite capture the beauty at all. I for one could not stop looking at them and was pointing them out even till the last minute of our trip. James, still being jet-lagged, managed to sleep soon after we arrived and so we didn't explore Darjeeling till the next day when we took a long walk up to the highest point we could, watching the mountains all the way up. Darjeeling seems to be filled with strategically placed wires which ran through every ideal photo location! Throughout our stay, as it would typically be we bumped into our Dutch friend on several occasions throughout our stay :- shopping in the market streets where

• every other shop sold tea
• there was such a strong smell of satsumas (I was definitely taken to Christmas)
• women sat at their stalls whilst knitting/crocheting warm hats and cute frilly dresses to sell
• people walked down the street carrying massive bags using straps across their forehead including 100kg cement
• man walking down the road with a basket on his head of 10-15 chickens

we also saw him at Tiger Hill where we watched the sun rise over a valley where the lights of the city and towns were seemed to be reflected in the billions of stars in the sky. The Sun flooded across to the mountains making them glow from blue to pink to white. It was absolutely stunning and although it wasn't completely cloudless, it seemed the mountains were floating in the sky, making it almost more breathtaking.

Finally we re-met him whilst learning the wonders of tea manufacture and in our discovery of Happy Valley Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Piko One Tea, the tea named and sold by Harrods! Claiming to be the only organic estate in Darjeeling, it is the only place where you can sample delicious and tasteful tea brewed in front of your eyes in just 5 secs. It was fantastic stuff, shame you probably have to spend £40 to get it from London!

We really learned a lot more about the situation with Tibet at a fantastic Self Help Refugee Centre, which though playing an important part made us realise how little is being done to help the situation and how truly terrible the state of things are.

we have both now sat in amazement at how adamant people can be that all this happening is soo wrong but then they themselves can hold such hatred and prejudice against people. no matter how rationally and fairly we based our arguments we could find no way of convincing anyone they were wrong.

all well and fine

just to inform you all... we here are all fine and well. unfortunately this is occuring just as James has arrived in India, so he is not getting the best views of Mumbai - we confined to ma's apartment. telephone communications and live news are unpredictable but we're staying up to date through the gift of the Internet. some family members and friends have had nasty experiences but as far as we know, none of our significantly close-ones have been killed or even physically hurt. we had plans to go to darjeeling and will try and go away tomorrow morning we have been advised by an aunt currently in darjeeling, an aunt in the tourist office and a friend in the police that this is the best option. I will however most likely not have access to the internet. last update: 16:19(Mumbai) 10:49 (London)

Busy Busy schooling

OOO golly gosh, I am loving it at the school. I've got a group of children who always come to work with me and the teacher is now noticing that they are improving tremendously!!! My grandmother was saying how almost everyone in our family has become linked in education in some way or another, and whilst listing people out, we found it wasn't far from false, so she reckons I should stay on for longer - not sure whether there was an ulterior motive to be had. Last Friday was Children's day (a day to celebrate of childhood and children, special focuses are now being made, to make this day particularly special for uderprivaleged children). The school in which we have been situated had organised a party for children from a different local community, which meant we were meant to be teaching outside in the playground, whilst the children's friends walked by in their best clothes, and music blazed from the hall. Fortunately the school father's admitted it was unlikely we would be able to teach in these conditions and allowed us to use a classroom, but there was much calamity and disturbance as the children aren't exactly the most focused! On Saturday we had sports day trials, to choose which children would run which races when a few groups meet together. It was in a graden just across the road from the area where they live, and at a time when most of them were just wondering around, so a lot of them came along even if they didn't want to compete. A lot of the children's meals are unpredictable so some known-to-be fast runners just didn't have the energy to run. But we made light of it and had fun trying out silly activities like the three legged race and wheelbarrow and taking photos of each other. On Monday and Tuesday, there have been band practices in the playground, so we have been teaching whilst being accompanied by loud bass drums, rolling snares, trumpets and whistles. This not being enough of a distraction for the children, there was also a group of children practising a dance routine using Kolu (a pair of sticks with jingles which are beaten together). The dancing was phenomenal, the problem being the children were all too keen to be watching that as opposed to listening to us talking about prepositions! I have grown to hate worksheets already - the children are so focused on finishing the sheet, they won't realise the importance in understanding the information to begin with. They have a huge fear of getting the answer wrong though, so for each question they'll check the answer with me first, and then ofcourse everyone else will hear them and copy it down. Realising that I didn't want this to happen, one of the girls with a particularly loud voice has started sitting next to me and whispering the answer in my ear to check. Besides being asked to come everyday, I've been asked all sort of wonderful questions which ofcourse i forget in the chaos of the day but there's been stuff like: didi (sister), why are you so gora (white)? didi when is your wedding? and many questions about my family, especially asking me to bring in photos of them. The girls are very neat even though their clothes are often torn and stained, always sorting my hair out for me if they arrive early and telling me straight away if my slip got hinched up under my kurta or its strap has fallen down.

