Sweet, Sweet Irish Blood.

I have been in India three months now, I have grown accustomed to the food, somewhat, the heat, the noise, pollution and most aspects of everyday life in India. Everything that is except the mosquitoes. They love me. It doesn't matter what I do, they find me. They find me and bite me and suck my blood and leave itchy red bleeding lumps all over my pale pale skin. When I first arrived I got bitten quite badly, as was expected, so a week or two in I decided to try insect repellant and a net around my bed, I had 50% Deet, tropical strength spray on repellant. Every morning for a week I sprayed it on after my shower in the morning, a top up at lunch time and another top up after dinner. I also sprayed my window screens and net. No difference. not a bit. I still got bitten to bits. So I tried something a little stronger, 100% deet, maximum strength, toenail melting stuff. Full week, same routine, no difference. I gave up for a week or two, surrendered to the insects, expected to die from blood loss, but strangely, no difference. Still a steady 10 to 15 new bites each day. An Indian friend recommended an Indian product with 12% deet, Indians use it with success, so I reasoned it might work for me. No joy. On day one, I got over 20 bites on each foot, and similar numbers on my arms. I was nauseous and dizzy all day from the sheer number of bites and exhaustion, because its hard to sleep with that number of itchy painful bites. It’s like the indian cream was catnip for mosquitoes. I had enough. I got a new repellant oil lamp and burning coils for my room, and now that I have the lamp plugged in the right way up, it seems to work ok, there are fewer of them in my room anyway. I bring burning coils to meetings and events. Now I have had four long sleeved blouses specially made to wear under my clothes, new socks to wear all the time with my ankle length skirts. I fear the world will never see my knees, ankles or elbows again. The only parts of me exposed now are my hands and face.

Guess where I’m getting bitten now.

My Indo-Irish Holiday

We had three days off in a row, the programme team here in Sangam. Three whole days. So three of the volunteers and myself decided to get out of Pune and chill out in the mountains with some of our Indian friends. We set off for the mountains, happy and excited, with snacks aplenty for our one and a half hour (Indian time, in reality four hour) journey. We started out in one car driven by Sid, and the three girls moved into another car (Raouls) on the other side of the city. They took the snacks with them, grrrr, and on we went zooming through the Indian countryside in the alternately sunny and showery weather. The higher we drove the rainier it became until we were driving through the clouds. We arrived at our rented house, at the end of a track that had been decimated by the rains of the previous few days. You think there are bad Irish roads, you should have seen this one. Anyway the house was beautiful, a huge balcony looking out into the clouds, normally you could see a valley, with a big living room and three big bedrooms downstairs. Lots of sofas for napping, a guy to go out and do the shopping, and cook the meals, it was heaven. It was cold wet and windy, but it was Irish summer holiday weather. I was loving it! The balcony had a tin roof, and the rain on it sounded just like playing pool in the garage at christmas with the family in Ireland, except it wasn’t bitterly cold! We were getting hungry, so the guys and two of us girls went out to collect some take out dinner, burgers and pizzas and the like. We also got in booze which was nice as we don’t drink very often in Sangam. We drove through really thick fog to get to the food place along the crazy mountain path and the nicer but scary forest road. We arrived back t the house in one shaken piece and had a nicely chilled evening with the food, booze and chatting. We got up the next day and had our breakfast cooked for us and we went off to see some sights. This was difficult as the fog and rain made seeing anything past the front of the car tricky. We had a wander in the market, bought handbags, went to viewing points and got wet. It was fun, Raoul and Sid thought we were a bit mad for enjoying ourselves when the weather was so miserable, but they had fun laughing at us. We went back to the house and I took a nap, the first of many, while the others saw lots of monkeys in the trees around the house. The fog cleared now and again so we could see snatches of the view. I woke up for a while and discovered dinner was to be in an hour or so so I thought perfect, just enough time for a nap! They woke me for dinner, which was Indian, but the cooks had misunderstood my no spice needs and made the whole meal very bland for everyone. Poor guys had to make do. After dinner we watched a movie, the wedding singer and then a Bollywood movie. The cool mountain air was perfect for napping so I took advantage again and slept through the second movie. We slept in the next day, and headed home at lunchtime. We stopped back in Pune and ate Ferrero Roche cake and drank coffee, a perfect way to end our trip!

