I've uploaded a few new pics, but Hampi is not exactly on the information superhighway - more like a lay-by - so not too many pics yet as it takes forever! This one is of filming of a new movie at the AVM studios, Chennai - Tamil Nadu has its own center of film-making to rival Mumbai.
India teaches you to say no, that's what I've learnt through extensive practise so far:
No, no sandals thanks.
No, no rickshaw. Thank you.
No, no postcards.
No, no, no, I will not pay you 150 rupees for a rickshaw just down the road.
No, I don't need a tour guide, thanks.
No, sorry, I have no foreign coins.
Or Indian ones.
No, I have no school pens. Sorry.
No, I really don't need a rickshaw.
No, no passion fruit, papaya, mango or pineapple needed thank you.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Noises and movie stars
I almost forgot. Something very strange happened to me at Kovalam. The sea there is clear and clean - you can be in it up to your neck, and see your feet through the blue-green water. The sand under your feet is pristine. I went out swimming most mornings when I was at Kovalam, and usually lay on my back in the water with my ears under, just relaxing.
One morning, however, I heard a weird noise. I listened, kept my head under, thought it was creaking wood - but there was no driftwood, or structure protruding into the water. Then I listened for longer, and the sound was unmistakable - I'd heard it before on a new-agey CD or TV documentary - it was whalesong. Deep, like the mooing of a cow slowed down, occasionally rising in pitch to a sad-sounding noise. If you're only about twenty yards out from shore, up to your neck in water, you don't expect to hear this, surely - nevertheless, at one stage, the sound was so pronounced, I rushed to get my feet onto the floor as I thought whatever it was was about to swim under me.
I kept quiet about this - who'd believe you'd hear whalesong swimming in shallow water? That afternoon, however, I was walking along the seafront at Kovalam, and saw dozens of people running down to the shore, grabbing binoculars - surely enough, out to sea, just below the horizon, a water spout shot into the air, and a large tail splashed down into the water. A fishing boat nearby was getting rocked about by the disturbances in the water.
Did I hear that whale, or am I going potty?!
Anyway, speaking of noise - Chennai has plenty of it. Car horns blow deep, motorbike horns blow harsh and loud, and auto-rickshaw horns sound like someone strangling a puppet. On top of all this is the sound of rickshaw drivers yelling abuse at each other.
Yesterday, I took a rickshaw to the excellently appropriately named Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC), to go on a tour of Chennai. The TTDC office had on the wall the following message:
"Tonsuring in Tirumala is permitted from Monday - Thursday.
We will serve you 24 hours a day throughout the year".
The tour was presented by a very friendly lady who whisked us around Chennai at breakneck speed, taking in the Government Museum, a temple, a memorial to a poet, the beach, and passing briefly over the smelliest body of water I have ever smelt. The best thing about this was meeting some great people. We all ended up going out for dinner and beers last night, so my recommendation here is that even if the tour isn't up to much, the opportunities to meet people make it well worth it!
A few of us from the tour yesterday went to AVM Film Studios today - Chennai is the second biggest producer of movies in India after Mumbai, and probably still produces more movies than Hollywood every year on its own. Tamil Nadu's films have always been quite political, as well as featuring the obligatory dance numbers and romance, so depict low-caste heroes defying the odds, and Robin-Hood style stars standing up for the oppressed. Entry was free and we were allowed free access to wander around the sets.
We saw a song-and-dance number being filmed, I managed to exchange grins with a very beautiful actress (think I pulled), and we got to play around in a set that was a cross between a game show and Barbarella's boudoir! It was fantastic! At one point, a young chap came up to Nilesh (chap I met yesterday) and started chatting - it turned out he was the star of the movie we were watching being filmed. You don't get to do all this in Hollywood, I'll bet!
Anyway - as always, pictures follow - this time, because I forgot my little cable.
One morning, however, I heard a weird noise. I listened, kept my head under, thought it was creaking wood - but there was no driftwood, or structure protruding into the water. Then I listened for longer, and the sound was unmistakable - I'd heard it before on a new-agey CD or TV documentary - it was whalesong. Deep, like the mooing of a cow slowed down, occasionally rising in pitch to a sad-sounding noise. If you're only about twenty yards out from shore, up to your neck in water, you don't expect to hear this, surely - nevertheless, at one stage, the sound was so pronounced, I rushed to get my feet onto the floor as I thought whatever it was was about to swim under me.
I kept quiet about this - who'd believe you'd hear whalesong swimming in shallow water? That afternoon, however, I was walking along the seafront at Kovalam, and saw dozens of people running down to the shore, grabbing binoculars - surely enough, out to sea, just below the horizon, a water spout shot into the air, and a large tail splashed down into the water. A fishing boat nearby was getting rocked about by the disturbances in the water.
Did I hear that whale, or am I going potty?!
Anyway, speaking of noise - Chennai has plenty of it. Car horns blow deep, motorbike horns blow harsh and loud, and auto-rickshaw horns sound like someone strangling a puppet. On top of all this is the sound of rickshaw drivers yelling abuse at each other.
Yesterday, I took a rickshaw to the excellently appropriately named Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC), to go on a tour of Chennai. The TTDC office had on the wall the following message:
"Tonsuring in Tirumala is permitted from Monday - Thursday.
We will serve you 24 hours a day throughout the year".
The tour was presented by a very friendly lady who whisked us around Chennai at breakneck speed, taking in the Government Museum, a temple, a memorial to a poet, the beach, and passing briefly over the smelliest body of water I have ever smelt. The best thing about this was meeting some great people. We all ended up going out for dinner and beers last night, so my recommendation here is that even if the tour isn't up to much, the opportunities to meet people make it well worth it!