Akanksha community

So I went to visit the community in which the children from the school come from to try and find children who hadn't turned up since the beginning of the term (this monday). I was suprised at how not shocked I was, but then I suppose I'd seen the slums beforehand and walked/driven past similar shacks from when I was little and I've seen worse. It is a massive area and very built up; even the teacher, who I went with, who had been there many times, always just goes inside and finds a child that she knows to take her around the place. The homes are separated from the field next door by a wall, and it seemed the field has been made into the dumping ground, filled with rubbish. The homes are concrete buildings laid out seemingly randomly with little corridors everywhere; someone could easily get lost. Most of the homes have a bed and kitchen area with loads of aluminium utensils and suprisingly enough a T.V. Some of them are two floors, and to get up to the next floor, you pushed yourself against either side of the corridor and made use of extruding ceiling poles as foot rests. You really have to watch your head as many of the houses have extruding ceiling poles acting as washing lines during the midday sun. There were a load of stalls around the outside of the area and in a square in the middlish mainly selling snack-like things (sev, chukri, puri) and sweets. an area had a load of fruit and vegetables, fruit is expensive particularly apples but the fruit had been discarded from the larger more expensive stores. there was also a jeweller there. in the middleish square there were a load of taxis and broken down cars, people were actually getting taxi's all the way into the area, but couldn't get to their homes because it was way tooo built up. I arrived just at 2 which is the time water comes, so there were crowds of people (mainly women and children) pushing with buckets and large bottles and jugs trying to get water. Although there was not a shortage in water, the man was quite happy to fill up a little boys tray for him to wash his marbles and make funny sounds with it. Women who had already got their water were sat washing their children's and their own hair and sat outside their houses combing it through. Children all around were coming to talk to us, eager to help us with whatever we asked and telling us stories about their holidays in the suburban villages. Otherwise they'd be sitting indoors watching t.v., trying to fix a broken kite, playing catch with whatever they could find. Ushma was happy to see some of the children had chosen to eat coconut rather than paan or gum, which ends up making everything pink/red. Most of the men were at work or sleeping because it was the hottest part of the day so they couldn't work, others were touching up their hair in the large mirror in the barbars. Some in more open spaces, were sat with their families with emptied out rubbish lying in front of their homes, sorting through for anything worth anything.

Akanksha

A friend of my aunt's (Ushma auntie) teaches in a school supported by the Akanksha foundation, a non-profit organization with a mission to impact the lives of less privileged children, enabling them to maximise their potential and change their lives. They have been allowed to use the premises of another school, after school times to teach the children essential skills in order to help them through life and hopefully get a better job than they would have. The organisation asks that the children attend a municipal school to improve thier mother tongue and they turn up for the lessons. The teachers have supplied the children with equipment and set the children homework and tasks, but many of the children don't do them and the equipment goes missing. Several of the children have even been given glasses but they don't wear them because they get teased by other children or they get sold. There are three classes of around 30 and three regular teachers, the rest are volunteers, mainly students from the colleges near-by. Ushma auntie was saying how there are sometimes of the year when it is just her for the whole class and other times when it's 1:3, which is really hard for the children to deal with, as they get used to the additional attention. The children were extremely enthusiastic and excited. And when asking a question, Ushma would have a flood of answers being yelled out at her. We separated into smaller groups to work on english and mathematics worksheets. After a while the children I was working with were complaining to the other teachers and volunteers that they couldn't understand my accent whenever I asked a work related question but then continued to understand it perfectly when they wanted to chat. I got invited to visit their houses and so I'm going before school today with Ushma who needs to find the children who haven't returned since the Divali holidays.

