At last, I am coming home...!

My last hours in Bangkok are counting. My last hours in Thailand, my last hours in Asia. My last hours of the most amazing fairytale of my life.
I am going home after 7 months and 10 days abroad. And you know? I simply cannot wait to put my feet at Danish ground, give my brothers huge hugs and kiss my parents.
I cannot wait to eat Danish food and walk the streets of Copenhagen and use the cell phone without getting a bill of thousands of kroners.
I feel richer and happier than I've ever been. India has given me some of the most precious moments of my life.
But as Eva told me, it's not the end, only a new beginning.

I'm going home!!

:D

From street dogs of Delhi to street restaurants of Bangkok

I have been to two capitals of the Asian countries this week and the only thing they have in common is exactly that - they are both situated in Asia.
I arrived to Bangkok late Tuesday night and the first major difference that stroke me was the airport of Bangkok. I have never seen such a beautiful and impressive airport and I felt like I was walking in a gigantic future spaceship. The one in Delhi looks like it could need some restorement, as could the rest of that city. After some hassle in the airport, where some woman tried to convince me to go to a really expensive hotel with a really expensive taxi and a man saved me in the last minute by telling me where the public taxis were, I managed to get a cab to the hotel that my two friends from home, Maj and Jacob, had told me to go to, because they had reservations there. My two country men arrived to Bangkok next day in the afternoon and I was there to pick them up.
We are staying in a hotel where the only people there are Danes. Yes, I also think there is something strange in travelling to the other side of the planet and then you go and stay in a hotel full of people from your own little country.... But it was part of the small package that Maj and Jacob had bought to get here and the room is with AC and not too expensive, so what the hell.
Generally, it is something I have to get used to about Bangkok. There are massive amounts of tourists here, and many Danes as well, a bit too many for my taste in fact. Although there are tourists in Delhi, people would still look at you curiously on the street and here, they really couldn't care less about some white person with red skin (the sun is much hotter here!). In some ways yes, I have to get used to not feeling that special anymore after being a celebrety everywhere I went for 6 months, hahaha.
Bangkok is a funny mixture of two fused cultures: a highly modern extremely westernized metropolis with lots of grand sky scrabers, fancy cars everywhere (there were absolutely none fancy cars in India), a traffic which flows relatively well, huge stylish shopping malls with all the same brands as at home, McDonalds, Starbucks Coffee, Pizza Hut etc. The young people are very stylish in short skirt and high heels for the ladies and expensive shirts or trendy T-shirts for the boys. Although, you could find young people weary jeans in the bigger cities in India, you would never find them wearing short skirts and high heels!
The other part of the mixture is traces of how Bangkok must have been like exclusively before the massive influence from the West: massive markeds on the streets where people are selling food in stalls, prepared over fire in oilcans, many different spicies in big open bags, small tables and chairs on the street where people eat their food, cooked off the street. One of the things that stroke as a major difference is that Thailand is NOT a vegetarian country! Everywhere you can buy fish in whole pieces, lying on icecubs or a whole plucked chicken, hanging on rows in the dead beaks. The malls sell all kinds of meat from pigs and beaf (something I have not seen for 6 months obviously), fish and chicken.
The first night we had dinner on a street restaurant where you could point on a huge frog with its skin riped off and asked it to be boiled or fried. We passed on the frog though, but Jacob tried the octopus.
There is a China Town in the city where everything is written in both thai and chinese and lots of funny things are sold from China.
Yesterday, Maj and Jacob convinced me to go for a Thai boxing match. No, I didnt know what Thai boxing was either, but it turned out to be like regularly boxing with the slight alternation that it is permitted to kick the other person in the stomach as well as the head. I was reluctant in the beginning because the tickets were of a 1000 baht (rupees and baht are more or less the same, app. 150 Dkr) and the thought of paying that much money to see two thai men go crazy on each other, wasn't exactly appealing. But well, this would be my only chance ever to see something like that, so I agreed and it really was a memoriable experience. They were 8 fights altogether each of 5 rounds, and by the end of the battles, Maj and I found ourselves cheering for either the blue or the red-shorts man, clapping at a good hit or praising a match as good. A bit scary that you get caught up with it so fast, but the atmosphere in the stadium was amazing. Fully packed and the Thai audience was shouting like mad men, probably because many of the were gambling several hundreds of baht on the out come.
In a day or two we will be heading south of Thailand to experience the famous exotic beaches and doze off by the coast of some island.
Although I am experiencing all these exiting new things and seeing a very different country than India, I am always thinking of my Indian kids and I really really miss them. I would still love to catch a plane back to India and a train straight to Falna and Bali. I am always thinking of what they might be doing now, or how they are, and what they are suppose to do when their Annual Exams come in two weeks. They have gone very deep and even the spendor or Bangkok cannot make their clear vision fade from my mind.