A few of us from the tour yesterday went to AVM Film Studios today - Chennai is the second biggest producer of movies in India after Mumbai, and probably still produces more movies than Hollywood every year on its own. Tamil Nadu's films have always been quite political, as well as featuring the obligatory dance numbers and romance, so depict low-caste heroes defying the odds, and Robin-Hood style stars standing up for the oppressed. Entry was free and we were allowed free access to wander around the sets.
We saw a song-and-dance number being filmed, I managed to exchange grins with a very beautiful actress (think I pulled), and we got to play around in a set that was a cross between a game show and Barbarella's boudoir! It was fantastic! At one point, a young chap came up to Nilesh (chap I met yesterday) and started chatting - it turned out he was the star of the movie we were watching being filmed. You don't get to do all this in Hollywood, I'll bet!
Anyway - as always, pictures follow - this time, because I forgot my little cable.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Stone heffalumps and homesickness
The train journey from Trivandrum to Chennai went smoothly enough, in fact I'd go so far as to say that it was ball-achingly tedious (as my economics teacher used to say). I travelled in a 3-tier A/C sleeper - this means 6 people sleeping in each pod or compartment of the train, on fold-down beds that went up the walls, 3 on each side, in an air-conditioned carriage. After the small narrow-guage train the Aidcamps team took across the Western Ghats to Tamil Nadu from Trivandrum after my arrival in India, I was expecting maybe more of the same - friendly, curious people up for a chat. What I got was three irritating medical students that giggled like eight-year-olds for the entire journey and looked in their textbooks for diagrams of boobs and willies, and a bunch of other Indians that just kept themselves to themselves. The journey was 16 and a half hours, overnight, over a distance of approaching 1000km - at the bargain price of Rs 1113, or about GBP14. Beat that, One Anglia.
With the quietness and isolation I felt on the train, I got to feeling homesick, and the book I was reading, the God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (set in Kerala) didn't help, so I got pretty cheesed off. I was thinking about family, mates, the Aidcamp and the people I met, my animals, home comforts, and good English food and drink. The journey as a whole brought to mind Nick's comment, "you're going to have to get accustomed to new levels of discomfort" - he's right, but it's not just about being crammed into a train carriage, it's about missing home. I hadn't been homesick before I came away since I was about twelve, and I don't know why it should have come as such a surprise to feel it now!
This is another reason why it was such a relief to see Rachel. She's a friend from London who I met at London Underground, and has been working on a voluntary basis in Chennai for five months, for HEPI - Health Education and Promotion International. Rach was pretty glad to see me as well, as I was her first mate from the UK to come here. Rach has been looking after me fantastically since I got here - I'm in a fairly nice hotel across the road from her in the Mylapore area of Chennai, a fairly nice area - and we've been getting together to eat and chill out - I just taught her how to play sh*t head (for those unaware it is a card game - and a great game at that - where the loser is crowned sh*t head).
Yesterday, as my birthday present, we went to Mamallapuram, a fishing and stone-carving center 58km down the East coast of India from Chennai. Mamallapuram is home to a series of impressive carved stone temples, bas-reliefs, caves and rathas (carved chariots - one like a massive elephant), some hewn out of the side of gigantic rocks, reminding me of the set of some Indiana Jones movie. Goats and monkeys laze about, beggars beg on every corner, and hawkers are so aggresive they make the ones at Kovalam look easy going, often starting their hawking before you've even got out of the car properly. There is also a mass of stone-carving workshops, so walking around the small town, you constantly hear the chipping of chisels on rock. I'll upload some pics soon. Rach and I were melting after a while in the heat, so retreated to the Tina Blue Lodge, one of several very chilled-out and traveller-oriented eateries, for lunch - chilli prawns and the best banana honey pancake I've had yet (certainly better than the weird pancake I had in Thekkady that I swear had carrot in it).
I have a few days left in Chennai, and some more sights to see, and will then be heading up to Hampi in Karnataka (on Ian's recommendation), before checking out Gokarn, on the coast just south of Goa, and possibly Goa itself. With the current situation in Nepal looking a bit uncertain (even though I believe Aidcamps are still running their camp there), I hope to try and get to Himachal Pradesh, to see some big hills there, and maybe drop in for tea with the Dalai Lama (he and I are old mates). I've got six-ish full weeks left in India - any other recommendations for places to see anyone?
With the quietness and isolation I felt on the train, I got to feeling homesick, and the book I was reading, the God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (set in Kerala) didn't help, so I got pretty cheesed off. I was thinking about family, mates, the Aidcamp and the people I met, my animals, home comforts, and good English food and drink. The journey as a whole brought to mind Nick's comment, "you're going to have to get accustomed to new levels of discomfort" - he's right, but it's not just about being crammed into a train carriage, it's about missing home. I hadn't been homesick before I came away since I was about twelve, and I don't know why it should have come as such a surprise to feel it now!
This is another reason why it was such a relief to see Rachel. She's a friend from London who I met at London Underground, and has been working on a voluntary basis in Chennai for five months, for HEPI - Health Education and Promotion International. Rach was pretty glad to see me as well, as I was her first mate from the UK to come here. Rach has been looking after me fantastically since I got here - I'm in a fairly nice hotel across the road from her in the Mylapore area of Chennai, a fairly nice area - and we've been getting together to eat and chill out - I just taught her how to play sh*t head (for those unaware it is a card game - and a great game at that - where the loser is crowned sh*t head).
