May. Summer holidays

May: Summer holidays

Emily, Jo and I left for our summer tour at 5AM on the 26th of April, just two days after annual day. We set off to Ongole train station to catch our train to Chennai. Unfortunately for us the train was delayed and we had a flight to catch in Chennai. Our solution was to get a taxi all the way to the airport. It was a bit more expensive but we reached the airport in time. We were flying to India's daunting capital New Delhi. 

None of us wanted to stay in Delhi long as it has reportedly got a lot of scary men there, and we weren't wrong. We arrived at night, our driver kept driving us down scary alleys in an attept to find our hotel. He was constantly getting out and asking directions, leaving us alone in the rickety mini-van. He was a lisenced taxi man and he wasn't scary. It was the men outside he was talking to that had my blood pumping with fear. In the end he found our hotel which was run by two, very friendly and not scary Sikh man. They made us feel a bit safer after our horror ride to the hotel. The next day we spent the morning at the splendid Red Fort. There was tourists about, along with playful chipmunks that skipped through the grass. The palaces inside were nice and not unlike the Taj Mahal. For lunch we found a McDonalds. My first in a very long time I'm proud to say. No cow meat though obviously, but I still enjoyed my chicken Maharaja Mac. :) We had a train to get to Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) that afternoon, so we headed off after lunch. The train to Jaisalmer was eventful. While we were still in Delhi station, apparently I tried to climb to the top bed of the train and fell off backwards, hit my head and blacked out. I don't remember this but I can still feel the lump on my head! It was a bit embarassing and I woke up with an Indian man flicking water on me. It was a new experience that I'm not in a hurry to try again. The train was long, but I slept well. Eventhough Jo kept waking me up to check I was alright. She was worried that I was going to die in my sleep. I'm grateful for her concern now, however at the time a more slumbersome Holly did not appreciate it. You got to love Jo though. :)

Jaisalmer is in west Rajasthan, sitting in the Thar Desert. It was stunning there, but painfully hot. 45 degrees celsius on our first day. We could see the amazing fort from the rooftop of our quaint little hotel. Our hotel was lovely. The father and son who run the place stated outright upon arrival that we should consider them like a second family and Jaisalmer our home away from home. Everyone was so sweet, it felt like we were trully being cared for. The following day we visited the famous fort. While there we did a little shopping and visited the Jaisalmer Fort palace museum. The girls and I love museums and history so we were on a winner there then. After we found a 'haveli' turned restaurant outside the fort. The food was divine and we had a lovely view of the fort. Jaisalmer is in the heart of the desert so it meant we could go on a camel trek. We only went for about 2 hours, but we had a jeep ride earlier which showed us loads of cool, old monuments, cenotaphs and an abandoned village. The camels were awesome. A lot taller than I anticipated. Jo got a camel to herself, while Emily and I had to share with the two camel drivers. It was to Jo's advantage really, as Emily's man kept groping her leg and my guy kept singing really loudly, out of tune, really close to my ears. When we finally got to the 'desert' bit, as we had been walking through shrubbery and villages all the hour and a half we'd been riding, we became a tad disappointed. The 'desert' was just a big sand dune, littered with empty bottles or alcohol and other rubbish, and then a sort of savannah which had civilisation and cars etc roaming through it. It wasn't the mystical desert I was expecting, but to be fair we did only trek for about an hour and half. The whole thing was an overall good experience though. We all enjoyed it. Groping and bad singing aside. :)

