This update is just going to be about my weekend, as it was quite an adventure and I haven’t done much else since my last update!
So on Wednesday we suddenly planned to go away for the weekend to Amritsar (North-East of Delhi, near to the border of Pakistan) with Nikki (the girl from America) and Raman (a girl who goes to City School). So Saturday morning at 2.30am our alarms went off to get us up to get to the station in time ready for our 4.30am train (which was then 30 mins late)! The journey took 12 and half hours, and was yet another Indian experience! Although not a particularly nice one – it was a sleeper train so it was very weird sleeping in the early hours of the morning on a bunk bed surronded my lots of Indian men snoring close by. At one point I opened my eyes to see a man in handcuffs walking by followed by a couple of important looking security type men. We finally reached Amritsar at 5.30pm, and caught a rickshaw to the Golden Temple (New record – 6 people in one autorickshaw!). After about 45 minutes of wondering back and forth between several apartment buildings (which had free accomodation) we discovered that there were no available rooms. In the end we had 6 beds made up in the middle of a big empty corridor. After setting up our beds we headed to get some food, and then walked around the Golden Temple. We didn’t actually go in, but it was amazing from the outside especially all lit up in the dark. We then headed to bed for an early night ready for another early morning.
We were planning to get up at around 3.30am, ready to be inside the temple at 4am to see the Holy Book being brought out, but we woke up a bit late and got outside 5 minutes too late, so just went back to bed again! Sunday was a pretty packed day, we started off by having a huge breakfast and then went inside the Golden Temple. It was pretty incredible – lots of gold (suprisingly!) and very detailed decorating, it was beautiful. Part of the temple is now also a museum of painting of previous Guru’s and fights between India and Pakistan. Some of these paintings were pretty disturbing to see what terrible things the Pakistan Army did to the Indians. Our next stop of the day was some a nearby garden where many Indian martyrs had died. We then caught an autorickshaw to a Hindu temple we wanted to visit, but we were taken to the wrong one. This temple was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, the one we visited in Birmingham was more impressive! So we then went to the right one which was very interesting… it reminded me of a fun house at the fair. We had to follow the path around which took us past lots of statues of Gods, made us crawl through these rock-type things and paddle through a stream of water. It was yet another interesting Indian experience!
Having looked around these temples we then travelled about 45 mins to reach the border between India and Pakistan to watch the closing ceremony. It was VERY busy, and not the place to be if you don’t like crowds. There didn’t seem to be much of a ceremony though – just lots of chanting and the guards closing the gates and putting down the flags, but I guess I can now say I’ve been about 100m away from Pakistan!
Sunday evening we decided to go back to the Golden Temple to see the Holy Book being put away, but about 10 minutes before the ceremony began I felt ill, and fainted so left the temple straight away and missed it all, which I was slightly annoyed about. (Though I doubt many people can say they’ve fainted in the Golden Temple!!)
Monday morning we then travelled home on a very squished 8-hour train journey! I was relieved to finally be home and rest. The rest of this week I’ve had to miss school and stay at home, as I’ve been suffering from mild Delhi belly (I think I spoke too soon in my last update!!). Even though I only missed 3 days, I really missed all the girls and children there! I was very glad to be back today!
And that was my weekend… anyone beat it?!?
Hope you’re all doing well, and it’s not too cold in England!! (Less than one month until Christmas!!)
Love, Hannah xx
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Christmas shopping in India
Hello again!
I think this is just going to be a quick update as I don’t think I have all that much to say because we’re getting into a routine now.
School is going well. I’m really eanjoying teaching one of the girls, Pinky, one – to-one. She’s about 19, and knows the least English out of all the girls so at the moment we’re learning the alphabet. Being one-to-one means we can take things at her pace and hopefully form a good relationship with her. Teaching the children is going well too. I’m learning names (slowly!) and getting to their charcters better – they’re fantastic children. This week I’ve most enjoyed just having fun and playing with them – skipping, kho-kho, teaching them hand clap games and dancing with the girls. This week we’ve also enjoyed a couple of games of cricket with the women, and one of them, Shushi, is now engaged (by arranged marriage). The wedding is going to be in February, so hopefully we’ll get to go to an Indian Wedding! But prayers for Shushi as during the lead up to the wedding would be good as I imagine it’s hard getting married to someone you’ve only ever met for 15 minutes and her own family and her husband and his family are all Hindu’s, whilst Shushi is a Christian.
