Hi everyone! Deepa here, for the first time. Kate was actually feeling a little tired, so she went to lie down instead of updating Kate's Korner (oh no! But she's not here to protest). Though I don't know if I have anything to say that Alice hasn't already written about. (By the way, if you're not reading this on a blog reader, make sure you go read Alice's post from today as well, not just the one on the top of the screen.)
Some things that Alice didn't mention about our lives at UCH: firstly, Annual Day! In our very first week at UCH, everyone was in quite a flurry over the upcoming anniversary of the founding of the Home. We were given the impression that it would be a big function, with a number of guests and perhaps some of the important donors. The children were preparing different types of performances, and many of them were taking part in a rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - they would sing the song and do a little dance, wearing special animal masks created by the volunteers, and would be accompanied by another group of children playing the song on the recorder.
The recorder groups were having quite a hard time with the song, especially since most of them were more interested in figuring out how to play songs from Sivaji (the most popular Tamil movie at the moment, which we saw when we were in Chennai - and it was a really good thing that we did, because it's seen as common knowledge at UCH!) on the recorders. Eventually Megan, the volunteer coordinator, decided that they would just have a separate recorder performance to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Hot Cross Buns". Then, we had lots of singing practice sessions, and all of us have now heard the words in the jungle, the mighty jungle more times that anyone should ever have to. (The ironic part is that the second verse is in the village, the quiet village - a line that was never, ever sung quietly!) AND we spent lots of our spare time creating and painting papier-mache masks for the children.
Long story short - Annual Day was not as big a shin-dig as we thought it would be, considering that the only people there were us and the staff. Who are always there. Oh well. It was still quite fun, except for the minor things that went wrong - the recorder group never learned the second part of "Mary" and instead repeated the first two lines over and over, the girl who was supposed to play the Lion (a three year old, no less) bowed out at the last moment, and then the singing group, who had practiced a simple little dance made up by Kate and Alice to do as well, completely forgot to sing because the background music was so loud. Again, oh well. The three of us did get to wear saris, which made up for it all!
That was just a tiny snippet, but Alice really did say it all! Plus we have to get going - we have spent so much time on the Internet today, you have no idea. Love to you all, especially to my family who have been haunting this blog so well! Thanks! And we'll come to Bangalore soon, we promise. The book circuit awaits!
-Deepa
Monday, October 22, 2007
We're Settling In....
HIIIII!!!!
I have to apoligize to my adoring public for not blogging in the past two weeks. I know, a criminal sin. Dad - try to limit mom's blog-checks to one a day perhaps? Thanks :)
First of all - thanks to everynoe who has sent us a letter, email, posted a blog comment....when I miss home, having that connection to you all feels wonderful. Also, thanks for the birthday wishes! Mommy, I got the birthday card! A classic Leslie Minor creation.
A bit on UCH! Uluru Children's Home is the brainchild of Dr. Chandran, a close college friend of Deepa's dad, Murali Sivarajan. (Hi, Murali!) When Dr. Chandran and several of his friends (including Murali) were in medical school, they bought land outside Kaddapakam with the intention of building homes there many years off into the future. Over time the friends ended up in all corners of the globe - Dr. Chandran in Melbourne, Australia. He and his wife wanted to start a school for young girls in the area whose families couldn't support them. He co-founded The East West Foundation to begin work on this project. First he built a health clinic in the area to gain the trust of the local people. The clinic now serves abotu 15,000 people from Alampara, Kaddapakam, and surrounding villages! Four years ago, the Children's Home opened its doors to its first child. Currently there at 39 kids in the home, most girls, though there are a handful of boys. They range from infants to mid-teens and come from Chennai, Pondicherry, and everywhere in between. What I didn't at all grasp before coming to UCH is that The East West Foundation encompasses far more than a children's home and a health clinic. The foundation is working hard to promote the local education which is far from acceptable at the moment. The children from Uluru go to the local school because they want the children to be integrated into the community. The Uluru kids also get tutoring at home, so the poor local education really effects the other local children the most. I don't yet know the half of what The East West Foundation is doing in the area, but I do know that it is not just a foundation for the individual children in the home - it is also promoting everyone in the community and the families of all the children in the home.
