Day 3: I learn self-defense, Hindi, and how to ride a motorcycle

Hey there Readers,

Today was really a blast and probably my favorite day so far, so I'll fill you in on what happened. After breakfast we went to a different, larger, and more organized school. They were warming up when we arrived and I saw that they had uniforms and were well disciplined. We watched for a little bit and the person responsible for essentially the whole project showed us around the two different sites. During the tour we talked with Sabita and the things she has done and saw how accomplished she was and her dedication for the project, called the Prakash Deep school - it was incredible. Once we returned to the first site there was a group of older kids being taught self defense by a retired military officer and I decided to join them. We were taught different techniques on how to release the grip of somebody choking you and if someone grabs your hand, how you can escape. At the end we made a circle and two people sparred in the middle, using the techniques that we learned that day. I managed to survive and it was so awesome. It was my first self defense lesson and I absolutely loved it because I actually learned something that would help in my life and also it helped to integrate me with some of the older kids in the school. Tired and sweaty, I went to a nearby store looking for some water and I got a liter of Mountain Dew. Normally this wouldn't be allowed because of the gargantuan amounts of sugar in it (11.9/100mL, it was awesome). Now Mom, for the first time I've seen in a long time, got a coke. Ask anyone in India who usually abstains from soda and they will tell you that while in India, the most refreshing thing in the world becomes a cold soda. I don't know why, but everyone who stays with us at Dr. Bandhu's says the same thing, so I don't think we're going insane. Because we didn't have a ride, one of the teacher's friends drove us to the main road where we managed to find a rickshaw. Finally we got home and I took a shower. The water was cold, which was nice because of the sweltering heat and then I took a nap. I was woken up two hours later to go to our first Hindi class so I crabbily got dressed and we were soon off. Our teacher, Bindu, was a very nice woman and we learned some incredibly useful new material. Mom took notes and I decided that I could use hers seeing as I'm the one taking ten pages of history notes every night. After class, which took an hour but seemed like 20, we decided to go to the local market where Bandhu would pick us up. We arrived there, took up a search for an ATM and then we were ready to go. When I say go I mean shopping by the way, seeing as we had time to kill. Usually I'm not a fan of shopping, especially when Mom walks into a store gleefully exclaiming, "Oh Colin, wouldn't this be the cutest for Vanessa!" and spends over 2 hours looking for clothes and shoes and whatnot while I stand behind her as she piles everything she's going to buy in my arms. Hopefully now you will be able to understand why I do not particularly enjoy shopping with her but this time, we actually bought stuff for me, so it was a nice change. With two bags of cheap, new clothes, we headed towards our designated pick up spot. Once we were picked up and shuttled back home, we ate dinner which was once again chapatti and potato curry. Don't get me wrong, it's delicious, but after eating it day after day you eventually get tired of it. The Family (this is referring to the Western family that stays with Bandhu, I don't know what else to call them), Mom, and I ate together. That night there was a change in the usual schedule and Bandhu decided to take Sowmick (his son) and me on his motorcycle to get ice cream. This was my first time on a bike and it was awesome, first of all because of the rush you get from the possible danger of falling off and second was the speed at what you could get to. Once we arrived home a little bit later, I got ready for bed and slept away the day’s exhaustion.

Hey there Readers,
Here are a few pictures from day 2! I forgot to mention that in the evening we went to the local market where my Mom got an Indian outfit and I got some flip flops so it was pretty cool. It's just a couple minutes walk from the house we are staying in.

