Why mosquito nets are things sent from heaven

I am loving sleeping under my mosquito net.  I think it’s such an amazing thing that I think I’ll still sleep under one when I get home.  It’s delightful.

For a start, I’ve been eaten alive by mosquitos.  I don’t even know how they’re getting to me, all the time.  Even up my thighs and I don’t know how they’re getting there!  I’m wearing long trousers or skirts all the time.  They are just so determined.  My feet are quite bad, I’ve got one almost on the sole of my foot which is very very annoying.  But Sarah’s feet are even worse (although she’s insists they’re getting better) they look she’s got a very bad rash.  Everyone is really concerned about them.  They did look bad.  But at night, the little buggers can’t reach me.  I am in a bubble of safety.  They may be in the room but they will not pierce my skin.  Oh no.  Sarah didn’t have her net up for a while so she’s now got the scars to prove it, while I smugly sit there under my magic net. 

It also makes me feel a bit like I’m at home.  At home my bed is in a space where my wardrobe used to be and I’ve got curtain coming down the sides so it makes me feel all enclosed and snug.  Here I’ve got this net about me and it kind of feels the same which is lovely.  I’ve got something surrounding my head so I don’t wake up and immediately freak out because everything’s so different, it now gives me an extra few seconds of peace.

It also lets me put my legs out of the sheet because no monsters can reach me because I’m still protected by the wonderful, magic, mosquito net.

Invigilating's much harder than it looks

This week we’ve just been invigilating in the exams and honestly it’s so much harder than it looks.  I also believe that it’s harder here than it is in Scotland.  Here the kids talk all the time.  If you tell them to be quiet, the wobble their heads, say yes miss but continue to talk.  They’re not just talking, they’re cheating! And not skilfully either, blatantly cheating.  Just handing their papers to their friends across the class, while looking me right in the eye.  I don’t understand!! Is that allowed here?  They have kids from all the years in one room so that they’re not sitting next to people of the same year, but that doesn’t stop them helping the person next to them.  All the time.  Just giving them the answers.  They even walk across the class to cheat! I watch them do it and they seem to not hear me shouting at them to sit down.  It’s frustrating to say the least.  I’m constantly telling them to “be quiet” “don’t talk” “sit down” “why are you cheating?!” “I’ve already told you to be quiet” “I’m pretty sure this isn’t allowed” “please, just stop talking” “give him back his paper” “fine, just ignore everything I’ve said, I’m cool with that”

It’s also so boring.  Invigilating is one of the most boring things ever.  We just sit in the classroom and stare, trying to stop them from cheating.  I wrote so many letters and diary entries, I’ve read five books, (Where She Went, How to be a Woman, Wonder, The Communist Manifesto, and the Great Gastby) and Sarah and I played a huge game of squares.  529 squares to be won.  Because I’ve been so tired it takes all my energy not to fall asleep in the class, it’s awful.  I’m worried that at some point I will actually fall asleep and the kids will draw on me on something.  Yesterday one of the boys actually coloured in the writing on the back of his friend’s t shirt.  I have no idea why.  Another boy, who is 16, made an aeroplane out of his pen and a ruler and shouted “look miss, an aeroplane!  Whooooooosh” He’s 16 and was doing an important exam.  Why did he do that? Who knows. 

I should not have learned to drive

Passing my test before I left seemed like such a good idea at the time, but it just makes coping with the Indian driving even harder.  There are so many things that just make me want to cringe all the time.  So I’ve started making a list and I’ve only been in India for two weeks

1.       They don’t go up the gears enough.  The car is usually screaming and they still insist on staying in second or something.  They have got to seriously be damaging their cars.

2.      There is no power assisted steering.  And the drivers have had to do some seriously tight 11-point turns and it looks like a work out turning the car around

3.      They over take when there is no need.  Overtaking is really stressful because it often takes you right into the path of a bus.  And that’s terrifying, especially in a rickshaw.  The roads are only single carriage ways but more often than not it’s three or even four vehicles  in a row

4.      The horn.  At home if you used the horn it would be in a serious situation and everybody would get annoyed about it.  Here they use the horn to go round a bend and I think that’s because they can’t stay on their own side of the road when turning the corner!  They just can’t keep their fingers off the horn and if it’s not used at least 20 times in a five minute journey then you must be a bad driver.

