JCU teachers making a difference

COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Education
WRITTEN BY: James Cook University

Since arriving in Siem Reap on Thursday 8 Jan, after 3 flights and 12 hours in the air, so much has happened already. We have completed our first week of teaching, gotten to know our students and enjoyed many bumpy tuk tuk rides. We have sampled various delicious local dishes and tested almost every coffee shop in town (‘Sister Srey’ cafe is becoming a favourite amongst many of us). But, most importantly, we have all been very busy developing relationships with our Khmer teachers and with each other. So, where do I begin…

Upon our arrival in Siem Reap, we were greeted by the very friendly Davy and our very patient bus driver who loaded our very heavy luggage into the van and we were off to Jasmin Guest House. We arrived at our guest house, dropped our luggage off, connected to the Wifi (very important) and were taken to what has now become our regular lunch hang out, Neary Khmer. The food here is amazing and we have all been shocked at the service and quality of many of the restaurants and cafes around Siem Reap.

In general we have so far avoided eating the coveted tarantula, snake and scorpion. Maybe next week! :) Lime sodas, mixed fruit shakes and fresh coconuts are regular sights at our lunch table each day. The program has been organised so that we get to meet up each day for lunch. This is a good opportunity to share our experiences with each other. Our group has been divided up between three schools. One is in the Siem Reap township and the other two are a little further out.

The girls at the school in the city are treated to a tuk tuk ride from our very comfy guesthouse to the placement. We expected each school to run their day-to-day activities, lessons and timetable differently, but it has been quite a surprise at just how much each program and the students differ.

The girls who have been placed at the further away schools are driven by minivan at 6:30am for a slightly earlier 7:00am start. Despite these two schools being just 10 minutes apart, they are worlds apart in terms of development. The vast differences will ensure, however, that each of us will take away unique memories from our time here.

The days are long here. We are up at around 5:30am and do not return to the guest house until 5:30pm most days and then there is planning to do and resources to be made. We eat out at restaurants and cafes for dinner most nights; the local food is so varied and delicious! Sometimes if we're feeling super tired we'll just order in pizza and occasionally wash it down with the local Angkor beer.

We have our weekends to sightsee, shop and be pampered. Our group has a keen interest in responsible tourism and has been actively seeking out organisations and products that help the local people lift themselves out of poverty. From fishy foot spas and facials to trips to Phnom Pen and elephant rides- the Australian teachers know how to have a good time :) We can’t believe how quickly this 11 days have flown by. We miss you all!

#JCUteachersmakingadiffernce

My typical day teaching in Pokhara

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Education and Nursing
WRITTEN BY:  Julia Quine

This past week, the clouds have lifted and the fog has shifted, and we were finally greeted with uninterrupted views of the beautiful mountains that we are lucky enough to be surrounded by here in Pokhara. This made for perfect conditions to do the arduous walk (for me anyway, the others were powering up) to the World Peace Pagoda. The stupa itself was incredible, and when viewed with a backdrop of the mountains, it made for one of those moments where you all you can really think is '…wow'.

We got a true Nepalese experience this week… a surprise strike! We are still not entirely clear on the reasoning for it, but what it did mean was that we were left with two days of no taxis or buses, and very few shops open. This took away from us a day of work (and also our opportunity to paraglide :’(, but gave us an opportunity to do the rather long walk to Lakeside and enjoy a more leisurely day than we usually have on our work days. On that note…!

A Day In The Life (when there isn’t a strike)
This daily routine is specific to myself, but the food part is certainly one that many of the others probably experience too!

7am– Alarm goes off. We roll around groaning and muttering “but we’re so warm and toasty.”

7:10am– Think about the breakfast we are about to be given by our host family and get out of bed a little more willingly.

8am– Walk to our host family’s house (we are living in a separate room a few doors down) and find a jug of tea and cups waiting for us on the table, every single morning without fail. Breakfast is generally one of two things: porridge with apple/banana and buffalo milk, or an omelette and copious amounts of ‘pali’ – Tibetan flatbread that is served warm. Amazing.

8:45am- Hop on a bus to work. The buses are small, with a rundown exterior but quite an elaborate interior. Decorated roofs, loud Hindi music playing, and some sort of tasseled decorations hanging around the driver.

9am– Arrive at the nunnery, being greeted by 36 smiling girls waving and shouting “Good morning miss!’. Watch as the girls line up for assembly and start singing their morning prayers. It is quite hypnotising.

