The Vengabus Is Coming...

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to make sure that Ali is well and truly woken up in a spectacularly loud and rude fashion at 7.45 am. EVERY SINGLE MORNING THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Has no one told Indian guys that the Vengaboys are and always will be crap? And so 1990's teenybopper material??!!!!!! At least this morning they had a change of tunes... Backstreet Boys were a slight improvement but still made for a very grumpy Ali this morning!!

Our weekend turned out to be very different than we had initialy planned. Although this time it was completely under our control for once. We had organised a taxi to take us to Rewalshar Lake closeby. Meant to be very beautiful and descirbed as a "slice of tibet". But when we found out that the taxi ride there was gonna cost us like 700 rupees each we were all a little bit put off. It isn' that much money but we were getting ripped off big styleeeeee and Idex as per, wer pocketing all the surplus cash. Plus it wasn't that we REALLY wanted to go...we kinda just wanted to get away from camp but we dropped the idea of going away and settled for a weekend at home right here in Palampur. Turned out to be great actually.

Everyone else was away for the weekend so it was just 7 of us here. No queues for meals, hot water all round and the best part was the quietness of camp. Sheer bliss.... no Vengaboys blasting or TV blaring or obnoxious Germans yelling at each other. We pottered around, went to town on a little shopping spree buying loads of movies so that on Saturday night we could have a chick flick movie marathon. Oh yeah. And damn was it good fun. The movies to be honest were a pile of poo... one I can't even remember the name of and Music & Lyrics - only worth watching for Hugh Grants hideous dance moves. Reminded me of Rich at the computer class party 😊 Glad we didn't go away because it was torrential rain all weekend. So much so that cows were coming into campt to take shelter. Really funny. The rain will just all of a sudden come and will thunder down for hours on end. We also hs this little monkey come pay us a visit. Our bedroom looks directly out onto our porch and garden area and theres a bin out there. So this cheeky little monkey clambers into the bin, rummages through then turns round and stares at me as if to say "Who do you think you're looking at?". It was really cute... had food all hanging out his mouth and was just really cheeky looking. It waited for a couple of seconds then delved back into the bin for some more food before disappearing onto the roof. We have our fair share of animals at camp, at mealtimes we sometime feel like we are on some weird wildlie show. There are lots of lizards - some really teeny and cute and some big monsters. Loads of bugs too... the annpoying mosquitoes, ants, flying ants, big beetles that fly (I have no idea how they manage to stay in the air!!), and loads of other huge and weird flying things.

Back again it was back to Monday blues as we went to computer class to find that the owner of the school had had a death in his family and would be away for 3 days so no key. Which meant no class. Which was ok since we still only have 1 fully functional computer. At least the guy had the courtesy to leave a note on the door for us and luckily only 2 girls turned up. So being full of bright idea we suggested that they come to camp with us and use our computers there then that way we could introduce them to the internet and set up their email accounts for them. Excellent idea... until we got to camp to find that the internet was working, shortly followed by the Monday Palampur Electricity Amnesty. Oh well. Yet another day was spent lazing around camp. Mags and I attempted to play badminton for awhile but the rain soon sent us packing.

Monday afternoon was fab though. It was Anu & Vershas birthdays so we decided to throw a little party for them. We organised cake and some games and it went down really well. They were sooooooooooo surprised that we'd made the effort for them. I don't think birthdays are a particulrly big deal out here as only one girl in my class had ever had a birthday party before. Maybe they just can't afford it. We played lots of party games and a firm favourite with them was Pass The Parcel. We had great time... there was no music so Keri & I sang our little hearts out much to the amusement of the kids (and ourselves!!). You can just imagine how bad it was. After waaaaaaaaaaay too any renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle, Mary had a little Lamb and everything other kids song we could think of we had to resort to desperate measure. Out came the Christmas Carols!! Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Rudolph. You name it we sang it. Most of the kids knew the songs too which was weird as they don't even celebrate Xmas. A strange thing though here is that everyone seems to choose Xmas songs as their ringtones on their mobiles. Its not unusual to hear Jingle Bells numerous times a day!!

