The 3-week marker is nearly here, and our advent calendar tells us that it is only 16 days till Christmas! 16 days!
This week included a long weekend in Jaipur ‘the Pink City’ which we found to be not as ‘pink’ and a little more ‘big’ than we expected. What a city it is - so packed and hectic and huge and beautiful and ugly and strange and poor and rich. We’d heard that big cities in India are full of contradictions but didn’t really get it until now. We loved Amber Fort, an ancient Palace with walls crawling over the surrounding mountains and the Observatory in the Old City, filled with strange and other-worldly measuring instruments. Also high up on the list was a grilled cheese and vegie sandwich we found on the hotel menu – classy. The train ride to and from Jaipur was a 7 hour adventure in itself. Apparently it is just not cool in India to board the train before it is moving and so we quickly mastered the art of running along the platform and jumping into the carriage as the train gathers speed, Indiana Jones style...even if there may have been a few squeals! Our carriage was very comfortable but the experience of sharing a berth with 4 other men who either snored or hakked up phlegm was not one we will particularly treasure. We thought we may have escaped the Indian custom of sharing pre-packed food on the trains until the return journey where both a lovely man offered an unidentifiable ball of sweet something and a cheerful family produced their salty semolina cake for us to sample. Despite our wariness of strange food we enjoyed both.
It was again a relief to be back in Bali where there are more cows than cars. But even in our homey little town we can’t escape frustrating Indian bureaucracy. For unknown reasons the local police have requested that we register with them every time we leave and return to Bali. We’re still a little unclear of how this works and it seems to be a bit of a farce as we motorbike around to 3 local police stations where officers rustle papers and discuss what to do with us. Dinesh’s utter graciousness and patience through these proceedings astounded us as we are sure that many Westerners including us would already be slamming fists on counters demanding better service. We’ve been watching a documentary lately that explores India’s roots in ideas of Buddhism, Hinduism and the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. Dinesh was a living example of these ideas of action through non-confrontation and we are mightily impressed.
We’re also gaining a better understanding and appreciation for the extent of challenges that Foundation to Educate Girls Globally faces in implementing their programs. Again, we feel privileged for the chance to learn about FEGG firsthand and the opportunity to contribute. We’re excited to be working on producing audio-visual training materials for Creative Learning Training, promoting critical thinking, problem solving and interaction. We’re also hard at work on compiling content for the upcoming website.
On a more trivial note, we’re getting to know each other’s quirks and habits including Claire’s talent for sleeping with the light on when Amelia’s late to bed, and Amelia’s obsession with choosing nuts for their shape and visual appeal (Claire: Yeah, that’s what I thought). Having only the other to speak fluent English to, we’re placing bets on who goes crazy first. Any takers?
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