5.      They drive so fast through areas where there are so many people.  If someone is crossing the road they don’t slow down, they go around you.  Every time we’re in the car I constantly want them to be slowly down.

6.      The animals on the road don’t seem to bother them.  Dogs, cows, goats, chickens.  I would have really slowed down but nope.  They just beep their horn and go around them.  I’m living in permanent fear that we’re going to kill a dog.

7.      Indicators aren’t a thing.  They never indicate it just seems to be an unnecessary extension on the steering wheel.  If they ever indicate they stick their hand out the window, and hardly anybody sees it.  Our driver from the airport in Hyderabad to Bhravi’s had his hazards on the whole time.

8.      Traffic jams are 100 times worse here.  They don’t sit patiently and wait until the traffic moves again, they try and fill in the gap and jump “lanes” cutting everyone else up.  They could not be closer to the other cars and if they think the traffic should be moving, they use the horn.  Then everyone else does, meaning that there’s just a massive queue of unmoving traffic all leaning on their horns.  It’s literally deafening.   

 That traffic jam wasn't even that bad...

The rickshaw when it was rather empty

Two sheets does plenty

We’ve had to start rationing toilet paper.  We finished the two rolls we brought with us so we had to go and buy and some but we’re not sure how often we’ll be able to buy it and they only come in packs of 4.  It’s not fun having to remember “two sheets does plenty” every time you go to the toilet.

We’ve just finished our first week properly teaching and it’s one of the hardest things.  It really is so difficult especially when all the kids are at different levels and we’re still not really sure what we’re teaching.  I’ve been in the nursery/kindergarten most of the time and that’s been quite good.  The kids in there are so cute.  Some of them are barely four, and often they just get tired and fall asleep in the middle of class and this must be a common thing because the teachers seem to accept it.  The really hard thing about the wee kids is that I can hardly understand them, even when they are speaking English.  They are all so quiet when they speak to me, and they just say a few words.  It’s impossible to understand them.  But it’s really good to teach them because you can just act out lots of things.  I’ve been doing animals and trying to find actions of whale and camel have proved very difficult.  Monkey and dog less so.  One of the wee boys just couldn’t say the word turtle, he kept saying “tursul” it was the cutest thing ever.  And one of the wee girls fell asleep and then fell off her chair and had no idea what had just happened.  It was the funniest thing I’ve seen since I got here.

Because some of the other teachers just aren’t around all the time, me and Sarah have been used almost as cover teachers.  Which is really hard because we have no idea what we’re meant to be teaching.  I’ve now taught 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Standard and basically just winged it.  It was impossible to know what to teach them and Sarah was really struggling as well.  Discipline is a real problem here.  The kids are so badly behaved and they just refuse to listen to the simplest instructions which they already know.  They are worse than some of the kids back home who now seem like angels. 

The kids at the school are lovely when you’re not teaching them.  Everyone wants to see hi or good morning to us every time we see them.  And they all smile and wave at us when they see us.  And they really do just stare.  I get self-conscious every time they do it but I know it’s just because we’re so different and we’re really interesting.  

We’ve driven to school in a rickshaw a couple of times and it’s amazing.  And I’ve discovered it’s possible to fit 6 people (not including the driver) in one.  Even if a child was standing up.  It’s all really interesting and everyone always seems really amazed that we don’t have things like rickshaws or lizards or cows in the street.  And we’ve seen some monkeys! They really do just sit about in the street and no one bats an eyelid but me and Sarah just freak out every time we see one.  It’s amazing. 

On the telly downstairs it seems to constantly be either Doraemon (some children’s programme) or Bible TV.  We would really like a shot of the remote at some point..

Dreamworld's just as good as Disneyland

So we’ve just finished our first working week in Bangalore.  It’s been quite good actually! Despite constantly worrying about offending someone.  We are staying with a family, although we haven’t really worked out who exactly lives here yet, the only two who seem to remain constant are Ryan (a wee boy about 5) and Auntie, his grandmother, we haven’t been told her name so we are assuming that it’s always going to be Auntie. 

We had to register our visas at the immigration place in the centre of Bangalore, which takes about an hour depending on the traffic.  We were there three days in a row before we were finally done.  It was a very painful process made worse by the fact that I don’t like forms, Shobitha wasn’t allowed into the room to help us at all and I found it very hard to understand them.  But finally we were all done! And some of the waiting did mean we got to see a really nice Botanical Garden which had some amazing plants and I’m pretty sure there was also a chipmunk..