Fabindia has come to an end...

I am sitting in a cyber cafe in Delhi. It is the same one where I, what seems like years back, wrote about my trip to Taj Mahal. Sanna and I are staying in the same hotel together with her mother and aunt, who has been in India the past week to visit her.
How can I describe the feeling inside of me? The voice in my mind which is screaming to me to go back to Bali immediately, go back to the school and my class VI, go back to the hostel kids, whom I miss so much now it hurts inside of me. 6 months, those 6 months that seemed to be never-ending, everlasting, suddenly tricked me and ran out. It is over, it will never come back. The memories, the faces, the voices of my children, my old grandfather, the noise of the streets, the colours of the women's sarees, the smiles of the post men, the yelling of the students in the school bus (Liv ma'am, sit here!!), the spicey food, the countless visits to families, ....... and I could continue indefinitely... all of it is so crystal clear in my mind, right on the inside of my eyelid. When I see Virendra's beautiful face, I feel the pressing in my throat, because I fell that i am leaving a little brother behind, for good. When I think about the big boys from class IX and X Dharam Jai, Khushpal and Naveen, with whom I've had countless of conversations about everything from studies to girls, love and marriages, I feel that I have left some very dear friends behind. Heena and Gajendra, the two siplings who came and visited me every single day after school to show me the new creative writing story the had written and to eat chocolate sent from Denmark in our private chocolate club. Lavina and Jinal, the two small girls from class II who wrote small letters to me and called me their sister. I miss them all so much, it is hard to put in words.
My last month in February was one of the best ones. I was so happy. We started visiting the villages of the hostel children and through that I got some of the most amazing experiences of my time here. First of all, it was fantastic to see the families of these children that I love so much, to see that they have parents who love them and sisters and brothers. Most of them come from well-off families in very small villagers. We visited Khushpal's village of 600 inhabitants and there, the children had never seen white people before, so our visit was quite an event. People lived in homemade houses with their cattle, living a poor, but also peaceful and safe life. They were as friendly as ever and I felt like a princess, being invited to chai with the poorest families, all of them smiling and welcoming us as goddesses. One old woman actually literally started bowing infront of us.
The same day we visited a big religous festival. There was no other foreigners at all, so we were treated as huge celebraties, was written about in the newspaper, had to have police escort, because so many people followed us around and were allowed to meet a holy guru, a follower of the god Shiva, which was a rare honour.
We visited two other villagers, of Divyraj from class IV and Ravindra Pal from class VII and both things I filled out several pages about in my diary. We drove tractors, did boating, met all the important people of the villages, was taken around to various temples and just treated in a way you have to look long for at home.
February was full of fun, full of hard work with the Annual Function the 10th February. I was responsible for the play rehearsals and that everything was coordinating well, and Sanna and Imogen was responsible for all the costumes. It ended up as a really good show with dances, play and songs, all of it about the importance of the environment. Nah, okay, the dances were just dances, hehe... Although we had had some real tribal girls to come and teach class V a tribal dance; that is slightly related to the environment isn't it?
I didn't want to think about my departure untill the very last moments. Last week, I spent almost 3,5 hours in the hostel every evening, just talking and being with them, those wonderful children that my heart is beating for. I enjoyed every minute with my class VI and my Chocolate Club and even the last day and last hours with the hostel were full of smiles and laughter and dancing. I had written a letter to each of the hostel children (there are 35) and to all my class VI (27) and various other students with whom I've had some good experiences. So the last evening, Sanna and I gave the hostel gifts, danced with them on the roof top and ate dinner with them. It was not until the last 2 mins when I started kissing all of the children goodbuy and hugged the big boys, that the tears came flowing from the deepest of my heart and they didn't stop until I was on Falna station, very late because we had spent so much time saying goodbuy. Sanna and I stayed up long and talked on the train while her mother and aunt were sleeping. I was reading some of the last letters I had received, laughed and cried.
Sanna's mother and aunt are leaving Delhi tonight and my flight to Bangkok is tomorrow evening, so I have some time here in Delhi. It is strange to think of that I in a bit more than a day am going to be in a completely different country. But I'll meet my best friends from home, Maj and Jacob and that is encouraging.