Yesterday, as my birthday present, we went to Mamallapuram, a fishing and stone-carving center 58km down the East coast of India from Chennai. Mamallapuram is home to a series of impressive carved stone temples, bas-reliefs, caves and rathas (carved chariots - one like a massive elephant), some hewn out of the side of gigantic rocks, reminding me of the set of some Indiana Jones movie. Goats and monkeys laze about, beggars beg on every corner, and hawkers are so aggresive they make the ones at Kovalam look easy going, often starting their hawking before you've even got out of the car properly. There is also a mass of stone-carving workshops, so walking around the small town, you constantly hear the chipping of chisels on rock. I'll upload some pics soon. Rach and I were melting after a while in the heat, so retreated to the Tina Blue Lodge, one of several very chilled-out and traveller-oriented eateries, for lunch - chilli prawns and the best banana honey pancake I've had yet (certainly better than the weird pancake I had in Thekkady that I swear had carrot in it).
I have a few days left in Chennai, and some more sights to see, and will then be heading up to Hampi in Karnataka (on Ian's recommendation), before checking out Gokarn, on the coast just south of Goa, and possibly Goa itself. With the current situation in Nepal looking a bit uncertain (even though I believe Aidcamps are still running their camp there), I hope to try and get to Himachal Pradesh, to see some big hills there, and maybe drop in for tea with the Dalai Lama (he and I are old mates). I've got six-ish full weeks left in India - any other recommendations for places to see anyone?
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
More pics
Some more pics on Flickr for your delectation, just none of my sunburnt nose.
I was walking about today and got offered shark and barracuda for my dinner. What is this thing about eating things that sound hard? Do people need to feel the satisfaction of eating something they could get into a fight with? "Yeah, last night I ate a shark, a bear, a crocodile, and a Tottenham supporter".
I'm leaving Kovalam this Friday (to be honest I was getting a little bored, and the beach touts do your head in) and heading to Chennai (Madras), back in Tamil Nadu. After Chennai it's Hampi, Goa if I feel like it, and then north, to Agra and Rajasthan...
I was walking about today and got offered shark and barracuda for my dinner. What is this thing about eating things that sound hard? Do people need to feel the satisfaction of eating something they could get into a fight with? "Yeah, last night I ate a shark, a bear, a crocodile, and a Tottenham supporter".
I'm leaving Kovalam this Friday (to be honest I was getting a little bored, and the beach touts do your head in) and heading to Chennai (Madras), back in Tamil Nadu. After Chennai it's Hampi, Goa if I feel like it, and then north, to Agra and Rajasthan...
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Raining coconuts
Waiting for a free computer outside the Internet cafe just now, it started raining coconuts - a skinny old dude in a dothie (so that narrows it down to about a million people around here) was cutting them out of the palm tree above. They land with such force, the ground shakes.
Now things are quietening down in Kovalam, with people dwindling away and Iris leaving tonight, I've got more time to think about what's next - staying out of the sun as I've burnt, planning the next leg of the trip to Chennai to see Rachel, and getting a trip on the backwaters. I turn 30 in four days, and it really is on the bottom of my list of priorities!
Giving me presents is obviously a bit tricky, so spend what you would have spent on me, and a bit extra maybe, on a donation to Salt of the Earth.
Now things are quietening down in Kovalam, with people dwindling away and Iris leaving tonight, I've got more time to think about what's next - staying out of the sun as I've burnt, planning the next leg of the trip to Chennai to see Rachel, and getting a trip on the backwaters. I turn 30 in four days, and it really is on the bottom of my list of priorities!
Giving me presents is obviously a bit tricky, so spend what you would have spent on me, and a bit extra maybe, on a donation to Salt of the Earth.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Time to reflect!
I feel like I've been chasing to keep up with this blog since I got to India. I'm also keeping a paper journal as too much has been happening to be able to remember it all, and up until now, opportunities to get to a computer have been scarce as I've been so busy. I'm also aware that this blog chronologically resembles a Tarantino movie, shooting back and forth, just because I'm trying to organise everything that has happened. It's only been two weeks, or just over, since I got here, and they have, for all the right reasons, been the longest two weeks of my life.
I'm in Kovalam, as I said before, the main coastal resort of Kerala - it's a beautiful place with clean seas, marred by the numerous touts and hawkers on the seafront persistently offering sunglasses, cigarettes, and shirts. The fishermen here, a Muslim group fishing one area and a Hindu group fishing another, are hauling in feeble catches day after day, ever since the Tsunami changed the geography of the ocean - but still they fish. Click here to download an MP3 I recorded this morning of their singing (6MB) - they sing to keep rhythm, and pray to the sea to provide for their families. The hotels and shops in Kovalam are desparate for trade as people have stayed away after the Tsunami - with no good reason - the people go out of their way to help you, all for a rupee here and there. Waiters and other service staff earn in the region of 70 rupees a day here - that's about 82p, less than the cost of a bottle of Kingfisher beer.
The Aidcamp team all came here after the Aidcamp finished, with great success, a few days ago - we settled here to take it easy for a while before most of the volunteers flew back to the UK this morning. The object of the Aidcamp was to finish decoration and preparatory work on a new primary school for Dalit gypsy children, whose families have created a settlement at Pettai, near Cheranmahadevi in rural Tamil Nadu. This area of India is home to some of the poorest people on Earth, most families living below the poverty line.
The NGO which co-ordinated the work on the school, SCAD, has about 200,000 people in Tamil Nadu dependent upon it. SCAD provides assistance with water management, work, education, empowering women, health, debt reduction, assistance to the elderly, fighting the dowry system, business assistance, and care of the physically and mentally disabled. SCAD has also taken responsibility for two of the worst-affected villages on the coast of Tamil Nadu hit by the Tsunami of last December 26 – and we were privileged to be able to see some of the damage first hand, and how SCAD was assisting people who in many cases have lost homes, family members and entire livelihoods.
