....as I am off on vacation bright and early on Tuesday morning for a long whole day travelling by auto, rail (south to Vizag) and air (to east Mumbai and then north onto Jaipur) to the opposite corner of India, to Rajasthan. For the next 2 weeks I shall be rejoining friends Judy and Catherine on part of their grand tour of India. We shalll be visiting Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Bikaner. I'm looking forward to ............turbans, camels (although they sit horse riding style here!), sand, forts, havelis, lakes, boats, Pink Cities, architectures, northern Indian food.... but not looking forward to tourists! Posts and pictures when I return.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
I'm a celebrity - Araku Valley
In eastern Andhra Pradesh lies the small village of Araku, nesting in green, lushly vegetated hillsides peaking at all of 2000 feet. This village is on the tourist trail - at least for some of the volunteers in the south of Orissa and for me and my two recent visitors from home. The train journey up from Vizag is beautiful, zigzagging through tunnels and aside waterfalls and giving vistas across the wide open valleys as we steadily climbed upwards. This was Judith and Catherine's first experience of an Indian train, but for me it was old hat and I even fell asleep for part of the trip in the upper bunk of our First Class(!) compartment.
We'd been trying to book our hotel by telephone for months, having been recommended it by fellow volunteer Margaret but no one seemed to want to answer one phone number and the other rung as unavailable. The AP Tourist Board web site wasn't any more helpful, and so we ended up just turning up. No problem - it was almost empty, I think 1 other Indian family were staying and us. Clearly not a lot of people come here!
For me the first night was sheer delight - cool and so quiet! No train noise. I slept like the proverbial log, out for the count in two minutes flat.
The market was in full swing and ladies were sitting round selling their produce. Piles of tomatoes, potatoes etc neatly laid out in front of them. I explained what some of the more exotic vegetables were and that when a seller did not have scales this was how she indicated how much/how many could be purchased for some amount. Clearly some ladies were better at judging similar sized piles than others. I explained that my NGO works with Women's Self Help Groups on Livelihood projects some of which involved vegetable cultivation projects. But that we also work with the SHG to get them into microfinance - to encourage ladies to purchase weighing scales with a small loan from the SHG. Having a scale means she has more control how much she gets for her produce.
We slowly sauntered up and down the one street town. We were clearly attracting attention.
Then as we walked along the road a man came over taking our picture and saying Local Press I was a bit doubtful but we complied and had our photo taken. I can sometimes be a bit hesitant taking people's photos, because I do know what it is like to appear to be an object to be photographed with. It happens a lot here, someone comes up and ask to take a picture - not just of you but of you with their whole family, with their wife and children! Anyways the Pressman took our photo and we went on our merry way oblivious to the implications of it until the following day when we visited the Tribal Museum and the lady on the desk showed us the local paper with our photo in it! Celebrities! And yes the whole village knew about us. Clearly not a lot of European tourists come this way. Later my Telugu speaking colleague translated for us as we wanted to make sure it was appropriate. It was, just advocating tourism in the area and citing us as examples.
Amazing to find a Botanic Garden in such a small place as Araku. It was well attended, actually had flowers on show, and an amazing amount of butterflies fluttering around - including a fast green and black one about 3inches across, and some giant spiders, from tip of leg to tip of leg just short of the size of one's palm, hanging in their webs spun across the plant stalks under the trees.
Then it was back to Vizag, this time by car doing the site seeing bits on the way - stop at the local coffee plantation, finding peppercorns growing on the trees - the first time I had ever seen these growing wild!
Just a fun day being a tourist! For me such a nice change.
Some of the photos used here are reproduced with kind permission from Judy and Catherine
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Visiting our Old Age Home
I have visited the Old Age Home that Shakti runs 3 times now. The old folk are getting used to me being around and there is always a warm welcome. When Judy and Catherine were here last week we took a trip over to see them en route to our School visit with a couple of our office staff. As soon as we got through the house gate we were met by two of the women who came over and chatted away merrily in Oriya to me. The more I visit, the more I am getting to know the characters, the quiet ones, the weaker ones. As they get used to me the women are becoming more forward, touching and hold my hands, almost hugging me. Very unusual here, but very nice. What they were saying is still beyond me past the basics, and my attempts at Oriya often produce a few laughs from both men and women. And I always like to give our ex teacher an opportunity to speak to me in his good but very rusty English. For this visit, most of the old folk came out to sit on the veranda to meet and hear about our other visitors, after all it is always nice to see new faces and meet new people and a good excuse to get an entry in our visitors book :) Thanks for coming ladies and brightening their day!
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Take one visiting teacher, a bag full of odds & ends, a room full of children, mix well....
This is the third batch that Shakti has provided schooling for: its second in Rayagada Town and it also did one set in Ramnaguda village. Its success rate is amazing - only 3 students have ever failed to go into mainstream school out of 200 students. All 3 were girls who married - and that of course says a lot in itself.
This is done on a shoe string budget and donations. The NCLP (National Child Labour Project) model budget is for Rupees 244,400 for a 50 pupil school (at current exchange rates that is around 3400 GBP, 4000 Euro or just under 5500 US$). The India Government used to provide money through the NCLP but no funds have been released from this project for the past 2 years. There was also the Indian Government's Mid Day Meal Scheme, to provide a full meal at lunch time of rice, dalh, vegetables and once a week eggs. Sadly now that money is drying up and only being directed to State Primary Schools. In addition, tiffin/breakfast in the morning is required by these children who would otherwise often come to school having had nothing to eat (after all who can learn on an empty stomach?). Despite these funding issues, over the past two years Shakti has continued to support its school financially and to provide emotional and financial support to the children's families. Unfortunately, the teachers' pay (as per the model budget) is very low, only 1500 Rupees per month. Luckily we have a great lady teacher Bandita, one teacher position remains unfilled, and a man Jaganath, from our project staff, helps out and manages logistics and finances for the school. The school employs a local lady as cook.
Amazingly this was my first visit to our school in the year I have been here. It is completely the other side of town to our office. I have however met some of its ex-students. One day as Mr P and I sheltered under a roadside stall holders shack from a monsoon downpour after visiting one of the many parts of the Indian government bureaucracy about my visa, we were surrounded by a bunch of boys and young men. All keen of course to practice their English, but refreshingly mostly wanting to tell Mr P which school grade they were now in, "I'm in the 8th grade" was said with such pride. They had all gone to the Shakti School, and all knew Mr P. For once I wasn't the centre of attention :)
Then it was the unfurling of the school banner and the obligatory group photo session. The whole day was a hoot! I'm not sure whether the kids, Catherine, Judy or myself enjoyed it most.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Diwali 2010
It was really great to see the staff, mostly young, men and women, smiling and letting go
Numerous roman candles, rockets, white showers, catherine wheels or "chakras" and others were set alit.
In India at this time, houses abound with candles, and the outside of the hotel was decked out with Happy Diwali sign and the entrance foyer had a lovely colourful typically Indian Rangoli design for the day.
The next picture is from the day before in Arakku where the village market was in full throw and sugar cane was everywhere. I did wonder why there was so much around and it wasn't till the following day as we got to Vizag in the evening that we found out why....The markets were again filled with sugar cane. Very pleased young men were to be seen standing with tall bunches of sugar cane stacks waiting to catch the bus or auto home. Seemingly these are prized as gifts for the women in their lives - the notorious Indian sweet tooth again!
But absolutely great fun! And a chance to explore the night settings and capabilities of my new camera.
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