“If you haven’t been to Mysore you just haven’t seen South India”

A quote from lonely planet I read on the comparatively fast sleeper train for a weekend trip to Mysore this Easter. I would argue South India is full of many treasures and Mysore is just one of them but being a ‘medium sized city’ it had the right ratio of tourist attractions to tourists yet doesn't have the extravagantly crazy rush that bigger cities like Chennai engulf you with.

The most impressive attraction was Mysore Palace which you are unfortunately not allowed your camera inside of as I found out form a tall Indian man with a gun. I didn’t argue. 

The design of many buildings in Mysore is actually quite impressive. Aboveis the exterior of an Art Gallery we visited.

We made friends with a couple of Indians who showed us some of Mysore’s more hidden secrets on their bikes. Mysore is also renowned for its silk exports so the first place they took us to was a silk factory weaving threads of silk and gold into expensive Sarees on machines over 100 years old.

The second place was a friend’s house who owned an incense business. It smelt divine. An old woman sat on the floor rolling the strong scented incense round thin bamboo sticks and I asked if I could photograph her. She rolls 6000-8000 sticks every day.

The next day en route to the market we got caught up by some mendi artists working on the street. It took about 45 minutes for 2 men to decorate all 4 of our arms but as you can see it was well worth the wait, I even got them to write my name on my palm.

The market was just like any other Indian market just a lot bigger. Here is one vegetable seller; 12 tomatoes for 10Rs (12.5p).

For sale here is Kollam (that’s how it’s pronounced not sure about spelling). Coloured powder that in Tamil Nadu is used to make intricate beautiful patterns outside your house to ward off bad omen (and make your doorstep look lovely). In North India and perhaps Karnataka it is used in Holi festival where they throw coloured powder at each other. Unfortunately I missed out on all this fun but there is so much to see, do and experience in India you couldn’t possibly do it all in one year volunteering. 

Sevalaya

Sevalya has now organised a ‘cultural program’ for the children every Saturday at 7pm. This is basically where all the children from the orphanage get together, form an audience and watch performances by each other that they have prepared during the week. I think this is an excellent idea bringing them all together and giving everyone a chance to express themselves. So far it has been a complete success. I thought I’d organise something for the preschool children at the hostel (aged 3-5) to perform so we put together a “clap action performance” where I said a simple English word like elephant, mouse, butterfly etc. and the would do the action with 2 claps in between to make it into a rhythm.  They were a lot more nervous in front of everyone but I think they enjoyed it!

The following week I taught a song with some older girls at the hostel (aged 11-14) and choreographed it into a ‘story dance’. It called ’10 little green frogs” and consisted of them all jumping into the circle on the line ‘and one jumped into the pool”. Even if some might not have understood the words exactly they learnt it very fast – it takes me weeks to learn songs in Tamil!

Last Wednesday there was an exhibition of all the preschools work for parents and sponsors. Here is some of the artwork from a paper doll making activity I did with them using waste cloth from the tailoring room. They each made mini versions of themselves and learnt the word for ‘dress’ ‘shirt’ and ‘shorts’.

My origami group got jealous of another volunteers juggling class doing a performance on the stage in front of the whole secondary school (1500 students) and asked if we could do an origami performance. Origami is not something usually done on stage but I didn’t want to say no so I arranged a little routine last Saturday. They came on to the stage, said “konichiwa” (hello in Japanese) each made their favourite origami (mostly the crane) and presented it saying the English name. They finished with “sayonara” (goodbye). This photo above is from the run-through and below on the stage

We also decorated the auditorium with origami birds (notice them hanging above). They went a bit crazy with feathers and sequins but had lots of fun. Considering they had never used them before the final pieces were really beautiful.

