The first 2 weeks at the Ashram

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So where do I begin. It has been an action packed 3 weeks. Manish and I had a fabulous time eating, sampling great red wine and sightseeing. More to come on Italy when I can properly upload photos.

India, all the sights smells and sounds rush back into my memory minutes after landing in Mumbai. My first experiences were great! I booked a shared taxi from Mumbai to Nasik, and then onto the Ashram. On the taxi I met a nice man from Nasik that was eager to be my host for the trip. He bought me water and lunch which was great. The first few nights were an adjustment; I had conveniently forgotten how hard the beds were. The monsoons had hit the ashram hard in the weeks before I arrived and the air in the rooms was thick with mildew. My pillow and mattress were mold central. After a few days of relaxation, I started my volunteer work of editing and other odd jobs around the ashram.

I went along to the village that the ashram has been doing Seva work in. The Ashram had supplied 100 toilets and all the building materials required to build them. Our job was to follow up on the project and see how many of them had been build and were being used. Sadly in the first village there were only 10 toilets that had been in built and less then half of them were being used. It was both a sad and joyful experience, on the one hand you had happy curious smiles greeting you and on the other hand I was witness the to poverty and lack of awareness. All of the houses cook with a burning fire in the kitchen and no ventilation causing 60% of the children to have respiratory conditions and chronic coughs. More than half of the children are walking barefoot through the streets walking in animal feces and standing water. Some of them wear gold in their ears, watch television when there is power yet have no shoes or toilets. There is a lot of work to be done here, and it was encouraging to see that the ashram is making a difference. The children felt like celebrities for the day, chasing us down the street saying “one photo please”. When you took the photos they would rush around to see the display on the camera and snicker at themselves.

The first week of class has been good, unfortunately being a woman has set me back at bit. I have had to miss 3.5 days of Asana practice because of my monthly. Going back tomorrow will be interesting, as we will be holding shoulder stand for 10 minutes, Yikes!!! We practiced Vaman yesterday, which was interesting!?! I have once again confirmed that I do not like throwing up. I managed to chug 5.5 glasses of warm salt water on an empty stomach before the cramps and nausea were unbearable, then it was over the road and let the barf ‘o’ rama begin. It was harder to hear all the sounds of the gag reflexes around me than my own. One of my classmates affectionately named the road at the front of the ashram “Vaman Road”.

Mom has been here for a week now and started to teach English to the children in the village, she had started with 40 and now has 108 students ranging in age from 6 - 26. She is obviously finding it a challenge to accommodate them all with very limited resources and such a huge range in age. I think she will be having two groups starting tomorrow. They are so keen and eager to have something to do that they arrive at 4pm for their 6pm class. I think Mom is doing a fabulous job, and I know it is not an easy task!

I will write more next week, there has been very little time, our schedule is pretty much full from 5:30am to 10:00pm.

Love you and miss you all!

Hari Om,

Sara

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Comments

[Fiona]

Brilliant Babe!
Great people pics darling! Glad to hear you're able to do a bit more than yoga even though it's hard to see the poverty...and hats off to mom as well-what a teaching trooper!! Luv you and miss you, Fiona