9:30am- Lessons begin! Each lesson is only 40 minutes, making planning for each day quite an easy process. I take every level (Kinder, 1, 2, 3, 4) throughout the day, each presenting their own challenges but all full of the loveliest young girls you can imagine (except for some of the tiny ones – there are definitely some cheeky little monkeys running around.) The level of English is impressively high among the majority of the girls, and they are all very attentive and eager to learn which makes my job much easier and more enjoyable.

11am-Tea break. Literally all that happens on this break is tea drinking. The girls all sit around and drink tea quietly.

12pm- Lunch time! This isn’t any old lunch break though – this is a 2 hour break where I am fed a huge meal and then can do anything from play badminton with some of the girls, sit on the roof and do henna, or even be forced to dance while all the girls sit around in a circle and laugh while the teachers and even a monk whip out their smart phones and start filming. I like to think they are laughing with me, but it’s definitely at me. Definitely.

3:10pm– School ends. We are served tea and biscuits, and are then on our merry way back home on a similarly funky bus, but this time it is significantly more crowded. People are hanging out the door and people are getting on the roof. You see pictures, but it is something else to see it in reality.

7pm– Dinner time. Dahl baht is the staple meal here it seems (lentil dahl and rice), but we have also been served ‘thukpa’ (a delicious traditional Tibetan soup that has yak cheese in it) and fried rice. Sit around for many hours some nights discussing various things, often laughing a lot. We absolutely love our family, and everyone else seems to be growing similarly close to their own families. How lucky we all are.

9:30pm– Pack our bags for the next day, face the freezing cold shower (and by shower I mean bucket shower. You truly haven’t lived until you’ve had to pour cold water over yourself from a bucket in freezing temperatures), and then hop in bed to get our beauty sleep ready for the next day.

The nurses wake up considerably earlier (we’re talking 5:45am some mornings!) and head to work about 6:30am on one of the aforementioned public buses. The days can vary from observing surgeries to working on the wards. No two consecutive days are the same. Some have witnessed babies being delivered and a caesarean, and some have witnessed practices that are no longer used in Australia, which has made for an interesting experience.

This week some of the nurses also had the opportunity to go to the Monastic school and teach the boys about good hygiene practices using posters, songs and presentations.

This weekend the group is heading to Chitwan National Park! Crossing our fingers and toes that we get to see a tiger. We’ve also been informed that there are more strikes happening next week. We are well and truly integrated into Nepalese life now…

A day in the life of a medical volunteer in Chitwan

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Medical Placement (Radiotherapy & Paramedicine)
WRITTEN BY: Thanh Vu

A standard day starts early in the morning, where our host family makes us breakfast. A milky rice-like breakfast is often served, and it tastes better than it sounds! Other times a serving of bread and jam is also given. With our complimentary tea and coffee that seems to be available 24/7, we are off to our respective placements by 7-8am.

There are eleven of us students on this trip; two are placed at the teaching community school to teach the kids English, six nursing students and one paramedicine student are placed at the local community hospital and two are placed at the cancer hospital.

Myself and another student are placed at the cancer hospital, which treats a patient load far larger than its limited staff should be dealing with. But they adapt and manage the stress exceptionally well. On the first day we were introduced to all the main doctors and heads of each sector; they were immensely welcoming and extremely friendly, encouraging us to exchange our procedures with theirs. Their head technologist said, "We are all students, constantly learning. You are a student, I am a student. We are all equal here." To myself and the other student, this was overwhelming, but in the best of ways.

For these first days we have just been observing the way the procedures are carried out. For the most part, the concepts and the procedures done are very much the same. Even the type of treatment units are the same back at home. We are all bouncing off ideas off each other, myself, the other student and the doctors and technologists, getting a grasp of how things are done. We have lunch in the canteen, which varies each day from the standard Dal bhat- a rice dish with some potato curry and a mixture of side dishes like picked radishes, to a spicy noodle dish.

After lunch we resume our observing and then make our way homes to our families, which is about a 5 minute walk for us and the teaching students, and 15 minute walk for the community hospital students.

After getting home, we spend time sitting outside, going for evening walks- in which we can see many buffalo, goats, chickens and pigs in the neighbourhood- playing with the kids, drinking plenty of tea and coffee, eating mandarins all the while struggling to understand the Nepali and English language, but we have the best laughs from it all.