I rearranged my timetable a bit so I can spent more time in the primary school because as you can see they are adorable! I took a snall groups from the preschool class for ABC colouring which they seemed to enjoy - especially the stickers! Above we have Pushpa and Giri and below is Dashini

As one of the chapters in my classes text book was on letter writing I set up a pen-pal letter exchange with my sister Orla's yr5 class and my 5th standard class. It took a lot of patience and one to one work but managed to get them all read and replied to in 2 weeks. They were so excited to get letters from England and spent alot of time and effort beautifully decorating their replies and ask me every day when they will get a 2nd letter.

Not all the children are at the same level in English so teaching can be very challenging. I went to the hostel one evening to help Subash and Lakshmi one to one as their just wasn't enough time in class to get round everyone.

8 of the 12th standard girls will unfortunately for me leave Sevalaya after their final exams have finished in 2 weeks. It will be a very sad goodbye as i have spent a lot of time with them over the past 6 monthes, I promised to print this photo of us all together before they leave.

Origami Madness

I have started an after school Origami class for the childre, took a while to get names and permission slips but it had been running for 1 month now and i think they are enjoying it! Due to limited resources we use newspaper but i bought felt tips and glitter to decorate the final pieces :) Also thank you mum for sending me some coloured paper - they love using this! We started simple and they each made a house then decorated it to look like their own (sort of) We then put them together to make,,,, Kasuva Village!

In a diffferent session we made peacocks, being India's national bird they were very eager and didn't use the glitter glue very sparingly.. must have taken a few days to dry but looked gorgeeous nevertheless!

A ponder round Pondicherry

Not gunna lie; the best thing abut Pondicherry was the food. It is an ex french colony, with lots of cafes selling to our absolute delight REAL croissants, baguette ,coffee crepes etc etc and after 5 months on a stable diet of rice I'm sure you can imagine how exciting this was for us. This is Rose, me and Riby trying to hold off from eating our first croissant for a photo. The streets were eerily quiet, all named "rue.........." the most locals spoke both French and Tami, the houses were in traditional french architecture with cute shuttered windows, it was only the pestering autodrivers and a Hindu temple with a elephant that reminded us we were in India.  A lovely stress-free break from what can be a very stressful job teaching!

A lovely stress-free break from what can be a very stressful job teaching!

Pogaloow Pongal! Pogalooow Pongal! Happy Pongal :)

These are some of the elderly people from the old age home making preparations for the first day of Pongal. This is a festival celebrated in the south of india whereby you give thanks for the harvest. They make detailed patterns on the ground with powder and after fill it with colours. These designs could also be seen outside all the houses in Kasuva Village. The plants on the background are sugar that we took down and chewed after the festival. Very tough but incredibe sweet and juicy.
It is tradition to cook pongal (a sticky rice dish than can be savoury with black pepper and potatoes or sweet with sugar dried fruit nuts and cardamon( outside on a new painted pot, see the terracotta bowls under unlit wood. Then, as the water boils over (indicating it is now time to put the rice in) everyone surrounded and shouted as loud as they could "pogaloow pongal, pogaloow pongal".  The kids were so excited it was a loud happy atmosphere :)

 On the second day you give thanks to the cows. So we decorated them with flowers, leaves, colored paper etc etc, and fed the bananas! The one on the left is from Kasuva Village.

The founder of Sevalaya is seen below giving the first one, up until now i had no idea cows could eat bananas but they seemed to love it!

On the third day you should clear your house of any waste from the year and burn it outside. However most of our waste nowadays is plastic which isnt so nice to burn.. so instead of doing this Sevalaya conducted an "anti-plastic-burning ralley" in which other schools from different villages were involved. I accompanied them marching for 2 hours with placards and chanting "plastic ay ira car ay" which i think translates as burning plastic causes cancer. It was very well organised and i was impressed by the kids 'green' spirits.

Curry for Christmas

To celebrate christmas at Sevelaya I did a craft afternoon with one of my secondary school classes 8B to make christmas decorations for the school hall. There were about 40 14year olds, and me so it was an exhausting 3 hours! 