During our time in Tamil Nadu we saw examples of SCAD's work and achievements affecting thousands of people for the better, and we met its founder, Cletus Babu. Cletus is a former priest who established SCAD several years ago, and has built the organisation up from scratch, with a dedicated team of staff, and his wife, Amali. SCAD is a secular organisation staffed by people of several faith groups, which does not preach or practice missionary work - it offers pragmatic, real, sustainable assistance to people in dire need. Seeing what SCAD has achieved in this part of the world has been truly humbling. Cletus and his team were also just fantastic, friendly, generous people, with a healthy sense of humour!
The gypsies are untouchables, Dalits, which makes them pretty much the lowest of the low. The female children of gypsy families may be engaged by the time they are ten, and married when they hit puberty, around eleven or twelve years old– so have children very young. The gypsies usually make beads and other handicrafts which they then sell at festivals or pilgrimages, spending the money on brandy and having a good time - hedonists they are, prudent investors they are not! The school was built by local labour co-ordinated by SCAD, using funding from Salt of the Earth, the sole UK charity that supports SCAD, and the donations of the Aidcamps volunteers - half of our fee was a donation. Aidcamps is a UK charity that provides short term volunteers for projects with NGOs in Cameroon, Nepal, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka. The gypsy children benefit from the new school as they are housed for the day, fed, and educated by a team of very hard working teachers. Hopefully, the good effects of the work in the school will also spread to the village surrounding it.
When we arrived at Pettai, we met a crowd of very curious, energetic, friendly and possibly drunk gypsies - the expression ''mad as a box of frogs'' sums it up. Walking through the village settlement was quite an experience - an elder danced dressed as Kali with a huge golden sword (see the video in the previous post), children insisted you take their picture and show it to them, adults did the same, women tried selling us beads, and everyone generally had a great time. These people didn't give the impression they wanted anyone to feel sorry for them, it was more like "hey, welcome to the party!". We were almost relieved to make it out of the other end of the village in one piece, it was so boisterous. The school sits in a relative oasis of tranquility at one end of the village, locking the children who attend (and they don't all attend) in during the day, mainly to keep the rest of the village out and give the kids, and the teachers, some peace.
During the next two weeks, we painted walls, blackboards, murals and window frames, installed new play equipment in the garden, and planted a flowerbed, a green border, and a kitchen garden. With limited time, the local labour worked with us, and continued anything we couldn't finish because of time constraints. At several points during the Aidcamp, I found myself using the universal sign language for "OK, tighten that nut mate", "Could you pass that big hammer?", and "Ooooh, that'll never go in there". The local labourers worked alongside us, were great fun, had bags more energy than us wilting flowers in the midday heat, and kept surprising us with their ingenuity. It seems in India anything can be achieved with a length of plastic tubing, a wok, a spanner and a spade.
See the photo album for the completed work.
When we weren't at the Aidcamp, we saw and experienced some amazing things, and were treated to the most generous hospitality of the SCAD team, eating fantastic curries, dosas, parothas, chapattis, and masses of fruit. I came to India expecting to lose weight, and ended up gaining it - which also happens when Tangum, Susilla, Asha or Vimela, the excellent ladies that were looking after us, took a half-empty plate as a sign to sneak more food onto it! Nights were spent sitting on the porch of a small villa, playing cards, reading, and putting the world to rights, with the soundtrack to the night being provided by chattering crickets, and the music that just seems to float on the air at all hours. During the days, chipmunks provided constant entertainment chasing each other, sprinting along the ground with their tales in the air, and stealing flowers from trees, and I swear there must have been twenty dogs with nothing else to do than trot happily along paths and then back again, just for the hell of it.
We also had some opportunities to spend some time with the children on the SCAD school campus; a wide range of ages, some with physical and mental disabilities. The children were reason enough to do the Aidcamp alone - they were fantastic fun, friendly, curious and energetic - and there wasn't a shred of self-pity amongst any of them.
Most of our time was taken up with various trips around Tamil Nadu to see SCAD work in action - and I don't know how else I would have been able to see some of the things I did; vast, barren salt pans at Tuticorin; the villages affected by the Tsunami; the friendliest and most curious people I ever met; and genuine rural Indian life (let me put it this way; we were the only westerners we saw during our time inTamil Nadu, with the exception of Madurai, and it was common to be waved at, stared at, and being given random handshakes by lift attendants and security guards). Sometimes the experiences were difficult or saddening - we had to cancel two trips to successive villages in one day because there had been a death in each village, we saw children that would have been working in inhumane conditions were it not for the school provided for them by SCAD, we saw salt panworkers working in conditions I wouldn't wish on anybody - and there was, needless to say, grinding poverty everywhere you looked. These sad experiences were outweighed by so many other touching ones; leprosy sufferers who contradicted the medieval stereotype of lepers with their dignity and approachability; children with physical and mental disabilities being lavished with love and attention when they could otherwise have been left to suffer in a corner out of ignorance; women's groups getting their villages out of debt and gaining respect in their community; the elderly being given care and attention when they would otherwise have to fend for themselves.
The Aidcamp has shown me some things I will never forget, given me something genuinly worthwhile to be passionate about, given me the best induction into India I could have hoped for, and allowed to meet a brilliant group of people. I don't know how the rest of India can match up to this.
I'm in Kovalam, as I said before, the main coastal resort of Kerala - it's a beautiful place with clean seas, marred by the numerous touts and hawkers on the seafront persistently offering sunglasses, cigarettes, and shirts. The fishermen here, a Muslim group fishing one area and a Hindu group fishing another, are hauling in feeble catches day after day, ever since the Tsunami changed the geography of the ocean - but still they fish. Click here to download an MP3 I recorded this morning of their singing (6MB) - they sing to keep rhythm, and pray to the sea to provide for their families. The hotels and shops in Kovalam are desparate for trade as people have stayed away after the Tsunami - with no good reason - the people go out of their way to help you, all for a rupee here and there. Waiters and other service staff earn in the region of 70 rupees a day here - that's about 82p, less than the cost of a bottle of Kingfisher beer.
