Class Time

Excercise: Draw three people with different jobs and write 4 sentences about each.

(boy brings out jotter)
Tom: Ok whats this?
Boy: He's lifting a table (shows drawing of man lifting table)
Tom: Ok... that's not really a job is it?
(boy stays silent)
So a job, like teacher or doctor or postman.
(boy nods)
So what's this?
Boy: Doctor
Tom: Doctor, yes, ok good. And what's this.
Boy: He's doing toilet. (shows drawing of man urinating.)
Tom: right... is that a job?
(boy nods)
Tom: No I don't think it's really a job.
Boy: He is very bad man.
Tom: Ok well doing the toilet's not actually bad. But its not really a job. I mean like doctor or teacher.
Boy: yes (doesn't move)
Tom: ...ok, doing the toilet, very good

Back to School Again

Well I'm back to work, this time in a different sort of school. Two buildings: a lunch hall and a class building. 5 class rooms, one for each class and a small hut where dinner is cooked.
They don't have a timetable as such. I just kind of have to guess where to fill in when there aren't any teachers which makes it quite hard to prepare lessons.
Today I was paraded around the village by the nursery kids, presented with a pink juice flask which was hung round my neck as a sort of medallion and handed gifts such as sticks, stones and a cocktail stirrer.
In the morning the older kids, as a token of their thanks for my efforts, offered me a worm, which I turned down, so instead they put it on a drum and saw how high it bounced when they hit the drum.

Indian Private School

I spent the other night chilling out with the high society of India at "The Doon School Founders Day 2008" I swear I have never seen a more impressive school. They had huge steel gates painted black "donated by the Hyderabad Society," with guards sitting on duty. Inside were loads of tall, grand buildings surrounding cricket pitches and the like. It's a boarding school and the boarding houses are sort of Roman villa style. It's good for once to see signs that some Indians are given opportunities like that.
So there was this huge boarding school like a walled garden in the middle of the city. They had a big show with speeches and dancing. Despite the school's elite reputation the music was dismal, but I liked the dancing. As if they knew I would be visiting the guitar and piano ensemble played a Celtic jig to remind me of home, which was nice, but like I said it was dismal.
I then went and had a small chat with Chris Patten who was the guest speaker which was fun.
All the private school operatings sort of reminded me of home, back at Dundee High. It was all very familiar, except it was the first time I had really seen it from the outside. It's funny that it happened to be in India.
In the corner of the school grounds was a 50m x 50m settlement of slum houses, with tin roofs and plasic bags for doors. It was the view from the balcony of the boy's room I was in. I asked the one of the boarders why they were there. Apparently the workers who had built the new boarding house which I was sitting in had set up camp there while they were on the job, and never really left. So the grime of the city had somehow made its way inside the school walls, just so we didn't forget where we really stood.

Monk friends

A thing that was rather nice the other day was that I walked into the large monastery where the monks are currently staying, and I as I walked through the grounds, every so often I heard my name, and turned round to see a delighted monk. And they were all very pleased to see me when I went and met most of them in their bedroom.
I have a group of friends up here in India, who happen to be monks, which makes me happy.

Another Change of Plans

Don't plans change easily.

It turns out I'm not travelling anymore. Down the road from the monastery there's a terribly understaffed little Tibetan school. Some of the kids know me already. They call me "Mr Tom" I decided it would be better to stay and teach here rather than being moved by GAP to a different monastery. On visiting to discuss the details I found out that they were desperate for more teachers and the headmaster was a very nice man. They were very excited and wanted me to start the next day. You can't break a Tibetan's heart- it would be like hurting a kitten, so I agreed that I would start on Monday.

It's an exciting prospect- I'm teaching 6 hours a day- sports, music and English. The children will call me Mr Tom and I will get to know the Tibetan village really well.

Then on November 15th the Monks are coming back and we're all going to Nepal which is also fun.

Staying by the Ganges

I'm in the spiritual capital of the world- Rishikesh. It's very sacred to Hindus, quite sacred to Buddhists, and I'm sure it's sacred to some others as well. In the evening we watched some Hindus perform a ceremony over a stand of candles, before floating them out into the river. The place is full of shrines and people bathing in the river (I might just go paddling in it tomorrow).
Tonight we ate in this bamboo restaurant where we sat on the floor, while the Ganga flowed past us. We have vague plans to go rafting along the river tomorow. The trouble is, its a murky turquiose colour. Which is worrying.
Despite all the holy significance its still a really nice little town.

Musoorie

Well, I'm on the road now, living away from Puruwala. For the moment I'm sort of based in Toral's house in Dehradun, but going away to surrounding places every day.

This weekend I went to Musoorie with two of the Dehradun girls. Musoorie is a town way up high on a cloud, like I thought heaven would be when I was a child. It had horse rides and a ferris wheel, like I thought heaven would be when I was a child.

This was the first time I'd ever ridden a horse, which I found rather funny, since i was riding it round an Indian town. There was an Indian man following each horse but we could have easily stolen them and ridden them down the hill to save us the pain of taking a bus.

The ferris wheel was man powered. There was a man who stood in the middle and powered the ferris wheel like a hampster.

There is a cable car ride to the top point of the town- "Gun Hill" Unfortuanately it was far too misty to see much of a view, so instead, I went into a photo booth, dressed up as a Moghul prince and knighted an Indian man.

Musoorie is what they call a "hill station" in that it is just a town perched on the very top of a hill. Although the views were not to be seen today, it was really nice to feel cool again with the altitude. There was just a touch of Britain about it, with the ferris wheel and the horse rides, but only a touch and no more. There were also a whole load of Indians on holiday. When Indians are on holiday their favourite thing to do is take photos of Westerners, so me and the girls must have wasted hours posing for photos for Indian holiday makers, sometimes with the men getting a little too close, and sometimes holding their babies.