We made snowflakes out of newspaper then attached them to string with baubles and tinsel (thank you Mum for the xmas package) to make streamers. 

We made a christmas tree out of everyones green handprints then decorated it with shiny wrapping paper. I dont think the other teachers let them make that much mess normlly - they loved it!

We had two weeks off work for christmas so Rosa, Rose and I met up with two other volunteers from Hyderabad and went backpacking round Kerela! We started from the very tip of India, Kanyakamuri (technically still in Tamil Nadu) and worked our way north. I took over 400 photos so just thought id add a few here..

Here i am as far away from Nottingham in India as you can get, it was very windy and dramatic at the end of the jetty i could barely stand up!

This is christmas in India; notice the virgin Mary and Jesus lit up by fluorescent coloured flashing lights on either side of the steeple. Perhaps this is why there are so many power cuts in Tamil Nadu. Looks kinda impressive though!

After a pitstop in Trivandarum, the capital of Kerela we went to Varkala, one of Indias very touristy beach towns. To me it did not feel like the real India i had experienced so far; more like a Caribbean island shoved into the west coast of India with lots Indians trying to sell you scarves, jewelry, Aladdin pants etc etc at tourist prices. We ate watermelon on the beach, learnt surfing from a frenchman, jumped over the waves and drank real coffee!

Overall had a very relaxing time, the cliche of paradise with a clifftop road of cocktail bars, palm trees, white sands, blue sea and gorgeous sun sets.

Next we went to Kottayam for a cruise round the backwaters, Couldnt quite afford a houseboat but a local guy gave us a tour round the little villages in his bamboo boat. Worked out quite conveniently that it was my birthday then too, a perfect way to turn 19. I have never seen so many palm trees.

He did let me have a go once but i lost balance and nearly capsized the boat.

 Quick pitstop for more watermelon!

We then headed up in the hills to Kumily for an ELEPHANT RIDE in Periyar Wildlife santcuary. The elephants name was Gopal, they are the most amazing creatures i have ever seen.

In the afternoon we hired bikes but as we were on a huge hill we could only go up or down. So of course we choose down!
After spectacular views and a great ride we remembered we had to go up. It was impossible to push the heavy ancient indian bikes up hill so we tried to hitch a lift.
Most people ignored us but them some local farmers with two cow in the back of the trucked very kindly stopped!

They strapped our bikes to the back with rope (unfortuneatly a cow relived itself on my arm while i was helping him) and all five of us squeezed into the two seats at the front! Problem solved :) The first bike ride i havnt had to peddle once!

The next day we went tiger trekking in the wildlife sanctuary. First in a jeep then on foot.

Unfortunately we didn't see any tigers but some spectacular views; Ruby and I on top of the world. 

In the evening we saw a traditional Kerelan dance performance of  Kathakali. At the end of the show they invited the audience on stage for a photo.

Still in the hills, were it is refreshingly cooler, we went to the tea gardens of Munnar. Here are some of the women picking tea, of course they still wear Saris.

A guy from a local tea plantation gave us a tour of some of the gardens then invited us to his house for some very fresh tea.

We took an auto to Top Station, the highest point in Munnar, it was 7.30am in the morning and the roads were empty so i asked if i could drive! 

Back down in Cochin it was Indias first Beinnale. It was very strange to see modern art in India but a lovely set up of installations along the coast line; here are a couple i liked best. Some (below) are still in the developing process, i think its an aeroplane they are soldering together?

There was also a hindu festival celebration in Cochin where men played traditional drums and they paraded elephants. Here they are from all angles. Elephants are definitely my favorite animal :)

To finish off the holiday we spent New Year back in Mamallapuram where there was an Indian dance festival. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from India!

The teacher in the nursery school class i volunteer in is getting married! I went along to her engagement party, as you can see her Sari is amazing. Unfortunately this means she wont be able to work at Sevelaya anymore as she will move in with her new husband... the atmosphere was a combination of sadness, happiness and nervousness..