Because we spent so much time at the Immigration office and in cars we haven’t really had much time at the school.  Although yesterday we went to what they call a Resort here called Dream World.  It’s quite far out of the town and it’s kind of like a park with some amusements.  The kids loved it.  It was so lovely to see, they were just so happy the whole day. 

After a breakfast, which some of the kids may not have had, they got to play in a park with slides and swings and a climbing frame.  So of the kids just had no idea how to climb and that was really sad because that’s something that back home kids would be doing all the time.  Then me and Sarah got to teach them some games! So we taught them duck duck goose, which they enjoyed a lot once they understood how to play.  They were so funny, although it was really hot and running was really hard.  Then we taught them Alice the Camel, which I’m not sure they understood but they enjoyed doing the boom boom boom bit at the end. 

There were some kind of ride things that the kids, and us included, really enjoyed playing on.  They were just not used to it.  There were spiny things, a dragon that went round in circles and a rocking boat thing as well.  We also got to ride around the resort in a train thing and then we got to ride in an Ox cart, which was amazing! And also kind of weird.  But I really enjoyed it.  That’s definitely something I won’t be able to do at home. 

After lunch, more stuff we didn’t know, we got to play in a pool! It was just a shallow swimming pool but it was the first time most of the kids have ever seen a swimming pool.  They loved it so much.  They were just splashing around the whole time.  It was really hard because back home we take it for granted that children will go swimming and learn how to swim but even the teachers didn’t know how to swim.  But they loved being in the water so much.  One of the wee girls even said to Sarah that she felt like she was in heaven.  Then we moved onto another water thing.  It was a square around a tree with lots of fountains around it and they were playing music so we were all dancing in the water.  It was really good.  Some of the girls were trying to teach us some Indian dancing but my dancing is awful at best and it didn’t look like Sarah was doing any better!  Every time there was a rainbow as well all the kids stopped and crowded round to see it, they are just really cute. 

After eventually getting the kids changed they all got to have a dancing show.  They are all so good at dancing and even the boys were enjoying themselves.  I’m really going to have to get my dancing skills improved if I’m even going to stand a chance next to some of these 6 year olds.  Also, the teachers were given a chance to go Zorbing on the pool, so of course I went for a shot in the hamster ball.  It’s a lot harder than it looks though.  There is almost no way you can stand up, at least not for longer than about a second.  Also because there is no air, you really start to get out of breath, which makes the whole thing even harder, you can only last in there for about a minute.  Sarah and Shobitha also had a shot, it’s even funnier to watch than it is to do it.  We finally headed home and tried to eat our dinner really fast so that we could go to bed earlier. 

Today was parent day at the school so there wasn’t really much work to be done.  I got to sit in the youngest classes and Sarah was in 2^nd Standard.  All of the parents that came were so lovely and they kept asking me questions.  Although it is really annoying when they all talk about you right in front of you in a language you can’t understand and they seem to be laughing about it, doesn’t do anything for the confidence!  But most of the time someone will translate, although not always.  Apparently some of the younger kids have been going home and telling their parents that there are two doll teachers at the school and they’ve been calling us “doll miss” because dolls here are really white and that is what we look like to them!  They are so cute. 

I have been really confused about why everyone has been asking us if we’ve had breakfast or if we’ve eaten.  I’ve never known so many people to be so concerned about my eating habits.  It’s taken a few days but Sarah has discovered that it is their way of asking how we are.  But it’s really confusing when almost strangers are asking me about my meals. 

Duck Duck Goose

 They tried to tell us they were rabbits

We're in an ox cart!

They were trying to teach us how to dance.. I can't dance.

Wave!

Bangalore is Lovely

So we’re finally in Bangalore!!  We’ve just finished out first full day here and so far so good!  We were met at the airport by Shobitha and her father (who right now I cannot remember his name but I’ll find out!) who led us to the school bus which was going to take us into Bangalore.   Also, they seem to have their own drivers but they may be attached to the school, we’re not entirely sure yet.  They took us to have some lunch, some lovely rice and spicy samosa.  Then we were driven to the house where we are staying.  Driving down the little streets is really interesting.  We’ve learnt not to really look at what’s happening on the road because it might not be very good or safe to our eyes, perfectly fine by Indian standards

We arrived at our new home and were shown to our room.  It’s lovely.  We really cannot complain in the slightest.  It’s one room with our own bathroom and even a balcony.  And everything is so clean, it’s amazing.  We were so pleased when we saw it.  The only thing is we don’t have a wardrobe but to be honest that is nothing to complain about at all!  

