Diwali/ Kollam

As they say in India, “Ai yo yo”... I have been meaning to update my blog for the past two weeks but every time I’m finally ready to sit down and write something, I remember that I have some laundry that needs to be done, or lesson planning to do, but mainly I just end up flexing in front of the mirror for hours on end... 

A few more random facts or things that I have noticed in the past couple weeks:

1. One of my students has 72 letters in his name. Fortunately, his nickname is "XL".

2. Everyone here is obsessed  with 6 packs and they think all white people have one. They asked me if I had one and I replied with "Nah, just one big pack", to which one of the students said, "Oh like my Dad, a family pack!". hahaha

3. We had a surprise birthday for Dani that was a lot of fun and ended with a cake fight.

4. Diwali, the "festival of lights", is insane. You essentially buy a new outfit, eat special sweets and blow up firecrackers ALL DAY. It felt like we were in a war zone, the crackers started going off at 5am and didn't end until about the same time the next day. We had an insane amount of firecrackers and there were some pretty huge ones, it was pretty scary lighting them because some of the "bombs" would blow up really quickly and you could literally feel the explosion even from 20 feet away. Later on at night we went and set off a bunch of huge ones from the top of the roof. (See video)

5. The kids here call me "NJV Boss".

6. I played a real cricket match with some older kids and had a blast. It's a pretty fun game and definitely more action packed that it appears. I still prefer most other games though.

7. Despite being here for a month now, I still cannot understand the Tamil accent. I'm also not picking up any words in Tamil :(

8. The caste system is prevalent in southern India and really comes up in day-to-day situations between Tamilians. It's really quite disgusting and sad.

9. The weather has cooled down significantly and generally hovers between 25-30 degrees now but we are getting significantly more rain.

10. The 10th and 12th graders here have statewide exams later on in the year. In order to prepare them for these exams, Nobel school's curriculum consists of an examination period of 50 days!!! It's pretty mind blowing to be honest.

I just returned from a weekend trip to Kollam,  a small town on the backwaters of Southern India. The trip was pretty short but extremely exhausting. Dani and I set out from Aruppukottai on Friday at 8am to meet up with the rest of the volunteers at the train station in Madurai. We ended up making really good time and there was a bit of a misunderstanding on our part and we were  there earlier than we should have been by an hour and a half or so. We reached Kollam after a few bus rides and a 3.5 hour train ride, for a total of 13.5 hours of travel time. We all ate at a pretty good restaurant and I finally got to have some real(ish) pizza for the first time in over a month! We arrived at the hotel at 10:30pm and after checking in, about 8 of us started passing the football around and it turned into an impromptu soccer match. Most of the volunteers are from Europe so it was a pretty intense but really fun game. It lasted so much longer than expected and we didn't finish until well past midnight. It was one of the highlights of the trip for sure.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then made our way to a house boat that we rented out for the day. We ended up cruising around the river for about 6 hours and it was an awesome way to get to know everyone, listen to some music and hang out while seeing a different side of India. We had some some surprisingly good food on board and a few guys went swimming. The water was pretty rancid so most of chose to just watch. We got back just as it started sprinkling and by the time we got into the hotel it was PISSING rain outside, so we got really lucky with our timing. We headed to a real mall later on but, unfortunately, almost all of the stores were closed because I guess they are still celebrating Diwali, even though it was Saturday and the holiday fell on a Wednesday... Oh well, that's India! We ended up having one of the most random nights back at the hotel that I really don't fully know how to describe. It was a pretty hilarious night but it ended with Yujiro (think that's his name), the happiest/liveliest person I've met to date, breaking his tooth while doing the worm. It was pretty surreal because he was incredibly nonchalant about it and just put it in his wallet and really didn't make a big deal out of it at all.

We had to get up really early the next day and after some trouble with our ride- the boat that was supposed to pick us up to bring us to the bus stop just decided not to pick us up- we made the long trek back.

I almost forgot, on our way to Kollam we were waiting for our bus for about an hour at the bus station in a pretty dingy town. A few of the guys were passing the football around and I was talking to Ian and Rose, two of the coordinators at Projects Abroad, and a few local women approached us with a tupperware container full of a green powder and a couple of stamps. She wanted to give me a temporary tattoo of some sort and I was kind of laughing while politely declining and then she just stamped my arm. It was pretty funny but then it started to sting like hell, in fact it hurt for the next 5-6 hours or so. I obviously forced to pay her but I received a nice big wet kiss on the hand so well worth it! I then told her I thought we could round her up some more business and within a few minutes we got all of the other guys tatt'ed up! Eventually a crowd of at least 60 people formed around us and began to photograph the foreigners getting tattoos. It was quite a hilarious experience.

