firstly, sorry for the lack of blog. this may or may not be my last one. also, there are hundreds more photos of me on facebook. the taj mahal ones are blurry but my friends have better ones which will be up a few weeks after we get home.
20 / 9/ 2010 woke up at half 6, knackered from the camel safari. the whole camp felt like we had run a marathon. sun burn, dehydration and sore thighs! had a shower and got into school, we continued teaching about body parts and we are certainly getting somewhere. painted big india flags on the school in afternoon construction which is a lot more satisfying than moving rocks in the hot sun. tea was spaghetti and potatoes which was marvellous. the last month with this chef has been excellent. i hardly remember what dhal tastes like. i found out the chef's helper was called dan singh which deserved a laugh, so it got one! we had a rare bit of electricity so we watched about half of ghandi.
21/9/2010 still worn out from the camel, our thighs made us pay. pancakes for breakfast softened the blow though. school was a bit rubbish, some school holiday meant that almost all the kids were off. this happens all the time and we never get told. the way india works in terms of time and preparation is so different to england. much slower and laid back, they seem to have faith that every thing will just fall into place which from my experience it does - ish. we just drew pictures with the kids. when we got back i destroyed a couple of hornets nests in the girl's rooms. i then saw a peacock and preceeded to chase it. noone told me in school how quick peacocks were. quick! i may as well have been chasing the road runner. played a game of catch with some indian kids from the village. I also saw a goat sacrifice, long story short i got an opportunity to hold a goat scrotum and i took it.
this needs a pharagraph on its own. for reasons too indepth to write here. the indian company who i work for, are extremely corrupt. i exxagerate not. they are quite a disgusting company in terms of ethics.
moving on, typhoid, possibly tb, and definitely malaria, along with a hugely poisonous snake have all made their way to camp. yaaaaay. i have pulled half the hairs of my little beard out through boredom which i can assure you is painful. did painting in the afternoon, and then i spent half an hour teaching dance moves to some indian village kid. he doesnt know that i cant dance, so it was good for my ego. played a lot of connect 4 at night then went to bed.
22/9/2010 Woke up to electricity, a shower and scrambled eggs. it was going to be a good day. it is cold in the mornings now in india, although to you western folk i am sure you would be sweating buckets. i think i will have thinner blood now, and will find english winter hard! taught the kids groups of letters at school. Then i learnt some more hindi words off my executive in my spare time. I also wrote down a list of english swear words. he asked for the meanings because when we all used them he wanted to know the context etc. im not saying we swear much, he just wanted to learn. went to town in my time off. tourist season is starting so suddenly there are europeans and rich indians everywhere. i feel like its my village, but when they look at me they probably think i am a tourist too. listened to a lot of indian pop music which i love. had an early night after painting.
23/9/2010 woke up feeling weird. the toilet trips have been off again. Also, most of have definitely managed to pick up a cold. chappattis, jam, spicy nutty rice for breakfast. took the morning off in an attempt to recover. After 30 minute battle with gravity i managed to fix my spasmodic mosquito net to the roof. people keep getting malaria so we are all being more cautious now. I worked out on a map that i had been to 22 countries, making me a very lucky 18 yr old. I spent the rest of the day tidying and reading roots, which i finished! what a book, the longest and most difficult and worthwhile book i have read. I persuaded one of the girls that my dad wore a suit and lived rough in the himalayas for 3 months which had made him a legend in nepal. it took a very long time for her to realise i was winding her up. was very funny. had our group discussion on water and sanitation. it was my turn to do a presentation which me and louise had made before i went. everyone loved it. i was so relieved and proud. we discussed the issues late in to the night. had a game of volleyball with the staff losing 14 12. we're getting better though.
24/9/2010 woke up and for the first time had a negative thought about going home. i guess i am worried because i NEED a job. loads of my friends have gone other places to uni, and i won't see louise perhaps as much as i did before as she will be in uni a lot. along with this, i am unsure of how well i will settle in to everything about england. i suppose in ten weeks i am bound to have these thoughts at one point. school was great. we played loads of hindi learning games so we were learning as well as them. Rushed into town at lunch to see the commonwealth games baton pass through jaisalmer. due to india living upto its reputation we never saw it and so had to leave. afternoon meeting was rubbish everyone just argued about sewage and where the camp puppies had been taken. Spent the next 3 hours trying to book our trip to the taj mahal. we had had a few drinks so it was very stressful. our driver was in dheli, people couldnt afford it, it was physically impossible to do in a weekend, everyone was arguing. all sensibility suggested we should not go. so, in true india fashion we thought bugger it, and we decided to go. we went to bed as we would have to get up at 4am.
25/9/2010 Woke up at 4, it was pitch black. most of the camp were going on other long distance trips so the taj mahal goers were surrounded by other groups who were going early too. flopped about in the dark and got in our jeep at 5. did 5 hours driving and got to jhodpur, feasting on a mcdonalds which in india is like heaven. arterie clogging heaven. alice also taught me to dance the fox trot, at which i did not perform well. I spent about an hour thinking about how the kids can count to 20 now, instead of 3. i pretty much love all the kids at school. they should all be models for GAP kids. drove through india for another 13 hours. we saw every time of scenery you could imagine, travelling through bits of india tourists just do not see. we had a few drinks and hours worth of singing. so, after EIGHTEEN HOURS of driving in a jeep we arrived in aggra at 12. we stayed in a 60pence each hotel and slept.
