We had 2 days off for Holi festival because on the Thursday everyone fasts until they have been to the temple and then on Friday the paint throwing commences!
We spent Thursday by the pool up at the guest house doing a combination of swimming and attempted sunbathing which was swiftly interrupted by the little kids that live there entertaining themselves by slapping our stomachs, flying on my feet, splashing about in the pool naked and imitating us sunbathing. I snuck in having a full body massage from the lovely Munnar (the very bossy and motherly housekeeper) as a break from the sun before playing games and having dinner. It was great to have such a chilled day doing nothing!
On Friday we woke up early and dressed in our clothes that we were most willing to get ruined and walked up to the house. As we arrived at the farm we were greeted by the old gardener who marked us with a gentle red paint blob on each cheek...this was the calm before the storm. We ate breakfast with Annie, Martin and the guests and then went out to find the kids. Yogesh and Yogita were first up and running about with their bags of dry paint powder and we went with them into the quarters of the rest of the staff. Most of them were not quite ready yet but that didn't stop us smearing their faces with colour. The puppies that live there also got attacked by paint, most notably the one which started white and ended the day green, pink, purple and yellow! Once the others were ready the proper paint throwing started and there weren't many parts of my body that escaped the attack! As the teachers/white people we were a prime target, particularly when some of the boys from the school came up so I was constantly under fire. The little ones particularly loved throwing it in my eyes and my mouth so I dread to think how much powder I swallowed. After most of the paint had been used up the water pistols and buckets came out so that the colour then ran everywhere. By the end of it my white top was unrecognisable, as was my face for that matter - a combination of purple, pink, green, yellow, orange and red all smooshed together. My hair was also no longer blonde but a mixture of pink and purple (of which one streak is still visible in my hair). I think the newly arrived guests were a bit horrified by our appearance although it was very strange for me because I kept forgetting that my face was multicoloured.
After lunch we went back down to the school to wash off our technicolour and you would not believe the colour of the water, or how hard I had to scrub at my arms to get the paint, that seemed to be ingrained into my skin, off. Once we were restored to our (almost) normal colour we went back up to the farm for dinner and it felt like we were remeeting the guests as they could now see what we actually looked like. Overall, it was such a fun day and I am so glad I got to experience it in true Indian, village style.
On the Saturday morning we headed into Delhi, driving through paint splattered streets, past men with bright purple faces and multicoloured donkeys, pigs and dogs. We dropped our bags off at the flat in Delhi and drew names out of the hat as to who slept on the floor (me) and then headed out to Chandni Chowk market. This was a covered market within a block of buildings. It was all tiny, winding, smelly passageways lined with shops selling salwa suits, sarees and shawls. Out on the main street there were more stalls selling pretty much anything you wanted; whether it be knock off Iphones, patterned trousers or plastic sandals...! We got the metro to another market but as we left the station we found it was chucking it down with rain so we just turned around and holed up in the flat for a couple of hours while the dark sky rained itself out. Using our trusty Lonely Planet guide book we found an amazing canteen where you got 4 different curries, chapatti, rice and lassi and it was all unlimited so there were men wandering around
waiting to top up your plate with more delicious food. Oh and it all cost the equivalent of £1.10 - we were 4 very happy girlies :D
The next day we visited Akshaman temple which is a beautiful, fairly modern temple with very high tech security. We were all appalled by the fact that they were making us leave our bags with our cameras and mobiles (some of our most valuable possessions) at a cloakroom whilst we went into the temple - thankfully they were still there when we got back! Because the temple was only built about 50 years ago it almost looked fake because it was constructed by machines rather than the old fashioned style of using elephants, so it was all perfectly symmetrical and wasn't half falling down. Before we headed back to Tikli Bottom we stopped off at the infamous Sarojini Nagar market where you can buy any clothing you want (including 'asos' and 'abercrombie') at very low prices, as long as you can haggle well enough.
