Monday, 28 November 2016

All our bags are packed we're ready to go.....🎶


Actually, the Gin, Vodka, Marmite, Ketchup, Branston pickle, are all empty... signs that it's time to be making our way home?

Cases are packed and all our 'goodbyes' have been said so we are ready to make our way to the airport tomorrow morning and 're enter' our lives in Morden again.

This week has given us lots of opportunities to meet our friends and say our 'goodbyes'. We've shared meals, cakes, birthdays and been danced off our feet (as usual) by all the students. Thank you to everyone who has shared this last week with us. 

We have had the incredible privilege and opportunity to live something 'very special' here in Delhi working with Asha and also during all of our travels - it's not over, it will continue in the UK and then, who knows?

Thank you to everyone who has so faithfully supported us, followed our blogs (68 now!!), emailed, visited, phoned, Skyped, and prayed for us. It has been wonderful to share our journeys with you all too.

We can't wait to see you all and celebrate being home as well as preparing for Christmas and our first grandchild (due in January). 🤗

Goodbye and THANK YOU!!

Love

Heather and Ken

A workshop for the Asha Team leaders in Baby Massage and ideas for helping prepare preschool children for school.

Ayesha made sure all the 'babies'(dolls) found good homes at the end of the morning!!!

Sadly, this mother has a roadside home to feed and care for her baby and toddler.... so much need.....

A lovely evening with Randall and Sharmila to say goodbye - thank you so much for everything!

We began at Ekta Vihar in September '15 and our last party was here on Friday - joy, love and dance pours out of these lives.... thank you to all who came and all those who are now working and couldn't make it - we will carry you home in our hearts!! X

Quick trip to Dilli Haat market - just to check I didn't need any more shoes 👠

A beautiful walk in the Garden of Five Senses with friends yesterday

So many beautiful people to take home with us!!!

The 'empties'... sign it's time to on our way 🛫


 

Friday, 25 November 2016

We are flying home on Tuesday!

Just to let you know that this week's 'Delhi blog' will be postponed till Monday, so as to include all the weekend's events and conclude our time here.

We fly home on Tuesday!!!

Love

Heather and Ken xx

Saturday, 19 November 2016

More 'up's' than 'down's'

Looking through photos from this week it's obvious that 'Celebration' has been a key theme!!

It is our last 'teaching' week and so 'Goodbyes' at Tigri, Chanderpuri and Anna Nagar have been intense and very special. 

The love and joy we have shared with the Asha staff, mums and babies, children and older students at all the Asha Centres have been deep and impacting on our lives. We will take the memories of everyone home with us. It's not a 'goodbye', but a, 'see you soon'!! 


This week found us reflecting on the yearning of the young students to make a better life for themselves against all the odds. They have such a determination to 'make a difference' for their families.

Asha - We commend you because you are enabling this to happen - Dr. Kiran, Freddie, you began this many years ago and from the first tiny seed has grown a very large orchard - in the landscape of Delhi, it is tiny, but it is here and thousands are benefiting from you...... that's wonderful ....... amazing and commendable.

We all need a mentality that will stop, see, bend down, lift up and care about its very poor and needy people!!! Man was given free choice and sadly chose 'selfishness' - of which we are all guilty and as a result we cause immense tragedy to take place.

Sometimes it's hard to suppress the anger, deep sadness and frustration we feel from all we see!

We wonder, where is the cry from its people that could help to make a difference and change a country that boasts its riches and cracks down (overnight) in a nightmare way, on fraud but abandons and turns away from the most needy and vulnerable, its elderly, handicapped, young, poor and destitute ..... a nation that walks by on the other side and chooses not to see, not a stranger, but it's own people.....the people of its womb.

Thank God for Asha and other NGO's working to bring HOPE.

Love

Ken and Heather 

Just behind the World Health Organisation is Anna Nagar Slum!!!

This must be the view from the offices at the World Health Organisation - I wonder whether it inspires them???

Great fun with mums and children at our 'pre school skills workshop' at Tigri.

Ken's students at Chanderpuri treated us to a picnic lunch of rice, samosas and coke!

They all shared that the English lessons had been really helpful, fun, interactive and a new way of learning for them. Such a privilege to have had this time of learning together.

We will miss you all!

Thank goodness our photos will be a lovely reminder of special people.

Monica decided we needed to be tested on our Hindi progress - we scored 10/10 - must be due to her teaching!!