The Aidcamp team all came here after the Aidcamp finished, with great success, a few days ago - we settled here to take it easy for a while before most of the volunteers flew back to the UK this morning. The object of the Aidcamp was to finish decoration and preparatory work on a new primary school for Dalit gypsy children, whose families have created a settlement at Pettai, near Cheranmahadevi in rural Tamil Nadu. This area of India is home to some of the poorest people on Earth, most families living below the poverty line.
The NGO which co-ordinated the work on the school, SCAD, has about 200,000 people in Tamil Nadu dependent upon it. SCAD provides assistance with water management, work, education, empowering women, health, debt reduction, assistance to the elderly, fighting the dowry system, business assistance, and care of the physically and mentally disabled. SCAD has also taken responsibility for two of the worst-affected villages on the coast of Tamil Nadu hit by the Tsunami of last December 26 – and we were privileged to be able to see some of the damage first hand, and how SCAD was assisting people who in many cases have lost homes, family members and entire livelihoods.
During our time in Tamil Nadu we saw examples of SCAD's work and achievements affecting thousands of people for the better, and we met its founder, Cletus Babu. Cletus is a former priest who established SCAD several years ago, and has built the organisation up from scratch, with a dedicated team of staff, and his wife, Amali. SCAD is a secular organisation staffed by people of several faith groups, which does not preach or practice missionary work - it offers pragmatic, real, sustainable assistance to people in dire need. Seeing what SCAD has achieved in this part of the world has been truly humbling. Cletus and his team were also just fantastic, friendly, generous people, with a healthy sense of humour!
The gypsies are untouchables, Dalits, which makes them pretty much the lowest of the low. The female children of gypsy families may be engaged by the time they are ten, and married when they hit puberty, around eleven or twelve years old– so have children very young. The gypsies usually make beads and other handicrafts which they then sell at festivals or pilgrimages, spending the money on brandy and having a good time - hedonists they are, prudent investors they are not! The school was built by local labour co-ordinated by SCAD, using funding from Salt of the Earth, the sole UK charity that supports SCAD, and the donations of the Aidcamps volunteers - half of our fee was a donation. Aidcamps is a UK charity that provides short term volunteers for projects with NGOs in Cameroon, Nepal, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka. The gypsy children benefit from the new school as they are housed for the day, fed, and educated by a team of very hard working teachers. Hopefully, the good effects of the work in the school will also spread to the village surrounding it.
When we arrived at Pettai, we met a crowd of very curious, energetic, friendly and possibly drunk gypsies - the expression ''mad as a box of frogs'' sums it up. Walking through the village settlement was quite an experience - an elder danced dressed as Kali with a huge golden sword (see the video in the previous post), children insisted you take their picture and show it to them, adults did the same, women tried selling us beads, and everyone generally had a great time. These people didn't give the impression they wanted anyone to feel sorry for them, it was more like "hey, welcome to the party!". We were almost relieved to make it out of the other end of the village in one piece, it was so boisterous. The school sits in a relative oasis of tranquility at one end of the village, locking the children who attend (and they don't all attend) in during the day, mainly to keep the rest of the village out and give the kids, and the teachers, some peace.
During the next two weeks, we painted walls, blackboards, murals and window frames, installed new play equipment in the garden, and planted a flowerbed, a green border, and a kitchen garden. With limited time, the local labour worked with us, and continued anything we couldn't finish because of time constraints. At several points during the Aidcamp, I found myself using the universal sign language for "OK, tighten that nut mate", "Could you pass that big hammer?", and "Ooooh, that'll never go in there". The local labourers worked alongside us, were great fun, had bags more energy than us wilting flowers in the midday heat, and kept surprising us with their ingenuity. It seems in India anything can be achieved with a length of plastic tubing, a wok, a spanner and a spade.
See the photo album for the completed work.
When we weren't at the Aidcamp, we saw and experienced some amazing things, and were treated to the most generous hospitality of the SCAD team, eating fantastic curries, dosas, parothas, chapattis, and masses of fruit. I came to India expecting to lose weight, and ended up gaining it - which also happens when Tangum, Susilla, Asha or Vimela, the excellent ladies that were looking after us, took a half-empty plate as a sign to sneak more food onto it! Nights were spent sitting on the porch of a small villa, playing cards, reading, and putting the world to rights, with the soundtrack to the night being provided by chattering crickets, and the music that just seems to float on the air at all hours. During the days, chipmunks provided constant entertainment chasing each other, sprinting along the ground with their tales in the air, and stealing flowers from trees, and I swear there must have been twenty dogs with nothing else to do than trot happily along paths and then back again, just for the hell of it.
We also had some opportunities to spend some time with the children on the SCAD school campus; a wide range of ages, some with physical and mental disabilities. The children were reason enough to do the Aidcamp alone - they were fantastic fun, friendly, curious and energetic - and there wasn't a shred of self-pity amongst any of them.
Most of our time was taken up with various trips around Tamil Nadu to see SCAD work in action - and I don't know how else I would have been able to see some of the things I did; vast, barren salt pans at Tuticorin; the villages affected by the Tsunami; the friendliest and most curious people I ever met; and genuine rural Indian life (let me put it this way; we were the only westerners we saw during our time inTamil Nadu, with the exception of Madurai, and it was common to be waved at, stared at, and being given random handshakes by lift attendants and security guards). Sometimes the experiences were difficult or saddening - we had to cancel two trips to successive villages in one day because there had been a death in each village, we saw children that would have been working in inhumane conditions were it not for the school provided for them by SCAD, we saw salt panworkers working in conditions I wouldn't wish on anybody - and there was, needless to say, grinding poverty everywhere you looked. These sad experiences were outweighed by so many other touching ones; leprosy sufferers who contradicted the medieval stereotype of lepers with their dignity and approachability; children with physical and mental disabilities being lavished with love and attention when they could otherwise have been left to suffer in a corner out of ignorance; women's groups getting their villages out of debt and gaining respect in their community; the elderly being given care and attention when they would otherwise have to fend for themselves.