We had to head back early because we were going to one of our friends, Lalit's, wedding. He is the brother in law of a former teacher at our school and has befriended many of the volunteers so he comes to visit us at the school about once a week. Fenella and I had both bought saree's for the occasion and Kat and Laura had bought salwa suits (knee length tops with baggy trousers, worn by all Indian women). We went up to the farm and Dipsy (one of the oldest students at the school who is also one of the staffs children) wrapped me up in my saree and did my make up and hair Indian style! My saree was a lovely turquoise colour with gold embroidered flowers on it. I felt very Indian and elegant although I did feel weirdly exposed with the crop top on and my tummy on show, especially as most of the time we have to dress so modestly to at least try to reduce the stares we get (although I'm not sure it makes a difference). Once we were all beautified and ready to go we had a chat with the newest arrivals at the house and in this time the heavens opened and there was an enormous hail storm. I have never seen such massive hail stones, they were the size of 2p coins and were falling incredibly hard. By the time we left for the wedding, there were no leaves left on any of the trees and everything was completely washed out. There was barely anyone at the wedding and we decided not to stay very long because there was only a very small, hard ground area and the rest was an icy lake from the hail - thankfully this was only part 1 of the function so we still had the main event to look forward to.
On Tuesday we got dressed up again (minus the makeup) for the main part of the wedding where we were chaperoned by Yogita who is Lalit, the groom's, sister in law. We first went to his house where we met all his elderly relatives, before he mounted a beautifully decorated horse, along with his adorable 4 year old nephew - both had large, matching turban/hat things on too. We followed the horse through the village accompanied by a loud speaker system and some very strange looking he she dancers who really creeped us out as they were Indian men who had really pink faces and badly put on makeup, dressed in saree's and skirts and dancing very provocatively. Once we eventually made it to the temple, an hour later, having intermittently danced,we were piled into a car and drove 2 hours through rush hour traffic to the brides home where the party was happening.
We firstly met the bride who looked absolutely terrified and extremely uncomfortable. She was in a beautifully fancy red saree with masses of jewellery (including a massive nose ring attached to her ear) and heaps of makeup caked on her face. PShe looked pretty miserable but can you blame the woman; she was about to marry a man she had only met twice and move into his home, away from her family...its such a crazy culture - I know I couldn't do it!
Our first port of call was the food counters where there were a variety of different curries and freshly made chapattis.
We then moved over to the dance floor where we boogied for a while to an interesting mix of upbeat Indian pop. A rather large crowd gathered around to watch the white girls in their saree's strut their stuff ;) once the drunken men moved onto the floor we vacated leaving them plenty of room to flail about ridiculously!
The bride and groom then officially arrived and a series of rituals were performed including placing garlands of flowers around each others necks, sitting on a 'love seat', being blessed with money circled around their heads and of course trillions of photos.
After all this taking place and still no physical or eye contact between the couple we moved to Pooja's (the bride) house for the official ceremony where again there were strange rituals with more money circling, throwing of rice and pouring food onto a fire. Throughout the whole thing, poor Lalit had the smoke from the fire straight in his face so had permanently streaming eyes, bless him. By this point it was nearly 2am and after they were officially bound together in marriage they went off for their first meal as a couple (how they survived until 2 I do not know!). At this point we were really starting to wilt so sat indoors trying to keep our eyes open, however, we couldn't leave until the bride and groom left which ended up being 3.30am. We finally were dropped back at school, exhausted, at 5am and begrudgingly set the alarm for 3 hours later to get up to teach!
It was my chance to shine the following morning as it was my turn to tell a story in the teachers meeting and assembly. For the teachers I told the story of 'Teddy's old coat' which seemed to go down well and they found it very funny, even though it wasn't meant to be humerous. For the kids I told an old favourite of mine; 'The Bear Hunt' with all the swish-swashing, squelch-squelching actions which they seemed to love and thankfully I managed to muster enough energy to act it out!
There are only 2 weeks left at the school now! I find it absolutely crazy how the last 2 months have flown past and next week the kids have their assessments so only time will tell whether I have actually managed to drill anything into the children.
