One month down!

So here marks our one month India anniversary! And what fun we have had so far! Ups and downs of course, but we are all having an awesome time. This is the part where I should really recap over the past month, but that would take farrrrr too long, so if you're that interested, just flick through my past posts, I pretty much cover everything there. Cheers then.


Wow I haven't written for a while.. I didn't realise. Heres a quick catch up:


Friday 11th- School, visited Mother Teresa's house. We saw her bedroom where she spent her last years, read about her history, saw some of the things she owned/used (Including a bit of tube that was inserted into her throat when she was ill... pretty weird to have that on display next to a pair of scissors she used to use....) But it was good to go and check it out and we would all like to volunteer there some time so it was good to check it out. That evening we went to Little Sisters again.... And had noodles for dinner (this is always an exciting time for me)


Saturday 12th- Went to the train station to book our holiday tickets to Goa, stopping off for 2 days in Mumbai on the way back! Exciting times! I hope the 6 days travel to get there and back is worth it!!


Sunday 13th- Went to the church next door- Circular road Baptist Chapel- Erm... Lets just say... an entire service of hymns and talking about what God thinks of tax and politics is not my cup of tea. Luckily that evening we went to AG again to S.O.A.R which is the service for young people, so I got my Jesus fix for the day.


Monday 14th- Mine and Chris' 11 month anniversary! <3 Went to school.


Tuesday 15th- School- making Christmas cards, had dinner at Anu's house- Pasta with tomato saucey stuff followed by ice cream... Tasted like home! It was aaamaze. Thank you mummy Anu!!!


Wednesday 16th - Freeset which was great as usual.


Thursday 17th - School  (64 kids!! Its normally closer to 50!), we decided to go out for a walk after school but as we got to the gate the guard handed me and Naomi parcels from home!! Mine was filled with sweets and chocolate (Thank you mummy!) and also a MASSIVE hug from Nana:

Me enjoying a hug from Nana.

This hug now stretches across the length of our room, hugging us allll day every day.

Love you Nana!

So thank you to Mama, Nana and Humpty for that exciting gift!! Made Harriet happy. Love you all lots.

Also on the 17th- Had naan bread for the very first time. Also exciting.

So that leads me nicely onto today. The 18th. 

Today was not just any day at school, today we went to the ZOO with school! They all dressed up in their gorgeous little shirts and dresses that they bring out for special occasions such as this, and off we went. Such excitement among the children!! 

When we got to the zoo, they had some brief breakfast then they were off!  100 types of deer, giraffes, tigers, lions, birds, crocodiles, elephants...... 

Getting a bit excited over the animals.

Elephants!

My personal favourite... BEAR!!

Me and Bina. My cling-on! 

Water break.

Smiles all round.

Queuing up to go home!

A little conga line they had going on!

Me and Bina again- These kids LOVE being upside down! 

Ellen and Piya (AKA Monkey) on the bus home.

It was a pretty good day, the kids were (mostly) happy, one lost her shoe in the river and a few fell over but what do you expect from hyper kids on a school trip?!
So that's my blog up to date! Tomorrow is Saturday so we get a lie in! This makes me happy. 
I'm afraid my quick wit and top notch comedy is lacking in this post. It could be because I'm tired... Maybe because I've used it all up on my team mates this week? Who knows! But I hope you enjoyed it none the less. 


Peaaaace,


Harriet xoxo

Church, school, and more Indian holidays.

This Sunday (6th November) We tried out our third church- Emmanuel Evangelist Church. This one was not quite as small as Big Life but its still small. Probably the closet to my home church in Totnes. The worship was good and its really friendly. We all enjoyed it and it would be a good church to properly get into and become a part of, AG (Assemblies of God) is amazing, but its so big you will only get to know a few people. So, I think we have come up with a plan, or at least I have for me anyway. We do have one more church to try out this Sunday coming, but I think I will go to Emmanuel every Sunday morning, and AG in the evenings. We did that this Sunday and it worked out really nicely. AG in the evenings is aimed more at youths/young people, so its ideal and the messages are really relevant.