The Aidcamp has shown me some things I will never forget, given me something genuinly worthwhile to be passionate about, given me the best induction into India I could have hoped for, and allowed to meet a brilliant group of people. I don't know how the rest of India can match up to this.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Kovalam
Here's a video of one of the gypsies from Pettai dancing as Kali, bringer of destruction (14.4MB AVI - broadband needed) - hope you like!
The Aidcamp is over, and we're in Kovalam, the main coastal resort of Kerala - the sea is warm and blue, and the fish curry is fantastic. I'll be posting more soon, but for the moment, check out the latest photos!
The Aidcamp is over, and we're in Kovalam, the main coastal resort of Kerala - the sea is warm and blue, and the fish curry is fantastic. I'll be posting more soon, but for the moment, check out the latest photos!
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Massage or marinade?
Yesterday I went for an ayurvedic massage - ayurvedic massage is big with tourists to India, and involves a full-body massage using herb-infused oils. A few of us went to a small parlour in Thekkady. The massage lasted for about forty minutes... when I say full body massage I mean it was pants off, and the smallest loin cloth known to man to protect my modesty. The massage was disappointingly not performed by a nubile maiden with bejewelled feet, but a strapping young lad. It started with oil being poured on my head, and my head being massaged - hair follicles being twisted and teased, nostrils pummelled, eyelids nudged, and ears knocked. All quite pleasant enough. Then we moved on to the full body massage, which necessitated climbing onto a bench. I was covered in liberal amounts of oil, and then beaten up bit by bit. Some of it was very enjoyable, and I had time to reflect on things so far and contemplate life... then the backs of my thighs got a thrashing and I yelped a bit. I don't remember feeling very relaxed, in fact I think my butt cheeks were clenched for the whole thing.
This was all finished off with a very pleasant steam bath, sat in a giant pink box that made Ian and I look a bit like what Daleks would look like if they were even more primative. And gay. We were then towelled down, but still covered in a thin film of oil that made me feel like either a freshly oiled cricket bat or a marinaded steak. In conclusion, my first massage experience was a mixed one, which did sort my sore legs out, but I'll wait until I get a Thai massage until I form a firm opinion.
Today, we head back to Tamil Nadu for the last week of the Aidcamp, where we'll be finishing off the garden and the murals.
The Aidcamp is the reason I came to Tamil Nadu, and has been the most incredible introduction to India that I could possibly imagine having - I'd recommend it to anyone. I've been lucky enough to be put together with a fantastic group of people, doing worthwhile work for a truly amazing NGO, SCAD - Social Change and Development. I have to get on the bus back to SCAD shortly, so will explain more about them later. More photos soon as well.
This was all finished off with a very pleasant steam bath, sat in a giant pink box that made Ian and I look a bit like what Daleks would look like if they were even more primative. And gay. We were then towelled down, but still covered in a thin film of oil that made me feel like either a freshly oiled cricket bat or a marinaded steak. In conclusion, my first massage experience was a mixed one, which did sort my sore legs out, but I'll wait until I get a Thai massage until I form a firm opinion.
Today, we head back to Tamil Nadu for the last week of the Aidcamp, where we'll be finishing off the garden and the murals.
The Aidcamp is the reason I came to Tamil Nadu, and has been the most incredible introduction to India that I could possibly imagine having - I'd recommend it to anyone. I've been lucky enough to be put together with a fantastic group of people, doing worthwhile work for a truly amazing NGO, SCAD - Social Change and Development. I have to get on the bus back to SCAD shortly, so will explain more about them later. More photos soon as well.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Weekend off
It's been pretty busy here - this isn't what I'd describe as a holiday!
We're currently spending a couple of days in Thekkady, a small town in the Western Ghats, the mountains dividing Kerala and Tamil Nadu. By 'we' I mean myself and the others on the Aidcamp, a great group of people. We've had a hard week working at the gypsy school at Pettai, doing mural painting, gardening and waving at countless cheeky schoolkids, and yesterday we had a very long journey up to Thekkady from SCAD in a bus which, while designed to be comfortable for Indians, unfortunately meant it was phenomenally uncomfortable for a bunch of big Westerners with long legs.
We came up to Thekkady to see Periyar Wildlife Reserve, a reserve around a lake, home to elephants, tigers, monkeys, and masses of other flora and fauna. We took a three-hour hike this morning through some of the reserve, and failed to see any elephants or tigers, but saw some monkeys, a giant squirrel, and more birds than you can shake a stick at. Our guide was a bit of a twitcher so kept randomly stopping and pointing into the trees in the direction of some small bird that would then promptly fly off. Bird watching? What is that all about?! Mind you, getting up is easy here - the mosque calls the town to prayer at 5:30 a.m - and everyone can hear it.
So after I flew down to Trivandrum (state capital of Kerala) from Bombay, I was in the hotel on my own until the rest of the Aidcamps volunteers arrived, and took a quick walk through the streets around the hotel. Trivandrum is not a big tourist town - most tourists heading to Kovalam pass through it - so when I was out I was the only white person I could see. India for a first-timer is quite something - masses of people everywhere you look, buses, cows, Ambassador cars, motorbikes, goats, dogs, open drains, small shops, dirt and litter, car horns constantly being blown, insane traffic, and no spare space anywhere. I took a ten minute walk, got back to the hotel, ordered two boiled eggs and a pot of tea, and promptly freaked out.