Later on the families retire for the rest of the night or have a nightly praying session which includes reading from historic Hindu texts which is inevitably followed by lots of dancing and signing.

A day in the life of a Swinburne student in Jaipur

COUNTRY: India
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Women's Empowerment and Street Children
WRITTEN BY: Kirsty Troy, Swinburne University

India has been amazing so far. It is so different to Western life in so many ways. The impression I get is that the people here do what they want, when they want. It is actually so refreshing that there are limited rules and that people are trusted to function together. It is especially surprising how well the traffic functions, considering the roads are so crowded with motorbikes, cars, tuk tuks, and the occasional dog, cow, or donkey. The way it works is that the vehicles sound their horn to alert others of their presence and make people move out of their way. Unlike in Australia where beeping your horn is considered rude or aggressive, here is it is expected and encouraged; the phrase ‘beep horn’ is usually painted on the rear of trucks.

Our weekdays are usually structured like this:

8.00am: Serve yourself breakfast, cooked by the wonderful cooks (Archina and Ladoe). We usually have a few dishes, such as fruit salad, vegetable curry, and chapatti.

9.00am: Leave for our placement in Elephant Village. The journey takes approximately 1 hour.

10.00am: Conduct the Good Morning song and prayer with the children, and then do 15 minutes of exercise.

10.30am: The volunteers break up into four set groups- working with and caring for young children (aged 4-7 years), teaching older children maths and English (aged 7-11 years), teaching girls and women computer skills, and teaching health and life skills to women.

3.00pm: Travel back to the guesthouse. Have chai tea and de-brief with our groups. Discuss how the day went and plan for the next day.

5.00pm: Free time to explore Jaipur! Our expeditions have included trying street food, being welcomed into Indian engagement parties and weddings, catching tuk tuks, and sprinting madly across busy roads.

7.00pm: Have dinner. We serve ourselves delicious authentic Indian food, including vegetable curry, endless chapattis, rice, dahl, and salad.

8.00pm onwards: Free time. Usually spend chilling out on cushions in the lounge area.

A day in the life of a volunteer in Palampur

COUNTRY: India, Palampur
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Physiotherapy
WRITTEN BY: Sally Laughton

6:00- Wake up to the birds chirping in the fields outside your room. Curse the birds for waking you up before dawn but, considering you’re awake so early, pile on jumpers and socks and trudge up to the rooftop to enjoy sunrise.

6:15- Find Owen and Sally G already on the rooftop in yoga poses that that look excruciatingly beautiful. Attempt to join in. Fail to even touch toes so sit cross-legged and watch the sunrise. Watch as hidden mountains are slowly lit up and sparkle in the morning light. For a brief moment you even forget its 5 degrees outside. But then you remember and quickly run inside for some hot chai tea and toast.

9:00- The mini bus arrives to pick everyone up, say goodbye to the smiling kitchen staff and snake down the hill in our rickety van. First stop: Ayurveda clinic with its enormous white walls and pristine gardens. Second stop: Goenka hospital in Palampur town, sitting amongst black tarpaulin tents and piles of debris. Third stop: Karan hospital perched on the edge of a hillside and bathed in sun, women chatting in the waiting room as you pass by. The first patient wanders in and the day begins!

12:30- Chai tea break brewed expertly by Monica the secretary. Chat about the morning and plans to go to the market in the afternoon. Seize opportunity to practice Hindi with Monica who giggles at your poor attempt at pronunciation. Scribble new phrases in notebook for practice later.

1:30- Bus comes to pick everyone up one by one. Discuss today's experience whilst keeping an eye on the winding road to fend off travel sickness. Arrive home just in time and completely forget sickness when you walk in the door to the smell of Paneer curry and fresh roti. Devour lunch.

2:00- Head to the market for supplies. Begin with a set plan and shopping list. Get distracted by sari shop and food stalls selling spiced cauliflower chips. Slink down narrow alleyways lined with knick-knack shops that spill out into the fruit and vegetable markets. Realise you really need/want fruit. Buy the entire fruit sellers stock of pomegranates and chiccko. Find other volunteers dragging bags filled with fruit and groceries and Angus, whose entire shopping consisted of Rasbhani traditional Indian sweets.