So, this is the last entry about my India fairytale. Or no, probably not. I have only been able to describe a fraction of everything here so perhaps I'll keep on writing small anecdotes. I am ever grateful for all of you, who have taken such a big interest in my life here and my experiences. I suddenly understand Johanna so much better, who still misses the kids and wants to go back to Rajasthan. When I first came I really didn't understand that anyone would want to come back to this inferno of a country, haha...
Now is the time to think back, smile, write letters, and try to find a meaning to all of this. I might be leaving India physically, but I will never leave it in my heart.
Perhaps I might even return. I will to this blog for sure. Very soon.
Namaste!

Arrivals and departures

January was the month were things changed and ended. We all knew that the time would come, but yet I felt a bit like it was just suddenly there without any warning. The first very big change was that Fabindia School got a new volunteer. An 18 year old girl from England, her name is Imogen. She doesn't have anything to do with UWC, but her Godmother had contacts with the school and she was allowed to come and volunteer for only 5 weeks. This was quite a challenge for Sanna, Airiin and I, especially before she arrived actually. The thought of suddenly having a fourth girl living with us in our house, going with us to the hostel and teaching with us in the school, wasn't exactly what any of us wanted. Imagine how it is to be together ALL the time for 5 months straight. The maximum amount of time the three of us have spent apart during our time in India is a couple of hours. Thus, we have developed this very internal way of talking and being and joking around and just enjoying and the thought of a fourth person seemed to threathen this way of living together. But, actually it was bad at all when Imogen arrived. It felt strange in the beginning, but she is a very sweet girl, who is good at adapting very fast. She didn't steal our kids from the hostel as we had feared and she also thought it was funny to act slightly retarded at times. She even likes our dog, Balls, who lives outside our house and who always enjoys our leftovers. The name refers to a repulsive tumour-kind-of-ball which is hanging from the anus of the dog and yes, it is a female! Okay, I will not go into further details, hehe...
Imogen got class 3 and 7, which are the classes that none of us wanted, and I sometimes felt a bit bad about that. It is not easy to just come in like that and only stay for 5 weeks. But I think she is enjoying and she says that being with us makes it much easier for her.
A few days ago, another dramatic change occured and that was the departure of Airiin. I had known for long that she would be leaving in the end of January, a whole month before Sanna and I, but yet I didn't realize it until the moment I hugged her intensly at the trainstation, with the train waiting for her. She is going to Jordan for some time and then home. I know that I will miss her immensly, because we are so use to each others present, small habits, voices, jokes and retarded behaviours. I am very happy Sanna is still around, but we do feel like an ambutated three-part-flower.
Seeing her leave also made me realize how hard it will be for me to leave Fabindia, in fact India as a country, or Rajasthan to be more precise. The kids were crying on her last day and the goodbuy was not a nice one. But can there be good goodbuys? I myself have less than a month left, I am leaving on the 25th February with Sanna.
The third big thing happening in January was the visit of my mother, Lise and her friend Mette. They came to Bali about a week ago and spent some days going with us in the school bus, to the hostel, seeing the school and classes and just experiencing some of the wonder of the world I have been living in nearly 6 months now. Wow, it is amazing to have my mother here, it really is! Many times, I have seen or experienced something that I wanted her to hear about or know about and now I've actually had the chance to show her with her own eyes! A bit surreal of course, to have your mum walking around the dusty streets of Bali, but also wonderful. Right now, we are in Udaipur again, because I wanted them to see this magical city. It is so much fun to be here with the two ladies and they are going quite crazy shopping, because everything is so exciting and cheap. Wonder how everything will fit in the suitcase... Mette is also a lot of fun to have around, because she has this very Danish way of seeing everything and she reminds me of how beautiful and horrible a country India is in the same time.
The last big thing happening in this month (this might shock some of the previous volunteers) is that Kailash has stopped working for Fabindia school and this includes cooking and cleaning for the volunteers. He has been with us from the very beginning, has cooked hundreds of meals for us and cleaned our house endlessly for around 10 Euros and 70 Dkr a month. He has taught us Hindi and we have visited his family. But something happened that just couldnt be forgiven and instead of waiting to be fired, he left the school himself. In the beginning we wanted him to stay and cook for us and only stop working at the school, but this was not allowed. We have seen him only once after he left, the day Airiin was leaving and he came to say goodbuy to her. Basically he has harrassed a senior student, one of my good friends, severely without understanding what he was doing to the student. It has been happening for months, but it was not until now that the principal ma'am got to hear about it and decided that it was too severe to be ignored.
It is a very difficult situation, because we all cared for Kailash, he has meant a lot to us, but in the same time, I do think what he did was very wrong and so I agree with the decition. Now, principal ma'ams maid is cooking for us. It is very sad that it had to end like this, but unfortuantly neccesary.
I will end my entry by repeating my endless thanks to all you who are still reading my blog and dropping me comment. Tak tak tak tak!!
I am entering my last weeks of my volunteering experience and I hope they despite all the changes and the departure of specially Airiin, but also Kailash, will be enjoyable. I just want to be with the kids.

