Monday, 28 June 2010

Welcome, bienvenue, benvenidos, benvenuti, welkam, marhaban, huan ying, swagat

in other words welcome. My blog has recently attracted a few new readers. I'm so pleased. So I wanted to say a thank you for stopping by and I hope you will find enough of interest for you to stay and post some more comments. Of course I have not forgotten all my friends and colleagues who have been supporting me in reading this blog for the past year either directly here, via RSS fee or on facebook. It is great to know you are all interested in what I am up to and how I am experiencing my time in India.

Perhaps a reminder is timely about why this blog exists. This post tells you what it is all about, this post describes where it is happening and this post describes my rather eventful, first few days here in what is, for now, my home.

So why ashramblings? When trying to come up with a title for my blog I asked around, hoping for some inspirational suggestions - as it happened I only got one (thanks due to Dean) because basically everyone agreed it was such a good one and couldn't be bettered.  It is of course a play on words - my surname, Ash, the Indian word ashram and the fact that I would probably be rambling on about this, that and the other.

The blog is meant to be a personal reflection on the experience of living here in Rayagada, the good and the bad points of it, nit dressed up to look good. It is, as I knew it would be, a very isolated voluntary placement, with nothing much in the way of a social life as I would know it back home. It is a placement with challenges - linguistic , cultural, and personal. So on one level I hope the blog would be helpful to anyone else who ever was considering doing a similar thing, on the other I hoped my friends would be interested in what I was doing, and finally I wanted to have a focus and record my experiences and my feelings as and when, throughout my time here.

How well I am achieving any of these I can only guess, but suffice to say having comments posted quite makes my day. And finding I have new readers, however they managed to find me, is just amazing. Thank you, merci, muchas gracias,  grazie, ta tumas, shukran, xie xie, dhanyavad,  

4 comments:

  1. Hey Sheila, the title is missing "benvinda"...to welcome a Brazilian living in Bahrain...kkkk

    Ok. I can live with Marhaba.

    www.inaier.blogspot.com

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  2. Well a benvinda it is then. Thanks for posting your blog link which I will take a look at and see how come a Brazilian, speaking English and Arabic?, is living in Bahrain :) I'm intrigued to know how you found me - and how you had time to find me amidst the clamour of the World Cup! she says assuming you, like most of your fellow countrymen and women, are as fanatical about the great game of football as my fellow Scots are, albeit sadly in a different league :(

    So once again welcome and hope you'll stick around

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  3. Hi Sheila.

    This is a blast from the past-it's Audrey-ex St Andrews, Gatty etc. Nice to hear about your experiences in India and to know that you haven't lost the art of appreciation when it comes to a good cuppa!

    I'm not writing with good news I'm afraid and sorry this is so public but I had no other way of getting in touch. YOu know that Jane has been ill off and on for some years now, and unfortunately her illness has reached a point where a cure is no longer possible. The time she has left may be very limited, so she has asked that you phone her on her mobile, if at all possible. She would love to hear from you-despite everything she is keeping positive and cheerful and still loves a good chat!
    Hope you will be able to make contact,
    Best wishes,

    Audreyx

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  4. You left out 'go raibh maith agat'

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