Sowmick with his cricket bat

A typical market stall

Adding the finishing touches to a kota (i think)

Showing Jayati my computer

Some of the slums along the road

Day 2: Drama class pays off

Hey there Readers,
Monday morning we went through our soon to be daily routine of waking up early (for me, 8 is early) in our room downstairs, eating breakfast together and getting dressed. Once we were ready Dr. Bandhu had a rickshaw ready for us to take us to our first project. In case you didn't know, a rickshaw or tuk tuk is kind of like a scooter with three wheels and a seat for two in the back. Although there is only room for 5 usually, including the driver, if you're determined it's actually possible to fit twice that amount as is displayed every now and then when we drive by. There is a problem with rickshaws though, and that is the fact that there are no seat belts, and no doors, leading you to hold on for your dear life as the driver swings around corners and misses trucks, cars, and bicycles by a hair's breadth. At first I was freaking out and hoping that we wouldn't get crushed by some vehicle, because rickshaws are not the sturdiest machines out there. Eventually becoming accustomed to the feeling of narrowly avoiding a collision, I began to trust the driver because if anyone could get us through Indian traffic, its this guy. We arrived at the site and this is where my jaw actually fell open in disbelief. Imagine a field in the sweltering summer heat, somewhere nice. Now take the grass and trees that you may have imagined and replace it with hard, dry, dirt and lots of garbage. A small river was flowing through the field where women washed their clothes. We walked for a minute to the edge where there were a couple of small, brick buildings. We walked through these led by a guy who's name I can't remember. Eventually we walk into a tiny room with a single light and 14 kids inside. They pulled up two chairs, which is where we sat, and then told us to teach and they walked off. Well, I say that, but there was a young teacher there who did not speak English very well and towards the last twenty minutes another woman arrived, but until then it was Mom and me leading the class. They had 4 or 5 posters up on the wall with vegetables, the alphabet, animals, etc. which we could use. So we're sitting there, in a little brick hut with and a bunch of kids the age of Kindergartners sitting at our feet. The first thing that popped into my mind was, "Well this is gonna be interesting," and it was. First the teacher showed us what the kids could do. One of them stood up, took a stick, and in a very loud voice began reciting: A is for Apple, B is for Ball, C is for Cat and so on so forth with the rest of the class repeating it at the top of their lungs. They said it with the cutest accents I've ever heard. This brings me to the point that the kids sitting in front of me were adorable. So after this and some songs, I found out that the easiest way to do this was by repetition. So we tried to teach them, What is your name? My name is _____. Mom and I did it first and of course my mother, being the clever woman that she is (I hope she's reading this) brought candy as a reward for those who said it correctly. Eventually we achieved just that so I decided to take the reigns and I went over the alphabet with them screaming every letter after me. After this Mom and I brainstormed what we could do since we were there for three hours so we decided to teach them a dance and get them moving a bit. This of course had to be the easiest one we knew because remember that the only words they understood were letters and a few objects. The first one that popped in my head was the macarena, so first we taught them the movements and at the end I shouted HEY MACARENA. There were a couple seconds of awkward silence and the people passing outside stared at us for about a minute. Then what surprised me the most was the entire class screamed at the top of their lungs HEY MACARENA!!! Although it was something small it gave me such an incredible sense of accomplishment, the kind you get when you win a race or stand in front of an applauding audience. It was pretty awesome. After that, we went over the animals and their noises and managed to find some crayons to talk about colors. Once again we had an hour and a half left and we were out of ideas. By now a group of people had gathered outside our tiny 'classroom' and were avidly watching us with curiosity. So I whisper over, "What do we do now?" In response I am told to, "think of something, you're the actor!" So I did, well, I tried. I ran through every single warm up and game that I could remember. We shook it out, repeated after me, mirrored eachother and at the end we had about 15 minutes left and I was half dead from exhaustion. Of course the kids were sitting on the floor giving me toothy grins not being tired at all so in the end I decided that I would just review everything we did. I was amazed at how fast they picked it up and remembered what we did and from that I could see that these kids wanted to learn, they just couldn't, and I was finally giving them a chance. I'm going to be honest with you but I expected the kids to be kind of stupid seeing as they had received no education at all but I was completely blown a way by their brightness. When we left and said our goodbyes I realized that I had just influenced the lives of a dozen children for the better. That's what, I decided, the goal of this trip was. To make the lives of as many people as possible better, even in the smallest of ways. It's still sad to see that people bathed, drank, and washed their clothes in the water and lived in those conditions. The return journey was about as uneventful as it gets in India and we returned back to the house safely. Some of the volunteers had left earlier that day so we moved our things into the room they had stayed in, two floors above. There are 8 beds, two of which are still occupied by B and Maddie, both volunteers, who are also pretty cool people. Later that evening the American family, my Mom, and I walked to the orphanage near the house. There I recognized some of my buddies from the park the day before and they showed me around the place. It was pretty small, consisting of a few rooms with bunk beds for the seven orphans that lived there. They had a kitchen and the owner who was a nice guy, introduced us to the other helpers. When we got back home we had dinner and retired to our rooms for the night. The next day we were going to visit another and bigger slum school and see what we could do there. But first, we went to sleep.

