After my first night at the orphange and once the children had all gone off to school, I decided to take a walk around the area. It is stunning as you can see. I was even invited to sit on the verandah with a lovely old lady. We had a chat for about 20 minutes with neither of us speaking the same language as the other. But we managed. She asked if I would like a drink of water and I worked out that she was making wicks for oil burners out of goats wool. Then her husband came back with a wicker basket on his back with grass and weeds for the calf. We then sat and admired the view from their house. The roll of thunder in the distance and the blackening sky pursuaded ... read more

Just to let you all know that a new blog will be coming soon and that my Indian sim card does not work here. So if you have sent me a text and I didn't answer, now you know why! Just use my Aussie number, that still works. Bye, B.... read more

The next day we said goodbye to our hosts and headed down a path this time and the scenery was even more beautiful. People would happily pay to go on hikes through this part of the country. I am not into difficult walks but this was something else. Another maniacal 4 hour drive then we are back in Shimla at a more central and better hotel - or so we thought. Shimla really is beautiful. Lots of little narrow markets, large wide walk ways with views of the Himalayas. Good food - even booze! The weather was cool but bright, we loved it. The hotel certainly wasn’t 4 star, but was reasonably priced and boasted ‘hot and cold running water”. Some places only have cold. Unfortunately we only had water - hot or cold, for half ... read more

Mrs. Nandi, the principal really wants to change the way learning occurs in the school and we are working hard together to achieve this. I have been working at the bottom, nursery class, as we figured this was the best place to start. There are 40 three and four year olds in this class and when I first went in, they were sitting in rows, with their bags on their desks doing nothing. Some were even asleep. The teacher was calling them out one by one to write the letters of the alphabet in their copy books. BORING! Things have changed as you can see from the photographs. I have made the desks into groups, bags are kept outside the classroom and there is a different activity on each group of tables, which I have introduced ... read more

I went to the wedding of a staff member at school about 10 days ago (sorry, got behind on my blog) with a few people from the ashram. The usual Indian type where everybody mills around, eats from a huge choice of food being freshly cooked and drinks lots of Fanta and Sprite. No, no alcohol! It was fun and a great excuse to get dressed up, which is something I never have a need to do at the ashram. Luckily there was an amazing pure silk embroidered salwar kameez which fitted perfectly in the trunk. I’ve told you about ‘the trunk’ before. We did get to see the groom, but the photo didn’t come out too well so I haven’t included it. We left at about 11.30.p.m, really late for us early risers and the ... read more