COUNTRY: India
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Fiz Eustance
The past two weeks have been intense to say the least.
It's only now -on our first weekend home since the last blog post- that we've actually been able to laze about and relax. That being said, we're not complaining about it because India isn't really the kind of place one goes to relax. So we've been busy- but the good, exciting kind of busy.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a car full of us volunteers- Australian, English, Austrian and Swiss, crammed into a van for a 6 hour trip to Pushkar. Thinking back to it, the day we spent in Pushkar was one of our favourite days so far. Sifting through the markets, we walked from our hotel to a local Sikh temple. It was beautiful, though not the kind of beauty of a building like the Taj or Jaipur's Amber Fort. Instead it possessed a kind if serenity and peace that only an in-use temple can possess. We spent a while there, just sitting and taking it in. From there we wondered past various market stalls to reach the Holy Lake, nipping into another temple along the way. Another place of a calm, serene beauty, Pushkar's Holy Lake is situated in the middle of town. Despite this, when you see it's undulating waters and feel the remnants of its breeze upon your skin, it's easy to forget that the bustling market is just behind you. Another high point of the Pushkar trip was the Durka Temple, located on the very top of a large hill. We woke up at 4:30am that day so that we could climb up it and drink chai on the top just in time for sunrise.
The week of teaching following the Pushkar Trip was wonderful, as I feel like it was that week in which we all really started to find our stride with both the kids at the school and orphanage. However, after just four days back, we left for Jaipur, this time cramming ourselves into one India's renowned overnight 'sleeper trains'. Some highlights of Jaipur include the elephant ride up the Amber Fort, seeing the world's largest sundial at the observatory and celebrating Shoumyaa and Annie's birthdays by storming into their room and smashing cake all over their faces (an experience which I doubt either of them will forget). A day later and we were on the move again, this time by bus to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.
I think it's fair to say that anyone reading this had probably seen a picture of the Taj before. And it may be also fair to say that when you saw it, some part of you thought that it probably looks better in those photos (sunrise, some birds silhouette flying through the frame, some woman in an orange sari) than in real life. But thankfully it doesn't. That first view you get of it through the gates is one you remember, and I'd say that all of us would agree on that.
Leaving Agra, every one of us was extremely tired and ready to get home to our own beds, Meenaji's cooking and to teaching our kids. However, there was one thing yet to get through: the 13 hour 'sleeper train' home. Thankfully, we got through it, but let's just say that it certainly isn't a memory we'll forget.
It has been just over a month since we arrived. Reflecting on it, it's interesting to see which things stand out the most. Obviously, our weekend trips have been brilliant and memorable, but to me at least, I think more about our time settling into what we now think of as our second home- Udaipur- and above all things, the teaching. So, although much of what gets written in these posts may inevitably be about where we went and what we did, the children we teach have been the most extraordinary thing for all of us so far.
Fiz
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