Monday 7th was the holiday for Aid Ul Adha. They were lying when they said it was a blood bath, I think between us we saw a few insides, couple of bones and some animal skin. It still wasn't pleasant but people were defiantly over reacting when they said that the streets run red!


Tuesday we went to Entally girls hostel. The girls there range from 6-17, and they are all so happy and bubbly. We played games with them and got to know them a bit. They don't know much English so its the perfect chance to get to know the local language. We will be going there one evening a week, nothing official just getting to know the girls and being a friend.


At the school this week we have been making Christmas cards. You would think that the kids would do it all right? Wrong. We were told to draw the pictures on the front then the teachers started colouring them in! Luckily the kids joined in with the colouring too but for a minute I thought they were just gonna sit and watch! Day by day they have been adding more things, colour, cotton wool (for Santa's beard of course), glitter, paint.. And today they were finished off by us writing their names for them... Indians do not have easy names.

Making Christmas cards!

Milk mustache! 

One of the only calm ones!

Me with other of the calm children. I like it when they come for a cuddle.

Shooting me with a "gun"!

Proof of how mental the kids are!

Sweet.

Yesterday was yet another Indian holiday- I actually have no idea what it was for but nothing was on so we had a free day. None of us like to sit around doing nothing so we decided to get a little ferry up and across the river Howrah (famous for the Howrah bridge).

The river and the New bridge in the distance.

Kali, thrown in the river as part of the ritual. 

The locals washing in the river.

The main one wasn't open (because it was a holiday) so we just got the little one that took about 5 minutes to get from one side to the other. But it only cost 4rupees (Like 5-10p) so we couldn't really go wrong. Kari came along with us which was nice, shes like our American team member now! So we went across the river (dirty but kinda beautiful) and got off the ferry right by Howrah station.

Kari, Ellen, Naomi and Me on the ferry.

Me, Josh, Naomi and Ellen on the ferry.

The station is massive. Puts London ones to shame! We didn't stay there long as there was really nothing there apart from this station. So we got the ferry back, and went out for lunch together... Any chance to get pizza and we jump at it.

A crazy little boat on the river.

So that's my blog up to date. Nothing crazily exciting or different, but it means you get to have another look through a little window into my new Indian life.


:) x 

Remember, remember the 5th November!

Last night, as I'm sure you're aware, was bonfire night. They don't actually celebrate it here in Kolkata (funnily enough) but Anu made a special effort for us so we don't feel like we are missing out! We wrote out invitations to the other guests this week so a lot of them turned up to celebrate it with us.


Earlier on in the day we went down to the market to buy some cheap clothes to make a Guy Fawkes. We stuffed the clothes with newspaper and his facial features were made from fireworks and sparklers! He was quite impressive.

Josh fashioning the Guy Fawkes clothes.

Guy Fawkes in all his glory. Note the firework face.

Us with Guy (In our bedroom)

We gave Anu a shock as we set Guy up outside her house, knocked on the door and then hid. Hahaha. I managed to film it so y'all can enjoy it also! I apologise for the fact that its on its side. I'm not very computer literate so I'm not sure how to flip it!

We wrapped potatoes in foil and threw them on the bonfire, and had other bits and pieces of food and drink. The staff had made an area of the garden look absolutely beautiful. They had wrapped fairy lights around the trees and laid out chairs around a bonfire. With the fire flies twinkling in the background it was just perfect! Like a little fairy land!

Josh, Naomi, Ellen, Guy, Anu and Me.

Once the party was in full swing, and all the guests had arrived, we put Guy on the fire. He went up a treat! 

Putting Guy on the fire. Hes a little big for that tiny fire!

But he went up in no time!

Kinda creepy aye?!