26//9/2010 unfortunately we only had time for 4 hours sleep. 4.30 we were up again. I did not know thios until morning, but we had slept in a hotel literally next to the taj mahal. picture a b and b next to buckingham palace and you get the picture. we walked down at 5 30 and got our tickets. queued with thousands of people. and there we were, the taj. we saw the sunrise. on one half of the taj sun, other half moon. i must say, the two hours i spent there were thrilling. i have never been so awestruck in my life, other than when i saw niagara falls. it was breathtaking. i will never forget the beauty of the building. i still found time to mingle with people from canada, india, korea. for some reason i find myself wanting to talk to everyone i see. so, 8am we had to set off. all unsurprisingly in a dazed over tired state. after 9 hours of travelling we realised we would be hopelessly let. it turns out that it actually was impossible to travel through 2 states of india, have a night in a hotel, see the taj in one weekend. we stopped in some weird indian truckers stop in the middle of nowhere. had their strange surprisinglyweak currie and chapattis and carried on our way. did a lot of sleeping. stopped for a wee break where me and a girl saw some locusts. we picked them up and threw them. we did not hurt them, it was just a peculiar feeling to hold them. we spent the last 6 hours literally sprawled all over eachother. as battery chickens in a jeep, it is the only way you can sleep. got back the next day at 3am. 36 hours travelling over 2 days. no regrets, the taj was immense.
27/9/2010 after only 3hours sleep, and not getting shouted at because we informed staff we would be late, all 9 of us got up and went to school which helped our cause on the disciplinary levels. we were all knackered, we did a lot of colouring with numbers at school. i then had to use the toilet which consists of ...go where noone can see. all i will say is that it was memorable. in the afternoon we painted a red border round the bottom of the school. in terms of how tired i am, the taj was still totally worth it. i crashed very early at night.
28/9/2010 woke up, still not completely rejuvenated. it has begun to sink in how amazing the taj was. it was so symetrical and stunning. i can only imagine what it would be like under moonlight. school was good, we did a load of dancing and teaching about vehicle names. I haven't mentioned this before, but for most of this trip i have had no torch at night. i have learnt to be very useful in the dark which can never be a bad thing. i reckon i can see why blind people get really good at judging things because you get used to relying on other senses. btw, i am not suggesting being blind is a good thing. in the afternoon we did some more painting. i crashed early yet again.
29/9/2010 had many pointless rows this morning.tensions are high. i will skip over them because i dont want them to be lasting memories of this brilliant experience. school was wonderful. one of the best days in the whole time i have been here. we played loads of games including what time is it mr wolf. in this game i took the role of the dancing wolf. It was just a load of fun, the kids make me feel great and hopefully and i thinkthey do, lovecoming to school. i spent a couple of hours learning london slang of jilo. most of was spent with me lying on the floor crying with laughter. jilo is a very funny young lady. i then went to town and spent about an hour doing the blog which i have today spent 2 hours redoing. as im sure you know it got deleted, ouch. bought a couple of presents and set off back. the afternoon was also brilliant. We went to a village called dabla for a community visit. i had another row with a certain volunteer but anyway bugger it it is part of life. i spent an hour running around with these kids id never met. they were holding my hand, playing with my shoes, jumping on my back. it was great, they took me to the village elder. i spent the next 20 minutes experiencing a situation ill never forget. ihad 15 to 20 youths of all ages stood around me. i exhausted all my hindi words on the elder so as not so cause offence. turned out she liked me, she did want me to cut my girly hair but she gave mea desert cucumber which was a huge honour. i made all the kids laugh hysterically, teaching them loads of cool tricks, like hand tricks or how to make paper planes etc. then i literally told them about me, louise, my family, and my friends. we all knew that we didnt understand eachother but i told it in an animated way and weall just burst out laughing at thenature of the situation. after this we went to a lake and climbed some trees.
30/9/2010 goodbye september. I met a very interesting spanish girl who was travelling. It's cool to see loads of people on their own just floating round the world and taking it in. toilet trips were to off to go to school unfortunately. Spent the morning doing nothing. at lunch we spent an hour debating the vegetable class system. it was hilarious. We pulled in so many aspects of life, gender, culture, religion, nationality just to decide wheather a vegetable was a cafe worker or a yacht seller of the veg world. afternoon session was crasp as noone had made a presentation. weall spent the night together in the common room just having a laugh being together. it's got hot again. like 40 plus hot. it feels like being in an oven. i also discovered the train i will be getting bak for 18 hours next week is officially the most dangerous train int he world. oh the joy. went to bed happy enough !
1/10/2010 first day of october meant that school schedule changed. we now do 6 hours of work at one go rather than coming back for a siesta. I did not go in today either as i needed to be veryt close to a toilet at all times. didnt do anything of blog worthiness all day. in the evening i walked to the lake and watched the sunset with a few volunteers. it was beautiful.
conclusion.... im so excited about coming home. i think this week will go quick. and it feels good to be me at the moment. i hope youre all ok. thanks for all the emails, support etc. :D
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