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. :)

November update

So October has been eventful! First I got a bit ill. Not anything serious, just something one of my kids gave me. I got yet another IV needle thing in my arm though.
 On the 2nd October it was Gandhis birthday so we got to have a big assembly celebrating his life which was fun.  I am being given lots of gifts from my kids, some of it is really sweet; drawings and art. I have also been gifted some very questionable  stale Bombay mix though- but its the though that counts :).

 On the 3rd October my partners  Joanna and Emily left for their holidays in Tamil Nadu. I stayed at home and celebrated Durgashtami ( Goddess Durga festival) with my village. Great food and I got to wear my nice Salwar Kameez.

I've been learning Telagu and eating Dosas mostly as my school was on strike for a bit at the end of September to October. This was due to the split up of Andhra Pradesh.  On top of that there has been no power most of the time so as i said- mostly practicing my Telagu with some help from my kids & Gayathri- who is a 10th class girl.

The cyclone. Now the cyclone did hit us for one night & for like 15 minutes in the afternoon. It was wet and windy- rain like you wouldn't believe, but it didn't last long. I live on the second floor of one of the school buildings so i'm not in danger.

 My partners Jo and Emily returned on the 16th and I had missed them a lot. There were usually cool lightning storms at night, but it can be a bit scary on your own :).  After they came back we started teaching again. Well actually we invigilated exams which isn't the most riveting of jobs but oh well. I love the kids here, but teaching really isn't as easy as i'd hoped! However I'm coping just fine & didn't get taken by the cyclone. I love India & I never want to leave. I want to be a nurse and work here. Everything makes me happy except for 'Idly' ( its this food of steamed balls of soggy bread! ) I don't like it very much but at least its food.

My lizards Roger and Rajesh are doing great, oh there was a scary monkey on the roof of the opposite house. I'm scared of monkeys now after this psycho monkey chased me and Emily down the street. To be fair to the monkey Emily was carrying a bag of bananas. We outran it but now we are both more than a bit terrified of monkeys!


 

September October Blog update

  Hello all

 A Month has passed and I feel incredibly happy. I feel as if I've returned home after visiting the UK for a long time. India is and now will forever be my home. the smells, the colours, the music- just everything here makes me happy. However,I am facing many challenges in regards to teaching. the children are not as well behaved as first expected & are so noisy constantly, I'm struggling a bit to control the classes & coming up with new & inventive ways for teaching the children English grammar. Some struggle more than others not only to understand English , but to see the board. 
The classrooms are a bit Cozy & very hot! but hopefully teaching these challenging but cute kids will become easier over time.

 There have been many strikes here and I arrived just in time for the Ganesh festival which was brilliant. The monsoon season is almost passed & the sun is out a lot more. It's so beautiful here, especially when the sun shines off the temple next to my home. Just a couple of weeks ago there was awesome lightning storms. There were full lightning bolts pulsing through the ink black sky, it was stunning and scary to watch.

I have adopted a lizard that lives in my toilet, he's called Roger & another smaller lizard that likes to chill on the ceiling of my room; he's called Rajesh. There is so much wildlife here that can roam around freely without fear of being killed or eaten. I love India and their respect for animal life.

PS. Some of the money has Rhinos on it Mum :D You'd love it :) Oh and tell Zoe the poster she made for me is stuck on my wall and always makes me smile.

 Holly 01/10/13

Holly's arrived!

Just got the following email from Holly which she is happy for me to share on her blog.

This is the first chance I have had to get on the internet. I just started teaching today, kids are lovely but not well behaved. I absolutely belong here. I love it so much I don't want to go home ever! :D Everyone is friendly and everyone seems to love me and how i'm already Indian. :) They are used to the volunteers being very western, but me i'm Indian by every inch of my soul and being :D I haven't coughed or sneezed here at all. No diarrhea :) All milk is either buffalo or coconut :) There are tons of different types of lizards everywhere and they like to come in my room and eat all the bugs :D I am healthy and unbelievably happy here. Cows, pigs, chickens, chipmunks, lizards, hummingbirds everywhere :D Although last night me and Joanna had to fight a cockroach thing the size of riley last night, but we managed to get it out :)

Visas and Awards

Update from Hollys Mum on behalf of Holly.   After an eventful week Holly now has her Visa for India and her flight from Heathrow is on 5th September from Heathrow. Holly is currently in London with limited internet access, staying with relatives. She is very excited and her rucksack is full of stationary ready to start teaching. Holly will be based in Tangutur near Ongole

In other news Holly recently heard she has been accepted to go to Edinburgh University to study nursing when she returns from India, and we heard today she has won two Physics awards, The Ella Gibson Hill Memorial Award and The Institute of Physics Award in Advanced Higher Physics. Holly is thrilled with her awards and wants to thank Her physics teacher Mr Cunningham for all his support.

Finally if you want to keep up with Holly whilst she is in India, please make sure you subscribe & follow this blog

Update for June and July so far :)

After a break following my exams we got back to some serious carbooting! We have done 6 so far (most in Scotmid carpark on Saturdays, with the occasional 6AM start in Inverkeithing :0). From these car boots we have raised a total of £181.10!

 

I would like to give a special thanks to the Nichol-Young foundation for their generous donation of £200 and the Roger Vere foundation for their generous donation of £100!!!

In other news I have had almost all my inoculations which included; 3 lots of rabies, 3 lots of Hep A&B, Thyphoid, Cholera, Japenese Encephalitus... All I need now is BCG :/

 

In even better news it is now official I have raised (with the help from my mother and friends) £5410 in total- over my target!!! With any money I raise now will be towards paying for my Visa, Jabs and malaria tablets ect!!!

Update :D

Hello everyone :D

Today its been confirmed that I will be teaching primary school children English in a rural town north of Ongole in Andhra Pradesh (south east India). :D

      

In other news i would like to thank the South Queensferry Rotary Club for their generous donation of £100 :D Also i would like to thank Beverly Glasgow for donating a generous amount of £50 (thank you for the card as well :D).







Also Jessica and I recently had a stall at the Spring fair (with help from Melanie :D). We had loads of fun :)

                          ధన్యవాదాలు!!!

Updates for January and Febuary :)

Well we had the Chinese-Burns Night on the 24th of January at the Good Fortune Restaurant I raised £176 with the help of my mother :)
The evening was very successful with some of my science teachers from my school attending and also some good friends... :D

A special thanks to Eddie McGarrity for hosting the night and giving us a good laugh at that 'Ode to a panda' speech written by his good poet friend John Doonan. :D

Then on the 9th of February we hosted the World's Fair at the Queensferry Priory Church (who generously donated their church for the event for free). In total- with the help of all the lovely people who attended or helped with the event- I raised £203.41!!!

A special thank you to all the local businesses that donated raffle prizes!!!!

Happy new year! updates and thanks

Today my mum and I braved the freezing waters of the Firth of Forth doing the Loony Dook!!!! :D we raised about £500 between the two of us :D

Also we had the Jack and Jill Baby sale on the 9th of December and raised £63.10! :)

I would like to thank everyone who has donated, every little helps :D

Upcoming Events:

• on the 24th January we have the Chinese-Burns Night, tickets are £15 and the event starts at 8:00. We have amazing raffle prizes including Panda related gifts from Edinburgh Zoo ! :D
• on the 9th February we have our World Fair at the Priory Church in South Queensferry, there will be a tombola and stalls ect. :D