New Year in India

Every year, when it turns January again, I always feel it kind of takes me off guard. Suddenly, it's a new year and time to reflect backwards and ahead. 2006 was in many ways a very good year for me. I finished my IB with a good result, I had a great Summer, but most important of course have been the 5 months I have now spend in India. From the very confused and overwhelming beginning to now, where I really feel comfortable and home. I have a bit less than 2 months left in this country and Fabindia School and although it is quite a considerable amount of time, I am sure it will pass within a blink of an eye.
The two weeks before the Winter break started, were extremely busy for Sanna, Airiin and I. First, the trustees (those important people, either Americans or Indians who provide the fundings for the school) came to visit the college and I helped organizing a little show for them or function as they call it here. There were Indian dances and then I had written a school song on the melody "Bella Ciao" (I'm sure Johanna will know this one) with lyrics like "In our school, we speak English, so when we grow up, we can do a lot of things" and "We are learning, about the world, we have science and mathematics too" and finally "We are happy, to be here, because the best school, is Fabindia School". Not very brilliant, but the trustees loved it and thought it was a great idea with such a school song and now principal-ma'ams wants the choir to sing it every Saturday, so the whole school will learn it, hihi.
The three of us also had a chance to dine with the trustees and there were some really powerful and great people there, who were very interesting to talk to. It made me realize that there are some strong forces behind the school and that's very encouraging. Especially one man, from Cambodia and the US (double citizenship) who had survived the genocide during Pol Pot in Cambodia and who was now travelling around the world, made a very deep impression on me.
After the trustees had left, we started organizing a Christmas Play with the students from class 1 to 4. This was not so easy as we had thought, first of all because none of the students new the story of the birth of Jesus in detail, and secondly because we had a bit less than 2 weeks to put everything up. We managed though, right on time, but only because we had all the hostel children as actors and could therefor practice with them in the evenings also. A few days up to the performance on the 23rd we were all very stressed out, but eventually the show was great, the children said all their lines the right places, we had gotten costumes and even hay for the crypt. Along with the Christmas Play I had taught the choir 3 Christmas songs (Jingle Bells, War is Over and Long Time Ago in Bethlehem) which they sang when the play was over. It felt great to do some Christmas things with them and all the students really seemed to enjoy the programme!
Christmas Eve was a very enjoyable evening for me and the girls. We had vastly decorated our house with Christmas decorations, some made by students in the school, some we had made ourselves from the things our families had been sending. We had ordered special food from a restaurant and bought each other presents. It was all the good things of Christmas, but without the commercialized stress, pressure and over consumption.
My birthday on the 26th December (and yes, I turned 20!) went even better. From morning till evening Airiin and Sanna presented me with in total 20 small surprises, gifts, letters, cakes, pictures and the like, which made it into one of the best birthdays I've had. They had even managed to get a bottle of red wine for the diner! (but don't tell anyone, hehe)
The past 5 days, we have been in Udaipur again, simply enjoying ourselves. On New Years Eve when 2007 dawned, there were a few rockets that we enjoyed from a roof top, but they finished already at 00.15, so I wouldnt call it a wild night, hehe.
I found out that the warm hospitality is not only found in smaller towns like Bali. I went into a small shop to buy some post cards and the woman who owned the shop was eating some food. She immediate invited me to share the food with her, asked her husband to bring me chai, showed me her little son and told me about her life. When I left, she gave me an extra post card "Because you are my friend", she said. That's just how Indians are, at least most of them.
Oh, if you found my last entry about the military interesting, take a look at the comment I got from Johanna, a last year's volunteer. She experienced exactly the same attitude as I described.
I wish everybody, who is still making me happy by reading my blog, a very happy new year! Who knows what kind of surprises are hidding for us and will reveal themselves on the way... :)
Godt Nytår!!