I guess we've been In Alamparai for over 3 weeks now, haven't we? I suppose I should be a bit chronological about this, but the lines of time are a bit blurred now that we're settled in to one place. When I last wrote things were tougher and newer. I'm so glad I have three months of Alamparai because I'll need every moment of it to grasp the place. I'm fully aware that I'll never understand India because I never will have grown up in rural India. But, by the same token, I'll never understand the folks over in Tennessee.....it's not such a curse, just an observation. I was talknig to an Australian who is working at Uluru Children's home for a year on education in the area about just this the other day. We were discussing a situation that she knows of where a woman has been unfairly disgraced and ostracized by her community (it seems a bridge of privacy to go too far into it here). Of course we couldn't possibly understand her neighbors that turned away from here. To understand, we would have had to grow up in rural Tamil Nadu. Also, to understand, I would have to believe that the woman deserves to be ostracized. I can't have both an insider's and an outsider's perspective on the situation, so I suppose by that token I don't truly want to "understand". I accept that and simply hope to make my own views encompass a bit more - not only in India, but India's a prime place to begin.
How we fit into this place.......our daily schedule. We walk the children to school every morning (it's quite fun and, of course, hoooottt). Deepa and I have been teaching at the school three days a week in the mornings. It's quite exhausting, but the more we teach there, the better I feel our lessons go. Deepa and I have really got a team-teaching groove going on at this point! We're getting good at picking up each other's slack, explaining points while the other writes on the chalkboard, clueing each other in when we're being too confusing, and making each other have fun! When we get there each morning, the headmaster sends us to either 6th, 7th, or 8th grade (they call it "standard", not grade). Then we teach until the headmaster sends us along to the next class. Clearly, the random, "popcorn-teach" method of classroom assignments makes preparation a bt tough. (: I enjoy it quite a lot though it is mentaly and physically draining. The kids are incredibly loud and we've got to keep things rolling to keep their attention up. Not speaking Tamil makes discipline a constant challenge, but I'm becoming more harsh than I thought possible!
The headmaster often stays and watches us teach which is a little weird....considering there at 300 students in a school where often times only 3 teachers show up and there are invariably not enough teachers for every room....it's kind of frustrating that we aren't let alone. Hopefully we will cease to be novelties soon and he'll give us some space. The other issue with having him there is that he answers our questions and tells the students what to say. Does he want to show off his English skills? Does he want to the students to look smart? I couldn't tell you.
We have UCH kids in a couple of our classes which is fun fun fun....the older kids are much more reserved with us than the younger ones. They're not quite so impressed with us just for existing, so it's been nice to have a way to spend time with them and show them we want to get to know them. The sole problem with having UCH kids in our classes is that they're way beyond their peers in English due to having English speaking volunteers around at home, and receiving extra tutoring. The academic levels of the kids are frighteningly varied in any given classroom. That makes teaching to 35 students quite complicated; we don't want to bore or overwhelm anyone....we're working on striking a balance. Possibly, the headmaster will allow us to teach smaller groups of shorter periods of time - we've already brought this up with him. This all goes on until 12:15 or so and then we walk home.
Lunchtime! (FYI, the rice is NOT killing me, I promise! I like Indian food, I swear. YES, there are really interesting side dishes and I'm learning to love potatoes here, something I I've never loved at home....I like breakfasts here a lot too. And we can buy fruit if we take a rickshaw to the market. So - don't worry about me!!!! And Ashok, although you focused your training on the north we DID have dosais for breakfast this morning and I thought of you and my first Delhi-dosa over a month ago! Also - hey, who're you pushing out of the car!!!). Most afternoons Kate teaches English classes at the local community center and another volunteer, Deepa, and I take it in turns joining her. These classes are for people ages 16-24 (about) who dropped out of school for some reason or another and want to learn English. There's a boys' class and a girls' class. Most of the boys are fishermen now, and the girls work hard all day too. They really truly want to be there and learn, so they're a pleasure to teach. Of course it is a mental challenge as well - coming up with good lesson plans and trying to get everyone talking. A couple weeks ago, after our first English class, Kate and I went swimming in the backwaters with a couple girls from the class - so fun! Neat to get to know people our age.
