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!!!!