"I want to kill the enemy!"

Every morning, all the students assemble on the dusty school ground to say the morning prayer, sing songs, hear the Thought of the Day and announcements from the principal and to utter the pledge and sing the national anthem. The pledge goes as following (I know it by heart by now, having heard it around a hundred times I suppose):
“India is my country; all Indians are my brothers and sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.
I shall always strive to be worthy of my Motherland.
To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.
In their well-being and prosperity alone lies my happiness“
Add these words with the complete uncritical and unlimited admiration of the Indian military and armed forces and the result is this: A student in my fourth class, Divyraj, who also lives in the children’s hostel, is a sweet and smiling boy with what I what call a very friendly nature. He loves listening to me telling ghosts stories or fairytales about dragons and brave princes and he is a very smart boy; he scored the highest marks in his class in the English exam. He smiles and laughs a lot and I really like him. But to my great regret he is one of the many boys who are completely fascinated with the thought of being an army man and killing the enemy, Pakistan that is. I recently made a worksheet for the fourth class and one of the questions asked them to write a short story about flying in a helicopter. This is his answer (I have copied it exactly as he wrote it, including the few mistakes): “One day when I would become a army man. One day I am flying in a helicoptor the pilot was a pakastani milatery so he take me to pakastan they beat me one hunter. I got angry. I kill everyone and I went to my home and I told everyone this accident with me.” Imagine if I Danish child had been writing something similar about killing all the Swedes or Norwegians… I know you cannot compare the countries, but it is just to illustrate the completely different mindsets. It is the same thing with a boy in my sixth class also from the hostel; Virendra is his name. He is so full of life and good ideas, is great in creative writing and I always enjoy talking to him and he is definitely one of my favourite students in class sixth. But unfortunately, he is just as brainwashed as Divyraj. I have had discussions with both of them in the hostel about the army, and Virendra is completely convinced that if the Indian army does not fight against Pakistan about Jammu and Kashmir (the northern state of India, which Pakistan and India has been fighting about for ages. It is currently deserted because of the wars and there is still no official solution), then Pakistan will attack and conquer the whole of India. “I want to fight the enemy!” he proclaims with loud voice and adds without a flinch that he wants to kill all the Pakistanis. All my attempts to tell them that they are also people, that war is wrong and that it is just a piece of worthless land and that Pakistan would never want to take the whole of India peels off like water on goose feathers. In my last discussion with both Virendra and Divyraj I told them about Jahnvi and Jehangir both my 2nd years at Red Cross Nordic. Jahnvi is from India and Jehangir is Pakistani and they were best friends in the college and I believe, still are. Virendra reacted to this piece of information with denial. “No, it is impossible, it cannot be,” he simply repeated and my confirmation that it was true did not penetrate at all. I always get very frustrated when I have these talks with the boys, because there is nothing I can do to make them change their view. I am up against a whole mentally of morning pledges, national anthem and massive military propaganda. There are military school were primary school boys are trained to fit the army from a very early stage on. Currently, the Indian army counts 10 million soldiers and the government uses 14% of all expenses on the army.