Lots of love xxx
We spent Thursday by the pool up at the guest house doing a combination of swimming and attempted sunbathing which was swiftly interrupted by the little kids that live there entertaining themselves by slapping our stomachs, flying on my feet, splashing about in the pool naked and imitating us sunbathing. I snuck in having a full body massage from the lovely Munnar (the very bossy and motherly housekeeper) as a break from the sun before playing games and having dinner. It was great to have such a chilled day doing nothing!
On Friday we woke up early and dressed in our clothes that we were most willing to get ruined and walked up to the house. As we arrived at the farm we were greeted by the old gardener who marked us with a gentle red paint blob on each cheek...this was the calm before the storm. We ate breakfast with Annie, Martin and the guests and then went out to find the kids. Yogesh and Yogita were first up and running about with their bags of dry paint powder and we went with them into the quarters of the rest of the staff. Most of them were not quite ready yet but that didn't stop us smearing their faces with colour. The puppies that live there also got attacked by paint, most notably the one which started white and ended the day green, pink, purple and yellow! Once the others were ready the proper paint throwing started and there weren't many parts of my body that escaped the attack! As the teachers/white people we were a prime target, particularly when some of the boys from the school came up so I was constantly under fire. The little ones particularly loved throwing it in my eyes and my mouth so I dread to think how much powder I swallowed. After most of the paint had been used up the water pistols and buckets came out so that the colour then ran everywhere. By the end of it my white top was unrecognisable, as was my face for that matter - a combination of purple, pink, green, yellow, orange and red all smooshed together. My hair was also no longer blonde but a mixture of pink and purple (of which one streak is still visible in my hair). I think the newly arrived guests were a bit horrified by our appearance although it was very strange for me because I kept forgetting that my face was multicoloured.
After lunch we went back down to the school to wash off our technicolour and you would not believe the colour of the water, or how hard I had to scrub at my arms to get the paint, that seemed to be ingrained into my skin, off. Once we were restored to our (almost) normal colour we went back up to the farm for dinner and it felt like we were remeeting the guests as they could now see what we actually looked like. Overall, it was such a fun day and I am so glad I got to experience it in true Indian, village style.
On the Saturday morning we headed into Delhi, driving through paint splattered streets, past men with bright purple faces and multicoloured donkeys, pigs and dogs. We dropped our bags off at the flat in Delhi and drew names out of the hat as to who slept on the floor (me) and then headed out to Chandni Chowk market. This was a covered market within a block of buildings. It was all tiny, winding, smelly passageways lined with shops selling salwa suits, sarees and shawls. Out on the main street there were more stalls selling pretty much anything you wanted; whether it be knock off Iphones, patterned trousers or plastic sandals...! We got the metro to another market but as we left the station we found it was chucking it down with rain so we just turned around and holed up in the flat for a couple of hours while the dark sky rained itself out. Using our trusty Lonely Planet guide book we found an amazing canteen where you got 4 different curries, chapatti, rice and lassi and it was all unlimited so there were men wandering around
waiting to top up your plate with more delicious food. Oh and it all cost the equivalent of £1.10 - we were 4 very happy girlies :D
The next day we visited Akshaman temple which is a beautiful, fairly modern temple with very high tech security. We were all appalled by the fact that they were making us leave our bags with our cameras and mobiles (some of our most valuable possessions) at a cloakroom whilst we went into the temple - thankfully they were still there when we got back! Because the temple was only built about 50 years ago it almost looked fake because it was constructed by machines rather than the old fashioned style of using elephants, so it was all perfectly symmetrical and wasn't half falling down. Before we headed back to Tikli Bottom we stopped off at the infamous Sarojini Nagar market where you can buy any clothing you want (including 'asos' and 'abercrombie') at very low prices, as long as you can haggle well enough.
