"THANK YOU VISIT AGAIN"

 

We are saying farewell to India today. My internship is finished (I'll spend the morning at the office saying my farewells), and then we get on a plane for a really long flight home. We don't get home until Friday morning.

So put the bubbles on ice and we will see you all soon.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing our adventure. Thank you visit again :) 

Sarah x

We sponsor a child here and we met her when we arrived. One day we had to be at the school early in the morning for a meeting and when we arrived at 8:45 a group of kids were lined up outside the school gate because they had arrived late (school starts at 8:30). Nick and I both said to each other  smugly"Good to see our sponsor child isnt in the line". And then a few minutes later she ran in the gate to the end of the line. She was the latest of all!

So we were thinking of giving her a gift before we left and today we gave it to her. Her very own watch. She found it funny and had a good chuckle at it. And I think she found the watch rather super.

 

And after a late afternoon nanna nap Jack and I ventured to the roof for some washing. It is awesome up there at this time of day.

The photo of me was taken by Jack. Natural photography talent. He must get that from me.

Some introductions

Our last weekend on India begins and I am at the stage where everything I do is coupled with the thought ..."this might be the last time i do this". In some cases that is a good thing eg: walking the hour round trip to the shop in the hot sun, the stray dogs keeping us awake at night, the power cuts, or handwashing! But mostly it is a nostalgic thought and a bit sad.

So this post is all about what I will miss most when I leave Bangalore - the wonderful people who have made us feel like family.

Priya - the head of community development. She is a young woman (same age as me) who manages 3 men who are much older than her. In India that is very rare as it is expected that as a woman you will be subservient around men and especially those who are a generation above you. But she does it so well and has gained a lot of respect. She is smart, sweet and can be super tough. Go Priya!

 

 Jonathan - He is the Director of Bangalore City Mission. His Dad founded the organisation years ago and Jonathan decided he wanted to get involved a few years ago. His Dad died suddenly months after Jonathan started working for him and he has stepped up to the top job. He is a natural at it. A big thinker and really ambitious. He is also a mean cook - non-veg only though. Tonight he made us JFC - Jonathan Fried Chicken. Twas tasty.

And then Jonthan's 2 offsiders - Senthul & Gideon:

 

Senthul is the quiet type who has strong opinions. And Gideon would talk underwater with a mouth full of marbles (yes, I did just write that).

Tomorrow Nick is taking portraits of Senthul to use on his marriage application. He is in the market for a lovely lady and wont leave anyhting to chance.

Next is Violet who I mentioned previously. A fierce supporter of social justice, but also a strict god-fearing woman who is old-fashioned and can tell stories of India that you wont find in books. She is Priya and Jonathan's mum and has 16 other children living in her house. Some of the kids have no parents and were working as young as 4 or 5 and some were living on the streets escaping from jail before they were 6 years old. Others have parents who are too unwell to care for their kids and send them to school so they live with her during the school term. Regardless of their situation they are part of the family in every way.

Violet is also now my cooking instructor in partnership with Rani. I cant wait to cook some of their treats for you all when we get home.

So there they are. The people who have fed us, driven us around, translated for us, shared stories with us and taught us to cook and introduced us to India.

I am so busy at the moment trying to get some Uni work done that it is going to be a busy few days before we leave. I am not looking forward to it and already this blog is another form of procrastination for me. Maybe there will be time for some shopping too. That is always a fun time waster.

Anyway, hope you are all well and I cant wait to catch up and hear what has been happening at home.

Sarah :)

Signs

Driving around Bangalore is a very slow process and for the first week or so it was utterly frustrating. Some of the work I am involved with is on the opposite side of the city to where we live so it can take 1.5 hours to drive there for a 1 hour meeting. The journey home inevitably involves everyone running their errands so a short meeting will mean you are gone all day - 10am till 6pm.
But the thing I love most about all of this driving is the opportuntiy to just look around and some of the things you see are great.

There are the trucks with signs instructing you to sound your best horn:

 

Or the signs with bad spelling:

And those which have tried to use English but just dont quite get it right. 10 points for effort though:

 

(PLEASE DO NOT MAKE YOUR DOGS NUISANCE HERE)

 

There are a lot of issues with property ownership here and it is common for someone to try and sell your land even if they dont own it The whole system is complicated and very risky so people just use the old primary school technique... "this book belongs to..."

On other matters, the cooking is going well. I have expanded my repertoire a bit and tonight I am being taught by the master. Introducing Violet...

 

I work with her Son and daughter here and she cooks lunch for us almost every day. Tonight she is coming over to teach met to make dahl!!! I am excited, nervous and feeling very privileged.  I cant wait to report back to you all. This woman is a pioneer in so many ways, but the thing I love most is just hearing her stories bout how she was working towards empowering women in a very oppressive patriarchal society well before NGOs were on the scene. I will bore those who are interested when I get back.