5:00- Head to the chaotic local bus depot and realise no one can read Hindi. Search around for buses returning to Kandibari and clamber on a noisy green one that’s ready to leave. Get greeted by the amused faces of the ticket inspector who looks very pleased we are supporting the public transport initiative. Thank the universe that we got on the first stop as the bus is inundated with locals returning home from the markets. Realise you can actually fit 40 people on a 20 person bus if you really try. Cheer like crazy when we finally reach our stop and thank the bus driver and ticker inspector profusely for getting us all home safe without a word of English.

7:30- Snuggle in to the loungeroom for dinner and remind ourselves how crazy it is to live and work in India.

Swinburne University in Delhi!

COUNTRY: India
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Women's Empowerment and Street Children
WRITTEN BY: Qiqi Chen, Swinburne University

Namaste everyone!

This is Qiqi checking in on behalf of Swinburne’s 2014 Antipodeans Abroad Delhi group. I think you’d be glad to hear, so far so good! We have survived our first week without any drama, and out of reach of the notorious Delhi belly *fingers crossed*.

Since our arrival in Delhi last Saturday, it’s safe to say we have utterly fallen in love with this vibrant city. Everyday presents itself as a new treasure to behold; we are either eating something new, seeing something new, smelling something new, or learning something new. What a pleasure to our senses! The buzzing energy of the city, markets and streets, where the seemingly wild and chaotic traffic (which somehow works) bemuses even the greatest skeptics, including myself.

Our accommodation is situated in the affluent Kalaish Colony in South Delhi, within walking distance from shopping and dining amenities located at the local M-Block market- a square court with a park containing various stores hidden within it's nooks and crannies- where we are able to do most, if not all, of our essential grocery shopping. This also includes getting relaxing massages after our placements, of course!

Our in-country team has been amazingly hospitable, ensuring our daily comforts are met and providing knowledge of the local area so we feel familiar, informing us of the best places to go, prices for purchases and Rickshaws and even how to haggle so we don’t get ripped off (what a bonus!). Our weekday placements would definitely be the highlight thus far. Although we expected this, never in our wildest imaginations could we imagine the true extent of it's impact. The 13 of us are split into 4 different centres, each with it’s own unique style of teaching and focus. Despite these differences the stories we share with each other over meals reveals a significant fact: the children are the hidden gems of the very city. Their laughter, their smiles and the gleam in their eyes, whilst greeting us joyously every morning, “Hello Didi” (hello big sister), brighten our day from the moment we step into the centres.

Here is a rough account of our daily activities at the Street Centre. There's always variety in our days, but the following is an account of our day last week:

8:30am- Breakfast consisting of oatmeal, roti, butter, jam, chai and nectarines. Get ready for our day ahead at placements.

10:00am- Picked up by our placement co-ordinator Dheeraj. The Pigeon Markets (where my Street Centre is located) are approximately 5km away, so a one-way trip could take from 20 to 60 minutes depending on the time of the day.

10:40am- We arrive at placement, and are offered glasses of Masala chai (with beautiful notes of cinnamon, ginger and also other spices) by Apruva, Raju and Irfan, the co-ordinators of the centre. We head upstairs to the rooftop, soaking up the morning sun while waiting for the day to start just as the children finish eating breakfast.

11:00am- Each of us are appointed and provided with materials to teach a group of children, assembled according to age and capabilities. For contrast, the younger 4-6 group work on counting from 1 to 100 and alphabets (Hindi and English), the 13+ age group work on trigonometry and algebra, which they work on at home at the end of the day.

12:30pm- Lunch is served. We head off to a local eatery Halidram’s (notable Indian franchise) in Central Chandni Chowk, catering a variety of Indian cuisine from all over the country with the likes of Northern Thali, Masala Dosa, or Raj Kachori from Mumbai.

1:00pm- When we have time we are taken to tour and explore Chandni Chowk guided by Dheeraj, a very busy district in the heart of Old Delhi, surrounded by a world heritage listed site The Red Fort (built in the 5th Century), the biggest Sikh Temple in India, and the famous Spice Market. On this particular day we took a look around the Spice Market, taking in the various sights and fragrances it had to offer.

2:30pm- We arrive back at our placements, and finish off the day with drama games. We head home from placement at 4:30pm, chauffeured by Dheeraj.

6:30pm- Dinner is served by Shankar. The two houses get together to break bread, sharing stories from their day at placement.

After dinner we usually head out as a group to explore the treasures Delhi has to offer.

I hope this gives a slight insight into our adventure in India thus far!

With lots of love,

Qiqi and the Delhi Crew! xox