Hey there Readers,
I've finally figured out how to get pictures on the blog so here you go!

Riley, Morgan, and me doing the dishes after dinner

Our dinner on the first night. Yummy

Our awesome host family!

One of the many cows roaming freely

Me reading in bed :)

Day 1: A temple, new friends, and lots of garbage

Hey there readers,

Our first day in India was amazing, shocking, and slightly nauseating. My Mom and I woke up at about 8 in the morning with about 6 and a half hours of sleep behind us. When we emerged from our room we saw Dr. Bandhu and a fellow volunteer from New York, MJ eating breakfast. This consisted of circular, flat, but soft bread with herbs in it called chapatti (probably misspelled, but that’s what it sounds like anyways) with jam. It was pretty good, not gonna lie. So after that we were wondering what we were going to do since it’s a Sunday and on the weekends there are no projects. Dr. Bandhu told us to go to a temple called Swaminarayan Akshardham (I know it’s a mouthful), so he ordered us a taxi and we were off. The last time I had been driven through the streets of India, it was night and I couldn't see so much outside. This changed today when we were driven to the temple. I was honestly shocked. The amount of garbage I saw was gargantuan and what was even worse for me was that people live in the garbage. Little, makeshift huts dotted the landscape where people lived. What was surprising here was that the people in specific were clean and most of their clothes very nice. The traffic was even worse during the day and I would tell you more about it but I managed to sleep a bit in the car. The weather was cloudy which was nice because it was still warm but not completely stifling, especially in the car, but we had all the windows down anyways. When we arrived at the temple we had to drop our bags off, go through a bit of security and at first glance it was pretty amazing. Made of pink stone and consisting of one massive dome and four smaller ones, pretty much every last inch of it intricately carved. There were a couple of different buildings, some of which we couldn’t enter so Mom and I just beelined for the massive temple in the center. We dropped our shoes off and entered bare foot. This was definitely one of the most impressive buildings I’ve ever been in. The interior was completely made of marble and in the center was a massive gold statue of a Hindu god that I’m not familiar with so I just won’t pretend to know what I’m talking about. There were a few other statues and the insides of the domes were beautifully carved as well.  After experiencing the inside, we got our shoes back and we went for a little walk enjoying the sun that had now emerged.We eventually picked up some tickets for three different exhibitions that were held in a massive building a few hundred meters from the temple. This included the storytelling of the Hindi religion, an Imax movie on one of the famous yogis, and finally a boat ride displaying the accomplishments of Hinduism. I went through this rather cynically after at some point it was said that the first airplane concept was made in 3000 B.C. Sure it's possible but for me it's extremely difficult to believe. We went to lunch outside and met this friendly Polish woman who we had a nice conversation with. Soon we left the breathtaking temple behind as we entered the pandemonium that is known as Indian traffic. We arrived home after an hour and a half and I just flopped down on the bed and took a nap. Next thing I knew I was awoken by voices and introduced to a family that had just arrived. They're pretty awesome and after the introductions, the two girls and I went to the park next door to play with some of the locals. I played cricket, though I had no idea what was going on, and we introduced a couple of games to them including duck duck goose and red rover. Duck duck goose soon turned into a case of Jack Jack JACK! because the kids found it difficult to pronounce . Red rover is a game where you form two lines and you essentially try to break through the other line. The kids didn't seem to get the process and I'm going to point out that their ages ranged from 5-13. Eventually the game consisted of a thirteen year old drop kicking a little kid in the face who began to bawl. Surprising, I know. We had dinner which was the chapatti, which I now discovered is called Roti if that clears things up for you (certainly didn't for me) but it was delicious anyways. I also had rice pudding which has the consistency of baby food. It wasn't too bad but I'm not really a fan. Afterwards, I met some more volunteers who I didn't see earlier because they went to the Taj Mahal. Also pretty cool people, just throwing that out there. Later we went to bed after discovering that we had to wake up at 8 the next morning to go to our first project, a slum school.