We had to head back early because we were going to one of our friends, Lalit's, wedding. He is the brother in law of a former teacher at our school and has befriended many of the volunteers so he comes to visit us at the school about once a week. Fenella and I had both bought saree's for the occasion and Kat and Laura had bought salwa suits (knee length tops with baggy trousers, worn by all Indian women). We went up to the farm and Dipsy (one of the oldest students at the school who is also one of the staffs children) wrapped me up in my saree and did my make up and hair Indian style! My saree was a lovely turquoise colour with gold embroidered flowers on it. I felt very Indian and elegant although I did feel weirdly exposed with the crop top on and my tummy on show, especially as most of the time we have to dress so modestly to at least try to reduce the stares we get (although I'm not sure it makes a difference). Once we were all beautified and ready to go we had a chat with the newest arrivals at the house and in this time the heavens opened and there was an enormous hail storm. I have never seen such massive hail stones, they were the size of 2p coins and were falling incredibly hard. By the time we left for the wedding, there were no leaves left on any of the trees and everything was completely washed out. There was barely anyone at the wedding and we decided not to stay very long because there was only a very small, hard ground area and the rest was an icy lake from the hail - thankfully this was only part 1 of the function so we still had the main event to look forward to.
On Tuesday we got dressed up again (minus the makeup) for the main part of the wedding where we were chaperoned by Yogita who is Lalit, the groom's, sister in law. We first went to his house where we met all his elderly relatives, before he mounted a beautifully decorated horse, along with his adorable 4 year old nephew - both had large, matching turban/hat things on too. We followed the horse through the village accompanied by a loud speaker system and some very strange looking he she dancers who really creeped us out as they were Indian men who had really pink faces and badly put on makeup, dressed in saree's and skirts and dancing very provocatively. Once we eventually made it to the temple, an hour later, having intermittently danced,we were piled into a car and drove 2 hours through rush hour traffic to the brides home where the party was happening.
We firstly met the bride who looked absolutely terrified and extremely uncomfortable. She was in a beautifully fancy red saree with masses of jewellery (including a massive nose ring attached to her ear) and heaps of makeup caked on her face. PShe looked pretty miserable but can you blame the woman; she was about to marry a man she had only met twice and move into his home, away from her family...its such a crazy culture - I know I couldn't do it!
Our first port of call was the food counters where there were a variety of different curries and freshly made chapattis.
We then moved over to the dance floor where we boogied for a while to an interesting mix of upbeat Indian pop. A rather large crowd gathered around to watch the white girls in their saree's strut their stuff ;) once the drunken men moved onto the floor we vacated leaving them plenty of room to flail about ridiculously!
The bride and groom then officially arrived and a series of rituals were performed including placing garlands of flowers around each others necks, sitting on a 'love seat', being blessed with money circled around their heads and of course trillions of photos.
After all this taking place and still no physical or eye contact between the couple we moved to Pooja's (the bride) house for the official ceremony where again there were strange rituals with more money circling, throwing of rice and pouring food onto a fire. Throughout the whole thing, poor Lalit had the smoke from the fire straight in his face so had permanently streaming eyes, bless him. By this point it was nearly 2am and after they were officially bound together in marriage they went off for their first meal as a couple (how they survived until 2 I do not know!). At this point we were really starting to wilt so sat indoors trying to keep our eyes open, however, we couldn't leave until the bride and groom left which ended up being 3.30am. We finally were dropped back at school, exhausted, at 5am and begrudgingly set the alarm for 3 hours later to get up to teach!
It was my chance to shine the following morning as it was my turn to tell a story in the teachers meeting and assembly. For the teachers I told the story of 'Teddy's old coat' which seemed to go down well and they found it very funny, even though it wasn't meant to be humerous. For the kids I told an old favourite of mine; 'The Bear Hunt' with all the swish-swashing, squelch-squelching actions which they seemed to love and thankfully I managed to muster enough energy to act it out!
There are only 2 weeks left at the school now! I find it absolutely crazy how the last 2 months have flown past and next week the kids have their assessments so only time will tell whether I have actually managed to drill anything into the children.
Lots of love xxx
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