The principal-madam’s husband is a captain in the army, and a few weeks back he visited the school, because he wanted to have a little presentation about ‘the opportunities available in the military’ for interested boys and girls from class sixth to tenth. Driven by my expectation to be provoked, I attended the presentation. It consisted of the man telling the students that the army was the best carrier option AT ALL in India. “It is a very good life”, he said. He was emphasising these facilities: Free accommodation (the colourless barracks), free food (we used to compare the food of RCN with military food when it was at its worse), free clothing (the uniforms and probably not the most comfy material) and free transport service (the two times a year they get a chance to go home) and medical help (after being injured because you are wasting your life running around in a constant mock war). Additionally, one would have the honourable job to serve one’s country and if one died, the family could be very proud of the sacrifice. I couldn’t restrain myself, so I asked a couple of questions which had a hidden hint of criticism in them, but I doubt anyone noticed it. I asked the captain if he really thought there was a risk that Pakistan would attack India within the next few years and he replied yes, you never know, they might. When I asked him to elaborate on the reason behind such an attack, he ‘explained’ to me that the Pakistani president could easily throw a war against India, if he himself was becoming unpopular in his own country so to lead the attention towards the war and away from his own descending power. If this explanation is all it takes to convince people that a war is likely, then I understand the vast support for the military protection of the country.
I asked the five big boys in the hostel from ninth and tenth class the same evening, if they considered joining and it turned out almost all of them had thought about it as a good option and they certainly all supported it. One of them even told me that yes, it is better to spend these massive amounts of money on providing weapons for the army than on the many poor people in India and that it would only be an honour to die for your country. This lie has killed so many people throughout history and yet the false tunes are exactly the same. And don’t think that this view is only held by the boys. I had a talk with one of the sweetest girls in my sixth class, Isha, who wants to become an airforce pilot. To my horror, she told me that she thought it was the right thing to kill Pakistanis even though she recognized that they were also just people like you and me. She is not only a girl, but furthermore a Muslim, but yet she seemed to have the same disturbed image of Pakistanis being the root to all the evil in India. I am sure you can find exactly the same view of Indians on the other side of the border.
This whole military business makes me very frustrated, because I am so utterly and totally against wars and militaries and all the propaganda crap about honour and ‘the enemy’. No one seems to see the wrong thing in having a job, which’s only function is to train you to destroy other people’s lives, not only the ones you kill, but whole families and homes. It makes me very sad that these otherwise wonderful children have these depressing and distorted views. The only person who has expressed the same feelings in this matter as I hold, is our loved friend and neighbour, the 82 year old man, Mister Mohan. He follows a spiritual movement and believes that we are all brothers and sisters no matter skin colour, race, religion or any other reason to have a ‘us’ and ‘them’. But he is the exception and I can do nothing but sit back and wonder why human beings never learn from the mistakes of the past.

Christmas in India...