Such a lovely time of giving out the soft toys brought out by the team from St. Stephens. Over 150 babies and toddlers in 5 different slum colonies now have a soft toy to love and cuddle!!! Thank you so much!

'Goodbye' photo of Ken's students and staff at Anna Nagar.

I'm sure we'll find our bike eventually - did Bill and Judy have this problem??

Saturday, 12 November 2016

One hump or two?

We are sitting in a 'roof top' bar ('Uturn', in case anyone has been here) looking out on the sacred Ghats of Pushkar Lake in Rajasthan. It's the week of the Pushkar Camel Fair and we're enjoying a wonderfully cultural experience!!! 

The traders have all been buying and selling their camels on the dunes (Ken's been tempted to do a bit of trading too - 😳 - problems about housing them in Morden tho' and perhaps better the one you know......😜 The town is full of visitors enjoying the handicrafts and an array of musicians, magicians, dancers, acrobats, snake charmers and carousel rides. The Mela Ground hosts events such as Most Beautifully Dressed Camel, Camel Dancing, Kite Flying, Sports matches etc. and in the evening there are cultural concerts of music and dance.

This weekend pilgrims come to worship and bathe in the Ghats - the town is dedicated to Brahma.

Love 

Heather and Ken 

It's the 2016 Pushkar Camel Fair - we feel so lucky to be here!!
Everywhere there are Camel cart rides

Hundreds of camels and traders - an amazing site

Camels wait on the dunes to be bought and sold .....

Hundreds of handicraft stalls line the Bazaar

Beautiful colours everywhere .......

Small children dressed as gods - collecting money......

A cable car ride to the top of a hill and the women wait for the temple to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and all the creative arts to open. Saraswati is called the Mother of the Vedas and the repository of Brahma's creative intelligence.

Beautiful architecture in Pushkar

Lots of events in the Mela Ground - horse running, football matches, camel and horse competitions etc...

Young girls perform their skills on tight ropes......

The favourite for winning the Best Dressed Camel competition!

Drummers engage visitors with their music



Best dressed Camel competition.... (The favourite won!).



The Chai Walla is always a welcome sight!


'Snack' sellers......

Nothing is ever wasted!!!

A moment of quiet looking out over the lake.

Evening cultural entertainment at the Mela Ground... a traditional Rajasthani dance.

Prem Joshua played last night in an evening concert... great!

Truck loads of people arrive today for the celebrations at the Ghats.

Time for others to make their way home - it's a long walk!

We're feeling a bit like this Camel!!

Saturday, 5 November 2016

"To everything turn, turn, turn...there is a season, turn, turn, turn, .... and a time for every purpose under heaven..... 🎶" (Ecclesiastes 3 v4....)

That song says so clearly what we see here every day - the sea-saw of emotion that we sway through in day to day life.

Sights that make you want to weep - followed by times of great laughter.


Poverty - riches.


Reasons to celebrate - reasons to mourn.......


It's true for all of us in all of life, everywhere - all this seems very 'raw' here in Delhi and even after many months of 'living it' it doesn't get easier (thank goodness). Our senses need to remain sharp and stirred otherwise we begin to 'walk by on the other side' and not see! 


This week we've had a time to dance - a time to rest - a time to be ill (again!! Heather's bug 🐜 does not want to leave her!!!) - a time to throw away (we're beginning to think about what to pack in a few weeks) - a time to keep (going to have to get a bigger case!!!!).


A time to celebrate with Shiv, one of the Asha staff, travelling now with Freddie Martin in the UK. Shiv grew up in Seelampur Slum Colony and attended the Bal Mandal group and has been supported by Asha through his life. He has achieved so much. He now has a job with Asha and is having his first experience abroad with Freddie, visiting churches and speaking at events. He's the most 'smiley' person we have ever met!!
Now it's, a time to stop the rambles and see the pictures - more news there.


Love 


Heather and Ken xx


🎶 - a time to dance...

🎶 .... a time to work....

🎶...a time to wish...

🎶.. a time for fun...

🎶 ....a time to share.... (lovely books donated by SMSP)

🎶 .... a time to play...

🎶...a time to throw away....

🎶....a time to smile.... (Shiv on his way to UK!!!)

A🎶 ....a time to choose.... ( it's going to take a long time)

🎶 ....a time to say "cheers" ... (an evening at the Irish Embassy)

🎶 ... a time to be confused...

🎶.....a time for hanging around....