When Guy was well and truly dead, we lit the left over sparklers from Diwali and danced around the fire (when I say danced I kinda mean like waved our arms around a bit) 

Kim and Kari

And a final photo to finish off the celebrations. Unfortunately by this time most people had gone but we got some of them!

Overall it was a great evening. The people here at BMS went to so much effort to make it special and it was just that. 

Today we went to a morning and an evening church service and they were both really good. We are probably going to go to the evening church services most weeks as they are aimed at younger people. 

Tomorrow is a holiday for Eid ul Adha so we have no work on. However, we don't particularly want to go out as they sacrifice cows and goats on most street corners and down alley ways. Apparently its a 3 day blood bath and the roads of Kokata run red. Not looking forward to that one little bit! 

It smells bad enough as it is! Wish me luck!

Lots of love from Kolkata,

H x 

This house is now my home.

I haven't written in a week, so here's a little catch up!

On Sunday (30th Oct) we went to Big Life church (which is actually very small) then in the afternoon we went to Charis fellowship which is a group of about 10 people who meet every Sunday evening for an evening service. Ron, an English guy who is also staying at the guesthouse took us, as he was speaking that evening. It was our first experience travelling by Indian metro! Very busy but no where near as bad as I thought it would be. That same evening we had our first meal out in a little roadside cafe. It was very nice! Apart from the noodles which had gravy all over them... They said gravy but it was more like slime. 

We have been at school every morning apart from this Wednesday, the children are still crazy but beautiful. They never get tired. We have been reading a bible story and singing songs with them, and also teaching things like numbers and letters and words and sentences to the older groups. A couple of weeks ago now we drew out animals to teach to the children. We only drew the outlines so that the children could colour them afterwards... My finished lion MASTERPIECE (with help from the children at Hattibagan School):

This Wednesday we went to Freeset. Freeset is an organisation which helps women get out of Kolkata's sex trade, and gives them jobs making bags and t-shirts. It is located in Sonagacchi, the largest, most infamous sex district in Kolkata. Within a few square miles more than 10,000 women stand in line selling their bodies to thousands of men who visit daily. Many are trafficked from other parts of India. For others poverty has left them without options. The cries of their hungry children drive them to sell their bodies. 

It is forever growing and at present there are 180 women there. They have two buildings, one for bag making and one for t-shirts. The t-shirt building is still being done up but the bag one is in full swing. 

Its a really exciting charity to work for and I'm so glad to now be a part of the Freeset family. I am hoping to spend more than one day a week there. It is hard work but its for a really great cause, and you get to work with such inspirational people. 

(http://freesetglobal.com/) 

The rest of the time we have pretty much spent getting lost. We like to go out as much as possible to make the most of the city etc. So we walk for hours on end, normally with an intention of getting somewhere, and end up going the wrong way or making a wrong turn and then walking in hopeless circles until we see a clue, or some where we recognise which then gets us back on track. Its all fun though, and we end up seeing more of Kolkata as we would if we actually went the right way. It also means that we end up in cute little markets. 

The bag I bought from the market.

However, this is what it does to your feet: 

Our feet look like this without fail every day. We have a wash then moisturise routine every evening in hope that they won't totally be ruined by the time we get home!

So thats this week in a nutshell. I am hoping to do at least 2 days a week at Freeset, and 2 or 3 mornings at the school. But that may change if/when we start at different charities and organisations. Time has defiantly picked up pace now that we are getting into everything. I'm still missing people a lot, and already can't wait to see them again (even though its a fair way off yet) but India is starting to feel more like home now. Its a beautiful place to be and I'm so thankful to be here. 

The team appreciate all the prayer support of the people back home, and we ask that you continue to pray, especially for health as the team have all had colds/flu in the past week or so, and its horrible when you just wanna get stuck in and get/give all you can whilst here.

Thank you again for the support. 

And as all the Indian people say to us out here: 

Don't worry, be happy!

H x