What a hectic week! (or two!)

It feels that it's been very hectic this week. (Lots of evenings out socializing - its been brilliant to meet people from all over the world who have come to volunteer - they all have interesting stories to tell of their experiences and work with the children and communities.)

Tuesday was India's Republic Day. It was a public holiday, so we had a quiet morning relaxing in front of the TV, watching the parade at India Gate. We'd decided not to try to get tickets to the Republic Day Parade, because we were warned that there would be huge crowds (there were!) (we  wouldn't have been able to see a thing ) and that security would be very tight (it was: they described the security as three ringed, 7 staged, security!). It was foggy too, although it began to clear during the morning.  

Eric Lennon, our friend for the UK, arrived on Wednesday, so in the evening after work we met up with him and went up to Janpath for a South Indian meal at Saravana Bhavan (there are branches in Tooting and Southall) and then had a walk up to Connaught Place, which was still buzzing at 9.00. with markets and street sellers - so vibrant and full of colour.  Eric went off to his hotel shattered and exhausted from his travels and first experiences of Delhi.  (It is so lovely to see friends from home - he even brought a couple of newspapers with him so I've been enjoying reading all the 'home' news).

We spent a wonderful evening as well this week with a team from Melbourne University at the home of Dr Kiran and Freddy Martin. The team was young, lively and full of enthusiasm about Asha and what they had seen while in Delhi. We discovered that one of the female students was English; she was born in Hampton! Life is full of amazing coincidences.

Finally, on Friday we were invited to Jeevan Nagar slum colony,  as Asha were holding a celebration to welcome the Premier of Ontario to India and to Asha. The Premier, Kathleen Winn, is in India to promote business between Ontario and India, believing that business should benefit everyone; but she wanted to spend time meeting Dr Kiran and the women and students at Jeevan Nagar who have been empowered by Asha; she spoke enthusiastically about the work of Asha. (It was the first time for Ken and I to visit Jeevan Nagar - it was lovely to see all the paintings and work that our St.Stephen's team had done last October in the Asha centre.  The children and women gave us a lovely warm welcome and all send their love to their friends in Twickenham.

 

Tomorrow we will be heading to India Gate, together with Eric and our students, to play cricket and have a picnic lunch. The days are beginning to warm up now, so hopefully we'll have a great game of cricket and at last begin to thaw out! (The girls are as keen as the guys, so could be an interesting match!!)

Best Wishes,
Ken and Heather xx




  

A little monkey business

Hi,

The children I have been working with this week have been turning themselves into jungle animals!! The sounds of 'The Lion sleeps tonight' and 'Wimoweh' have been echoing around the slums and Elmer's ears will certainly have been burning, as the story has been told, acted out, and translated into Hindi for all the children to enjoy.  If you are wondering who 'Elmer' is, he is a brightly coloured elephant who is 'different' - he tries to change and be the same as all other grey elephants but then realises that its 'ok to be different' - in fact, everyone loves him the way he is! We had a great time exploring that theme and agreeing, we are all special -  God has made us to be unique and so being different is OK! 

Animals seems to be a bit of theme this week - on our way to work we always pass cows and bullocks  strolling down the road, sitting beside or in major roads or grazing on rubbish heaps. Yesterday, Ken saw the only cat we've seen, (where have all the cats gone?) and sometimes, if we're lucky, we've spotted a monkey or two.Then there are of course, hundreds of stray dogs dashing across busy roads (most seem to be very road-wise and thankfully make it).  Yesterday we noticed the two parrots who featured in an earlier blog, seem to be back in our trees - could this be the first sign of spring? With no cuckoo, perhaps its the 'parrot'?

Amazingly, just as I am typing Ken shouts to come quickly into the kitchen and there, sitting on the railing of the balcony is a large monkey!!!! He obviously wanted to feature in this weeks blog!! Here he is and with a friend slowly strolling off.   First time we have seen them around the flat!

We are beginning to think about our next ventures when we leave Delhi.  We had a lovley evening with Freddy and Kiran last night (thank you for your kind hospitality). We were able to chat over possible plans and it seems quite likely that we will return to Delhi later in the year and continue our teaching with our students.

Our visa ends on 1st March and we fly to Thailand and our travels will continue from there.

Off for more monkey spotting!!!

Love Ken and Heather xx

Under armed guard to eat cake!

Wow, the weeks are just flying by – can’t believe we have reached the end of another one.

   

Ken had a ‘perfect’ day on Sunday – he went off to the New Delhi World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan and managed to spend all day browsing books with Sandeep, one of his students. They arrived at 11 am, when the fair opened, and walked right in. However, when they left at 4 pm the fair was packed and the queues to get in were enormous. 

