Greetings from Kerala

Here I am in Fort Cochin, in the state of Kerala, at the very south west tip of India - a complete contrast to Sikkim!  Kerala is tropical with lots of palm trees and coconut trees and the weather is hot and humid.  It is the start of the monsoon period and I have been expecting to be holed up in my hostel room doing lots of reading and writing but so far, so good and I have been doing touristy things in the lovely sunshine.


I flew down last Friday having decided to go with the option of volunteering with the women's organisation - either working in a special needs school or working in an "ordinary school".  Coming down to Kerala will also give me the opportunity to visit the Sivananda yoga ashram.  A couple of weeks of yoga and meditation in beautiful surroundings may give me some nourishing, both physically and spiritually.  It also gives Kerala Link the time they need to process my application.

Fort Cochin is the first touristy place I have been too and I'm glad that I'm here out of season.  Though the lack of tourists does mean that I get more than my fair share of "hello, how are you, come into my lovely shop" and the funky cafes listed in the Lonely Planet guide are closed for renovation....  Fort Cochin is on the sea and so I am constantly reminded of Brighton - here is just something about the sound of the waves that is universal.  Though I think the sound of the waves is the only thing that Brighton and Fort Cochin share.  There is a nice walkway along a bit of the sea, either side strewn with litter and there is no way I will be getting into the water!  There are these amazing ancient chinese fishing nets here - huge wooden structures which cast nets down into the sea then 4 men pull on ropes to haul the nets out of the sea and see what the catch is.  They look a bit like wooden structures used to cast rocks and tubs of boiling oil on medieval castles - and use the same principles.  They are kept going in part for the tourists but also in part because they really do catch fish with them which are then sold along the walkway.

I met a lovely woman (of similar age) on the plane coming to Cochin too so we spent the weekend doing touristy things together which was very nice and a very welcome relief from the busy-ness of the big city.  She is in India training teachers in a new school as a volunteer so we had a lot in common.   Fort Cochin is a nice mixture of Portuguese, Dutch, British and Indian and feels like a village, although across the water is the large city of Ernakalum.  We spent one afternoon looking at the local palace, walking around the spice bazaar area etc and the following day we went on a tourist boat, experiencing the tranquility of the Keralan backwaters.  It was very lovely and peaceful and a world away from Pune!  The scenery is stunning and of course it is always so relaxing to be on a boat - especially when you don't have to steer, row, punt....  We stopped for a lovely veggie lunch where the plates were banana leaves and spoons to eat with were offered as an option.  I decided to practice eating with my hands as most Indians do and have to say that the food does taste much better that way.  There's this great place to eat here in the evenings - where they serve north Indian dishes so I can continue with my appreciation of N. Indian fare.  The local food is great too but a lot of emphasis on fish and also coconut - not my favourite ingredients.  Interestingly dahl is not common here at all but is the staple all over the rest of the country.  I am also seriously getting into mango milkshakes - amazing combo of fresh mango, ice-cream and milk.  I reckon that the humidity is making me sweat so it's ok to pile on the calories!

For my next volunteering placement, I have to learn some of the local language so I might start getting stuck in now as I will need all the extra help I can get!  Also both my cotton shirts have now got big rips in them so I need to get a couple of new ones made up or scour the tourist shops for some cotton tops.  Note to any future travellers - always check how thin your very favourite cotton shirt has got before you go off to foreign climes.


bye for now
bee

ps if anyone would like to keep me updated on either Wimbledon and / or the Archers, I would much appreciate it! 







 

Crikey

Well, I have really gone and done it now.  I have left my volunteer placement, outside Pune, having lasted just one week...

Here's a quick catch up..

Leaving Sikkim was hard.  Everyone was so lovely and everyone wanted me to stay.  Foreigners can only stay for 2 months maximum so I didn't have to make any decisions.  I felt very emotional the last few days at school, saying goodbye to the children, knowing that even if I am lucky enough to come back, I won't see them again.  Of course, this tapped into deeper grief and I wonder if saying goodbye now is always going to be hard for me?

The school put on a special programme on my last day - lots of performances by the children, every child gave me a scarf (Tibetan style), presents, speeches, then I had to dance with Iccika, a student from class 6 who is an especially gifted dancer and gifted I am not.  Anyhow people appreciated my comic turn (it was to English pop music).  Then a shared feast with the teachers.  Then packing up my lovely little room.

