Random thoughts from India.

Today was a cultural day for the GV team. In the morning we drove to the Chidambaram Temple. (Google it!). It was amazing. Last trip we went to many temples in one day and they were all very impressive in their own way. This temple is HUGE. They told us the priests own about 40 acres of land and a lot of it is the 4 entrances and inner temple grounds. Very impressive. One part that we couldn't go into but could view through a gate was this 'hall' with 999 columns. Each one intricately carved. Amazing.

After the temple we went to Pichavaram which is an eco tourism site for a ride through the Mangrove forest. It was beautiful and it felt great to be out on the boat enjoying the salt water spray, gentle rocking of the waves and laughter of my team mates.

It was a 2 hour drive to the temple and then about a 2.5 hour ride back from Pichavaram so it made for a full 9 hour day. I napped for a bit on the way back. :)

Supper at the hotel again tonight. It was buffet night. I think I prefer the buffet as not only do we normally have an incredible selection to choose from; 1 or 2 chicken dishes, usually a fish and a lamb/goat or two, a couple of vegetarian dishes, a couple of chinese style dishes, 2 rice dishes, sauces, 2 soups, dal and a paneer of some kind....plus the salads and don't forget the dessert table. WOW. Ice cream, fresh fruit, a different custard every night, a ghee sweet of some kind, cake, etc. Yep, hard to go hungry here.

The restaurant posts the name of each dish and they have a red or green square on the top corner, non-veg or veg. They also put the spice level at the bottom spicy, medium, light or less. Too cute. Even the sugar packages have a green square on them marking them as vegetarian.

They have done a set menu for us a couple of times where they serve us. The food is always so good....but there is way to much. Last night for instance we had 4 appetizers, a soup, then a chicken dish with veggies and mashed potatoes followed by a dal, a paneer, a curry of some kind, naan and then dessert. Unfortunately by the time we got to dessert our table had gone from 12 to  6 and only 2 stayed for dessert. \We felt bad about potentially wasting the food, but it was almost 10pm and I didn't think I needed any sugar in my system at that point. Our waiter looked disappointed when we left.

Breakfast is buffet style and they always have the same menu but there is so much to choose from you can have something different almost every single day and there is a cook who will do eggs to order. I have been having boiled eggs and toast. I ate the idly for a few mornings and then stuffed dosa a few other mornings but I really just want a bagel with peanut butter and some of my stinky tea at the moment.

We had lunch out today and along with the dal, sweet n sour chicken, rice, roti there were french fries. It certainly was interesting. the little cup of  ice cream at the end was delishous and I think everyone devoured theirs.

Tomorrow is a quieter day. We are heading out to Auroville which is only about 10km outside of Pondicherry. It is a large, well known ashram. We will learn about life at the ashram and then walk the grounds before returning to Pondicherry. The team has the afternoon off to shop, sit by the pool or do whatever they like. I am going to head out on my own and have some me time. I told a few people at supper that I'm taking the afternoon off. I will likely head out for a glass of fresh lime soda--sweet and then some shopping. Sari anyone???

I should get off the computer and get some of my mess put away. My side of the room is a bit messy tonight. It looks as though my suitcase exploded.

To those of you who have sent emails--thanks. I may not always get to respond but I am certainly reading them.

Life is a grand bazaar.

Thursday was a great day at the build site and an interesting one...oh, I forgot to tell you a joke..

How many Habitat volunteers does it take to change a flat time on the bus?
Answer--quite a few.

Our bus blew a tire on Wednesday night as we were heading back to Pondicherry. No biggie, my only complaint was that we blew a tire in a spot with no stores a few more km down the road and we would have been in front of the antique stores I see every day as we drive by.

The whole tire change took about 10 minutes but what a dangerous thing for the ones changing it. Laying in the middle of the road having traffic whiz by just inches from where they were. I'm glad I was standing on the side of the road as far away from the traffic as I could get.

Thursday. We were delayed in leaving that morning due to some political tension in the village. Not over us or the build but over the election that has just finished here. After about 1/2 hour we were on our way. The drive is nice and only about 40 minutes long, at some points you can see the Bay of bENGAL.As we turned off the East Coast highway and onto the village road the bus stopped. there was a man walking towards us shaking something at us and talking about going to the police about something. \the driver turned the bus off. we sat and watched/listened. he kept walking and we started to drive down the road again. \village drunk apparently out for a rant.

we started working on a 4th house and half the team moved bricks while the other half sifted sand and passed mortar. some helped with the rebar for another home and everyone was having a great day. after our late start we took a late break which ended at 12noon and then had to stop at 1pm for lunch. Our lunch comes out in the bus with us each morning and the temperatures wouldn't be ok for eating if left longer. After lunch we had a tour of some of the rice paddies where the villagers work, some peanut fields and generally received a better understanding of what they do all day. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to work in that hot sun day after day after day, year after year.