walking

OK I've been thinking, apart from the family no one has any idea what its like where I'm staying, so during some of my walks in the evening I've really really been focusing on differences between here and Kingston and interesting things too... i mainly did them by focusing on a different sense each time so here: interesting sights:

• the first day i got her a woman was walking a cow along the pavement, and there was scaffolding coming in the middle, the cow was going one way and she was going the other, so we had to run out from the scaffolding before it got pulled down!
• scaffolding= thick bamboo poles tied with string yet very strong (it didn't get pulled down)
• vans are covered with painted designs and have 'horn OK please' written on the back
• all blank surfaces in the street have 'stick no bills' painted on them
• kites and vultures circling round everywhere
• children flying paper kites all down the beach
• beggars dress as women or harm themselves, cutting off limbs or cutting deep into their skin in the hope of getting more money
• auto-rickshaw drivers sleep under their cars in the mid-day heat to get into the shade, one day there were a load of finches joining one guy
• gorgeous Bunyan trees everywhere
• children making up and playing games with nothing but a rope-horses, or board and ball - bounce back
• carts full of limes for limbu pani or fresh lime soda
• stalls of fruit and vegetables almost on every corner, and other really small stalls selling anything you could possibly want
• vegetable and fruit wala's carrying massive baskets of fruit or vegetables on their heads, going round apartments and selling to individuals or going to and from their stalls in the mornings and evenings
• young boys trying to sell you books or magazines, particularly knocking on the car window whilst your stopped at lights
• the bread man sits downstairs (just as I'm going for a sunset walk to pick up anything missing for dinner) cutting the crusts off the bread and cutting it in such perfect slices you would have thought it was sliced by a machine!!
• old and grey tall apartments with the railings and shutters across balconies which if you look for a little longer are actual gorgeous constructions with beautiful designs that have been warn away and the effect lessened by the rains
• brightly coloured yellow and red swirly shaped paving stones where the colour has worn because of the rain and the dust which i forgot to mention is Everywhere
• massive holes in the floor which someone could easily fall down into and get lost within!!!
• parts of the pavement which seems to have been pulled up for no reason what so ever, fortunately I arrived after the monsoon resurfacing, otherwise there are potholes in the road so big you could build a house in them!
• men having hair trimmed or face shaved just on the pavement outside regular apartments
• piles and piles of lunch tiffins from schools in the middle of the road being loaded onto long wooden carts to be carried away
• red/pink spit marks along the roads and walls particularly from people chewing paan (last time I came spitting had been banned and they'd cleaned up a lot quite successfully)
• big pans of chai simmering on small fires in the middle of the road and a line of men drinking it out of small brown tinted (personal story) glasses

smells: gorgeous flowers, aniseed, smoky wood for heating nuts, popcorn, pizza, sweat, incense, air conditioning air, car fumes, just sawn wood, rotting waste, seaweed (surprisingly enough if you go by the sea), prayer flowers, cooking food from people's houses, poo, fish, stale water

sounds: traffic and constant car horns, fireworks - no matter what time of day (particularly bangers which really resonate here cause there is a high wall just behind), prayer bells, policeman's whistle constantly trying to control traffic, music, low buzz of crickets, whirring of fans, dripping water from broken A.C., guy selling gola (crushed ice drink) continuously yelling 'limbu sherbet, rose sherbet...(and then a list of all the other flavours)', the jingle jangle of small bells from women walking down the street with anklets or the clacking of bangles glass, plastic and metal each slightly different, knocking of hammers as there is constantly construction work going on, the painfully annoying whistle as milk is heated first thing in the morning in the pressure cooker, the beeping melody of the water filter - telling you its running, screeching parrots and crows having battles about which branch is theirs (one parrot talks to its friend just as we're finishing drinking our tea), the dinging of the cowbell and tapping of hooves as buffalo's trot down the street, the whistle sellers melodies as he shows off his instruments