Our next stop on our Indian adventure was Rajasthan's capital Jaipur. We got hounded as soon as we got off the train. It wasn't fun. We got a tuk-tuk to our hotel as fast as we could to escape the chaos. Our hotel just wasn't up to scratch. The people were very rude and they had a well praised restaurant that had no food other than toast! We survived though. In Jaipur we visited the Hawa Mahal, the city palace, Nahargarh Fort, Jantar Mantar, Amber Fort and the monkey temple. My favourite site was the Hawa Mahal. I could feel the history of the place around me and I felt like a Rajput princess walking through the palace. The forts on the other hand, were a pain. Walking up a mountain (to the fort) in midday Indian summer heat is never a good idea. The monkey temple was fun, but since I've lived in India I've grown bitter towards monkeys. At home in Tangutur they're vicious creatures, and everyone including me is a bit scared of them. This meant I was always on edge and fidgiting with fear as we ent into the temple that is world reknowned for its swarms of pesky primates. There was indeed lots of monkeys and some were quite bad tempered, but the baby ones were cute. I enjoyed my time there, but I'm not going to plan another visit. I'm just not a monkey person and I accept that. So all in all Jaipur was OK.

The next place on our tour was Amritsar in Punjab. While we were there we visited the beautiful Golden Temple and we went to the Pakistan border. The temple was breathtaking and there were big Koi fish swimming in the holy water. The whole place was packed with Sikhs and everyone was very welcoming and friendly towards tourists and non-Sikhs alike. There was a very graphic Sikh art museum within the temple grounds. It contained vivid art work of people being skinned, boiled alive, cut in half from head to toe, peoples babies and children being stabbed, bricked alive, dismembered... It wasn't a very Holly friendly place. after that horrific ordeal of the 'museum' we left for the Pakistan border. There were lots of Indians and some foreigners. We all gathered at the border gates. We could clearly see Pakistan and their people filling the stands around the border, just as we were. I was getting very excited and patriotic. What happens is the border soldiers on each side, all adorned in their fancy uniforms with big fan turbans, march up towards eachother, doing big kicks on their way. Then they open the gates, beat their chests at eachother and then finally shake hands before they stride away galliantly back into their rightful countries. While this was taking place the audiences on each side were roaring, chanting and screaming with national pride. I think it's safe to say I got really into it. I was waving my Indian flag and chanting 'Hindustan!' at the top of my lungs. After the show was over we all got to go right up to the border and look at Pakistan. The people of each respected country were smiling and waving at eachother. We got so close to Pakistan that we were literally about 3 metres away. I count that as going to Pakistan, so I've been to Pakistan. I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

Next stop was Agra in Uttar Pradesh, home to many famous sites and monuments, one of which is the Taj Mahal. We got up very early the morning of the Taj to avoid crowds and put on our sarees. The entry fee for Indian nationals is 20 rupees (20p). The price for foreigners is 750 rupees (£7.50)! All Indian tourist places have seperate fees with foreigner prices always being at least ten times more costly. I think it's a bit racist if you ask me, but none of us wanted to argue with the concession man at 6 in the morning. The Taj Mahal wa beautiful, but a bit of an anticlimax. It still hasn't hit me that I've been there yet. Nethertheless I'm very grateful that I got to see this wonder of the world. We did visit other famous sites in and around Agra during our stay there. We did go to see the Agra Fort, luckily for me this time I didn't have to scale a mountain to get there. The girls and I were being pestered by this man who wanted us to hire him as our English tour guide. He did work for the Fort, but we wanted an audio guide not a tour guide. We tried to tell him this but again he insisted that he was better. He wasn't taking no as an answer and we didn't want to seem rude. Our solution to this problem was to pretend I didn't speak English. I pulled my best dumbfounded face and tried to ask him in my broken English if he spoke Spanish. He said no, but tried to explain to me that he would speak slowly so I'd understand. I looked to Emily and she asked me "comprende?", I declared "no". The man looked a bit disappointed, but went off to bother someone else. Quick thinking on the girls behalf saved us some money there. I was lucky to have them around. :)