It was a very informative session and when we finished we had time to hang out with the village kids, take some pictures and get to know the people we are building for a bit better. Then it was back to Pondicherry for the evening. We had a great night of celebrating a birthday for one team member and shared some champagne and laughs.

Today, Friday was massages and then shopping. I enjoyed both. I will write more when I get back from the trip. I am taking notes here and there...but I am finding that as the team leader I do not have a lot of free time to sit and think. The team is great but I am trying to be available to help and assist and take people places when they are unsure of where to go....so my blogging time is limited.

Tomorrow we are off to a 4th century temple, a boat ride in a mangrove and a very long 4 hours on the bus.

Hope all of you in PEI are enjoying the snow I hear you received. We got a sprinkle of rain today but overall...hot and sunny. I'm trying to get a tan but so far it isn't going very well. Maybe by the end of next week.

Breaking in the newbie.

We have two habitat support staff with us on this trip Winston and Jason. Both have been with Habitat for about 5.5 years. Vincent is a seasoned GV coordinator and has helped  over 30,000 families and has hosted 38 teams. Jason has been working in the office writing proposals for funding, etc. We are Jason's first team. Winston is helping him along and leading for the most part but we will be alone with Jason on the weekend.

Still unsure of the name of the village--I just keep forgetting to get it written down. But, for some people in the village it is their first time seeing foreigners. Imagine. There is about 300 years of history in the village.

A team in the Netherlands has adopted the village and will be sending over 100 corporate team members in the next few months to help build...we are doing some of the prep work for them, hence the hole digging.

The hotel is amazing. It really is the 4 star hotel it seemed on the internet. The hotel is a big Habitat supporter and are giving us an amazing deal on rooms and food. Essentially every other person stays for free. Yeah! When Habitat first started using the hotel the staff would ask Winston what he was doing with the tourists, they would come back to the hotel at the end of each night very dirty and very tired. He told them and said they should join a build....so they did. A large number of the hotel staff have helped at a build and as Winston said to me they 'understand the pain of the volunteer.' I like that statement. So, we get the ROYAL treatment from the hotel staff. They hover close to our tables and ignore other guests, which was very amusing last night when we were being served ahead of the European tourists who had arrived first. A girl could get used to this.

Interesting facts about this trip:
-all the home owners will be women.


End of facts.

How cool is that? The womens group in the community got together and approached another group for support for helping to increase the equality between the men and the women of the community and to help with education, housing, etc. The other group partnered with Habitat and here we are. It's really great to be helping these women out.

*****
Notes from Monday night...

Monday night. My second Monday since leaving PEI. It was the first build day--it went really well. Though early days yet the team seems to be getting along well. We dug holes.

-greeted village
-digging
-money exchance
-supper
-walk to promenade


Tuesdays notes:
non existent. At 10pm my head hit the pillow and within a few minutes I was out like a light.

Wednesday. No notes yet today. I'm at the internet shop typing away and trying to remember everything that has happened over the past couple of days. We have now completed 3 days of 8 building days. Everyone is looking forward to Friday and our massages. :) Monday after the greeting by the community we started to dig holes. Each house will need 6 holes dug for it. We didn't finish any of our holes on Monday. Tuesday we continued with the digging of the holes. It is SO hot. Ok, maybe not hotter than last time but it is hot. I think the temps are comparable to my last trip. It is 6:35pm on Wednesday and the outside temperature is 30, feels like 37 with the humidity. It peaked at 34 on Monday...though ask anyone on the trip and we all think this morning was the hottest thus far, but that is likely due to our work locations in direct sun.

Today went quite well. I wasn't feeling 100% this morning and so I sat out from work until the morning break. Feeling rejuvinated I joined the team  and took my turn in helping move sand. It is very hot work and hard. Sand is heavy.

The GV India folks are very pleased with our progress and so are we. The holes for 2 homes have been finished and we spent today helping mix cement, line the holes and sift sand. Does this sound like your idea of a holiday?

