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