It has since got easier, but every so often, India just makes you want to shut your eyes and have it all go away, as beautiful a place as it is, and as generous and curious as so many of the people are. When we took a quick trip to Tirunelveli the other day (for the ladies to buy Saris from Pothy's, where I also got a dothie - and Pothy's is another story altogether - think the Indian version of Grace Brothers), we went to the temple for a look around, and one of our group remarked that temples were not just places for prayer, they're places to get away from the mania of the streets.
Anyway, time has caught up with me again - more soon.
We're currently spending a couple of days in Thekkady, a small town in the Western Ghats, the mountains dividing Kerala and Tamil Nadu. By 'we' I mean myself and the others on the Aidcamp, a great group of people. We've had a hard week working at the gypsy school at Pettai, doing mural painting, gardening and waving at countless cheeky schoolkids, and yesterday we had a very long journey up to Thekkady from SCAD in a bus which, while designed to be comfortable for Indians, unfortunately meant it was phenomenally uncomfortable for a bunch of big Westerners with long legs.
We came up to Thekkady to see Periyar Wildlife Reserve, a reserve around a lake, home to elephants, tigers, monkeys, and masses of other flora and fauna. We took a three-hour hike this morning through some of the reserve, and failed to see any elephants or tigers, but saw some monkeys, a giant squirrel, and more birds than you can shake a stick at. Our guide was a bit of a twitcher so kept randomly stopping and pointing into the trees in the direction of some small bird that would then promptly fly off. Bird watching? What is that all about?! Mind you, getting up is easy here - the mosque calls the town to prayer at 5:30 a.m - and everyone can hear it.
So after I flew down to Trivandrum (state capital of Kerala) from Bombay, I was in the hotel on my own until the rest of the Aidcamps volunteers arrived, and took a quick walk through the streets around the hotel. Trivandrum is not a big tourist town - most tourists heading to Kovalam pass through it - so when I was out I was the only white person I could see. India for a first-timer is quite something - masses of people everywhere you look, buses, cows, Ambassador cars, motorbikes, goats, dogs, open drains, small shops, dirt and litter, car horns constantly being blown, insane traffic, and no spare space anywhere. I took a ten minute walk, got back to the hotel, ordered two boiled eggs and a pot of tea, and promptly freaked out.
It has since got easier, but every so often, India just makes you want to shut your eyes and have it all go away, as beautiful a place as it is, and as generous and curious as so many of the people are. When we took a quick trip to Tirunelveli the other day (for the ladies to buy Saris from Pothy's, where I also got a dothie - and Pothy's is another story altogether - think the Indian version of Grace Brothers), we went to the temple for a look around, and one of our group remarked that temples were not just places for prayer, they're places to get away from the mania of the streets.
Anyway, time has caught up with me again - more soon.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
New piccies
I've uploaded some of the best pictures so far from India - Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Aidcamp with Aidcamps International.
IndiaaAAAHHHH!
Well, I'm here, and... WOW!
Everything they say about India is true, good and bad, but overall, India is so far the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and the people are amazing. Everything about this trip so far has had my eyes out on stalks, my hair on end, my nose twitching, and my brain exploding with the sheer amount of amazing sights, smells and sounds. I've also been laughing like a drain and crying like an idiot!
When it came to the flight out, I was wandering around Heathrow Airport after five hours of sleep at the hotel, a bit numb, rather nervous to say the least, and not knowing what I still needed to get. I bought wafer bars and bottles of water, terrified that I wouldn't be eating or drinking in India unless I took all my own supplies with me.
For those who don't know, the flight to India was the second time ever I have been on a plane, and my first flight ever on a 747. I sat waiting for the plane to take off, with my seat above the wing, just wondering how the hell the wings even stay on, the size of them! The food on the flight was good, and I hadn't realised there would be a video screen in the back of the seat in front of me, so my idea of reading a book went out of the window - also because I met two great people in the seats next to me - Vini, a Keralan working and living in the US who was going to see his parents in Cochin (hi Vini!) and Margaret, a small Scots lady who was going to India because she was volunteering, and because she loved the place ("you'll be coming back!" she said to me).
I saw an amazing sight on the plane - after about five hours in the air we were flying over Iran, and the clouds that had covered the ground below the plane cleared, and I saw scattered lights on the ground far below. From 39,000 feet, these lights were so small, they looked like stars. There were stars in the sky above the plane, and stars below - it was like flying through space. Then, we passed over Tabriz, a reasonable size town, and it was like an explosion of light - all of the street lights and house lights shone up, shimmering blue, gold and orange, countless tiny specks of light. The town looked like a fractal diagram or an organism, a jellyfish, or an alien from a James Cameron movie. I wish I could have taken a photo, but it would never have done it justice.
We got to Bombay airport, and I was getting very nervous by now. As the doors of the plane opened, a rush of warm (25 degrees c at one in the morning), fragrant air shot into my face. Well, I say fragrant, it was probably a combination of flowers and kerosene. I parted company with Vini and Margaret, and found my way out of the international terminal - the guard attending the baggage scanner walked over to me at one point and beckoned me round the scanner - I was terrified he was going to do some sort of invasive body cavity search - it just turned out the baggage scanner was jammed and he was letting me straight through... great security! I then started worrying when I changed my money for Rupees - I was handed a wad of cash so thick I felt incredibly self-conscious, and had to shuffle off with my wad concealed so I could stash it in my bag.