Am having a great time and loving all my team members. Tonight we are headed out for supper at a restaurant that serves Northern Indian. Mmmm. Can't wait.

Send EMAILS...I love getting emails when on the road. I may not get a chance to write but just hearing about the news from back in Canada is always good.

I'm hot.I'm dirty. I'm covered in sweat. What a great day I had. :)

All team members were present and accounted for at breakfast this morning which means that my lost sheep had arrived. He took a taxi from Chennai at midnight last night and made the trip in just under 2 hours vs the 3.5 hour ride we had during the traffic of day time.

After a lovely breakfast with SOOOOO much variety I could barely decide what to have we were off for a 40 minute ride to the build site. I still haven't managed to catch the name of the village we are in but I know I will soon. The ride out is nice and we pass a number of rice fields along the way, a coconut grove and got to see about 100 cranes hanging out. You can see the water as well during one point of the trip but we actually build about 2km away from the sea.

Our arrival was a big event for the community as we are the first Habitat team to ever build there. There were village officials, funding partners and members of the community out for our arrival. The homes will be owned by the women and it is a womens group that helped put together the project so we all feel very proud to be involved in this event and to have the ability to help these women acheive some equality in the home. I was given my lei of flowers by the head of the village. It is only proper in India for the head of one organization to be greeted by the head of another organization. I think it is also good for the men of the community to see me as the leader of the team, I'm sure the women see it as a good thing.

The children threw flowers at us which made everyone laugh and smile. One girl didn't want to part with all the petals they had piled on the place and started to cry. We had a welcome ceremony in the tent which is to be our haven for the next two weeks--providing shelter from the HOT sun. Then a quick look at one of the homes that we would be replacing. We met the family who would be moving into the home, 2 sons and the mother. One of the sons is an electrician and the other a mason. The eldest, the electrician worked with us all day. He was a dynamo and never stopped. Once the house is completed he will be able to get married and live there with his wife so he is very keen to work hard and fast. There were a number of jokes made from our team on not rushing cause it wouldn't be as much fun as he is thinking. LOL. We didn't say that to him--it is a very big occasion for him and will be a good thing for the family.

Once again I spent my first day in India digging holes. At the spot I was working we dug three holes and didn't manage to finish any of them. They are bigger than before, 5 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet deep. They had to keep stopping us because they would add water to the hole to help soften the clay. With absolutely no shade over head it was a very hot day. The other half of my team was working on another home and while they got to work under the shade of a palm tree they had to deal with a hill of fire ants where they needed to dig--so both sub-teams had their issues.

I keep a paper diary as I go and update the blog when I have time. Unfortunately you won't get any pictures until I return.

Here's Thursday last week moving forward:

My shuttle arrives at 5:30am for my 8:30am flight to Brussels. UGH. I wonder if I need to check in when I arrive in Brussels--better check. Some people should not be in the service industry. The 'nice' man at the front desk of the hotel was cranky with me for not answering my phone--the 5am wake up. He started calling as I was locking the door. Oh well. How Paris! Within minutes my shuttle arrive and was there early! and we were off ot the airport. There were no line ups and the whole thing went pretty smooth. I made my connection in Brussels and as my bag was tagged for Chennai I can only assume it will find me later today.

There is now just over one hour to go on this 9.5 hour flight. My hip is sore, I'm dehydrated, I need to pee but my belly is full and overall the flight has been good. Within 15 minutes of my arrival I should be re-united with an old pal/team member. She has been travelling for 2 straight days and must be exhausted. I wonder if we can arrange for massages tomorrow. I've fnished both books I brought with me. I left the first at the hotel in Paris and will be leaving the second one on the plane. Sorry Shannon--I owe you a copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was GREAT and I can't wait to read the second one when I get back to PEI. So I will need to find a book  now inChennai to read over the next couple weeks. Who was I kidding when I was only brought 2 books-but taking more means extra weight to drag around. Ok--more tv before we land.

The last 20 minutes of a flight are the longest. You are almost at your destination and all you can do now is figet. It isn't just me. You can see it in a lot of people, the restlessness. Is it because suddenly you are almost there? That you can't stand? I think its a combination of things.

India at night is dark when flying in compared to North America where orange lights highlight each road and house--here in Indiacities are bright but the spaces between seem darker. In my opinion.

******

It's Friday. Just back from supper. It was a really great meal at Daksin which is located at the Sheraton. It was worth every rupee--all 3500 of them--plus our ride there and back for a grand total of 3900 rupees. Which btw is still under $100--for both of us.