That night though, after being fed a lot for dinner, we had to embark on the shower.  And what some of the other girls who were already out before us have said, it’s like the Ice Bucket Challenge.  So I am doing my nominations, everyday several times over.  And you all know what my hair’s like, so it takes a while.  It’s not fun! But luckily tonight for some reason we had warm water out of the tap!! So I managed to wash my hair properly at last! It was amazing and I’m feeling rather guilty about it when some other people don’t really have that ever.

Today we were shown to the school and it’s really nice! Although it is quite Christian and I’m not really but it’s only a year and the school is lovely.  We were taken down to see the assembly and all the kids stand in rows in their amazingly neat uniforms.  So much neater than back home and we have washing machines, no dust, and good houses.  Some of the kids we are teaching come from really poor backgrounds.  The school has all ages from 3-16 and they all speak such good English, even the three year olds.  We will be teaching the LKG and UKG which are the youngest in the school so the 3-5 year olds with a little bit of an opportunity to teach the older ones.  Sarah already seems to be a primary school teacher and she’s making me feel inadequate!

We have also managed (we think) to ask for oats for breakfast instead of noodles.  Which is still a bit strange.  But the food is so good and I’m managing to eat all the vegetables! I’m just trying to eat everything so I can really experience it and then I can go back to bacon, shreddies and mince when I get home.  Although they are constantly trying to give us tea, I’m trying hard to drink it. It’s not too bad because they seem to sugar it a lot. 

So far I’m enjoying India although we do get stared at, which is kind of unnerving but we’ll just have to learn to live with it! Like everything else this year! As I said earlier to Sarah when the power went out and we were still to have a shower, “we’re just going to have to deal with life.”

In India at Last

We’ve finally made it to India! At last.  We’re currently (or we were when I wrote this) in the guest room of Bhravi’s house.  We left Edinburgh airport at about 3 on Friday and flew down to London.  At London we had a wee bit of a wait until we had to board the plane but me and Sarah had discovered we had been put in completely different seats.  When we made it on to the plane we thought we could just ask the person that I was sitting next to if he could swap with Sarah but he was a bit undecided as he really wanted to have a seat in the middle section (the plane had two aisle, the biggest plane I’ve ever been on) So after causing a little bit of confusion and having lots of people looking and laughing I just sat down in the seat I had been given and Sarah went to find hers, but just before the flight left Sarah came up to where I was saying she had a seat free next to her.  Causing more confusion and seeming to annoy everyone in the plane we headed back up to the back.  So right at the back of the plane, right in the far corner there were two wee Scottish girls. 

(Also my soundtrack to writing this is Calvin Harris – Summer being blasted from some speaker outside..)

After discovering I could watch Captain America on the screen I did as we were given dinner.  Which was amazing.  It was two curries with rice.  Sarah found a Bollywood film that she had already seen which was amazing! I sat in the dark and sobbed as well. It was really good.  It’s just a shame that I really can’t remember the name.  After very little sleep we landed in Mumbai where we had a very quick turnaround.  Just about two hours.  So we practically ran off the plane and to baggage claim.  We had to fill in an immigration form and we had to ask for help as neither of us have done them before.  After going through more security we were directed to sit in a waiting area until a bus could take us to the other terminal.  We seemed to wait there a long time, it was a little stressful and we had to be reassured by two English woman who were on holiday and heading somewhere else.  No one really told us what was happening.  It happened a few times, no one really told us what to do!! We just had to trust the little information we were given.  Finally, 25 minutes before the plane was supposed to leave we were hurried onto a bus which took us straight to the plane.   It drove us all the way around the airport so we got to see the massive slum which literally sits at the border to the runaway.  It’s incredible.  We’d be told about it and we expected to see it but to actually see it with your own eyes is a very different thing.  It’s a massive shanty town spreading so far that you couldn’t even see the end, even when we were coming into land on the plane. 

