Random updates from India....

3^rd May 2013:

The whole village got together on 1^st May to celebrate St Joseph’s Day. The town (Josephnagar) is named after the Saint so they decorated the church, had a special mass with lots of visiting priests, had fireworks and paraded a massive float with a shrine of St Joseph through the village. The girls dressed up in their fancy clothes for the whole day and enjoyed the evening’s festivities.

Usually there are regular power cuts in this village (we can go all day without power sometimes) but on 1^st May there seemed to be power all day to power the lights that they had hung around the church. Although now, on 3^rd May, we haven’t had any power since about 6pm yesterday evening – we seem to have run out!!! This may also be due to the fact that we had an amazing thunder and lightning storm yesterday that lit up the sky for over an hour. The town seems to be getting powered by generators today but I don’t think they mind as they got some well needed rain last night.

Now that we are no longer rehearsing The Wiz with the girls we have started a new programme with them. This will include daily exercise at 7.30am where we make sure that the girls are ready to start the day. There is usually a chorus of “it’s paining” to which the stock response from both Molly and I is “it’s meant to hurt!”. The exercise that the girls were doing before we arrived involved pointing their toe and lifting their leg off the ground 10 times before changing and repeating on the other leg. We have devised a 30 minute workout that involves running, skipping, squats, jump squats, plank, pushups and yoga to finish. We are trying to teach the girls that they need to look after their bodies and exercise is one way of doing this. Yesterday we also worked with the girls on their English and played a game that incorporated some spelling too. Later on in the day we walked down to the (dried up) river and played cricket with the new cricket set that Molly and I bought in Cochin and Nandini taught me a song in Canada. Shalini also taught me some of the names of the parts of the body in Canada too. Over the next couple of weeks we will also go into Hassan to watch a Bollywood movie (we were meant to go yesterday but there are elections going on and it wouldn’t be safe as there would be lots of crowds and Molly and I won’t blend in), paint a mural of The Wiz and a mural of Surfing in Kerala and do some baking/ cooking.

A couple of days ago Molly and I created a presentation for the girls on personal hygiene and monthly cycles. As I mentioned before, some of the girls are really bad at taking baths so we explained to them why we need to stay clean and what can happen if we don’t. We also showed them the best way to clean their teeth and explained that this needed to be done at least two times a day. Lastly we took the bigger girls aside and spoke to them about the female reproductive system, changes during puberty and monthly cycles. I believe that in the Hindu faith, periods are seen as a dirty, negative thing that is embarrassing. We explained that all of the changes that their bodies are going through are natural and that they should come and speak with us if they have any concerns or questions. The girls were interested to see the diagram that we had pulled off the internet of the female reproductive system and had a few good questions for us at the end. I think we helped them to understand a little bit more but I guess we’ll wait and see if their habits change.

7^th May 2013

This weekend Molly and I took a trip into Mysore to tour the palace and relax after a straight month with the girls. I never felt unsafe but I did feel awkward with the level of staring in our direction at points. This started on the train (which cost 35p/ 50c for the 3 hour journey!) as it was obvious that we were the first white people they’d ever seen. Add to that the fact that I had my shoulders out (!) and Molly is almost 6’ tall - we were never going to be able to blend in! I got up to give my seat to an older lady midway through the journey and stood near the door to get a good view of the scenery. This meant that all the men who got on at the next stops stood in the doorways instead of moving into the carriage so that they could “accidentally” bump into the white girl. One man blatantly put his hand on my bum to move past me (which took him a lot longer than it should!) but that was as bad as it got. Once we arrived in Mysore we were asked a couple of times if people could take photos of us and children turned and ran as soon as they spotted us! We were also targeted a lot by beggars asking for money which was to be expected.

Mysore palace, however, was stunning (photos to follow later) and they lit it up on the Sunday before we left which was really special. I was interested to see that, as tourists, we had to pay over 10 x the amount to get in as natives did! We also went to a spa and had an authentic Indian head massage along with visiting Chamundi Hill (one of 8 sacred hills in South India) and eating a well-deserved pizza and diet coke (rice 3 x a day washed down with water can become a little much!). One interesting thing that I saw was cows just roaming free in the streets, eating rubbish. They stopped traffic as they are so well respected that they won’t be moved on until they’re ready to go of their own accord. I also saw a man pulling recyclable rubbish out of the bin presumably to sell later in the day and lots of scary driving (horns galore and no rules that I could see!).

Once we arrived in Hassan the girls met us at the station and we went to see our first Bollywood movie. It was brilliant! It cost 800 rupees total for 14 people to see the movie (this is approximately $16 or £11) and it was fantastic fun. The auditorium erupted when each lead character was seen for the first time (much like seeing theatre in America) and deafening whistles filled the air when the lead female, a lady who is famous in Bollywood movies, came on. The dances were wonderfully cheesy, the voice dubbing over the movie was hilariously obvious and the talking dogs looked like something straight off YouTube! My personal favourite, however, was the music. It would swell in a dramatic fashion as the actor would react theatrically into the camera or if the action was slowed down for dramatic effect (when there was a fight or a verbal disagreement). The girls enjoyed it a lot and I was pleased we’d managed to share the experience with them.

I have no internet at the moment at the boarding house (I've come into the city specifically for the internet today) so I apologise if there isn't much contact over the next few weeks.