Church is good. I’m enjoying the Sunday morning services, even if they do last nearly 4 hours! Bible Study and Bible Talk are going well. We’re getting to grips with singing in Hindi and all the Church members are so lovely and welcoming. It’s so great to hear how God’s working in everyone’s lives so much.
My team are continuing to work well together, no major arguments – just about who left the light on or who didn’t do the washing up properly! This week we’ve been dicussing ways that we can make the most of our time here and how we can reach more people with God’s love. Oh, and thank you to all of you who have been praying for our health – it’s amazing that none of us have got ill yet! (The only Delhi belly we’ll be getting is a bigger tumm from eating so much food!) God’s really looking after us.
On the food front – rice and dal are beginning to get boring when you have it for lunch and tea everyday. But breakfast is pretty exciting, we’ve had everything ranging from jam on toast, to breadcrumbs with onion, to omlette sandwiches! We’ve all fallen in love with ‘Jalebi’, which is basically deep dried sugar – but it’s so good! Why hasn’t it reached England yet?!
And finally Christmas shopping… On Saturday we went into Rajiv Chowk to buy our families at home Christmas presents. There’s no sign of Christmas here, and I don’t feel at all Christmassey but it had to be done in the hope they’d reach home before Christmas, or before we do (post is taking so so long to get from India to England). We had lots of fun in the underground market using our haggling skills!
That’s it for now, thanls for reading. Please feel free to let me know what you’re up to or anything I can pray for.
Love, Hannah xx
I think this is just going to be a quick update as I don’t think I have all that much to say because we’re getting into a routine now.
School is going well. I’m really eanjoying teaching one of the girls, Pinky, one – to-one. She’s about 19, and knows the least English out of all the girls so at the moment we’re learning the alphabet. Being one-to-one means we can take things at her pace and hopefully form a good relationship with her. Teaching the children is going well too. I’m learning names (slowly!) and getting to their charcters better – they’re fantastic children. This week I’ve most enjoyed just having fun and playing with them – skipping, kho-kho, teaching them hand clap games and dancing with the girls. This week we’ve also enjoyed a couple of games of cricket with the women, and one of them, Shushi, is now engaged (by arranged marriage). The wedding is going to be in February, so hopefully we’ll get to go to an Indian Wedding! But prayers for Shushi as during the lead up to the wedding would be good as I imagine it’s hard getting married to someone you’ve only ever met for 15 minutes and her own family and her husband and his family are all Hindu’s, whilst Shushi is a Christian.
Church is good. I’m enjoying the Sunday morning services, even if they do last nearly 4 hours! Bible Study and Bible Talk are going well. We’re getting to grips with singing in Hindi and all the Church members are so lovely and welcoming. It’s so great to hear how God’s working in everyone’s lives so much.
My team are continuing to work well together, no major arguments – just about who left the light on or who didn’t do the washing up properly! This week we’ve been dicussing ways that we can make the most of our time here and how we can reach more people with God’s love. Oh, and thank you to all of you who have been praying for our health – it’s amazing that none of us have got ill yet! (The only Delhi belly we’ll be getting is a bigger tumm from eating so much food!) God’s really looking after us.
On the food front – rice and dal are beginning to get boring when you have it for lunch and tea everyday. But breakfast is pretty exciting, we’ve had everything ranging from jam on toast, to breadcrumbs with onion, to omlette sandwiches! We’ve all fallen in love with ‘Jalebi’, which is basically deep dried sugar – but it’s so good! Why hasn’t it reached England yet?!
And finally Christmas shopping… On Saturday we went into Rajiv Chowk to buy our families at home Christmas presents. There’s no sign of Christmas here, and I don’t feel at all Christmassey but it had to be done in the hope they’d reach home before Christmas, or before we do (post is taking so so long to get from India to England). We had lots of fun in the underground market using our haggling skills!