I, on the other hand, decided to have a ‘book day’ of my own and so finished off reading a book I bought here called, "I Inspire" – the story of Neerja Malik – very inspiring!! I then totally indulged myself catching up with the ARCHER’S (for those of you who are listeners and fans, you will appreciate just how wonderful this was.)

This week has been all about CAKE – again!

Ken’s birthday has kept ‘Supreme’ (the cake shop in R K Puram Sector 8) totally in business this week. We had a birthday lunch on Tuesday with the Asha Operations team and Ken had a pineapple cake with candles.  He was also presented with a green hat to wear and, from then on, green seemed to become a theme to the birthday and everyone grabbed something green for the photo!!  

He is also sporting a very smart new (green) gumjha (scarf) and a wonderful (green) Nehru jacket. (Don't mention the hat!).

 

Thanks guys!

Partying continued on Wednesday, and Ken’s students decorated the classroom with lots of messages of Happy Birthday.  

 

It was an afternoon of music, dancing, samosas and cake – not a lot of teaching I guess, but lots of fun! After the party it was back to the Asha centre where he was able to blow out even more candles on a massive cake and share it with all the team leaders from the various slums (fortunately they had all had a meeting that afternoon, so they were able to join in the celebrations).  Too full of ‘cake’ to even think about a birthday meal out, we limped home and had a ‘quiet’ evening.           

On leaving our flat on Thursday morning, we were greeted by armed soldiers either side of the entrance. They lined the whole road. The shopping area opposite us was cordoned off with soldiers; all street stalls, our lovely veg stalls, street food vendors, all had to remove themselves and were cleared away. In fact,  there was very little sign of normal life at all – it was really quite eerie and strange. This continued down all the major roads and for a lot of our route to Asha. We understand that perhaps a Government Official was due to visit the area for some reason. It was quite incredible to see how street life, businesses, street dwellers and vendors were ‘not to be seen’!!  When we returned in the evening, our local traders were beginning to rebuild their lives and stalls – what an amazing inconvenience and loss of trade for them all! (Sorry about the rant, but felt quite angry about it all).  

On a happier note, we were treated to a lovely birthday lunch by Shalini, Azad and Narayani in our teaching centre – so kind of them!  Thank you. (Asha is definitely all about eating, as we have said before!)

It’s a big teaching day tomorrow, so better get on with more prep – it was so lovely to see our Saturday students last week after a few weeks holiday – they really are amazing people and just love being together and having this time with us. We see the Asha values being lived out all the time as we get to know these guys and work closer with all the staff.  Log onto the Asha website (www.asha-india.org) and read this month’s News Letter. It has some amazing stories of their work and the differences they are making everyday. You will be inspired and encouraged by what you read.

Smokers' Corner!

Back now in Delhi after our lovely time in Goa - memories to ponder on as we bump along the busy, noisy roads again on our way to Ekta Vihar. It has been lovely to see our students again and they were thrilled to be back speaking English with us, singing, creating and playing games.  Their enthusiasm and smiley faces are a joy to see amongst very challenging living conditions made even harder during these winter days. This morning there was thick fog which lingered till midday and it was quite chilly.

As we walked back through the slum at the end of our day, there was a happy group of men sitting around their 'hookah' pipe - I was very tempted to find a stool and sit with them ( Ken might have been a bit shocked if I had!) but instead I asked if I could take a photo to send back to England - they were delighted :

Yesterday we had a lovely surprise visit from our friend Naresh Whig who is in Delhi visiting family.  He whisked us off to The Grand Hotel for a delicious glass of wine and snacks - extremely pleasant!  Thank you, Naresh.  We had a lovely time catching up with him.  Somehow, seeing people from our life in England makes the world seem much smaller and that we are not so very far away at all!

Saturday tomorrow and we will be teaching, so lots of preparation tonight.

Best wishes to you all.

Heather and Ken XX

Our days in Goa

Sorry for being late. We were on holiday in Goa and the hotel's internet connection was intermittent (we were also comatose on the beach most of time!!).

We left Delhi at lunchtime on Sunday 27th December and flew to Goa in about two and a half hours. We flew with Air India and on the flight I, Ken, was appointed the security officer (or whatever he's called) in charge of one of the exit doors in the event of an emergency. The steward explained what I would need to do if we crashed or had forced landing, so now I  know how to operate the door and the emergency inflatable slides and instruct people if there is a fire. Very useful (although a little disturbing - I thought you needed a lot of training to do this sort of thing). We will try to avoid row 8 on the next flight, (however, I now feel very safe sitting next to Ken!!)

