TRAVELERS HONEYMOON [PART 2]
WHEN GIRAFFES AND CAMELS PLAY
Last week I decided to write about our honeymoon. I thought it would be a quick little thing, get it on paper (or on screen in this case) find a few pictures, put it all together and boom...post it here on Steemit, done!
No, it was not a quick thing and in the process I also decided to finally tell the world about my travels. So now I am going through my old log books and looking for all my photos. Turns out, the further back in time I go the less I was taking photos...and I apologize for the quality of photography wasn't my first priority! This travel blog should probably be part of #ProjectFollowThrough.
Let's tell the tale:
There's a temple by the shore, on one side of it are the remnants of an old fishing village still hard at work. It is of course the Tourist Ghetto where backpacking gentrification slowly takes over the old ways of life. With it comes a few good places to eat (familiar for the western tourist) by the beach! This is the place where you can swim in peace, aside from the few families trying to make an easy buck off the foreigners you're mostly left alone.
On the other side of the temple is the local beach...a long line of souvenir shops and fried fish vendors guide the way to the shore. On this particular Sunday, there were hoards of people coming and going, making it difficult to reach the Carnival that is the Beach!
Yes...! An actual carnival, with rides and merry-go-rounds. They were home-made and partially rusting away, but they were beautiful and colorful. The merry-go-round was made from old car parts and plastic toy vehicles for the little ones to ride on. The ferris-wheel was made in the same fashion with exposed gears, belts and steel framed cages. They were propelled by a single person who would keep turning the ride until the time was up.
In the middle of it all was this carousel dressed with wooden horses and swings turned with the help of a really loud diesel engine that smoked up the beach, here and there.
There also was real live horse rides being offered every 5 minutes, ice cream, coconuts, watermelon. Food was readily available as in most carnivals I've seen.
People, fully dressed (men, women and children) were playing in the water while a couple of cops lazily tried to enforce the no swimming law, in between long breaks under the shade. What a great day that became, but it was coming to an end and we wanted to leave town for our next adventure. We finally said goodbye to our friends, the Brits and Guna the hotel manager who helped us very much during Jessica's illness. The next morning we were on our way to Kanjanur.
After one bus, a rickshaw and two more buses we reached Kanjanur where Bala and Buna have their Vallalar Nursery and Primary School. Kanjanur is a small village on the main road from Villapuram to Giagee, where very few people speak English. The village is mostly along that road, extending just a few hundred meters on a couple side streets. We arrived at the school early evening with a warm welcome from everyone there. Bala, the school director, told us about all of his future projects and that he opened up the school early 2000's.
Amongst these projects is a three story schoolhouse that was started a year or so prior to our visit, a fruit garden and field of plants (I never could understand the name) that are good for making biodiesel. The plan was to eventually run the school off a generator with biodiesel.
He also would like to purchase the property across the street to build an Eco-Village. This would be a place with traditional wattle and daub homes for volunteers to sleep in, in a jungle setting where medicinal plants can grow and refresh the air around the Eco-Village. It's a beautiful idea and is very inspiring.
With the concept of re-using and having alternate forms of energy, compost toilets and self reliance, he really wants this project to become an example. He wants to give the people living in the area the chance to develop a new mindset.
Our first day at school was spent mostly talking to Bala and watching classes taught by teachers and volunteers. We talked about The People's Caravan, DIY self reliance, rocket stoves and looked over some blueprints for the new schoolhouse. I offered to build him a rocket stove prototype while we were there.
On wednesday we started teaching:
- General Knowledge
- English
- Maths
- Art
- Sports
I taught the kids simple words by drawing pictures on the blackboard, cat, tree, bus...than we would spell them out. It seemed however that math was my course of choice. I separated those who knew more from those who lagged behind so the smarty pants couldn't answer before the others. They were only 4 years old or so and only wanted to play, but a couple of them had maths well under their grasps.
One day in the middle of class we hear one of the children calling out to everyone there's a giraffy outside, there's a giraffy! Jess and I looked at each-other, what is a giraffy? Someone had taught them to pronounce the letter "e" in giraffe.
Once Bala gave the OK, all the kids had made their way outside in under a minute. Since no one had ever seen a giraffe, the excitement was enormous. It's so good to see children experience something for the first time!
The Tamil teachers were there to teach in Tamil and keep the children in check every time their attention wondered off. It felt a bit like they took advantage of volunteers doing the work they were supposed to do... I think like that sometimes, so it could just be my paranoia talking! And it felt like some children were only learning to memorize what we taught without much of an understanding for it and just regurgitated English.
Two weeks was too short to teach little ones, a three week or one month minimum may benefit the kids. There would be less of an adaptation curve to new teachers all the time?
The first week, I started building a small rocket stove out of bricks and mud, and went to Auroville Beach for the weekend. One night we built a bonfire on the beach and the "Flies" came around. They were all young drunk men and we were prime for harassing! They were looking for anyone looking different, either genuinely curious or just to stare or maybe have a chance to bang a foreign girl.
Everyone was well in the bag and things got a little heated. Our friends who worked at the hotel we were staying at, ended up getting into a fight that night after they sent us off. We had to leave the beach before the police got there to avoid the corruption...it is sad but in my years of travels, I learned to stay out of local affairs. Not too many things are worth getting dragged through town behind a rickshaw for!!!
The second week, I finished the rocket stove, and talked to Bala about making a short video of his projects. We would try to raise some funds to help with the school. We taught the children all week, filmed a little something on Thursday and Friday, and realized we needed to make adjustments to the rocket stove. Something was wrong and Granny (Bala's Mom who lives at the school) did not approve of the overall hight of the stove!
We boiled a pot of water with it, but they seemed confused that we had done that for no reason other than experimenting...was it because we used resources (wood and water) just to run a test? When we asked for a pan to cook a meal for everyone there, we were denied with a there isn't a pan big enough for 10. I know I have cooked for 10 with very little equipment but I didn't want to press it. Did they not want us to use up the wood? Did they not have faith in our cooking? Did they not really want to use their pans? Who knows!!!! Their reason for it wasn't that important. Besides a bit of cultural differences Granny was a sweet heart and mostly smiling.
On that Friday, we moved on to Pondicherry...
To Be Continued...
Next Week:
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Pondi...the Indian French connection!!!
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!