The evenings are spent playing with the kids, going for walks in the gorgeous surrounding area (backwaters, palm trees, a grassy expanse, wonderful sunsets.....), some frisbee now and again, and then just before dinner we tutor a pair of girls. We each have two pairs and we alternate between them. I adore tutoring, it's been an absolutely priceless way to get to know some of the shy girls....I think I'll talk about it later because I'm running out of steam and I want to do it justice!
MY BIRTHDAY!!! My b-day was on Saturday - the 20th. It was absolutely marvelous! Kate and Deepa truly outdid themselves and I was unbelievably touched. They planned a massive treasure hunt that tok me all morning....the first clue took OVER and hour and a half!
You sport! You jolly Peach!
Follow that papery pinnacle...
(Rapunzel syle!)
And your next destination will be REVEALED just after a word, starling in it's familiarity.
(On the back they wrote FIFTY FIVE using little fives....)
It's pretty confusing, right? I went off on sports - cricket for a while...the world series for all too long, and I even perused my iPod for 50 cent songs in a desperate moment. We've been quite avid readers on this trip so the papery pinnacle clearly led to a book of sorts......Eventually Enid Blyton came to me in a fit of inspiration - it was all me!! That was after at least 45 minutes of struggling. For all the non-anglophiles out there (sorry, Deepa! and meaning no offense to people who like Enid Blyton which is probably half my readship because half my readership seems to be blood related to Deepa!) Enid Blyton is a British children's writer that everyone in the English world besides Americans reads when they're growing up and Deepa was really obsessed as a youth. She bought a "Famous Five" (one of the series) book at a Delhi book far. So the You sport! You jolly Peach! bit was about being British. We also make fun of Deepa for saying things like, "torch!" for flashlight, "current" for electrical power, and "savory pie" for meat pie and "sweet pie" for....well...pie.
So I was briefly sidetracked to British things before latching onto Enid Blyton for good....I'll sumarize the rest....other clues led me to a word in the middle of the book that led me to a refridgerator and the next clue. A word scramble, a jumble, and a riddle later I found my treasure! Bangles, fruit, chocolate, and a plastic cricket bat! Wow this is an epicly long post! Well, we spent the afternoon celebrating the Saraswathi pooja with the girls. It was the holiday for the god Saraswathi in addition to the birthday of another girl at the home. So we watched the girls sing prayers and everyone dressed up in new, beautiful clothes, and we did a pooja. Also, they smashed some chocolate cake down our throats (I'm not kidding, the little girl who shares my birthday and I sat in front of everyone and the slammed it in our faces!). That evening we caught a bus to Pondi (Pondicherry) and had some birthday dinner thoguh I was already stuffed. Then we caught the night bus to Madurai where we are now. Gouri met us there!!!!! I'll talk about that excusion later because I'm still in the middle of it and this is the most epic blog post ever!
Love you all! I'll be sending Kate along to catch you up on the funny bits in a few minutes. Keep me updated on your lives!
Love,
~Alice
I have to apoligize to my adoring public for not blogging in the past two weeks. I know, a criminal sin. Dad - try to limit mom's blog-checks to one a day perhaps? Thanks :)
First of all - thanks to everynoe who has sent us a letter, email, posted a blog comment....when I miss home, having that connection to you all feels wonderful. Also, thanks for the birthday wishes! Mommy, I got the birthday card! A classic Leslie Minor creation.
