I had the extreme pleasure yesterday of visiting this remarkable train which has been set up under the Rajiv Ghandi Foundation as an awareness raising campaign all over India. This is an entire fitted out train of about 7 carriages. It's administered by the National Council for AIDS Control (NACO). It travels around India and stops for a day or two at each place (just parks at a pre-determined station platform) - then there are tents and displays and inaugurations by VIPs on the platform. People come along and enter one end of the train and move through the very well done inter-active at times presentations on 'most' (read on) things to do with AIDS and HIV. The really brilliant thing is that at each stop (after obviously a lot of effective organisation) local HIV and ... read more

I have only been riding my new Enfield 350cc motorcycle a couple of days now in Bhubaneswar and thought I should write down these thoughts before I become just another participant in this web of conspiracy against every ‘official’ traffic ordinance ever written into law! The latter is bound to happen to me (indeed it must for there to be any chance of survival out there at all - you sure can’t beat them so… !). I have already broken the most important unofficial (but certainly written - see below) rule of driving in India. That is to continuously beep your horn (the louder the horn you have the better) - in fact those who have been to India can attest to the sign written on the back of every truck and every auto rickshaw and ... read more

Sorry - this is just text info about my work - no pics this time - boring I know!! I work as an “Organisational Development Advisor” for the Institute for Development Progams and Research in Bhubaneswar, Odisha (formerly known as Orissa), India. This is a 12 month placement under the Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) UK program (HIV and AIDS stream). I was recruited as a Health Manager generic position by Australian Volunteers International who are in a partnership with VSO to recruit Australians into the program. VSO has an Indian office in Delhi (VSO India) which manages about 60 foreign volunteers across the country. The largest number would be from the UK with many from the Philippines, a number of Canadians and Americans, one at least from Africa that I know of, and 4 Australians. For ... read more

Ah - is there anything more sublime than a really good lassi taken on a hot day in India? Yes of course this is a rhetorical question for those seasoned Indiaphiles out there. For those completely out of the ‘know’ - what is a lassi? Here is one definition lifted off the web: n., pl., las•sis. A beverage made of yogurt and water and flavored with spices, fruit, or other ingredients. Lassis can be taken sweet or salty - but let’s cut to the chase here and just talk sweet OK? Because ‘that’s what I’m talkin’ about!’ AND I am NOT talkin’ about the tourist wanker fruit flavoured lassi (sorry, even though these can be splendid indeed - a fruit smoothie really) - I am talkin’ about traditional plain (allowing for all the acceptable and ... read more

Attached are some shots of my new 'flat' - a kind of bedsitter affair but quite roomy (for me anyway). AND.. for those thinking of coming to visit I am going to rig up a curtain divide and get a bed roll (for me) for such times - should work for the odd couple of nights - anything longer might not! This place is actually physically attached to the building where the office I work from is - and upstairs is the home of the family of Sarita - the woman whose mother started this work (see next blog about the NGO itself). I was not that enamoured at first with the prospect of a "room attached to the office" and was going to look at houses in the area. But having got here and offered ... read more