Our final destination of our holiday was Varanasi. The purpose of this visit was to see the holy Ganges. We got up very early one morning so we could get a boat ride and watch the sunrise on the river. It was very serene and peaceful. The only downside is how polluted the water is. Sewage systems run into the river, along with people who bathe daily in it, wash their clothes and dishes straight into the water. There's also the burning ghats which allow peoples cremated bodies pour into the river. There's cows, stray cats and dogs, rats, poultry and other animals all using the Ganges as a toilet. Even with all this pollution people still trust the river enough to take a hand full of water and drink it. I for one value my life too much to drink that bacterial mess. It makes me sad how dirty the river is and I wish people would see how deprimental it is. The trouble is most Indians have such doubles standards. For example, I watched our boat man, while the sun was rising, grasp a  hand full of the Ganges, whisper to it in prayer, hold it to his heart and then he drank it. Later I watched the same man disguard his rubbish over the side of the boat straight into the holy water, without a care in the world. Disgraceful. In the evening we returned and went for another boat ride, but this time to watch the sunset and to see the Hindu priests perform puja (worship) on the riverside. It was beautiful and there was fireworks. The Ganges is such a sacred and holy place that you do feel its power just dipping your feet in it. I was privilaged enough to do so, but I don't plan on drinking the water until people clear up their act, and maybe  stop defaecating straight into Lord Shiva's scared river. More respect is needed. To conclude, Varanasi was nice but a bit shocking to someone who was expecting a divine river, but was shown an open sewer.

All in all, it was a wonderful 3 weeks, full of laughs. I was lucky enough to be travelling with the best partners I could of asked for. They organised everything and planned all our trips. Thanks girls :) I also want to thank my mum and my aunt for 

sending money so I could go on this incredible 3 week adventure. :D

Photo added by Hollys Mum- these were the postcards Holly sent to me in May :)

April Blog. Annual Day

April: Annual day

April was a good month. We had annual day, Emily's birthday and the start of our summer holidays. The first part of the month was filled with dance practice for annual day and boring exam invigilation. I had one dance I did with 5 other girls which was classical Indian dance. I played the heroine in the dance which was nerve-racking, but cool. I did have to dance in a saree, which was a bit restricting, during the final performance. However in the other two dances I did, this time with Emily, Jo and a lot of 9th class girls, we wore different outfits. In the prayer dance we did, we were given these weird green, half salwar kameez-half wrap around sarong outfits. It would have been better for us if they had done them to our size or at least put the clasps on the blouses, but they didn't so we were constantly adjusting and readjusting our clothes; pinning the whole dress together with safety pins. For this dance we also had to hold two lit clay pits as we paraded around the small stage. We had to balance on one foot a lot, but it was very difficult as; our outfits were falling out of place constantly, the stage was made up on that day, unevenly, with ​splintery wood & hastily covered with a sac-like material carpet, there was sharp nails jutting out of the floor AND we were holding flaming pots which were getting hotter and hotter the longer we held them. That dance could have gone better lets say. 

Our 'make-up' for the night was done precariously by some old, sweaty, hairy guys. The backstage area was so boiling that the thick, ugly eyeliner, the painted on black eyebrows and the crimson smudge that was the 'lipstick', were running down our cheeks like our own bodies wanted rid of the offence caused to our faces. Then they caked us in pinky-white paint. They colour was so unnatural that we all looked like ghosts that had done some heavy exercise. I hated it. It made me itchy so I removed it after the first dance (the clay pot one). Then it came to our hair. I already have long, black hair so they just added a bit of an extension to mine and plaited it, so I had hair that flowed past my bum. Jo and Emily on the other hand do not have black or long hair, so they had to wear wigs. Apparently they were very heavy and they didn't look fun at all. This prayer dance we did however doesn't match the disaster of our final Bhangra dance...