After games came presents. We'd bought each of the girls a little set of bracelets and little sweets. Nothing much but they were sooooooooooo pleased. I lost count of how may times Versha said Thank You. I'll never forget the smile on her face when she opened her present. Made me all warm and fuzzy inside :P

We finished off with our wonderful birthday cake. We'd had a chocolate cake made at the bakery for the pricely sum of 150 rupees. Bargain. The baker kept asking us for a "Name, name!!" and we told him NO name, just Happy Birthday!! Eventually he got the idea bu when we picked up the cake he'd written "Happy Birthday To..." and left big blank patch on th cake! Made us chuckle!!! But it went down well with the class. Most of them actually wrapped their cake up in napkins to take it home with them. Maybe to share with their family or to save it for later as it really was such a special treat for them. Makes you think about things a little bit... or us that cake cost nothing and it was no big deal to bring it but for them it mustve felt like Xmas. I've not seen smiles like that for a long time!!!!!!!

Yesterday it was (yet another) holiday here. It was called Raakhi which is basically brother & sister day. Traditionally, Raakhi is when a sister will tie a bracelet round her brothers right wrist as a sign of love and affection but it's also an agreement, in accepting the bracelet, that he will always protect his sister. But modern day Raakhi its normal to buy bracelets and little presents for you're siblings and friends and is a day to spend hanging out with friends and family. The traditional part was over very quickly - we had a little ceremony in camp where we were blessed with a Tikka (think thats what its called - basically a special red dot on your forehead!!) then presented with a bracelet and then fed these fudge like sweets. A weird tradition here is to be fed food... the girls fed us cake at the party the other day like and Anu feeding us biscuits at her house. Very, very strange indeed... just hope that they wash their hands with plenty soap!!! We had no class or anything so again it was day spent in town shopping. I also visited the post office tryng to sed a parcel to the UK. What a pulava that was. The woman is just downright rude... first off she looked at me, ignored me for like 10mins then I practically threw the parcel at her and she ooked at it for ages before going to confer with every other single person in the office (and it ws a big office) leaving me standing there like a lemon. About half an hour later, after she aimlessly wlked around halding the prcel and speaking with people she comes back to the desk give me stamps and tht was that!! I just don't understand why she didn't just do that in the first place!! Its not rocket science!!

Eventually the travel agent got in touch with us about our flights. He told us that they were still not confirmed :S but why don't we come and have some soup with him instead!!!! Weird. He is a really nice guy actually but I just wish he would bloody well book our flights as Idex are on our backs about it 24/7. Heres hoping tomorrow!!! Certain things here are very strange at times. For example, at the shop the other day Carly went to pay for her water when the shopkeeper than said "Do you want any toilet paper with that?" in true McDonald's "What drink would you like with that fashion!!" It's happened a few times and each time it makes me laugh. That fact that it's toilet paper aswell... do they think just cos we're western we want to buy toilet paper all the time??

Yesterday 2 of the volunteers from camp decided to go to McLeod Ganj for the day. A trip that we've all done numerous times catching the bus to Dharamsala then a txi to McLeod Ganj and it was always fine, however this time it wasn't. They were on the very steep, narrow and windy road to McLeod Ganj when their taxi tried to pass by a bus at a very narrow point in the road. The taxi hit the side of the bus and rolled over hitting an electricity pylon, which was the only thing that stopped them plummeting 300ft down the mountainside. The 2 guys from camp were ok thank god - in a slight bit of shock and one of them has a sore shoulder. But others were not so lucky... the taxi driver broke his back and is now paralysed and a women lost some fingers. Not so nice... it's the first accident I've heard of since being here and in a way I'm surprised I haven't seen more. Needless to say people are a littl wary of of driving anywhere at the moment.

Nothing really too exciting happening lately... we're off to Amritsar this Friday to visit the Golden Temple. One of the things I've most been looking forward to in India. Also get to see the Closing ceremony at the India/Pakistan border post at Wagha. It's a traditional and illustrious affair. Search YouTube and you'll get a rough idea of what it's all about!Hundreds of people go each night and I've heard the crowd is similar to a crowd at a footie match!!! Better get my shouting voice on...

Off to try and chase up the travel agent now...

Tatty byes

Ali xxxxxxxxxx

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Comments

[Stephanie]

comp stress
hey ali, sounds mega frustrating about the whole computer issue, makes you realise how much we take things for granted. It really makes you won't to do something about it! maybe there's a way to raise some money to donate a computer to the school??? on the material front some nice green material and some orangy material too would be ab fab... thank you!! :) got your postcard and extremely early birthday card! thank you for the little pressie i've not opened it yet!! missing you! steph x