India so far.....volunteering, Udaipur and Agra

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Ok so I landed in Delhi on 20th July and was met by Pranay who took me to a random little hotel and told me an American girl would be joining me at 1am! As promised this happened, her name was Tess and she arrived very late and I left very early for the bus so didn't see much of her but she was going to be part of the summer programme. I was put on a bus to Jaipur, which was fine, strange man sat next to me but hey I survived and was met in Jaipur by Zarkeel, our driver. He took me to the volunteer home where I met Alex and Marie, other volunteers, and had lunch and settled in a bit. Marie is from Vienna and Alex is from Connecticut, US. Marie worked in the orphanage so told me a little about it which scared me and prepared me for what I was to find the next day. Later Lillie and Karishma, the other 2 volunteers, came back from shopping. Lillie is from Miami and we get on very well, she also works at the orphanage and was much more positive about the whole thing. Karishma is Indian in origin, now lives in New York and is originally from Trinidad and at least her parents were both born there too, not sure about grandparents. Her and Alex teach street kids.

The house is simple but nice and has everything we need, including a wonderful cook who speaks very little English, we teach him a bit and I have learnt several Hindi words as the children also do not speak English!!!!

Ok so the orphanage-we are meant to look after the children that are older than babies and therefore not in a cot all day but too young to go to school or those who can't due to disability. The number of children we have varies but is usually between 15-20. First thing some of the older ones would also be there and they are so naughty but then a school teacher comes and takes them to a different room. Our daily routine with them is to help bath them and get clean clothes for them, which comes from a huge pile and you just try and find something that fits, usually just a top. There are only bottoms for the older ones and they fight over them. Then they are given some breakfast, they do get fed quite well, before we can take them to another room. This is where they spend all their time, it has nothing in it but a tv very high up which we can play DVDs on-English nursery rhymes or bollywood films. We spend a lot of our time holding the little ones and comforting them when the big ones are mean. They like you to sing to them and they all want to sit on your knee or be picked up however old they are. We also spend a lot of time cleaning up wee from the floor, as they have no nappies and some of the older ones have not been toilet trained but definetly could be. I refuse to clean up the poo and that doesn't happen too often anyway. And I only refuse because the staff don't do very much while we are there and treat the children pretty badly, as well as us, so I feel they can at least do something! :-( Both wooden and metal poles are used by the staff so the children understnad pain as part of daily life! I understand things are different here and if there is no money for things that is fine but they could show some affection towards the children. Anyway, we finish the day by feeding them their lunch which is normally chapatti and dahl and then we leave them at 12/12.30ish. The little ones normally scream when we leave which was so hard the first day. O and the smell is one of the worst things too! :-( The kids are really cute though and I have loved my time there.

My first afternoon I went to our local 'mall' with Marie to get stuff for breakfast and I bought some Indian clothes. Normally afternoons are spent watching bollywood films, visiting many bazaars and city sights, including temples amongst the bazaars. That night we met up with everyone on the summer programme and went to Choki Dhani which is just outside Jaipur and is set up as a traditional village where you have a traditional meal, watch dancing, rides elephants and get henna! The next night summer programme all came for dinner at our house which was funny!

My first weekend we went as a group out to a local village called Sanganer to do a walk. The walk took us to temples, shops and factories. The whole village is very creative, we saw pottery being made (a man took us into his house and then showed us to his factory), then a free tour of a papermaking factory which was cool before seeing people carve blocks used in block printing and then the block printing process itself which is amazing as they do it by hand and in the right place everytime, equal distance from the last, etc. We also saw an old lady making bangles outside the front of her house, her daughter then came and took us round the back into her house! Everyone was very friendly and wanted to show us their crafts! We had a great day out and I bought some block printed fabric to take to the tailor for my first full Indian outfit!

Monday night we went for a nice meal out before Karishma left that Tue. Wednesday we explored the city palace of Jaipur and I bought a Sari!!! :-) Thursday Claire arrived from Paris! She is staying pretty much until I leave and we are going to do a bit of travelling together for a few days which is cool! That night we went out for a drink with some previous volunteers that Alex and Lillie knew who were still in Jaipur. We were the only people there and drinks were expensive as it is not something people really do here but I enjoyed my glass of wine! Alex and Lillie then got an over night bus to Udaipur, me, Claire and Marie joined them after work on Friday. Friday was an interesting day at work though as we arrived the children all had nappies on and brand new clothes!!! I was instantly suspicious and later an official came to inspect, things were so different to usual and she could sense this but we told and she gave us her email so we could give her more details. Marie emailled her Sat to check it was the right address but never heard back from her.

In Udaipur we stayed at a lovely hotel called Panorama guesthouse. Saturday we had a boat ride on the lake to see the lake palace(used in James Bond film Octopussy) and Jagmandir Island which is also a palace, supposedly it inspired the Taj Mahal! It was very beautiful and gave great views back to the city palace which was imposing on the lake shore. We went and explored the museum within the city palace which was good and then to a few shops. The next day we went to Jagdish temple and then in a car up a very steep hill to the monsoon palace where you had spectacular views all around. That afternoon we went on a horse safari out to Lotus lake on traditional royal Marwari horses-they have funny ears! Most of the ride was in glorious sunshine but as we headed back the monsoon rain came down and we sheltered for short time in a rural house, which was slightly strange but very nice of them to let us in. Then before we left Udaipur on our overnight train we had a lovely meal over looking the lake and palaces!