A bit on UCH! Uluru Children's Home is the brainchild of Dr. Chandran, a close college friend of Deepa's dad, Murali Sivarajan. (Hi, Murali!) When Dr. Chandran and several of his friends (including Murali) were in medical school, they bought land outside Kaddapakam with the intention of building homes there many years off into the future. Over time the friends ended up in all corners of the globe - Dr. Chandran in Melbourne, Australia. He and his wife wanted to start a school for young girls in the area whose families couldn't support them. He co-founded The East West Foundation to begin work on this project. First he built a health clinic in the area to gain the trust of the local people. The clinic now serves abotu 15,000 people from Alampara, Kaddapakam, and surrounding villages! Four years ago, the Children's Home opened its doors to its first child. Currently there at 39 kids in the home, most girls, though there are a handful of boys. They range from infants to mid-teens and come from Chennai, Pondicherry, and everywhere in between. What I didn't at all grasp before coming to UCH is that The East West Foundation encompasses far more than a children's home and a health clinic. The foundation is working hard to promote the local education which is far from acceptable at the moment. The children from Uluru go to the local school because they want the children to be integrated into the community. The Uluru kids also get tutoring at home, so the poor local education really effects the other local children the most. I don't yet know the half of what The East West Foundation is doing in the area, but I do know that it is not just a foundation for the individual children in the home - it is also promoting everyone in the community and the families of all the children in the home.
I guess we've been In Alamparai for over 3 weeks now, haven't we? I suppose I should be a bit chronological about this, but the lines of time are a bit blurred now that we're settled in to one place. When I last wrote things were tougher and newer. I'm so glad I have three months of Alamparai because I'll need every moment of it to grasp the place. I'm fully aware that I'll never understand India because I never will have grown up in rural India. But, by the same token, I'll never understand the folks over in Tennessee.....it's not such a curse, just an observation. I was talknig to an Australian who is working at Uluru Children's home for a year on education in the area about just this the other day. We were discussing a situation that she knows of where a woman has been unfairly disgraced and ostracized by her community (it seems a bridge of privacy to go too far into it here). Of course we couldn't possibly understand her neighbors that turned away from here. To understand, we would have had to grow up in rural Tamil Nadu. Also, to understand, I would have to believe that the woman deserves to be ostracized. I can't have both an insider's and an outsider's perspective on the situation, so I suppose by that token I don't truly want to "understand". I accept that and simply hope to make my own views encompass a bit more - not only in India, but India's a prime place to begin.
How we fit into this place.......our daily schedule. We walk the children to school every morning (it's quite fun and, of course, hoooottt). Deepa and I have been teaching at the school three days a week in the mornings. It's quite exhausting, but the more we teach there, the better I feel our lessons go. Deepa and I have really got a team-teaching groove going on at this point! We're getting good at picking up each other's slack, explaining points while the other writes on the chalkboard, clueing each other in when we're being too confusing, and making each other have fun! When we get there each morning, the headmaster sends us to either 6th, 7th, or 8th grade (they call it "standard", not grade). Then we teach until the headmaster sends us along to the next class. Clearly, the random, "popcorn-teach" method of classroom assignments makes preparation a bt tough. (: I enjoy it quite a lot though it is mentaly and physically draining. The kids are incredibly loud and we've got to keep things rolling to keep their attention up. Not speaking Tamil makes discipline a constant challenge, but I'm becoming more harsh than I thought possible!
The headmaster often stays and watches us teach which is a little weird....considering there at 300 students in a school where often times only 3 teachers show up and there are invariably not enough teachers for every room....it's kind of frustrating that we aren't let alone. Hopefully we will cease to be novelties soon and he'll give us some space. The other issue with having him there is that he answers our questions and tells the students what to say. Does he want to show off his English skills? Does he want to the students to look smart? I couldn't tell you.
We have UCH kids in a couple of our classes which is fun fun fun....the older kids are much more reserved with us than the younger ones. They're not quite so impressed with us just for existing, so it's been nice to have a way to spend time with them and show them we want to get to know them. The sole problem with having UCH kids in our classes is that they're way beyond their peers in English due to having English speaking volunteers around at home, and receiving extra tutoring. The academic levels of the kids are frighteningly varied in any given classroom. That makes teaching to 35 students quite complicated; we don't want to bore or overwhelm anyone....we're working on striking a balance. Possibly, the headmaster will allow us to teach smaller groups of shorter periods of time - we've already brought this up with him. This all goes on until 12:15 or so and then we walk home.