The Punjabi Bhangra dance we did, Jo, Emily and I played boys. That meant we had to wear a turban, a painted-on moustache, weird wrap around trousers that you had to tie together, a bright orange shirt and a glittery green waist coat. We looked dashingly handsome if I do say so myself. I only wish our performance matches our good looks. During the fast-paced dance Jo managed to loose her turban and Emily not only dropped a girl during a lift/spin, but her trousers unravelled a bit to reveal her legs to the audience. The dance master was quick to adjust them though. These 'trousers' were really restricting and frequently unfolded/unravelled to reveal some calf or shin. I was repeatedly catching the bottoms of mine while I was dancing. It was preventing me getting into the groove so to speak. I don't blame the boogie, I blame the trousers. Damn trousers caused nothing but trouble! Even with all our mistakes and malfunctions we finished on time and recieved a good reception, even if it was just pity claps.

All in all though it was an enjoyable evening. It stressed me out until I had an emotional breakdown, but my make up was smeared down my face anyway, so no problems there. You couldn't even tell the difference. The night was so hectic I managed to lose my shoe. Just one of my shoes. I looked for it everywhere. I even searched for it in a cow shed, but no luck. My only explanation for its' disappearance is that it must of seen our Bhangra dance and left. In the end though I just bought a new pair of shoes and moved on with my life. So all is good. :)

March Blog

March started off with a function for the 10th class students, as they are leaving school after their exams in April. Everyone got dressed up in their best sarees and clothes, and we watched so many dances performed by the 9th and 10th students. Some were absolutely hilarious as, the boys in particular, get very into their performances. Lots of miming of the song, ripping open of the shirt and a LOT of vivid facial expressions. Jo, Emily and I were crying with laughter. By the end of the evening we ourselves got up on stage with some of the 10th class girls and tried to dance. It was a bit embarassing but it was fun. Hopefully our dances for the big 'Annual day' function next month are better. The girls and I will actually be performing rehearsed dances. I in particular am looking forward to that. I'll keep you posted in next months blog post :).

In other news, on the 15th the girls and I caught a 5 hour train to the amazing city of Tirupati in south Andhra Pradesh. We went to visit a few other Project Trust 

volunteers that live down there, so we could all celebrate my favourite festival Holi! As Holi (the festival of colours) isn't very big in the south of India, the girls and I decided to have our own little Holi festival with some of our friends. We did the throwing of the powdered colours on the roof of Ellie and Mei's (our PT 

Tirupati friends) working women's hostal. Also joining in on the celebrations was Rosalieke, Claarje and Lindsay, who are volunteers in Ongole. Ongole is 30 minutes from my village Tangutur. :) The eight of us were throwing the bright coloured powders at eachother for ages. The colours stained our clothes and skin a bit, but we had a blast. I did have a blue parting in my hair for the next week though. The view of the mountains were stunning in the setting sun. I was gobsmacked.

Also, during our Tirupati trip, the girls and I visited the beautiful Balaji Temple at the top of the mountain. I was on cloud nine wandering around the stunning, sacred grounds of the many Temples kept up in the mountain. I was in awe of everything around me and I had a permanent smile on my face. One of the Temples is even made of solid gold! Flocks and flocks of pilgrims everywhere, mostly all with their head shaved. Head shaving is so common here as it's a way to give offerings to god, in particular Lord Venkatesh/Lord Balaji (an avatar of Lord Vishnu -the preserver of the universe). Once we managed to get past all the bald pilgrims, we found a jeep/taxi back down to the city. It was a frightning experience. The only thing stopping me from completely falling out of a fast moving vehicle, going down a steep, windey road, was a flimsy safety bar (that was eaily unhooked!). Not to mention the driver looked about 16 years old. He kept blaring out Telugu songs really loud and taking both hands off the wheel. By the end of it I was partially deaf and my heart was stuck in my throat. Safe to say that drive scared all of us half to death. All in all, we had a good trip to Tirupati. Even if it meant a few near death experiences here and there. :)

Keep posted for next months blog post as the girls and I will be performing dances on annual day and we will begin our tour of north India. The three of us are travelling for 3 weeks. First we fly to Delhi, then we go to Jaisalmer (deserts and camels :)) and Jaipur in Rajasthan, then we head up to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, then we go down to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and finally we head to Varanasi to see (and hopefully bathe) in the holy Ganges river. We are very excited :D

February update

So February has been and gone in a blink of an eye. The big event this
month was going to my first Indian wedding. It lasted over a weekend
with the actual ceromony on the Sunday. The girls and I bought new
fancy sarees and fake gold jewellery for the special occasion. Here is
my diary extracts for that exciting weekend. By the way , we invited 2
other PT volunteers to come join us for the wedding, our friends,
Rosie and Charlotte.