Love to everyone and we will see you in just over a week.

Sarah x

Mysore

We went to Mysore for the weekend and saw some local sights. Mysore (or Your sore as Jack calls it) is really beautiful. Its main attraction is its palace which lights up on a Sunday night. We had a tour of the inside which was great and a slow wander around the outside in the hot sun. Jack got by with my sun glasses and Nick managed to source a rather fetching hat to shade his cheeks. Hello ladies!

The palace at night was awesome.  I took way too many photos that all look the same as this one...

On day 2 we took Jack to the zoo. He loved seeing animals, but people were constantly coming up and trying to pinch his cheeks or take his photo. He hated it! So he got pretty grouchy pretty quickly and wanted to get back to our house where his mate, Talon was supposedly living in Jack's wardrobe.

After some shopping and sight seeing and a late dinner we made the 3 hour trek back to Bangalore arriving home at around 2am. It was a good little get away, and we enjoyed the luxury of staying in a hotel for the night - much needed respite from India's frustrations and chaos.

We are into our last week now and already I am thinking how hard it is going to be to get back into normal life at home. Last week I did some hand washing on our roof top and when I went to collect it a few hours later I was missing my favourite red top, only to spot it on our neighbours roof. I went and collected it (with the help of a 12 year old girl who spoke excellent English) and nobody batted an eyelid. When I was telling a girl I work with about it she said "Oh Sarah, you are really Indian now". It was the nicest compliment she could have given me. I am loving the adventure of a new place, despite it being hard work and infuriating at times.

Anyway, its very late now so I apologise for the bad spelling (if there is any - cant be bothered proof reading as usual). Sleep time.

Sarah :)

Quarries, and granite and schrapnel... Oh my!

I dont have much to report at the moment because I have been busy with work and I wont bore you all with my nerdy details any more.

But Nick has been getting out and about a little more with some of the guys I am working with. There are places they will take me and not Nick - women's groups etc. And Nick experienced some secret men's business in a granite quarry earlier in the week.

This is an area where there is a lot of community development work happening because a majority of the workers in this quarry are in some way bonded into labour - essentially modern slavery based on debt owing to employers who pay them so little they will never be free of the debt. The work is tough, and conditions are harsh and dangerous. Some people take their kids to work with them in the quarry each day.

Nick's photos are on flickr but these are some he hasnt put on flickr...

People hiding under a truck in anticipation of the impending blast:

 

And then the blast. Note Nick is not under a truck. Anything for a photo!

 

But he lived to tell the tale.

See ya.

Sarah x

Food, glorious food.

The food we have eaten so far has been fantastic. I was a bit worried before we arrived that I would get very sick of curries, very quickly. But I realise how crazy that is now. I have discovered a whole new world of southern Indian cuisine and I like it!


I had my first cooking lesson last night. My two teachers - Bhavia and Rani, were delightful and so knowledgeable. This is them in our kitchen (love the gas cooktop!).

They were able to answer all of my stupid questions and gave me some great tips that you wont find in cook books. They both love to cook just for the fun of it, but on more than one occasion they each mentioned how important it is for Indian girls to learn to cook from their mothers so that when they get married they will be able to prepare what their husband and his family's request. I could write a whole blog entry on marriage in India, but it would likely end up me on my soapbox ranting about women's empowerment and I think I will save that for another day!


We made chicken biryani with curd. It sounds simple, and it was relatively straightforward after the prep work was done. I sliced a kilo of onions for the meal. Delicious!!














I took lots of notes and will hopefully have time for a few more lessons before I head back to Aus. I look forward to cooking up a storm for you all when we get back.

While we cooked Jack jumped around the kitchen and Naniki wowed him with magic tricks.

 

A few general updates...

• We now have an internet connection at our house so we can use the internet any time (up until now it was limited to a window of around 1 hour a day - if the power didn't go out). What did we do before the internet?
• We are going to Mysore this weekend to be tourists for a while which I am really looking forward to. Its about 170km away and is a really beautiful city apparently, despite what the name conjures up.
• It is getting hotter each day as their wet season gets closer so I have gone native and have started wearing these awesome baggy pants. I look just like everyone else now!!

I hope you are all well. Keep commenting or emailing. Its great to hear form everyone.
Till next time,
Sarah x

An insight into some programs we are working on here

Hi everyone! I though I would update you all on what I have been involved with here. There is a vocational training program run out of the centre in the picture below. It is really basic but it offers people (only women at this stage) an opportunity to learn skills which enable them to start small businesses or get well paying jobs. This then flows onto better health care, better education opportunities, increased confidence and a more dignified life and standing int he community. It costs less than $5,000 a year to run one of these centres which includes all materials for training. While the people are learning they can sell anything they make eg: clothing etc and earn a good income while they are training too.