Lunchtime! (FYI, the rice is NOT killing me, I promise! I like Indian food, I swear. YES, there are really interesting side dishes and I'm learning to love potatoes here, something I I've never loved at home....I like breakfasts here a lot too. And we can buy fruit if we take a rickshaw to the market. So - don't worry about me!!!! And Ashok, although you focused your training on the north we DID have dosais for breakfast this morning and I thought of you and my first Delhi-dosa over a month ago! Also - hey, who're you pushing out of the car!!!). Most afternoons Kate teaches English classes at the local community center and another volunteer, Deepa, and I take it in turns joining her. These classes are for people ages 16-24 (about) who dropped out of school for some reason or another and want to learn English. There's a boys' class and a girls' class. Most of the boys are fishermen now, and the girls work hard all day too. They really truly want to be there and learn, so they're a pleasure to teach. Of course it is a mental challenge as well - coming up with good lesson plans and trying to get everyone talking. A couple weeks ago, after our first English class, Kate and I went swimming in the backwaters with a couple girls from the class - so fun! Neat to get to know people our age.
The evenings are spent playing with the kids, going for walks in the gorgeous surrounding area (backwaters, palm trees, a grassy expanse, wonderful sunsets.....), some frisbee now and again, and then just before dinner we tutor a pair of girls. We each have two pairs and we alternate between them. I adore tutoring, it's been an absolutely priceless way to get to know some of the shy girls....I think I'll talk about it later because I'm running out of steam and I want to do it justice!
MY BIRTHDAY!!! My b-day was on Saturday - the 20th. It was absolutely marvelous! Kate and Deepa truly outdid themselves and I was unbelievably touched. They planned a massive treasure hunt that tok me all morning....the first clue took OVER and hour and a half!
You sport! You jolly Peach!
Follow that papery pinnacle...
(Rapunzel syle!)
And your next destination will be REVEALED just after a word, starling in it's familiarity.
(On the back they wrote FIFTY FIVE using little fives....)
It's pretty confusing, right? I went off on sports - cricket for a while...the world series for all too long, and I even perused my iPod for 50 cent songs in a desperate moment. We've been quite avid readers on this trip so the papery pinnacle clearly led to a book of sorts......Eventually Enid Blyton came to me in a fit of inspiration - it was all me!! That was after at least 45 minutes of struggling. For all the non-anglophiles out there (sorry, Deepa! and meaning no offense to people who like Enid Blyton which is probably half my readship because half my readership seems to be blood related to Deepa!) Enid Blyton is a British children's writer that everyone in the English world besides Americans reads when they're growing up and Deepa was really obsessed as a youth. She bought a "Famous Five" (one of the series) book at a Delhi book far. So the You sport! You jolly Peach! bit was about being British. We also make fun of Deepa for saying things like, "torch!" for flashlight, "current" for electrical power, and "savory pie" for meat pie and "sweet pie" for....well...pie.
So I was briefly sidetracked to British things before latching onto Enid Blyton for good....I'll sumarize the rest....other clues led me to a word in the middle of the book that led me to a refridgerator and the next clue. A word scramble, a jumble, and a riddle later I found my treasure! Bangles, fruit, chocolate, and a plastic cricket bat! Wow this is an epicly long post! Well, we spent the afternoon celebrating the Saraswathi pooja with the girls. It was the holiday for the god Saraswathi in addition to the birthday of another girl at the home. So we watched the girls sing prayers and everyone dressed up in new, beautiful clothes, and we did a pooja. Also, they smashed some chocolate cake down our throats (I'm not kidding, the little girl who shares my birthday and I sat in front of everyone and the slammed it in our faces!). That evening we caught a bus to Pondi (Pondicherry) and had some birthday dinner thoguh I was already stuffed. Then we caught the night bus to Madurai where we are now. Gouri met us there!!!!! I'll talk about that excusion later because I'm still in the middle of it and this is the most epic blog post ever!
Love you all! I'll be sending Kate along to catch you up on the funny bits in a few minutes. Keep me updated on your lives!
Love,
~Alice
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Pink People, The Indian Army, Rice Babies, and Shame, Auntie, SHAME!!!