That's it for now, I'll leave you with some pictures from the weekend.

Noah

One of the two boxes of firecrackers that our host family bought for Diwali.

Bruno getting a tatty.

One of our lovely tattoo artists!

Backwaters of Kollam.

Our Boat.

Lunch!

Jaya's uncle and I at his farm for Diwali.

Jaya's relatives at the farm.

  

Vanakkam!

So, if you are reading this you undoubtedly fall into one of two categories:

1. You have absolutely NOTHING else to do, or
2. You are my mother.

Either way, thanks for reading. I have been wanting to get started on a blog for the past few days or so, but every time I sit down to write an entry I have no idea where to start. Although it’s only been two weeks since I left Canada, it seems that so much has happened. In order to get caught up to speed I’m simply going to write down in bullet form any thoughts or observations I’ve made about India thus far:

-A family of five can easily fit on a scooter.

-Rickshaws are both terrifying and amazingly fun at the same time.

-It is freaking hot here! Generally somewhere between 35-38 degrees during the day and it “cools down” to about 30 at night. Eeek!

-The poverty here is truly overwhelming. The amount of things that we take for granted in North America are almost infinite.

-Doing laundry by hand sucks!

-The kids at the Nobel school (where I am volunteering) are insanely stoked to have us (Dani and I) there. I literally walk down the halls hi-fiving people, shaking hands, waving and talking to a mob of students.

-The thunderstorms here are amazing! The lighting just lights up the sky and they go on for about 30 minutes every night before it inevitably pours rain and we have a power outage for an hour or so.

-Men and women can't interact with each other once they are over the age of 13 or so, unless you are related or married. Dani and I always get asked if we are bother and sister or if we are married whenever se sit together on the bus.

-When we asked where to throw away our garbage, we were told to “walk to the end of the road and throw it as far as you can”.

-The bureaucracy that goes on here for the most minute tasks is unbelievable. Nothing gets done on time and you have to jump through hoops in order to get there.

-Indians are the most hospitable people you will ever meet.

So now that we are somewhat up to speed, I thought I’d share my day with you. Yesterday, Dani and I got together with about 10 kids between the ages of 7 and 8 and learned how to play cricket. I am still not 100% sure how to play but it is a ton of fun and the kids had a blast too. We played some badminton after that and then had to leave early because Jeha, our neighbour, invited us to her college reunion. Jeha (random attempt at spelling her name) is definitely one of the most amazing women I have met. She has a son, Vishvan, who we’ve gotten pretty close to as well. Jeha has insisted on showing us around town and really goes out of her way to invite us to different functions or get togethers. So, after a quick shower, we hopped on a bus and headed to her college.

We arrived a little late and therefore the reunion had already begun. We found out later that this was more than just a reunion, it was a way for all the Seniors (alumni) to give advice and words of encouragement to the Juniors (current students). The four of us walked into the auditorium to find seats near the back and listen to some of the speakers. The moment we entered the room, the entire auditorium basically fell silent, even the speaker stopped his speech. EVERYBODY was staring at us and murmuring and whispering ensued. A member of the faculty immediately rushed towards us and escorted us to the front row of the auditorium, kicking out people in the front row so we could sit there! The speaker continued on his speech and the entire room was buzzing, we could literally feel everyone’s eyes on us. After the speech was over there was some polite clapping and then another member of the faculty went on stage and grabbed the microphone. He went on to say how excited everybody was that we were there as their special guests of honour and insisted that I go on stage to introduce myself and pass on  some words of wisdom to everyone that was there. This is probably the point where I should be telling you that half of the people there had a PhD of some sort and the other half was on their way to majoring in Physics. I was forced on stage where I introduced myself and then basically blacked out for the rest of my speech. It was insanely embarrassing and awkward but I got some sort of applause at the end. Dani went up next and did the same deal. It’s worth mentioning that she got an additional round of cheering midway through her speech, so I’m pretty jealous about that. 

After that we sat there and laughed off our embarrassment for the next 20 minutes of so as we heard everyone else speak. We were trying to leave after that but they kept on insisting that we have lunch with them, there was no other choice but to surrender and stick around for another couple hours. The head of the Physics department took me on a private tour of the campus and then we had lunch. It was a pretty weird and surreal experience to say the least.

Dani and I are going to plan a big Halloween party for the kids on the block here since they don’t even know what Halloween is, and that’s just plain unacceptable! I have played cricket about 3-4 times over the last day and a half and am really enjoying it! The kids have basically adopted me and are showing me around town. I have a badminton match scheduled to start in a half an hour so I better get a move on!

Noah

                            
                                                                       My new crew!

                                                                                                      Vishvan.