That’s it for now, thanls for reading. Please feel free to let me know what you’re up to or anything I can pray for.
Love, Hannah xx
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Discovering Delhi
Hello everyone!
So I’ve now been in India for 4 weeks! It’s gone so quickly, but I’m loving it. It’s such a crazy and laid back country. In these first 4 weeks I’ve learnt a lot, experienced a lot, seen a lot and smelt a lot. Delhi seems to have it’s own scent wherever you go – a mixture of pollution and spices!
After my last update the team celebrated Bonfire night – fireworks on the roof and a BBQ. It was good fun, but not you’re average bonfire night. Hope you all had a good one!
School’s been going well this week. We’re getting into a routine now and getting the hand of teaching. I’ve been teaching my class short sentences to describe their day, and they seem to be picking it up which is always a good sign. I’m also getting to know the children individually and slowly learning their names. It’s so much harder to learn 30 Indian names, than 30 English names!
The most exciting day since last Thursday was Saturday. It was our day off to we decided to do some exploring of Delhi, with Nikki (the 20-year old who’s helping at city school for a month). First we caught the metro up to Chandi Chawk, Old Delhi. As soon as we got out of the metro station was hit with the culture. Old Delhi is a much poorer part of Delhi, and that was obvious… there were beggars lining the steets, with various disabilities etc. For those who pray, please pray that I’d be able to do something – I can’t give them money, and I can’t even talk to them because of the language barrier. In Old Delhi, we visited Red Fort which is a huge palace where the emperor of India used to live. We visited a Jainism temple and bird hospital, and also a Sikh Gudwara. The Gudwara was another beautiful place, and very interesting to look around. At the back of the Gudwara they have a ‘community hall’, where food is made and given out for free. Somehow we ended up here – first we started off by stirring huge pots of dal, we then sat down and were given some of the food (which was good food), and finally we helped a couple of the ladies to peel a mountain of courgettes. We then decided to head back to Raviv Chawk (the centre of Delhi) but on our way to the metro station we saw 2 elephants – we all got very excited at seeing 2 elephants in the streets! We were given the option to ride one, but the shock of seeing one was enough, never mind riding one but we’ve made a deal that next time we see an elephant we will ride it!
In Raviv Chawk we went to a yummy bakery, and went to the underground market to buy a couple of things and practice our haggling skills! We also wanted to visited India gate (India’s equivalent of the Arc-de-Triumph) so we started to walk to it, discovering half way there that it was 20 minutes untill we needed to be on the metro again, and it would take about and hour to walk there and get back to the metro station again. Out best bet was to catch our first autorickshaws. We managed to fit 5 of us in the back of one rickshaw! India Gate itself wasn’t all that interesting – just one of things you look at, take a couple of photos and move on! We eventually made it home in the evening, shattered from our day out.
I think that’s pretty much it.
For those who do, please pray that we’ll continue to grow as a team and that we all get into teaching even more. Especially for Lousise and Lydia who are sturggling with a huge class of 60 2 – 6 year olds.
Thanks, Love Hannah
So I’ve now been in India for 4 weeks! It’s gone so quickly, but I’m loving it. It’s such a crazy and laid back country. In these first 4 weeks I’ve learnt a lot, experienced a lot, seen a lot and smelt a lot. Delhi seems to have it’s own scent wherever you go – a mixture of pollution and spices!
After my last update the team celebrated Bonfire night – fireworks on the roof and a BBQ. It was good fun, but not you’re average bonfire night. Hope you all had a good one!
School’s been going well this week. We’re getting into a routine now and getting the hand of teaching. I’ve been teaching my class short sentences to describe their day, and they seem to be picking it up which is always a good sign. I’m also getting to know the children individually and slowly learning their names. It’s so much harder to learn 30 Indian names, than 30 English names!