Once we got off the plane at Hyderabad we were met by our rep, Abhilash.  Again, not really given much information, we just had to trust everything.  After that it was our first experience with India and Indian driving.  Trust me, all the stereotypes are true.  They don’t wear seatbelts.  They lean on the horn all the time.  They don’t use indicators, our driving had his hazards on most of time.  And the scooters weave in and out of all the other traffic.  It really is such a colourful country.  Everywhere we looked there were different colours and it’s surprisingly green! There are actually a lot of trees around Hyderabad, especially by Bhravi’s house.  (My soundtrack is now a lot of drums and singing). Bhravi and his wife are so welcoming and are constantly feeding us.  But again, didn’t really tell us what was going on! (it seems to be a running theme) Last night, Sugathi, Bhravi’s wife, took us out to a market down the road, which was really interesting (cue staring from people).  And then we met some friends of Sugathi who invited us into their house to look around and take some photos! They were really polite and their daughter is just 17 and is currently at college doing engineering.  It’s really amazing how much emphasis they put on education. 

We are constantly told how cold it is here the now and how cold is it is Bangalore.  It’s really nice the now. Pleasant I would say.  But we were given normal water instead of cold water in case we caught a cold… It’s about 29 degrees Celsius.  Apparently it was fifty here not long ago. 

We were told more about our project and Indian culture, a lot of stuff that couldn’t be covered on Coll because it’s really from an Indian perspective.  Like don’t really cross your legs.  Sarah and I are just sitting in our room the now as it is Sugathi’s birthday!  And there’s family round and we don’t want to intrude.  It has been an interesting two days and tomorrow we fly out to Bangalore, our fourth flight.  To be honest I just want to sleep but hopefully everything will be great when we get there!  

  

Wifi at last!

We've finally found some wifi so at last we feel connected again!  I've been drafting at few posts since we got here so I'm just going to post them (hopefully it'll work) all at once.  I'm currently hiding in our room because we're both too scared to go out and talk to people.  We've moved house so there are a lot of different people here and the bathroom's shared and up the hall a wee bit, so they'll see us if we go out.. It's a bit of problem.  They are all lovely.. It's just all the do is stare, and we're just so tired...

Am I Leaving The Country Yet?

So I'm leaving for India tomorrow (well I should be, but I'm still anticipating some kind of issue..) and it still doesn't seem like it's happening.  I feel like I'm still going to wake at home next week and just have some shreddies and still feel cold.  Not that I'm going to wake up in a  different bed, have curry and be far too warm.

I finally packed last night. And the only way I can describe it is painful.  I hate packing at the best of times, so late at night with a years worth of stuff was even worse. But it all fitted! Just...

I also re read some of the teaching manuals Project Trust gave us and that made me panic a little.  Turns out I know less about teaching than I thought.  I'm really hoping that some kind of instinct will kick in and I'll suddenly know how to teach.  Otherwise it's going to be an interesting first few weeks.  I'm just going  to make some star charts and have them singing some songs.  I think that's going to be my teaching method.

At the moment I'm not sure what the wifi and internet situation is going to be like, so if anybody does email me or anything, I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to reply.  Not that I reply quickly now.. With internet all the time.  But feel free to message me here,
on facebook (www.facebook.com/niamh.campbell.96),
on twitter, although I'm not sure I'll really update that very much.. (twitter.com/Its_Niamh_)
or I also have an email niamhcaampbell@gmail.com (yes, it does have two 'a's) which may be the best way of contacting.
I also have a skype account and a phone number for heading out, although I will hopefully be getting an Indian sim to make things easier.  So if anybody wants those please get in touch, I would love to keep in touch with everybody.

I will also have an address.. Which I don't have yet.. But as soon as I get it I will post it so you can all write letters!  I would love to get letters.  Even if it's almost like a stupid diary of your week or something, it would be lovely to have a piece of home to have when I'm there.  Please write, it doesn't have to be like The Notebook, but maybe a couple would be nice.

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has gotten me this far.  Everyone for help with the fundraising, especially everyone who came to the ceilidh.  It was a really good night and I really want to come back and go to a ceilidh like that when I come back from India.  Thank you to everyone who bought cakes, biscuits, marshmallow snowmen and kripsy cakes.  Thank you also to the charitable trusts who donated without even knowing me personally.  And a really big thank you to Karl for donating £400 after he pulled out of heading away with Project Trust as well.

Thank you to everybody and I hope you all have an amazing year and I'll hopefully see you all when I come back!!