On arrival at Vasco da Gama airport our transfer taxi met us and we were at the hotel in Benaulim within 40 minutes. Goa is a big change from Delhi: the weather is hot and the skies are blue, and it's quiet! We'd had a lovely Christmas Day with our students in the hot sunshine in Delhi, but that had been quite a surprise. In the evenings it's freezing. However, Goa is different. (Benaulim is also a very Christian town and every house, shop, stall, street, tree was decorated with Christmas lights, lanterns, and nativity scenes, even snowmen, (there is a shortage of cotton wool balls now in Goa!!) Such an amazing sight and beautiful at night!

Goa is tropical so the beaches are white and the backdrop is palm trees and blue sea.   Molly, Heather's daughter, and Elliot, her boy friend flew out to join us for a holiday together.  (Bless her, she knew we were not very well and turned up with an enormous bottle of Gaylin's special pick-me-up tonic from the Maple Leaf  in Twickenham - we were so delighted it was hard not to drink it all in one go!! It was such a special time of being able to relax and play together - I am now quite an expert on the 'body-board' thanks to Elliot.  They are staying longer than us (very jealous)  and are now off to Kerala for more adventures, (even more jealous!)

We've both had amazing massages whilst there. Incredibly relaxing; (a bit vigorous at times!) un-knotting the muscle knots of the past three months. Well worth it.

Most of the time, of course, we were lying on the beach, surfing the beautiful waves and loving the warm waters or eating lovely meals. Friday night we went on a cookery course - well, we helped a Goan to prepare supper in his home and then we ate the veg curry, the fish curry, raita and the chapatis. It was really good although it was a long evening when we were all very hot, tired and hungry. Our Goan friend is a real character (for some reason, he knows every London postcode?!) He has a lovely, friendly family who all joined in with showing us how to prepare the meal and made us so welcome in their home.


(Molly, Elliot and I couldn't resist an early morning venture to ride elephants, visit waterfalls, where you could bathe in the clear cool waters, and then end the morning with a visit to a spice farm for a tour and lunch. 

It was such a treat and I now have oils and herbs for making  'infusions' to aid all our coughs and colds - Ken was given a treat by Elliot, who managed to pick a 'ghost chilly'!!!  They both dared to try it and as they survived to eat the rest of their meal, we're not sure it was genuine.  That, or they have incredible constitutions!!!)

I decided not to go to see the elephants (I'd experienced elephants before in Jaipur - see one of our earlier blog posts). While Heather, Molly and Elliot were off for the day, I did a few things. I discovered where the Post Office was and so was able to buy stamps and send off some Post Cards. I also bought myself a hat, a kind of Indiana Jones type hat (no whip yet) (thank goodness for that!!) The hat was much cheaper than I thought it would be. I did some reading but didn't get round to continuing with my Teach Yourself Hindi course. I am up to Chapter 9 and I'm learning the Future tense. It's fun. (mmm, not as much fun as riding an elephant!!) (that's a matter of opinion).

On our return to Delhi we knew that we needed a taxi, and our helpful adviser, the Rough Guide, told us to pay for a pre-paid cab, which would be much cheaper than a normal taxi. So we went in search of the pre-paid cab booths inside the airport. Two guys, both waving signs saying, "Pre-paid taxis", beckoned us to their booths. I told them where we wanted to go. "1,200 Rupees!", he said. My "What!" was not a negotiating tactic. I told him we'd been living in Delhi for three months. He just looked at us and said go to the end of the booths, so we did. The real pre-paid cab cost 250 Rupees! The other guys were just ripping off anyone who needed a pre-paid cab, and were lured by their lying signs into believing they were genuine.

We were then sent to Stand 42, but some guy came to help take our bags to the cab. Thinking he was a driver I let him. It turned out he was just an unofficial "porter" wanting a tip. Watch that one.  Unfortunately, it does seem that Delhi airport is a place for rip off merchants! (Not only in Delhi, of course. A German student who came to learn English with us in Morden was charged £85 from Heathrow to Morden. It should have cost under £30. It happens everywhere, I guess. Human nature!).

 (We all had such a brilliant holiday. It was definitely sad to leave the beautiful Goan sun, sea and sand and especially Molly and Elliot, but our teaching began today again and that's the reason we are really here!  Our students were so pleased to see us again - we had a lovely welcome. We both feel that as this is our last two months, we want to give them as much fun and English, and all the opportunities we can create for them to benefit from.  I think these last weeks are going to go very quickly!)

 
(This was supposed to be a quick 'catch-up' blog - there will be a shorter one I'm sure on Friday!)


HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU

Ken and Heather