 
Saturday the 8th of February
Today we didn't eat until we got to the small wedding function at the
grooms house, around 9/10 o'clock. We got up and wrapped ourselves in
our sarees and headed to the grooms house for food. The function food
was delicious and I was enjoying the cacophonous Indian bands blaring
their trumpets and drums outside AND inside! That is 2 seperate bands
playing 2 different tunes, within a distance of a few meters from
each other. Boy were my ears ringing after that! We watched as the
groom was being prepared and blessed with rice and other offerings
being put on his head. After going home for a little break, we decided
to go on a walk. We managed to, accidentally, get caught up and join
the wedding procession through the streets. We walked for about 10
minutes until we reached the bus stand. Then we got on some school
busses and headed to Kandukur (AKA the bride's village) We had a LOT
of function food again (biriyani, potato curry, sambar, kurd, rice and
more and more rice!). When we were there we got to meet the bride. She
looked beautiful and was very excited about the wedding tomorrow. The
girls and I are really excited too :).


 
Sunday the 9th of February
Today we had lemon rice for tiffin. We went to Haseena's (Haseena is a
maths teacher at the school and is our friend) later on in the
afternoon so she could pdrepare us for the wedding today. Emily,
Charlotte and I got our new, fancy sarees done Rajasthani style, which
made me super excited. While Jo and Rosie opted for the classic Andhra
Pradesh style. It was probably the better choice as our saree material
is really stiff and the Rajasthani style does have the tendency to
make you look very poofy. I think I rocked the poofy look though :).
After Haseena did our hair and jewellery etc we headed back home to
find Sir and Madam ( Headmaster and Headmistress). When they saw us
all dressed up for the first time, they gasped and were nearly
laughing with happiness. Madam, who is literally one of the scariest
and intimidating woman I have ever met, was smiling and laughing. And
you have to believe me when I say that that doesn't happen often. She
was so happy, we were in shock. I think that's the first time she has
ever been happy with us. I would go as far to say Madam was proud of
us :). After we got over the shock a little bit, we went to the grooms
house and got pictures taken with him. He looked very handsome. Then
we headed out in the wedding procession, intentionally this time, and
walked to the wedding venue. It was about a 20/25 minute walk, but it
took longer in our itchy and uncomfortable sarees. The wedding
decorations were very tacky. I'm talking 2 massive yellow, neon,
flashing fake palm trees at the entrance. If that was only the outside
I think you can imagine the level of tackiness on the inside! Anyway
aside from the cheesy decorations, the bride looked absolutely
stunning in her red and gold saree. She was smiling constantly
throughout the whole night. The wedding food was so good. I had ice
cream! I haven't had ice cream in months! It was amazing, however I am
lactose intolerant so I do fear I will suffer later for my greed. We
didn't get home till it was late and very dark. We all collapsed in
our room and unravelled ourselves from the 9m of scratchiness and
sweat. We are all dreading school tomorrow. :(
The wedding was the most significant event 
of this month and it's an
occasion that I will never forget. The rest of February was just
school, school and more school. There was Shivaraatri (Lord Shiva
festival), but all that happened was, me going to temple with Sir and
giving my offerings to god. The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I am
looking forward to 'my' festival in March...Holi! Stay posted for
March's blog update. :D :D :D

Happy New year and on into January

Happy New Year
January started off with a bang...literally. Our new year was brought in with a massive cake and people lighting fireworks at midnight. I think it was safe to say we were spent on New Years Day. We still had to go to school of course. We wore our best sarees and strutted to school ready for the mayhem. There was a cake cutting ceremony with some of the teachers, which ended in us covered in cake in the baking sun. If you pardon the pun.
  We were given greetings and chocolates by the children and spent the whole day shaking people's hands and wishing them a Happy New Years. It was a good day.

