Takarna

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!!!!

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

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.

Ganga. It was clean and cold. We stayed on a camp on the rivers edge. Didn't raft this time, but definately will next time we go. For those of you coming over here to visit, it is a definate must and on the way to Mussoorie. It is called Himalayan River Runners. And they have an amazing retreat down the river as well. We had a very relaxing time. Swam, slept, ate and drank beer. I think all of us needed to swim. Here is our view down the river.

Some of the tents along the beach.

Hanging out by the water.

Daddy and the girls rock hopping.

Swimming

Before going to the Ganga, we were in Rishikesh, and Roxy learned to cross her eyes.

And discovered a scull. This is her finding the scull. At first we really thought...oh dear...a baby's head. But then after further investigation it revealed itself to be a monkey skull. We were exploring a monsoon river bed and also found its spine, fur and broken leg. It was clean as a whistle.

Roxy noted that it had lost the same tooth that she is losing. Any day now, we keep saying. I think it has been loose since March or something. Also, the girls learned that if you don't brush your teeth...you can still get coffee stains.

I almost took it. But my better half advised that since we didn't have a bag, and monkeys tend to be sacred, that it wouldn't look so good walking around with it. I still regret it. Saley would have loved to opened that in the mail one day. I should have scooped it. Maybe one day, it is now in a good hiding place.

The view from our tent.

And here we have our visit to Fun Valley water park. Apparently there is another "better" park called Food and Fun. But we ended up here. They checked my bathing suit at the door and said that it would not do. "It is my wish that you would please wear a swimming costume." I say, "no I am fine" The man says, "You do not know Indian men. It is for your own comfort". Well, that was a rude generalisation. Not all Indian men like to stare at women's legs. Especially mine! And who cares. Although, it would be really disrepectful if I didn't. I can understand that part. So I had no choice...I rented the suit and swam in style. There were about 5 others in the park!

And this is where they were. Dancing.

Steve cruised down one of these slides super fast.

Asha lurking in the wave pool.

The wave pool.

This weekend we are resting and enjoying the amazing weather. Roxana had an appointment at the hospital this morning to get a cortisone shot in her knee. It turns out the aneasthetist volunteering at the hospital is Canadian, grew up in Burlington, did a two week stint at Joseph Brant Hospital, and has lived overseas on and off since. Whew were we happy. She was put to sleep with the mask, and then given two shots in her knee. It is wrapped up like a cast fo two days, so hopefully this will work, and no more medicine. Other than that, no new news. Rahat comes in three weeks. Happy Thanksgiving!