Water Water Everywhere

The rains have come! Finally, its raining cats and dogs. Five weeks late! Five weeks! Five! Ah so, you might say, a few more weeks of sunny dry weather, how bad, you might think, it’s a bonus. You would be totally wrong there.
Here in Pune we have a few reservoirs in the hills around the city. These reservoirs fill up during monsoon, it doesn't rain in the rest of the year so all of our water supply for the year has to fall during monsoon. So when monsoon comes five weeks late and its a light monsoon, which this one is, there is not enough water for the year. The city already practices ‘load shedding’. A delightful term they use when at the busiest times of the day, they just cut the supply. (They do this with electricity too, which is mainly hydropower, very green, but crap when the rains don’t come.)
So the water is on for half an hour in the morning now. We have a water tower that fills up whenever there is enough supply, but its nearly empty, we had to get a tanker in last week to top it up and we emptied it the week before when we had forty guests. now we have another forty people on site and it looks like we will be washing hair in buckets of rainwater again.
You will never hear me complaining about a rainy day again.
My hair smells funny.

The Laughter of Deaf Children

So, this place I work, we have community partners which are local organisations working to improve the community. One of them is a school for deaf children. Half the kids are local, or from the Pune area and the other half come from all over the state and live in the school.
Why am I telling you this, well today the volunteers did the first day of a community project with the kids. I went along to have a look see and ended up playing the games with them. Most of the kids can hear a little, and they can all lipread, in Marathi.
The girls did some games and action songs (without the singing) with them. The game they enjoyed most was a balloon race game. The kids get in lines and have to pass the balloon backwards along the line in various ways. We were demonstrating how to play. I was wearing my ankle length, full bodied uniform skirt at the time. The kids roared with laughter playing the game and looking at me demonstrating passing a balloon under my legs, and passing the balloon using only my feet, while trying to keep my dignity intact. (no mean feat, I can tell you.)
Their laughter is so innocent, totally unforced and free. I had real fun today, sometimes doing this job I forget the whole movement is about children, and giving them the space and opportunity to laugh out loud and have real fun.
I want to go back tomorrow and laugh some more, but alas, I have meetings all morning.

PS The crow was back this morning, with a friend, swooping at the dog.

The Crow and the Puppy

So, I arrived to breakfast this morning, hadn't even opened my napkin when Donna said conversationally,
"Katey, don't go outside today".
Ok...
"Why?", I asked, expecting a comment about sunburn.
"The Crow" she said.
Ok...
"What crow?" I asked, knowing that this would be strange.
"There is a crow in the almond tree, attacking anyone who goes into the courtyard".
Ok...
"Yeah, he sort of landed on Atuls head and pecked him on the head this morning, and then he got me when I came out and did the same thing"
Right.
Later in the day, I came down the stairs to find Aruna, running through reception, holding her head, her hair in disarray. Clearly the angry bird was still at large.
One of the men set off across the courtyard, and we could see the bird going for him too!
We shouted to look out and he dodged the now furious crow. Then the dogs arrived to chase him back into his tree.
He was there all day, attacking very surprised people.
I really hope he is less angry tomorrow.

Oh the puppy! Its another story, about a poor wet cold hungry puppy. Awwww.

Snakes, Palki and laks and laks of Hindus.

