Camels!

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We went on a camel safari over the week-end! It was mega good and beautiful. Literally right in the middle of nowhere, we rode camels over sand-dunes and they are actually very comfortable - much more like riding a horse than I thought (unlike elephants, who are rolley and bumpy). We got some really good photo's of us all jumping and making shapes at sunset so it's all pretty and sillhuoetty. I will try and put up my photo's next time I come on the computer.

My camel was called Molly and thre was one called Michael Jackson and one called Mr India! He was very friemdly with the females and had to be on his own when we stopped! And the males all do this revolting thing with their mouths!! Their tounges are enormous and they flop them around and foam at the mouth and make this disgusting loud gargling sound, kind of like 100 water machines bubbling up, and it smells like death warmed up. But it's pretty funny despite the revoltingness. At night we saw some traditional Indian dancing and music. The main "female" dancer was in fact a man! I wonder if he was a eunich. And the music was very good. There were a couple of kids who were really amazing on castanets. Also one of the songs was an ode to the traditional decorations camels wear, I believe. Hmmm. Then we had dinner (after much moaning about how hungr5y we had become) and slept under the stars in little beds they made up for us. You can see soooo many stars! It's incredible. And Orien's Belt (the only constellation I can pick out) is sort of shifted-over in the sky. Oooh, and the moon is flipped. There's a crescent at the moment and it's like the Cheshire Cat's smile. We saw a shooting star too :D That's the second one I've ever seen I think. There wasn't enough time to make a wish though.

We visited Jaisalmer too and that was really nice, much more clean and tidy than the other Indian cities we've seen (though still with plenty of sewage and cows and salesmen yellingg at you.. I bought 3 pairs of Ali Baba trousers which are very airy!). And the Fort is so pretty and magical. It's called the Golden city there because there's so much sandstone. The fort is about 1000 yrs old i think. We looked in some Jain temples which were really calm and magical and full of thousands of ornate carvings of their prophets (apparently they don't have Gods) and windy mysterious staircases and low ceilings. It was like we were being led into a secret Kingdom.

So yeah, I'm back at camp now and I started my teaching last week. It's much harder than I expected. I'm teaching 1st class in the school with one other girl, Danielle, and the children take some controlling! They are very excited but hopefully will calm down when they get used to us. It's very difficult to plan lessons because you can start there whenever you feel like it so they're all at different levels - some can count and know the alphabet and can write and draw, while some can't even hold a pencil. SO that's quite a challenge. Plus of course their English is limited as is our Hindi. But Rashiv, the teacher who lives at camp, comes in from time to time and is very helpful. He's lovely actually and all the kids love him and really respect him - kind of annoyingly because I wish they would respect me that much, haha. Also, we can only use a photocopier at certain times and so have to hand-copy all of the work sheets we make.

We went on a "field trip" on Fri because School was technically closed. THis involved wandering around the desert, most of the children bare-foot and happily scrambling over rocks, and collecting leaves which we later made in to a collage. That was fun. We encountered various animals and the children enjoyed running about outside. There are lots of shrubs considering it is the desert. And cotton and Tamarind.

There was a volunteer "party" later on that night. We all kind of gathered outside and there was drink. I had a good time untill I tried to jump the step in to the bathroom and consequently catapulted myself head-first into the door-frame! I wish I had a video of it, it must have looked so funny. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back and I thought my nose was running so I put my hand to it, then looked at it and saw it was completely covered in blood! There was a lot of bleeding. Becky came to the rescue and mopped it up and got me a hair-band but we couldn't stop laughing. I have a big scab now that is fortnuately covered by my fringe.

The girls here are all so nice. We were saying the other day how it feels like we've known each other for years when actually it's only a couple of weeks. I've kind of formed a littl group with the other English girls. Gosh that sounds really narrow-minded but that's kind of just the way it went. They're all lots of fun. There's Becky, Lucy, Mel and Sammy. The others are fun too. And there are new girls who've been at camp already for 4 weeks. Most of them are Norwegian so naturally I talked to them about the Vikings.

I can eat curry again now, which I am actually quite enjoying in spite of my worries about all the stodge. I've bought some oranges as well and am really really enjoying these amazing chocolate-chip cookies in the shop called Hide and Seek. We are all quite addicted!

Not much new to report other than that, though I'm sure I'll think of lots of other things I could have said when I go!

Helen x

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