Tuesday after work a few of us headed up to Tiger Fort late in the afternoon, I had got my Salwar back from the tailors so I wore it out. Tiger fort is really high up a hill with stunning views of Jaipur, a lake palace and other forts around. There are lots of old walls that run along the ridges of the hills all around and it was beautiful. On the way down the hill our driver stopped and pointed out more view points which was kind and then back in town we chose some local fruits to try(coconut, pomegranate, plums, pears, mangos) and our driver bought us some street food, westerners are advised against eating it, but we felt we should try it as he had bought it and it was actually very good. However I did not sanitise my hands first and believe this to be the cause of my vomitting that night! :-(

So Wed I didn't go to work but more visitors came to the orphanage and Lillie and Claire again told them the truth about how things really were. Thursday was not a good day, I didn't go to work as although I was feeling much better I ws still recovering and then everything changed! The people the girls had spoken to at the orphanage were possibly reporters and wrote an article which was in the paper the next day, apparently quoting them-it's in Hindi. I am told that here if a white person says something then it is true, however everybody already knows it is true but nothing is done. The problem now is with politics and that the opposition have something to use against the government so instead of it being a good thing our chairty is now not allowed in any government organisations because the government is mad at them and they worked for years to be allowed into the orphanage and things had started to be improved with a new boss-higher adoptions and children going to private schools. We however did not see any of this and had no real idea of the coruption and consequences of telling the truth. As a result the people in charge of this charity were very cross at us for speaking to these people and have lost so much of their good name and I'm not sure how much trouble they are in with the government, it is hard to understand! And also we cannot now help any of those children! It is very hard to explain it all properly but basically as of next week I will be teaching street children for the rest of my time as that is run only by this charity. Hope that makes some sense and you can try to understand the loss of the people here and difference in cultures and understanding which led to this. We all feel slightly mis-informed from the off-set and obviously we just told the truth when asked, as we would at home not knowing the implications here!

So we all felt the need to get out after the anger, tears, etc and headed to Amber. A town just outside Jaipur to the fort there which is again high up, has wonderful views and beautiful features inside too. Including a hall of mirrors and some imprssive gates with beautiful paint work, then we wandered through the village on another walk from this book we have. The first temple we visited a young priest(20) spoke to us for a while in English and French which he enjoyed and it was nice to chat to him and explain different things. Then we visited 2 more temples and a mosque which had a lovely garden area. Then the rain came and we headed back home.

Friday we walked in the city, through a bazaar and to various temples and then to a really cool family owned museum with an amazing collection of manuscripts, pictures, paintings, instruments and artifacts of all kinds and we got a tour which was great. Then we went out for dinner dressed in Sari's (the ladies upstairs helped us to get dressed :-) ) as it is Lillie and Marie's last night in Jaipur. :-( We had hoped to crash a wedding by walking down the street where lots happen but there weren't any going on so we went to a hotel bar called Henry's and had nice cocktails before heading home. We all enjoyed getting dressed up though and the locals seemed to appreciate it too. I love my Sari!

Saturday morning, a slightly tearful good bye to Lillie and then me and Marie set off to catch a bus to Bharatpur so we could got to Keoladeo NP, famous for its birds! We took a cycle-rickshaw and a guide because we were not allowed to leave our luggage anywhere, so couldn't cycle ourselves! We saw lots of birds including a few rare ones such as the Sarus crane(tallest flying bird in the world), black necked crane, water birds, blue jays and lots more. We also saw lots of monkeys, at pretty close range, some weird turtles, antelope, wild boar, jackal and several types of deer so I was very impressed with our afternoon. Then we managed to get on a local bus to Agra, I sat with a husband, wife and their young son(3), it was crowded but fine. We met Claire on the rooftop of our hotel enjoying the view of the Taj Mahal-beautiful-so we sat and ate dinner and then got an early night.

Up at 5am to beat the rush, we dressed in our Sari's and headed out. At sercurity we were forced to leave a few items outside in a locker-Mary, a pear, headphones and a lighter! Then we went in ands took many photos of the amazing monument-it is so beautiful and in our Sari's we were very happy there and the Indians also enjoyed taking our photos. I had mine with someones baby! Then we changed from our sari's, so as not to ruin them, had breakfast on a rooftop and headed to the fort which was also very cool, then to the Mini Taj Mahal, a roman catholic cemetry, then cathedral which was closed(even though it was Sunday) but we went in the small church and I think they were saying the Rosary in Hindi! After this we ate at a garden restaurant and then visited a marble factory which was stunning, then we picked up our luggage and went to the train station early to avoid the caos that a local festival often causes, our rickshaw driver wouldn't take us any later so we wandered to the moisque which was near the station-it was huge. Some of the children came to talk to us and I taught them a few English words using pictures in the guide book. We stayed there about 45mins before heading back to get our train, we shared our seating/sleeping area with some kids on the way back from a kick boxing competition which was strange but the girl with them around our age spoke good English and wanted to exchange details, she live sin Jaipur so maybe we will meet up with her again this week. We arrived in Jaipur at 1am and went straight home to bed!

Monday, first day at school went well. We reviewed colours and did some maths! Teh kids are all very keen to learn but it can be frustrating as tey will repeat and repeat what you say but they don't always understand! Today we tried to do I like......elephants, monkeys, cricket, etc and some of them got it but then writing it was all a bit much for some I think. And they are all at very different stages of understanding maths-I normally sit with the girls and do the simple stuff but they cheat and help each other! :-) Yesterday afternoon I went with Claire to Janta Mantar which is a huge astrology park near city palace, it was so cool and very accurate then we wandered to Hawa Mahal, the palace of the winds which is beautiful with stained glass and pink stone, which gives Jaipur it's name, the Pink city, before going to the biggest temple in Jaipur and seeing lots of monkeys there too.

We don't have school now for the next 2days as it it Teej festival in Jaipur where they celebrate women and the coming of the monsoon so that is pretty exciting and another excuse to get the Sari out! :-)

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