Monday 29th April, Day 37

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A day which has earned an entry all of its own. We began the day with what shall forever more be remembered as the ‘sweat death breakfast’ on the rooftop of our guesthouse. Turns out when there is no breeze it is rather warm in Udaipur, even at 8am. If only someone had warned us it might be hot. Oh wait…After ten minutes of alternating between using the menu as fan, hat and elbow mat to prevent frying our elbows on the molten metal table we surrendered to the shade to finish our sweat droplets with muesli fruit curd-the incredibly appetising Indian term for yoghurt. We have managed to, with a combination of extensive gesturing, saying the same sentence repeatedly in increasingly louder and with varying inflections and haphazard missing out of selected words (as has become my general way of communicating), persuaded the guesthouse to allow us to set up a tab saying as we are staying here for a month. This involves signing all of our orders so they can add them up at the end of each week. So far, so normal. Until we were thrust an empty sheet and simply asked to sign the bottom. We pointed out, using the communication strategy previously described, that is not particularly common practice to sign a blank cheque for an undetermined amount. About ten minutes of stalemate later we won the battle and our actual bill was produced.

Luckily we were not in a rush as our induction meeting at our new placement was not due to start until midday. Em and I waved Han off (she is working with a different NGO in Udaipur) and set off to investigate the very promising-sounding RKay mall which is on the way to our NGO. Our dreams of regular pitstops for air conditioning and ice cream were quickly quashed as it quickly became evident that RKay’s management haven’t quite yet grasped the fundamental concept that in order for a mall to function the shops actually need to open. We tried to buy a drink to pass the time from the seemingly fully staffed and stocked food court but were staunchly informed that they were not able to open for an hour (it was by this point 11am). After some half-hearted attempts to persuade them that it might not be a bad idea to accept money from the only people in the building, we gave up and headed for the exit at which point Celine Dion began bellowing My Heart Will Go On from the rafters. Slightly bemused we hopped in a rickshaw for the short trip to Seva Mandir, the NGO we are working with this month.

Seva Mandir are a large, very well established NGO who, like Ashwini are incredibly well organised with a big emphasis on community ownership just on a much larger scale. They are based in two buidlings on the same road, have a huge library, several offices, hundreds of staff and volunteers and are carrying out interventions in rural Rajasthan ranging from education to forestry to microfinance to community forums addressing climate change. We are working with their health division and have been assigned a project to develop a training resource to teach the Traditional Birth Attendants about antenatal check-ups. We were not able to meet our supervisor until 3pm so went to attempt to get ourselves a sim card in the meantime after reassurances from our volunteer coordinator Preeti that the Vodaphone shop was the answer to all our problems. Given it was the hottest part of the day we decided that it would be a fabulous plan to walk the mile-long trip to the shop. Never knew that knee-caps could sweat. Learning new things every day on this trip. We stopped for a water refuel halfway along the route from a popular café which has become our local, mainly because if we ask what the non-specific goods are they just let us try them rather than attempting to explain. On finally completing our epic trek and confirming that the glorious site of the Vodaphone shop (complete with no less than 4 air conditioning units) was in fact real and not a heat-induced mirage we were informed that though we would definitely be able to get a sim-card (progress) we were still considered imminent enough terrorist threats that they would need to see our passports. This could just be me being cynical, but surely if one was entering India with the primary aim of setting off a bomb or two they would probably not necessarily be the law-abiding types to follow such rigorous procedures. Or if they were they could of course just use their home phones. Not sure a 40p-per-message charge means much to organisations that can afford mass explosives. Just a thought. Anyway, mission fail for us so we decided with the rest of our break to give the Celebration Mall a bash.

Turns out our rather low expectations were smashed out of the water. It was all looking up when at the entrance there was an actual rubbish bin, even politely requesting that passers-by did not spit into it. From our experience disposing of litter in public places is quite a challenge. I learnt this lesson early on in our trip as, brandishing a blood-stained tissue from one of my multiple toe stubbings on chunks of rogue pavement ,I asked the ticket officer at the museum we were about to enter where I might be able to get rid of it. I was promptly led to a patch of grass by the side of the road.

Me: Er, I was looking for a place to put this rubbish

Man: (very enthusiastically pointing at the patch of grass): Yes, here, rubbish

Me: This is not a place for rubbish, this is the street

Man: No no, rubbish very good here

You will be pleased to know I carried the delightful tissue with me for several more hours until I found a slightly more sanitary means of disposal!

Anyway, back to the mall. After the bin excitement we actually entered and were greeted by a delightful blast of air leading the way to multiple floors of (very open!) shops topped by several golden domes. We attempted to do some shop browsing which was a far from relaxing experience due to the female shop assistants following us around at the heels whilst the men simply took to standing virtually on top of us. At the point when I was looking through some t-shirts on a rail and the woman lurched forwards, removed it and started waving it my face we admitted defeat and retreated to the food court. Where we found Han and two other volunteers from her NGO. Clearly we had hit the Western retreat. It was revealed Constantine, who Han has been emailing for the past few months, was not in fact a motherly middle-aged Indian woman but in fact a 19-year old German gap year student. Confusing introductions over we were invited to join them at the cinema to see Iron Man 3 that evening though the only tickets left were for ‘recliner seats’. As these were still only the equivalent of £2.50 we went for it.

After a very exciting wander round the supermarket Em and I headed back to Seva Mandir to meet Dr Sangeeta who is to be our supervisor. She is an Ayuvedic doctor, very lovely but does not have the most fabulous English which made deducing what she actually wants us to a pretty onerous process. We got the general gist in the end and eventually headed back for a quick change before the cinema, when on the way to get a rickshaw we were offered the best line I have heard so far: ‘madam, which country is suffering without you?!’

We reconvened with Constantine and Katya at the mall for dinner. The process of simply ordering and then paying for food was clearly deemed far too dull so the management have introduced a wonderful system where you have to load a (naturally not-free) plastic card with cash and then use that to purchase your food. Once this palava had been negotiated Han and Em decided to give the egg fajitas a whirl. After about 25 minutes the masterpiece was produced-a 10cm wide wrap topped with scrambled egg with one floret of sautéed broccoli and a couple of other wilted veg items. By this time we were late (despite arriving an hour before the film started) so stocked up on popcorn and headed into the cinema, taking careful heed of the sign which helpfully reminded us not to smoke, shout or rape whilst the film was taking place. So glad they reminded me. Our ‘recliner’ seats surpassed all expectations in the form of plush lazy-boy style chairs complete with electrical adjustable padded foot and head-rest. Definitely the more comfortable than any bed we have encountered so far (they are a fan of the firm/wooden mattress over here); so much so that Han sacrificed a portion of the film for a little snooze! We all enjoyed the film, particularly the intermission which was clearly held precisely halfway the film as the action cut-out mid sentence giving way to torch brandishing workers offering snacks

After the film ended we hopped in the first rickshaw we saw outside the mall. I did think initially our young driver looked slightly blood-shot of eye but he seemed fairly with it so we set off. Error. Let’s just say it is a wonder any man, woman or cow in Udaipur survived the experience, including ourselves. Clearly the inability to boy-race in a rickshaw (though he gave it a good crack) prompted the need to initiate as many near-death experiences as humanly possible. We miraculously screeched to a halt in front of our guest house and retired for the evening, at which point the water tank ran out. Perfect end to a very bizarre day!

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