 

Then there are these self-help groups which are savings groups -I think I have mentioned these before. This is a group we spent some time with and talked about the things they are working towards in their community at the moment. They have written letters to local governtment and have got the drainage improved in their village. They all have stories of trauma and yet they are working together to make some really big changes in this village. 

 

And finally - meet my new friend...

 

Lover Sarah x x x

Jack's playground

The house we are in has no yard at all, however over the back wall there is an empty block with lots of rocks and dangerous things to climb on. Jack is in heaven.

He has taken a liking to a young girl called Naniki who is really sweet with him and she makes sure he doesnt get into too much trouble. She also helps him get to the high places he cant climb on his own so he loves it!

A neat desktop pic for you all. The colours here are always stunning.











A slum area we have some training groups operating in.










Women waiting for water. There is one source (not clean) in a slum area for 7000 people. They can access it every second day. A family needs to carry around 10 pots of water to get through two days.







A young woman who has completed her training and is now sewing and making bags which she sells.

Still here!

We hae been quiet for a while because so much has been happening. We moved house and are now residing in a very swish 2-storey place that has just been built. It has taken a while to get set up and we are now cooking our own food and we have cable tv so it feels a bit strange. We may not want to come home!

I wasnt so positive a few days agot though. India is a hard place to get to know. Transport is difficult - it is chaotic and until you learn the systems you are a bit lost. Shopping is also hard. So much relies on small corner stores and tiny little shops. I guess we are used to going to the supermarket or even the markets and getting everything we need in one shot. That isnt so easy here and without our own wheels it is a lot of work to achieve what feels like very little. Needless to say we are all exhausted by tthe end of each day.

I am well and truly into the swing of work here now too and I am loving it. I am still treated like a tourist and I hope the 'special' turns into slightly more of a colleague soon. I am sure it will and it gets a little better each day. The projects we have seen so far have been amazing. So much of the work is really simple, but when there is so much poverty it achieves so much. We have met groups of women who have been trained in sewing and now with their own machines have established small businesses and can now send their children to school. Then there are women who have joined savings groups and they each contribute 25 rupees a week (roughly 65 cents). They then open a joint bank account and can take small low interst loans. SOme used loans to have operations or get medical treatment. Others paid for school fees or covered family emergencies. It is really great to see what I have read and heard so much about.

I dont have much time so I will put up some pics in a separate post in case I run out of time. We are all good (Nick has the cold that I had a week ago) and Jack is loving India. He told me he belonged to India last night, but he cant wait to go on a plane agin.

Love Sarah x x x

sickness, school, cows and traffic - day 2 in India

Firstly, I must preface this entry by sharing with you all that I have brought a crappy Aussie cold with me and I have been feeling stuffy and drowsy for 48 hours.  I got my hands on some Indian-style cold and flu tablets  this afternoon so I hope tomorrow will be bouncier.


Today we emerged from under our sleepy rock to discover bustling Bangalore.
We visited the school where the community development staff I will be working with base themselves. It was very impressive. Super primitive but the kids were all studious and the maths skills of the senior students surpassed mine so I was wowed.
Jack loved playing with kids too and they gave him heaps of attention. He is undoubtedly going to come home with a swollen ego!

The traffic and noise from the traffic is a bit overwhelming. We go to sleep at night to a symphony of horns and they wake us up in the morning. The roads are crowded by trucks, more trucks, cars (big and small), motorbikes, auto-rickshaws, pedestrians, push bikes and cows. To get into the city from where we are staying you have to cross a main road on foot. Needless to say, we haven't done this yet. We'll report  back on it when that happens - hopefully reports wont be sent from the nearest hospital!

This photo was taken by me sitting in our car trying to make a right-hand turn on a main road. This traffic isnt stationery either! Its best not to look sometimes.

The weather is great, food is great, shopping is wacky (I'll write more about all of this another day). I hope you are all well and whoever gave me this cold I would be interested to know how long it lasts!

Lots of love,
Sarah.

We have arrived

We have arrived in Bangalore... finally! It was such a long trip and we were all exhausted. It felt like 24 hours of waiting around. Jack was a legend for the whole trip, but turned a bit hysterical when we got to our accommodation. He wanted to be in his own bed.

I was a tad edgy after the drive into the city from the airport - not because of unpredictable traffic, but because our bags were just tossed onto a roof rack without being tied down. I was sure we would be living in these same clothes for a long time. But there was nothing to worry about. We are already realising all we can do is go with the flow.

I am happy to report that after a nights sleep and a handful of sweet biscuits all is well and we are ready to face this crazy city.

I have no idea where we are. Our plane was delayed leaving Singapore so by the time we got here it was about 1:30am (Bangalore time). So today we will get out and explore and hopefully be able to post some pics soon to show you all our new temporary home.

Love Sarah.

Ready for India!!

Coming soon to Mr Travel Diary...

Bangalore, India.

Do your research folks and then visit Mr Travel Diary for our unique take on the fastest developing city in the world.

See you soon in Bangalore :)