In mid-January there is a 3 day festival/holiday called Pongal, Bhogi and Sankranthi. My partners had gone to Kerala on holiday while I stayed back to enjoy the festivals (Sankranthi is unique to Andhra Pradesh). I was given a variety of new dishes and was practically force fed these little crisp things, rather aptly named Pongal. During the second festival Bhogi, I asked Sir if we could go to Temple. He accepted and I got changed into my best Salwar Kameez. It was a lovely sunny day and Sir took me to a new, different Temple. We went in a Magic Van (crammed with people, some hanging out the boot) and the driver had Telugu song blaring out the tinny speakers. I was loving life watching the world go by, while my favourite tunes scored the magical moment.

After the girls returned from their Keralan adventure it was soon to be my birthday. On the 26th of January (Indian Republic Day) I turned a ripe old age of 18. I spent the whole day with my favourite partners, watching Sherlock and Dr Who on my DVD player, eating yummy Biriyani and playing Monopoly. Jo and Emily bought Monopoly while they were away. We spent hours playing that game. It was a great birthday!

All in all January has been a good month. Here's to February ...

A Perfect Indian Christmas

This month I finally have had my nose stud put in. After having a thorn in my nose for almost 4 weeks, I now have a pierced nose. It was a really gory job putting a thick Indian (screw) nose stud in a swollen, snotty and bloody nostril. Emily did a good job in screwing the back of the stud in for me. Well...aside from the gagging. It's fully done and dusted now though so I'm happy and looking good. :)

 

Emily, Sir, Jo and Holly

Also Emily, Jo and I went on a school trip to a water/theme park. It's called 'The Haiilands' and it was awesome! Firstly, we had to get up at 5AM, due to the 4 hour journey to reach the park. We left for the Haiilands with 3 school buses crammed full of excited kids and teachers. It was crazy. :) 

Upon arrival into the actual park itself, there were three people dressed in those terrifying costumes. One was Santa Claus, another a frightening gorilla and the last was sadistic looking clown. I literally ran away from this clown. I'm really scared of clowns and that became evident to all the 70 odd kids that came on the school trip. 

Anyway, the girls and I (including our school group) went on a carousel ride, a swinging pirate ship ride (where the safety bar casually unhooked itself mid-ride :O), a slow childrens train ride and a swing ride (lacking in seat belts). We had a lot of fun on the rides. Later, after a nice lunch of curry and rice, we went swimming. The pools were segregated by gender and girls have to wear full swimming salwar kameez's to swim in. I was loving it. The "swimming clothes" were really comfy, and I loved running around and going down the waterslides. We went in a wave-pool and did a rain dance, which was basically a little arena area which has sprinklers above head and it pours water down while you dance to the music. There was to rain dance areas, one for boys and the other for girls. Everyone was dancing to Gangnam Style and various other Telugu and Bollywood hits. I was loving life dancing with the 10th class girls and Satvika (my adorable 2nd class girl).

satvika

Shortly after we departed from the Haiilands and everyone fell asleep quickly on the school buses, due to absolute exhaustion. It was a fantastic day out. :D

Now onto Christmas, the girls and I bought each other tacky Indian gifts and also we got an ornamental elephant for our Sir and the rest of our Indian family. We opened our gifts in the morning after breakfast. Gifts sent from our families and friends sat underneath our awesome 4ft, inflatable X-mas tree.The blow-up tree was gifted to Jo from her friend and it made all of us so happy.  