Heyyyyyy everyone!
sorry it's been so long....we're been on the move and then finally settled into Uluru but not online much. So I haven't even written about Rishikesh! It ended up being my favorite part of our nothern travels. Cool temperatures! (AHHHH HEAVEN!!!) and a beautifully relaxing three days. The first day we were there we took a nap all mornign because we had overnight trained/rickshawed there which wasn't so hot and then decided to take a stroll. we didn't make it far. turns out we ran into a festival! It was so awesome! We followed the Festival along the Ganges river for six hours. there was a lot of dancing and super loud music and traditional dancing. And a lot of indian boys jumping around and a lot of pink and green powder thrown everywhere. Yeah so it turns out that stuff really hangs on. I was [pink for days. I'm already a slightly pink individual so when i say i was pink - i kid you not. Also - i have pink streaks in my hair now and probably will for a while! thank GOD my eyebrows are no longer pink. kate sort of joined me in the pink people revolution but needless to say deepa maintained her dignity. she's just cooler than us.
on our train from Delhi to Chennai we were in a car filled entirely with personnel from the Indian Navy and Air force....so ALL men ages 22-ish and then the three of us dead center. Of course we stand out naturally but I didn't make it any better by getting locked in the bathroom. Twice. Kate also got locked into the bathroom after making fun of my for about 15 minutes. HA.
We've been at Uluru for a week now but it's really hard to know what to say. Especially because I know I'll be there for so much longer, it feels strange to make any sweeping generalization about the experience yet. But I'm getting into it. IT was a bit rough at first. Scary to know that I had just come to my home for the next three months - it made the fact that i was away from home all the more real. Actually, it was quite difficult for the first few days. I expected a bit of a honeymoon/easy time to begin with just because of things I've read about the place, people's experiences. But it wasn't. I felt very lost and not under control. I didn't really relate to the kids to well in the beginning and was freaking out about how it was going to change though I knew it would eventually. The kids are spunky. At first they were difficult because i didn't at all have the lay of the land and they were so hyperactive....but I'm falling in love with them, of course. This is very odd....but after working at camp Patterson all summer, it was VERY strange to be surrounded by so many typically developing kids in the beginning. It's still strange. I really like the other volunteers that are at Uluru right now. They're all Australian, fun, laid-back, and great with the kids, so I'm fast falling in love with Australia as well as India! We've also all developed a strong liking for the Aussie accent!
Already in the first week I"ve been pegged as the artsy girl and it's pretty fun! I've done about a million henna jobs for the kids.....we had an annual day celebration yesterday and they all wanted to be prettied up. It's a great chance to spend one-on-one time with them. I've bonded with a couple kids in particular....but like I said - it's hard to really say much about it all just yet.
What I CAN say - I don't like white rice. Turns out....that's kind of rough when you're living in South India......for the first few days i ate it anyway...but I"m just throwing away heaps of it now and they're starting to notice and give me less, thank god. Really...rice is everywhere...it's pretty comical. One of the volunteers always talks about her "rice baby" aka the rice weight she's puting on....although most people DO lose weight in India....Kate and I both are stilll craving fruit hard core.....ahhh fruit. This is a sort of silly thing to be writing about on my blog - but it's a bit daunting to try to sum up my life whereas my feeligns for fruit are very straight forward.
Shame, AUNTIE, SHAME!!!! All the kids call us Kate Auntie, Alice Auntie, and Deepa Auntie. (Though a few call us akka....big sister) The dress code in rural India is pretty intense. If they see your knee.....you're basically running around naked. Anytime you "expose yourself" which we did on accident before we figured it out....the kids yell - "Shame, Auntie, SHAME!!" and we find it pretty funny/intense.....The three of us have been running every other day and we have to run in pants so Deepa and I have been running in these billowy, multicolored polka-dotted pants covered in all sorts of sweat and dirt. Though I did wash mine yesterday, mom!
I have to go....I'll talk more about the children's home once we've had time to mull things over more. there's definitely a lot more I could say now but I'm sure my thoughts will be more complete next time I write.
I love you all!
It means more to me than i can express to get letters/emails from you. thanks for the letters, daddy
the address youre using is right except that you should include "Off Alampara Beach Road" after the line that says No 1 Kamal Avenue.