The next day I caught the shared jeep to Siliguri.  My big pack and smaller day pack were up on the roof and just before Siliguri the heavens opened and I had my first taste of monsoon.  The sriver stopped briefly but not long enough to put a covering over the jeep so I spent the rest of the journey being philosopical about my luggage getting wet.  I was totally embarrassed to find that my luggage was on the back seat passengers knees whilst I had a roomy front seat!  Then onto the airport and back into the fairly uniform world of flying (but at least everything is familiar and you know what you are supposed to do) - except of course that the plane flew east first into Assam, then turned around and flew west to Delhi!  Caught my connecting flight and arrived late at night into Pune.

Adjusting to Pune, a big city with 7 times the population of the whole of Sikkim, wasn't easy but  I got into the swing of hailing down auto rickshaws, asking at least 3 people for directions, going into dodgey looking alleyways in seach of internet cafes.  I did upgrade into a AC room which was heavenly as Pune was so hot after Sikkim.

Then onto the delights of Sadhana Village - a collection of 3 houses, 30km from Pune.  I got a lift there and was welcomed with chai and mango juice and some al Friends (as the residents are called) having breakfast under a tree.  Needless to say, it all went down hill from at point on..... I very quickly realised that the place was in crisis.  Essentially there aren't enough people involved in running the place, nor are there enough volunteers so day 2 so me making up medecine packs for the following week and dispencing everyone's medecine for that day (with no one to heck my work).  Heaven only knows what I was dishing out!  SF are a mixture of adults with learning disabilities and adults with some fairly serious mental health issues and with some very disturbing behaviours.  As a volunteer you were expected to work from 7am to 9pm when the SF were locked in their rooms.  Each house in theory had a house mother but there was one vacancy and the others were not there during the day so from 9 to 6 there were 5 German volunteers, plus me, left in charge.  The German volunteers were all much younger than me and had been there for 10 months.  Two of them were clearly exhausted and at breaking point.  Evidently there used to be a co-worker who had a great way of working with SF but he had left and hadn't been replaced. 

So I had a fairly serious conversations straight away about my concerns - staff shortage, level of responsibility of volunteers, not knowing what worked for each SF, regimented regime of locked gates, and SF locked in their rooms each night, lack of meaningful activities, the huge amount of rats everywhere and promised I would stay for a week.  I did just that but had to leave as it was all beyond what I could do.

I know that it was the right decision for me to leave and I hope that my leaving has sent a serious message to the organisation. 

And so I am now in Pune and sorting out another volunteer placement in Kerala which would also allow me the opportunity to visit a hatha yoga ashram (again with a demanding schedule of yoga, meditation, lectures but at least the gates won't be locked!).  And if it doesn't work out I have the chance of working in a small school outside Leh, in Ladakh, in the Himalayas.  So quite possibly I am looking to be spending  a fair proportion of the rest of my time in India on a train!!

I'm in good spirits and accepting of what fate has thrown at me.  I have just finished reading The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh in which he talks of life being a transition - how right on some many different levels.

In the meantime, I'm slowly getting to know bits of Pune.  I'm ashamed to say that I did go into a modern shopping mall and my eyes popped out when I saw it was full of Marks and Spencer, Pizza Hut, Body Shop, and all the well known sports brands.  Security guards at the entrance who scanned you and checked your luggage - I think more of a measure to keep "poor" people out rather than to stop terrorists.  However having said that, the German Bakery, a well known cafe for Indians and backpackers here, was bombed  last year.

And interesting, I am starting to meet other white tourists, a British couple who were staying at the same grotty hotel as me (cheap and definately not cheerful).  They are working with the British  Consultate in Mumbai and had come to Pune for the weekend.  He normally works for the Border Agency in the UK but I tried not to hold that against him as they were very friendly!  We went out for a meal and got talking to someone who offered us drugs and the opportunity to go to a hill station for the night... even I picked up that it would involve sex!  Needless to say I passed on this exciting invite.  Fortunately my next encounter with white tourists were two nice dykey looking women from USA and Australia who were doing an intensive yoga course here.  Only coffee was shared during this exchange! 

I'm off now to look at another hotel as I'm nearly my limit of grotty decor, not very clean bathroom and sleeping in my own sheet sleeping bag - all part of the experience of being here and not there.  It still is lovely being here and not being in the UK and not working and running a house....

I'll update with news once I have some!
love
bee