After all the fun of present opening had past, we got dressed up, ready for going to Church. I'm Hindu, but I celebrate Christmas like most Brits, so I joined the girls and went to Church too. It was a tiny, shed-like building and in Jo's words, it was "sweatastic". Music was booming from the tinny speakers and there was a lot of clapping and "Hallelujah"s. At one point, they got out a big birthday cake and we sang happy birthday to Jesus. It was great fun! It was, however, very hot in the shed/Church. The fans weren't on and there was a lot of people crammed in there, so after two hours I has a sweaty heap. Everyone has to sit on the floor, due to the lack of seating, and I got really bad cramps in my legs. However, it was worth it to see the beaming smiles of the people around us, wishing us a Happy Christmas. After Church, we all talked to our families via the phone and Skype, then we settled down and watched 'Elf' on Jo's tablet. It was a perfect Indian Christmas. :D

Well. November has been quite eventful....

Well.  November has been quite eventful...starting with Diwali on the 3rd. It was one of the most terrifying nights of my entire life. In the UK you can’t buy Christmas crackers if you’re under a certain age. In this crazy country I now call home, there were literally toddlers lighting explosives in the middle of the street. I’m not a big fan of fireworks in the UK, so you can only imagine how scared I was here. It was a great evening though. My constant flinching at every boom and bang slowly died down as the evening progressed. However, Chendu (this 10 year old monkey boy with obvious ADHD) didn’t help at all. Especially when he would go about setting off obviously illegal explosives off metres away from the 3 girls in highly flammable 9 metre polyester sarees. Whoever gave that boy fireworks wasn’t thinking straight. Too many times Jo, Emily or I nearly combusted. By the end of the night, my ear drums were burst. My vision blurred. My hands trembling. My heart pounding. And I felt simultaneously sick and hungry. IT WAS AWESOME :D

A few days after Diwali, a group of blind singers came to our school and performed many Telugu hits. The entire school was crammed into the main campus. Hundreds of children sitting cross-legged on the stone slabs. I was put in one of the tiny 1^st class rooms with very cute small children and 2 other teachers. One of the teachers told me to sit down on one of the tiny benches. When the ‘concert’ started I started drumming on the desk in time with the music. The children began to copy me. A few songs in, the same teacher told me to dance. So I stood up and that’s exactly what I did. I danced with a classroom full of 5 year olds, while almost the entire school watched in and smiled. I was dancing Bollywood style and there was some Bhangra in there too. Now, you have to remember this ‘classroom’ was about 3m by 3m big and there were benches and desks filling up the whole room. There was about 20 kids dancing on the desks, all copying me and throwing confetti that they made out of, what looked like, their school work. I have never had so much fun! I danced with those kids for well over an hour and by the end I was as red as a tomato. People became concerned for my health, asking me, “Ma’am, Fever?”. I would reply, “Yes. Dance fever.” People laughed.

In other news, I got my nose re-pierced. What you do is, you go to this old lady’s house, give her a thorn from an actual bush/tree, then she will stab that thorn through your nose like there’s no tomorrow. Meanwhile, all the children of the village sit and watch. These kids love to watch piercings being done. Some bring snacks to eat while ‘the show’ goes on. After your nose has been impaled by a thorn, the nice old lady (with bad eye sight) gets out the biggest pair of scissors you have ever seen in your life. She will then proceed to try and cut down the thorn a bit while it’s still painfully just been forced through your nostril. These scissors looked like they could behead me they were so big. Anyway, after at least 4 different people tried to cut the thorn down, it was done. I now have a pierced nose. The first time I got it done was early October, the same time as Emily and Jo, but I accidently took the thorn out too early and couldn’t get it back in. I had to wait for it to heal until I could get it re-pierced. It’s pierced on the right hand side (my right), like everyone else in this region of India. Jo and Emily have it on the left. I still have the thorn in now and it’s a bit swollen and bloody so if anyone wants their nose pierced don’t do it with a thorn. :)