Sunday, November 18, 2007

FINALLY!!

I am in the staff lounge working on the computer and in comes Roxy with her teacher...Finally, the tooth is out! Her other two teeth are coming in behind and it looked so sore. We have been begging her to remove at least one all week. And Mrs. Cooke, the best teacher ever, convinced her to let her see and dry in...and pop, out it came. Now the top two are loose as well. Gross. I hope I am brave enough to take them out for her!! Pictures to come.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Village

The best experience by far. A few weeks ago was activity week. I was with a grade 9 group (11 of them), Chris and Dale. The idea for this trip was to go into the villages in the valley behind Mussoorie and experience village life. The kids were awesome, Chris and Dale were awesome...it was a memorable trip. Unfortunately when I came back to school, I was mildly depressed. It would be amazing to learn and teach that way every week. But alas, here we are.

We spent a few days hiking .... long uphill hikes to temples on top of mountains and then down again to the Aglar river. Crystal Blue water, caverns and rocks. It was so nice to swim. The kids were pretty good considering manyof them had never slept in a tent let alone hiked more than the uphill climb from school. They were hysterical with giddiness and fatigue most of the time. Each evening we all went to a host family and did whatever they were doung, whcih usually meant pounding daal, or milking cows. Their houses are pretty neat, with little bits of garwhali wood and architecture accenting the walls and windows. It was very magical in a way, sitting on the ground in a courtyard with 5 women, and many children all beating daal until 8 pm. The lighting, sugar cane sweets, chai, laughter and blisters. It definately took a while for the woman to really get why we were there. They were timid at first and laughed at us. Slowly though they started to slap be with affection and gave me a squeeze whenever they walked by, often slipping me handful of peanuts.

I have to say that we had an amazing group of students with us. They were fearless of the children and gladly ventured alone into the village. Our village was clean and freindly. But after visiting the other nearby villages we saw that this was not really the case everywhere else. Still though, our kids would play cricket in fields of dung and feces. Gross. I know. But what do you do. You sort of have to get into it or sit there in complete disgust in the sweltering heat. They were troopers. And really only one of our villages was that bad.

Steve came out for a night with the kids. They loved it. Asha was sweeping the daal and helping with all of the chores (in between fits of tears) and Roxy watched with curiousity. All of the village women thought they were boys. ??? Must be the deep voices. But really everyone thought I was a boy until I was 16. Asha sang songs to the village children.

We spent a few days clearing Khali gas to see if the grass would come back, ploughed the fields and cut down Daal plants. We taught english and math to some school groups, and ate the most amazing food.

Oh there is so much to say...but I have to go.
Rahat leaves tomorrow. She is going to be very sad. The kids will be very sad too.

Today is the start of Diwali! So we are going into town to check out the festivities!!!!

Monday, November 5, 2007

It's almost there!

No chance with the door. nor twisting. Bumping into things seems to work. Maybe we will have to organise that.

A frequent pose



Saturday, November 3, 2007






It seems that the amount of time I can spend retelling stories dwindles every week. I need a new approach. Rahat is here, which is so nice. She has spoiled us with beef jerky, white wine, chocilate, gifts from grandma Pat, hot cereal, helmets, olive oil, sesame oil, vitamins and so on. It is great. We are having a ton of fun. Hiking, and exploring. Tomorrow she is coming with mke on a field trip up Top Tibba to see a farm with the grade 12 class.


The past few weeks were excellent. Especially activity week where we went to a local village to learn about the real life in India. I will definately post more about this, but in the meantime, you can look at Jeanne's blog to get the picture.


Here are some photos that Roxy created on the computer. It is weirdly amazing how old I feel when I see her work away on the computer, saving and editing pieces using the paint program. SHe is getting good. As well, tooth number 2 is loose and hanging by a thread. You can see her new one coming in....but the babies are still hanging on.