The trip to Delhi

Hey there Readers,
Now that we've got the introduction out of the way I can begin telling you how we got to Faridabad, which is the city where we are staying. So the first thing I would like to point out is that I fly fairly often for a teenager and almost always do I sit in the back of the plane in old school economy class cramped between an overweight person and my little sister who gets more and more annoying as the flight progresses. So keep this in mind when I tell you that this time was different. My mother decided to bestow upon me the honor of flying business class and I absolutely adored it. For once I didn't feel completely cramped. For once I didn't have a little voice constantly nagging me asking over and over if I could see our house from 6 miles up in the air. For once I had food that was actually pretty good (no offense to the airline). So after the flight where I was in 7th heaven, we arrived in Delhi. The first thing I noticed when I walked out of the plane was the warm weather, something we aren't that used to coming from England, so it was a nice change. We got through the airport with no problems and when we emerged we saw our driver with a sign. He made a gesture for us to follow and led us through the maze of airport parking until he said his first word, which was, "Stay". So we did and the next thing we know, a battered white car pulled up blasting Bollywood music and my reaction was somewhere between this is super awesome and Oh God... So we get in, the driver buckles up and we find that we don't have seat belts which is always a good sign. The ride was probably the most scared I've ever been in a car. The ride was a mixture of Crazy Taxi and Grand Theft Auto and if you don't get the references, chaotic would be a euphemism. So after some illegal u-turns, driving against traffic, and a symphony of horns blaring across the road, we arrived at our home for two weeks. Before I continue I would just like to point out, that in India there's about a motorcycle every 5 meters if not more, so imagine a bike with an Indian guy on it, with his wife riding saddleside, with a kid in each hand, and you have the average motorcycle rider. Also another note, horns are probably the most important part of a car in India. All of the trucks have customized horns so that when they honk it sounds like a bunch of harsh notes in a certain order. Moving on, once we arrived at one in the morning, Dr. Bandhu opened the gate and told us where our room was for now. Mom and I came in, brushed our teeth and crashed, and that concludes our first night spent in India.

Why am I here?

Hey there Readers,

This is my first blog so forgive me as I'm getting used to things around here. What I'm trying to achieve is to show the world what developing and impoverished countries are like from a 15 year old teenager's perspective. I've traveled the world already quite a bit, but only to places that are within my comfort zone so it's going to be interesting to see what life and conditions are like in places where most people don't have clean water. First of all, let me give you a little bit of background on why I've decided to go to India and write a blog about it. It all started because my Mom's friend, Nuria, has a travel agency that specializes in trips that combines travel with volunteer work, so my Mom thought that one of these trips would be the perfect way to take me out of my comfort zone. So I said lets do it and after a period of time spent convincing my Dad to allow it, we were off to India and so far it's been a completely new and exciting experience. Once we were sure it was going to happen, I decided to record what has been going on and have it open to anyone who want to see it, thus the blog. Anyways that's how we got here so lets get to the actual adventure, shall we?

Oh, by the way, here is the link to Nuria's travel agency, just in case you're interested: www.rikitikitavi.es