We ordered the thali which is essentially a set meal, like a table d'hote. One veg one non-veg. They started us with different breads and sauces them some fried appies. You could watch them making and frying them--yummy. There was soup which was a bit spicy but delish. The main meal which was served in 6 or 7 little silver dishes. 1. chicken, 2. fish, 3 mutton, 4 radish, 5 spincah, 6 dahl, 7...I forget already. Plus plain yoghurt, flavoured rice and a sauce. It was all you can eat which we didn't know at first but it didn't matter we couldn't finish what we had. Pistachio ice cream and coffee for dessert. The coffee according to RSC was pretty good. 3 gentlemen played music the whole time and it was a great way to spend the evening. Now with a full belly, I'm off to sleep.

*****

Saturday we didn't do much in Chennai. RSC was feeling the effects of jet lag and we hung out in the room napping and chatting. One of the other team members joined in the afternoon. Supper was at the hotel and it was very nice. In the next few hours I am expecting 5 more team members. They should arrive between 1am and 5am....I hope to be asleep.

******

Sunday morning and shortly after awakening there was a knock at the door --2 very awake and perky team members. Hugs all around. I was very happy to see them and said I would see them for breakfast. When I got to the restaurant shortly after there was another member of the team there and within a few more minutes the others had joined. Intros were made and we were off to a good start. Check out went fine and we boarded the bus to the airport. 3 members of the team were to arrive at 9:30am. The decision was made to head over see if we could meet them and head out. Two were found shortly after our arrival and within another 5 minutes the 11th. The 12th person was still in the US waiting for his flight to leave.
(I had to pay 60 rupees to go into the airport to meet them--only in India?!)

We boarded the bus and headed to Pondicherry. Approx 150km and 3.5 hour drive. It went quite well and people either napped or chatted amongst themselves on the two busses.

That basically brings you up to date from my first post. I will try over the next couple of days to tell you about the orientation meeting and the first day at the build site....both were great.

I'm not really tired (yet), and I've showered so I'm clean, but a few minutes ago I was hot, tired, dirty and sweaty--a very appealing combination. It's amazing the power of a shower.

For those of you who were with me for the first trip to India you know how I spent my first day at the build site--I dug a hole. Guess what--I dug another one. Well, my sub team worked on 3 during our short day. The temperatures are much higher this time and we have no shelter so the work was slow...but we made good progress.

It's almost 7:30pm in Pondicherry and I'm hungry. Supper starts in 15 minutes--gotta go.

Thanks for hanging in with me.

Hi! I've arrived in Pondicherry. WOW. It's good to be back. We arrived around 2:30pm today--sunday. It's hot and the 3.5 hour bus ride seemed long but everyone is still in good spirits. We start building tomorrow. One team member is on the missing list. Missed his connection in chicago due to weather and Obama. He will arrive in Chennai tonight and take the bus down to Pondicherry tomorrow. At least he is courageous enough to take a local bus.

The actual building starts tomorrow and it is going to be a hard day for most of the team. Jet lag is still a factor for most and the heat will rule their enthusiasm. I keep saying, it isn't a race to finish its just to get done what we can. Some is better than none.

At 5pm I'm heading out for a walk and anyone who wants to join can tag along. I suspect the majority will want to venture out for a bit. Then back to the hotel for our orientation to India, to get some information on the actual build and then supper. I am hoping to then head back up to the roof top to enjoy the breeze coming in off the Bay of Bengal and the lights of Pondicherry.

Hotel is amazing. It is a 4 star hotel. Apparently they give Habitat a really good rate--they must. Jason is going to be our on the ground co-ordintator for GV. It is his first international group--we will break him in. There is a roof top pool and while it is only open until 7pm I suspect we will really get some use out of it. Restaurant was fabulous for lunch and I look forward to supper here tonight. They do a buffet and you can tell they cater to tourists as all the dishes are marked with the name of the dish and then 'spicy', 'mild', 'sweet', etc. very helpful for one of our folks who found all the mild dishes spicy!

wifi in the hotel room and my roomie RSC brought a notebook computer so access is good. Should be plenty of updates as we go.

Hope it is Spring in Canada.

Welcome to the India GV trip 2011. I will be traveling to Paris for the next few days and will start blogging when I arrive in India on Thursday. Enjoy some of the pictures from my last build.