Airiin comes back after having been gone for 45 minutes. “It didn’t work again,” she says with a tired voice and throws her small bag on her bed, which is right next to mine. I express my sympathy, because I know how annoying it is to go in vain to the internet place, as we call the only place that has one computer with internet connection in the whole of Bali. Of course the system is dial-up and it only works half the time. If we are lucky and get connected, it takes a good portion of patience from our side to wait for the mail inbox to be opened. Yes, that is one of the reasons why I have not been able to update my blog frequently, but now I trying to make it up! (I just hope the connection will work when I paste it. Obviously, it did eventually since you are now reading it on the net, hehe).
The past month has focused mainly on schoolwork. No exiting camel safaris in this month, but that’s alright, after all teaching is why we are here. All the classes had half-yearly exams in the middle of November. ALL classes from nursery class, where the students are three years old and barely able to speak hindi, till class ten have exams twice a year in all their subjects. These exams are not just easy check-up tests, but real exams and if a student fail a certain percentage, it is right back to the same class next year, no elevation to the next class. It gave me, Sanna and Airiin the chance to understand how bored the IB teachers must have been during our exams in May while observing us writing exams. We only had to give the teachers 15 mins leave twice a day during the exams, but that was enough. Most of the time I tried preventing the students from cheating, which they did at any given opportunity. Handsigns, winks, and even speech was used when they tried to communicate with each other in the class rooms. I was shocked to see how much they cheated, or tried to, but in a way it was maybe understandable, because many of the exams were way too difficult in my opinion.
During the exam time, we were faced with another problem: The man, who hosts the children at the hostel we visit every evening, that is the man who owns the house they live in, had called the principal-ma’am (that is what we all address the female principal as) and told her that we were banned during the exams. In his opinion we did not study probably with the children, while being in the hostel, because the children we all “shouting and running around.” To say that we don’t study with them is really not according to the truth, but it is true that they become excited by our presence, laugh and raise their voices more than usually. It is just an example of the complete difference in the perception of what is good for the children. We think that a combination of fun, laughter and studies is the best, but this man clearly has an imagine of effective studying being absolute focus on the books in complete silence. It would have been futile to try and discuss it with him, so we simply just didn’t show up during the exams and instead I helt some tuitions with my students from the hostel at our home.
We started visiting many of the students homes and it is always a very pleasant and learning experience. I get continuously impressed by the Indians admireable hospitality and friendly nature. When they see strangers like us, they get curious, but in the good way and will do anything to make us feel home and comfortable. It is nothing like in Europe, where peoples first thought is suspicion when they see a stranger with a different skin colour. The other day, when I sent a Christmas parcel to my family, the men in the post office asked me if I missed my family. I admitted that I did, since it was Christmas, but he said that I should not worry, because they would be my family instead! “You have family here also,” he said with a friendly smile, and it is true. It goes with the story that we visit the post office very regularly, because letters now became the main source of contact for us. Welcome to the old days, hehe.
Talking about Christmas, yes, it has also reached little Bali in India, at least for Sanna, Airiin and I. We are trying as much as possible to create a Christmas atmosphere for each other. We have bought advent candles, are planning on performing Lucia for the hostel kids, and we have three socks hanging in our bedroom curtain. Every morning, there is a small gift from Santa Claus, or at least his Indian helper (it varies who of us gets the honour of passing on the gifts, hehe). Additionally, we started doing Christmas decorations with the students in Art and Craft classes (yes, I actually have an Art and Craft class!) and I finally started my choir, which I am now teaching Christmas songs! Lastly, we started organizing a Christmas play about the birth of Jesus, which will be set up the last day of school, which is, to the regret of all three of us, the 24th December (one thing is that we have to go to school on a Saturday, but Christmas Eve!!). It has surprised me a lot, how well informed about Christmas and the story behind it, the students and teachers are. Not because I had expected them to be ignorant generally, but simply because the vast majority of both students and teachers (expect religion teachers perhaps) in Denmark at least, have very little knowledge about Hinduism, let alone Diwali and the story behind this festival, which is equally important for Hindus as Christmas is for Christians. But everyone knows about Jesus and his birth, Santa Claus and Christmas trees although they do not celebrate any of it themselves. They still decorate the school though and do other Christmas things similar to what we do in Europe. I cannot imagine any school in Denmark decorating their classrooms with the elephant god Ganesh around Diwali time and light oil lamps and fire crackers, simply because they do that in India. The only reason I can come up with is the massive influence of Western culture in Asia generally, which is not mutual and therefore the exchange of traditions is only one-way. Anyhow, it is very nice for the three of us to be able to do some Christmas things, because it is true that it is hard to be away from home in this month and I have missed my family more than usual.
There has been a bit of chaos at the school lately, because some teachers have left without notice and the timetable has been changed. But not it seems as if things are settling again and we all just need some time to get back in the rhythm. I discovered the monthly salary of the average teacher at the school: 4000 rupees (500 Dkr or 40€)! Even in India, that is not a high salary. But most of the teachers are women and if their men are also working, it is enough to get by relatively well.
I am thinking a lot about home, friends and family now it is Christmas and I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. India is still treating me very well, although I would probably wish for a Harry Potter wand to transport me to Denmark for a few hours on Christmas Eve and my birthday the 26th.
Merry Christmas to all of you!