The most exciting day since last Thursday was Saturday. It was our day off to we decided to do some exploring of Delhi, with Nikki (the 20-year old who’s helping at city school for a month). First we caught the metro up to Chandi Chawk, Old Delhi. As soon as we got out of the metro station was hit with the culture. Old Delhi is a much poorer part of Delhi, and that was obvious… there were beggars lining the steets, with various disabilities etc. For those who pray, please pray that I’d be able to do something – I can’t give them money, and I can’t even talk to them because of the language barrier. In Old Delhi, we visited Red Fort which is a huge palace where the emperor of India used to live. We visited a Jainism temple and bird hospital, and also a Sikh Gudwara. The Gudwara was another beautiful place, and very interesting to look around. At the back of the Gudwara they have a ‘community hall’, where food is made and given out for free. Somehow we ended up here – first we started off by stirring huge pots of dal, we then sat down and were given some of the food (which was good food), and finally we helped a couple of the ladies to peel a mountain of courgettes. We then decided to head back to Raviv Chawk (the centre of Delhi) but on our way to the metro station we saw 2 elephants – we all got very excited at seeing 2 elephants in the streets! We were given the option to ride one, but the shock of seeing one was enough, never mind riding one but we’ve made a deal that next time we see an elephant we will ride it!
In Raviv Chawk we went to a yummy bakery, and went to the underground market to buy a couple of things and practice our haggling skills! We also wanted to visited India gate (India’s equivalent of the Arc-de-Triumph) so we started to walk to it, discovering half way there that it was 20 minutes untill we needed to be on the metro again, and it would take about and hour to walk there and get back to the metro station again. Out best bet was to catch our first autorickshaws. We managed to fit 5 of us in the back of one rickshaw! India Gate itself wasn’t all that interesting – just one of things you look at, take a couple of photos and move on! We eventually made it home in the evening, shattered from our day out.
I think that’s pretty much it.
For those who do, please pray that we’ll continue to grow as a team and that we all get into teaching even more. Especially for Lousise and Lydia who are sturggling with a huge class of 60 2 – 6 year olds.
Thanks, Love Hannah
Thursday, 5 November 2009
A hot November
Ok, so here I am again on a Thursday telling you about my week. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since last time, and I can’t believe we’ve already been here over 3 weeks… it seems ages ago we were on the plane and arrived here, but the time’s going so quickly – it’s weird!
So since last time what have I done…? Friday was funday at school. In the morning we cleaned the front of it. It’s just so so dusty (due to complete lack of rain). Even this seems like this is a very boring task, it was yet another new experience. At first it was difficult to help – as soon as we picked up a brush to join in one of the girls who worked there would take it and clean for us, it was a task just to be able to join in! Eventually they let us, through doing this and washing down the front of the school (which takes a while when you only have tiny buckets to wash down quite a bit area) we were able to have a bit of fun and get to know the girls even better. In the afternoon all the children arrived – and as it was funday Friday this meant games! I learnt a new game called ‘Cocoa’ – it’s tig with a twist. After having fun with the children at village school we went straight to city school (30 min drive away) to run song practice. Here Lousise will be teaching a couple of people guitar and Tabi, Lydia and I will be teaching the children songs. The theme song at the moment seems to be ‘Jesus love is very wonderful’ – we’ve sang it so so much. Also beginning to pick it up in Hindi too!
After a very full week Saturday was a day to relax and regain some energy. We spent most of it in our flat, only venturing out once to the market to get a couple of things. A trip to the market is always an experience – it takes about 20 minutes to walk there (with stares from everyone!) and then we have to barter for fruit and take about 20 minutes to find toilet roll! And of course go to the incredible sweet shop! Trying to get a rickshaw home was interesting – we started off talking to this one rickshaw driver trying to explain where we wanted to go, but her didn’t understand so another man came over, and he didn’t really understand either. It ended up with about 10 rickshaw drivers all talking away to Hindi to us! Eventually we understood each other and were able to get a rickshaw back home, where we collapsed for the evening. We attempted to watch a film, but the DVD player didn’t work, so we ended up each jam and biscuits (we have a bit of an obsession with jam at the moment!)
(oh, and before I forget, our mouse called Freddie Mercury(which I may or may not have mentioned before) has just been caught in our (human) mouse trap – yay!)