Alibag

Using Divali and me as an excuse, Radhika managed to do something she hasn't been able to in years... take time off work! we decided to make the most of it and all (my aunt, grandmother, her and her younger cousin-Sumee) go to her Aunt- Meeka's farm/weekend home in Alibag- just across on the mainland. As we were waiting to get the boat across Sumee and Radhika were naming all the different types of boats and looking out for the ones owned by their boating company. Alibag is an amazingly calm and quite place, when I came back I found it odd to see other people around let alone traffic! The home that Meeka has had built is amazing. There are several separate bungalows spread across the area with little alcoves of ideas and imagination. I have a strong feeling she uses it as an excuse to collect loads of figures and statues whilst on her travels and then make a little area to show it off.

As we arrived the two rescued guinea fowl came pecking at our feet and the several dogs weren't far behind.

Sumee went dashing off to see the new calf, which wasn't old enough to join the rest of the herd grazing and so stayed-in in the shade during the day. The place was filled with butterflies and dragonflies as well as some more unwanted little critters. On several occasions whilst we were swimming we'd be joined by a frog or have to scoop out a spider or cricket. One morning a very large bee came buzzing around us trying to get at the jam ma was eating, we named it dragonbee as it was easily 10 cm long. Whilst preparing dinner one evening, a scorpian even made it's way into the house, scurrying across the area where Sumee's distressed bhai (I suppose the best way to describe is: live-in nanny) had been sleeping.

On the last night whilst I was in the shower, Radhika came knocking on the door, yelling for me to come out a.s.a.p. when she said the word butterfly, i was out, dripping all over the floor. A gorgeous iridescent white moth with gold lining was quite happily just sitting on ma’s hand and it stayed there for quite some time. Sumee was really excited and wanted to know all the stories of butterflies landing on people I knew! When we arrived Nandita wanted to do something in order to thank Meeka for our stay so we decided to clean the kitchen up a bit. Unfortunately we were sooo busy relaxing we didn't have a chance to do so until the last day. People who don't want to read about the grossiousities (i.e. mum) don't read on, then I can go into the details! Basically it was a mahusssive mistake to even begin. We started by finding a jar of sludge which on closer inspection was full of maggots. When we opened the fridge we found it lined with spiders and flies and the shelves to be crusty and coated in slimy black! Even the dish rack and washing bowl were coated in wierd and wonderful colours. So sat in our swimming costumes, we had everything outside and just scrubbed away! After completing the fridge, Radhika, Sumee and I decided to clean the rest of the abandoned kitchen and had great fun making loads of noise whilst all the adults were sleeping. Sumee's Bhai was appaulled at the state of the place, as she keeps their kitchen at home glowing and so joined in, even scrubbing the cieling! By the end of it, the kitchen was glowing and our arms aching! We did find some amazing dragonfly exo-skeletons which we inspected (Sumee is taking on an interest in seeing how things work and what they're made up of). Although whilst I was having tea she told me my custard apple looked exactly the same as frog guts and the seeds were infact beatles! I can't believe I forgot to add, for the journey back we had a phonecall from PNP ferries asking us what time we would be arriving in the captain's cabin. It turned out that Sumee's Dad (Radhika's boss) had pulled some strings to get us complementary seats in the boat. As we walked down the pier, Sumee recognised one of their yachts as it came in, so she called up to find out whether we could get a lift on that back. Unfortunately it was hired by a private client to take the guy back too and so the boat was waiting for him to return. Going in the captain's cabin however meant we had a great view, the glass was tinted in the rest of the boat, so that you couldn't see out. Again I will add photos later, once they've loaded.