LOVE,
~Alice
sorry it's been so long....we're been on the move and then finally settled into Uluru but not online much. So I haven't even written about Rishikesh! It ended up being my favorite part of our nothern travels. Cool temperatures! (AHHHH HEAVEN!!!) and a beautifully relaxing three days. The first day we were there we took a nap all mornign because we had overnight trained/rickshawed there which wasn't so hot and then decided to take a stroll. we didn't make it far. turns out we ran into a festival! It was so awesome! We followed the Festival along the Ganges river for six hours. there was a lot of dancing and super loud music and traditional dancing. And a lot of indian boys jumping around and a lot of pink and green powder thrown everywhere. Yeah so it turns out that stuff really hangs on. I was [pink for days. I'm already a slightly pink individual so when i say i was pink - i kid you not. Also - i have pink streaks in my hair now and probably will for a while! thank GOD my eyebrows are no longer pink. kate sort of joined me in the pink people revolution but needless to say deepa maintained her dignity. she's just cooler than us.
on our train from Delhi to Chennai we were in a car filled entirely with personnel from the Indian Navy and Air force....so ALL men ages 22-ish and then the three of us dead center. Of course we stand out naturally but I didn't make it any better by getting locked in the bathroom. Twice. Kate also got locked into the bathroom after making fun of my for about 15 minutes. HA.
We've been at Uluru for a week now but it's really hard to know what to say. Especially because I know I'll be there for so much longer, it feels strange to make any sweeping generalization about the experience yet. But I'm getting into it. IT was a bit rough at first. Scary to know that I had just come to my home for the next three months - it made the fact that i was away from home all the more real. Actually, it was quite difficult for the first few days. I expected a bit of a honeymoon/easy time to begin with just because of things I've read about the place, people's experiences. But it wasn't. I felt very lost and not under control. I didn't really relate to the kids to well in the beginning and was freaking out about how it was going to change though I knew it would eventually. The kids are spunky. At first they were difficult because i didn't at all have the lay of the land and they were so hyperactive....but I'm falling in love with them, of course. This is very odd....but after working at camp Patterson all summer, it was VERY strange to be surrounded by so many typically developing kids in the beginning. It's still strange. I really like the other volunteers that are at Uluru right now. They're all Australian, fun, laid-back, and great with the kids, so I'm fast falling in love with Australia as well as India! We've also all developed a strong liking for the Aussie accent!
Already in the first week I"ve been pegged as the artsy girl and it's pretty fun! I've done about a million henna jobs for the kids.....we had an annual day celebration yesterday and they all wanted to be prettied up. It's a great chance to spend one-on-one time with them. I've bonded with a couple kids in particular....but like I said - it's hard to really say much about it all just yet.
What I CAN say - I don't like white rice. Turns out....that's kind of rough when you're living in South India......for the first few days i ate it anyway...but I"m just throwing away heaps of it now and they're starting to notice and give me less, thank god. Really...rice is everywhere...it's pretty comical. One of the volunteers always talks about her "rice baby" aka the rice weight she's puting on....although most people DO lose weight in India....Kate and I both are stilll craving fruit hard core.....ahhh fruit. This is a sort of silly thing to be writing about on my blog - but it's a bit daunting to try to sum up my life whereas my feeligns for fruit are very straight forward.
Shame, AUNTIE, SHAME!!!! All the kids call us Kate Auntie, Alice Auntie, and Deepa Auntie. (Though a few call us akka....big sister) The dress code in rural India is pretty intense. If they see your knee.....you're basically running around naked. Anytime you "expose yourself" which we did on accident before we figured it out....the kids yell - "Shame, Auntie, SHAME!!" and we find it pretty funny/intense.....The three of us have been running every other day and we have to run in pants so Deepa and I have been running in these billowy, multicolored polka-dotted pants covered in all sorts of sweat and dirt. Though I did wash mine yesterday, mom!
I have to go....I'll talk more about the children's home once we've had time to mull things over more. there's definitely a lot more I could say now but I'm sure my thoughts will be more complete next time I write.
I love you all!
It means more to me than i can express to get letters/emails from you. thanks for the letters, daddy
the address youre using is right except that you should include "Off Alampara Beach Road" after the line that says No 1 Kamal Avenue.
LOVE,
~Alice
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