Sunday, was church as usual – although we didn’t get home until 3pm after chuch. The service is fairly long and Indians do like a good natter! The little of the afternoon left we spent relaxing and planning for school this week. In the evening we went to ‘Piggery Farm’ – the nearest place to buy meet, about 50 minutes away from our home. Here we bought sausages and bacon ready to cook a full english breakfast on Monday morning.
We invited our host family over in the morning for this breakfast, it took us 2 hours to cook but is was so worth it! Meat, and food that wasn’t spicey – an english breakfast has never tasted so good. And it filled us up for the rest of the day. Monday was yet another holiday so no school, instead we planned and in the evening played badminton and had a bible study with people from church.
Tuesday, Wednesday and today we’ve been at school like usual. Devotions, teaching english to the teachers and to the chilren, playing game and learning Hindi and various church activities in the evenings. We’re all starting to get into the swing of things now, and India is definaltey becoming out home.
Tonight, we’re going to be celebrating Bonfire Night with our hosts – a BBQ and fireworks India style – on top of their house, about 3 meters away from where we’re standing!
I could ramble on forever about all the experiences I’m having but I think that’s enough untill next time!
Take care everyone, Love, Hannah
So since last time what have I done…? Friday was funday at school. In the morning we cleaned the front of it. It’s just so so dusty (due to complete lack of rain). Even this seems like this is a very boring task, it was yet another new experience. At first it was difficult to help – as soon as we picked up a brush to join in one of the girls who worked there would take it and clean for us, it was a task just to be able to join in! Eventually they let us, through doing this and washing down the front of the school (which takes a while when you only have tiny buckets to wash down quite a bit area) we were able to have a bit of fun and get to know the girls even better. In the afternoon all the children arrived – and as it was funday Friday this meant games! I learnt a new game called ‘Cocoa’ – it’s tig with a twist. After having fun with the children at village school we went straight to city school (30 min drive away) to run song practice. Here Lousise will be teaching a couple of people guitar and Tabi, Lydia and I will be teaching the children songs. The theme song at the moment seems to be ‘Jesus love is very wonderful’ – we’ve sang it so so much. Also beginning to pick it up in Hindi too!
After a very full week Saturday was a day to relax and regain some energy. We spent most of it in our flat, only venturing out once to the market to get a couple of things. A trip to the market is always an experience – it takes about 20 minutes to walk there (with stares from everyone!) and then we have to barter for fruit and take about 20 minutes to find toilet roll! And of course go to the incredible sweet shop! Trying to get a rickshaw home was interesting – we started off talking to this one rickshaw driver trying to explain where we wanted to go, but her didn’t understand so another man came over, and he didn’t really understand either. It ended up with about 10 rickshaw drivers all talking away to Hindi to us! Eventually we understood each other and were able to get a rickshaw back home, where we collapsed for the evening. We attempted to watch a film, but the DVD player didn’t work, so we ended up each jam and biscuits (we have a bit of an obsession with jam at the moment!)
(oh, and before I forget, our mouse called Freddie Mercury(which I may or may not have mentioned before) has just been caught in our (human) mouse trap – yay!)
Sunday, was church as usual – although we didn’t get home until 3pm after chuch. The service is fairly long and Indians do like a good natter! The little of the afternoon left we spent relaxing and planning for school this week. In the evening we went to ‘Piggery Farm’ – the nearest place to buy meet, about 50 minutes away from our home. Here we bought sausages and bacon ready to cook a full english breakfast on Monday morning.
We invited our host family over in the morning for this breakfast, it took us 2 hours to cook but is was so worth it! Meat, and food that wasn’t spicey – an english breakfast has never tasted so good. And it filled us up for the rest of the day. Monday was yet another holiday so no school, instead we planned and in the evening played badminton and had a bible study with people from church.
Tuesday, Wednesday and today we’ve been at school like usual. Devotions, teaching english to the teachers and to the chilren, playing game and learning Hindi and various church activities in the evenings. We’re all starting to get into the swing of things now, and India is definaltey becoming out home.
Tonight, we’re going to be celebrating Bonfire Night with our hosts – a BBQ and fireworks India style – on top of their house, about 3 meters away from where we’re standing!
I could ramble on forever about all the experiences I’m having but I think that’s enough untill next time!
Take care everyone, Love, Hannah
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