Divali day

We started off having a calm day, visiting all the neighbours and saying Happy Divali and having plenty of phone calls. Across the road there is Mahalakshmi temple (Lakshmi being the goddess of wealth and prosperity). The queue to get into the temple stretched for miles even at 8:00, a load of men had brought handkerchiefs to cover their heads but otherwise it was baking sunlight, and they were no way near the temple. We were invited to fireworks along the seaface, by an uncle so all the family gathered there. Everyone was there, the street was sooo crowded but we managed to squeeze a place. Absolutely anyone was lighting fireworks where ever they wanted, including the middle of the road! you had to watch along the stretch where you were lighting for rockets that were about to go off. It was great though cause the bay is curved enough that you could see loads of other peoples fireworks. my cousin and i perfected our firework photo skills whilst my other cousin practised running away from fireworks with me, whilst however desperately trying to catch the parachutes from the fireworks. We finished off with a 1000 cartridge fire cracker reel, it was sooo long so they decided to light it from both ends. We all hid behind a bench to watch it. Unfortunately my uncle, who is obsessed with fireworks and was the one to get us all there, got hit in the eye. But phoning around we found out another eye doctor uncle was in a restuarant just around the corner, and just so happened to have all his stuff with him and so fixed him up! despite the 10:00 firework ban and the no car horns ban it is insanely noisy and everyone is still busing with excitement!

Dhan Teras

Radhika and I dressed up to go for her office Pooja. I borrowed a sari off my aunt and everyone in the house was fussing round me to help me get ready, Devika offered me her blouse, her earings, her necklace and bhindi, so I wasn't short of any kindness.

On returning, we went round the flats giving sweets to the friends of my grandmother. Each lot invited us in and we spent ages chatting, the last time we did it was 16 years ago! We spent the evening doing more rangoli outside the apartment. Devika did one extremely fast and I just stood there in amazement. When it was mine and Radhika's turn we decided simple and then kept adding another border here, another triangle there, we ended up outside most of the evening!

Devika's Radhika's and mine

not so far from home

here was me thinking i was in india and going into my cousins work this is what i spy maybe I'm not so far from home!

Divali is nearing

WOW... Divali (Hindu festival of light and the Hindu new year) here is so much more than Christmas in Kingston! I can't remember what it was like last time I was here for it. There are fairy lights covering soooooo many buildings and many fireworks already, (divali isn't until Tuesday, new year is on wednesday). Yesterday I went to my cousin's 'Mumbai International Boat Show' office (very very western style with massive foyer and fountain in the middle). Whilst helping her out with some work a colleague came in and told us to go out into the foyer of the building. Loads of people had come out of office for a bit to decorate the floor with rangoli patterns made from flowers, grass, lentils and other pulses, gorgeously designed.

At the end of the day the boys in our office decided they didn't like the pattern they'd started and so my cousin (Radhika), her friend (Alpa) and I sat about designing and making our own pattern, using coloured powder. Alpa wanted to do a traditional pattern, but Radhika was set on doing a boat themed design. (But the pic is coming up sideways and i can't turn it round :(...) By the time we were leaving someone had gone round and put tinsel and divas (little clay tealights) all around the foyer and the fountain was sparkling. Today the sweets that my grandmother ordered have arrived, my cousin and I will follow tradition and go out delivering them to all her neighbours and friends. Later we will go out and by traditional clothes for this and when we do office Pooja (prayers) tomorrow. Tomorrow is, Dhan Teras (Dhan-wealth, Teras-13th). It is the 13th in the Hindu calendar which is an auspicious day, so we pray for good fortune in the coming year.

ok so I've got here - Mumbai

Finally set up a blog thanks to Barry!!! so I can fill you all in on the fantastic adventures I'm having. I've arrived to the worst weather they get in this area cause it's soooo hot and humid but it just won't rain. but I'm not complaining, gorgeous sun streaming in through my window every morning just alleviates home sickness! Despite a good few nights I'm covered with mosquito bites! As I've been to Mumbai quite a few times before, I'm not planning on going to all the touristy places and have been exploring the 'real' side to Mumbai. I've been going into this fantastic school, which is particularly attended by less well-off Muslim families. The reason it's so fantastic is, contrary to the general education here, this school is really focused on learning through experience and exploration. The children are teaching the teachers as well as each other and so they feel quite relaxed about coming up with extraordinary statements and theories. Ok well I've been holding on to this post in order to fill you up on all I've been doing until now and just haven't had a chance to...and tooo daunting now! So I'll just leave it as I'm having a fantastic time here and am not jealous one bit of the weather I've been hearing about over there :P!