Finding the domestic terminal for the flight down to Kerala turned out to be a piece of cake - it was all very simple, clearly signed, and I just followed the other tourists. A baggage handler shook my hand when he had labelled my backpack for the flight, and said "bhaiyaa - good journey". Bhaiyaa means 'brother', used with strangers. The English in India is fantastic, often very proper and old-sounding. Porters and handlers muttered things like "you are most welcome sir". After getting to the domestic terminal, I now had an eight-hour wait for the next flight, so stayed awake all night in the waiting room with everyone else. The TV was on at full blast, no chance of sleep, and chai wallers were constantly passing by selling chai for Rs 10 - about 8p. What is chai then, at least in Mumbai airport? Tea, boiled up with evaporated milk, masses of sugar, and possibly ginger. Yorkshire tea it ain't. But at 8p a shot, and when you want something warm, it actually gets to be quite good!
At one point on the TV news, footage showed a man on fire - not the sort of thing you see on Look East. He was being chased around a yard by fifteen other men, who I thought were giving him a good kicking - it just turns out they were putting him out. I saw a McDonalds advert for a McAloo Tikka - they'll stick a Mc on anything. At one point, Vini found me and bought me a cuppa, and also very kindly gave me his parents phone number in case I needed anything - what a star!
The flight down to Kerala from Mumbai was quiet - a very cute stewardess had memorised my name, so I was treated to "Are you alright Mr Nelson?", "Tea or coffee Mr Nelson?", "Goodbye Mr Nelson". I embarrassed myself a bit by waking myself up snoring so loud I'm sure the whole cabin heard.
Anyway, I have got a heck of a lot more to get down, and haven't even started on India, Trivandrum, Tamil Nadu, the gypsies, SCAD, or the children here - there's so much I'm having to write it down every day! For the time being, take a look at the latest pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip. I'll post more soon!.
Everything they say about India is true, good and bad, but overall, India is so far the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and the people are amazing. Everything about this trip so far has had my eyes out on stalks, my hair on end, my nose twitching, and my brain exploding with the sheer amount of amazing sights, smells and sounds. I've also been laughing like a drain and crying like an idiot!
When it came to the flight out, I was wandering around Heathrow Airport after five hours of sleep at the hotel, a bit numb, rather nervous to say the least, and not knowing what I still needed to get. I bought wafer bars and bottles of water, terrified that I wouldn't be eating or drinking in India unless I took all my own supplies with me.
For those who don't know, the flight to India was the second time ever I have been on a plane, and my first flight ever on a 747. I sat waiting for the plane to take off, with my seat above the wing, just wondering how the hell the wings even stay on, the size of them! The food on the flight was good, and I hadn't realised there would be a video screen in the back of the seat in front of me, so my idea of reading a book went out of the window - also because I met two great people in the seats next to me - Vini, a Keralan working and living in the US who was going to see his parents in Cochin (hi Vini!) and Margaret, a small Scots lady who was going to India because she was volunteering, and because she loved the place ("you'll be coming back!" she said to me).
I saw an amazing sight on the plane - after about five hours in the air we were flying over Iran, and the clouds that had covered the ground below the plane cleared, and I saw scattered lights on the ground far below. From 39,000 feet, these lights were so small, they looked like stars. There were stars in the sky above the plane, and stars below - it was like flying through space. Then, we passed over Tabriz, a reasonable size town, and it was like an explosion of light - all of the street lights and house lights shone up, shimmering blue, gold and orange, countless tiny specks of light. The town looked like a fractal diagram or an organism, a jellyfish, or an alien from a James Cameron movie. I wish I could have taken a photo, but it would never have done it justice.
We got to Bombay airport, and I was getting very nervous by now. As the doors of the plane opened, a rush of warm (25 degrees c at one in the morning), fragrant air shot into my face. Well, I say fragrant, it was probably a combination of flowers and kerosene. I parted company with Vini and Margaret, and found my way out of the international terminal - the guard attending the baggage scanner walked over to me at one point and beckoned me round the scanner - I was terrified he was going to do some sort of invasive body cavity search - it just turned out the baggage scanner was jammed and he was letting me straight through... great security! I then started worrying when I changed my money for Rupees - I was handed a wad of cash so thick I felt incredibly self-conscious, and had to shuffle off with my wad concealed so I could stash it in my bag.
Finding the domestic terminal for the flight down to Kerala turned out to be a piece of cake - it was all very simple, clearly signed, and I just followed the other tourists. A baggage handler shook my hand when he had labelled my backpack for the flight, and said "bhaiyaa - good journey". Bhaiyaa means 'brother', used with strangers. The English in India is fantastic, often very proper and old-sounding. Porters and handlers muttered things like "you are most welcome sir". After getting to the domestic terminal, I now had an eight-hour wait for the next flight, so stayed awake all night in the waiting room with everyone else. The TV was on at full blast, no chance of sleep, and chai wallers were constantly passing by selling chai for Rs 10 - about 8p. What is chai then, at least in Mumbai airport? Tea, boiled up with evaporated milk, masses of sugar, and possibly ginger. Yorkshire tea it ain't. But at 8p a shot, and when you want something warm, it actually gets to be quite good!
At one point on the TV news, footage showed a man on fire - not the sort of thing you see on Look East. He was being chased around a yard by fifteen other men, who I thought were giving him a good kicking - it just turns out they were putting him out. I saw a McDonalds advert for a McAloo Tikka - they'll stick a Mc on anything. At one point, Vini found me and bought me a cuppa, and also very kindly gave me his parents phone number in case I needed anything - what a star!
The flight down to Kerala from Mumbai was quiet - a very cute stewardess had memorised my name, so I was treated to "Are you alright Mr Nelson?", "Tea or coffee Mr Nelson?", "Goodbye Mr Nelson". I embarrassed myself a bit by waking myself up snoring so loud I'm sure the whole cabin heard.
Anyway, I have got a heck of a lot more to get down, and haven't even started on India, Trivandrum, Tamil Nadu, the gypsies, SCAD, or the children here - there's so much I'm having to write it down every day! For the time being, take a look at the latest pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip. I'll post more soon!.
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