Wednesday this week was a bit surreal. I woke in a strange, disconnected mood. I cant put my finger on what caused the very mild, slightly grumpy mood. Just after breakfast, there was a bit of a scene by the pool, everyone was gathered, local and international staff. I went over to discover what the commotion was about and spotted the man I later learned was the snake catcher, holding the biggest snake I have ever seen by the tail. This is the first time I have seen a snake, outside of captivity. It was monstrous to my eyes, the snake catcher held it by the tail and its horrible tongue was slithering in and out towards the mans feet. I took a picture for you, just before he put it in his snake bag. It looked as if it was going to make a break for it and I instinctively hid behind the nearest person and asked what kind it was. They told me it was a harmless rat eater.
Harmless monster, oh yeah. What a way to start the day.
After the excitement/skin crawling revulsion of the snake, we settled in to a meeting about the big messy server. (that is another days work) As is mentioned in the title, it was Palki day. Palki is where Hindus walk with the feet of a saint from Alandi, a holy village, to another holy village 300 kilometers away. Palki passes by our gate as we live on Alandi Road. A lak is one hundred thousand. They guess that 40 laks of people passed the gate that day on foot. From early morning we heard their bells and saw the white clad men carrying orange flags and colourful barefoot women walking their devotion. About Lunchtime the Palki arrived, a highly decorated cart pulled by two pristine white, decorated cows. There was a ring of young men holding hands in a ring around the cows, for their protection from the churning crowd of devotees trying to touch the cart and throwing offerings of flowers. I stood in the blazing heat of the sun and crowd, mesmerised by the sheer numbers. As Palki passed the different communities along the road, thousands of more people joined the crowd, to take part a little. The temple next to us was hosting the main people for lunch and rest, so thousands of people set up their kitchens all around, to have lunch and rest in the shade. All over the surrounding streets, people sat on the roads eating food served from enormous vats, or slept in the shade right on the roads and footpaths. On the main street, a political party had a stage, where a speaker urged us, his brothers and sisters to be careful of our possessions. There were sellers with handcarts selling everything from snacks, to flowers to inflatable beach balls. Every few minutes men tried to mark us on our foreheads with the Alandi blessing, a white U shape with a red and orange dot inside. The other temples were giving away sweets. It had the atmosphere of a festival or friendly football match on a sunny day at home. Everyone seemed good humored and happy, there was no sanctimonious piety, no suffering expressions. These were happy pilgrims. Happiness is allowed in religions.
Someone should tell the christians.

Heat & the surrender called Air Conditioning

I am constantly surprised by the heat here. When I go to bed, it’s like there is an electric blanket on and my pillow is a hot water bottle. When I take a shower, sometimes even the water from the cold tap is too hot. when I shampoo my hair, the shampoo is as if it has been in an oven, warm and sticky. The whole country has underfloor heating, and when I forget my sandals to go outside, it is like walking on a hot plate. I will have asbestos feet by the end of my two years here. In our living quarters, currents of hot air circulate so when you are running to the bathroom in your towel, it feels like you are passing through clouds of hot water.
When I am out and about in the city, I can feel dribbles of sweat running down my legs inside my skirts. The shade is better but in the city the breeze is warm and dirty with exhaust fumes. The power is gone as I type this, I am sitting by an open window with the door propped open to try and encourage the breeze.
Since I arrived I mistrusted the efficiency of my AC unit. It seemed to make little difference to the room, but believing as I did that I just needed to become accustomed to it, I did not act on my vague suspicion any more than inviting the others to come and confirm how the corridor outside my room was in fact cooled than my room in which the ac had been on for several hours.
I awoke one day to discover that the beastly machine had been spitting globs of whitish liquid into the room during the early hours. My suspicions became more than vague and I asked the Deputy World Centre Manager, Darshana, what should I do. She called the AC guys and they arrived the same day to investigate and fix the problem. Oh the joy I felt when the AC guy popped his head around the staff lounge door and said, “madam, come test the flow”, and I went, expecting the worst, and felt the strong belt of icy wind that came form the now beloved machine.
Oh the joy, and relief. I laughed out loud with the joy! My life has changed, now I escape to my room, push the button and cool the bed, pillow, floor, air and everything else! I do feel like I am somehow cheating, I don’t know who or what I am cheating, just a little guilty, like I am giving in each time I push the button. What a lovely surrender it is.
Its the simple pleasures.