Last Day in India

Greetings from The American Embassy School. We are currently having a tour of the IB school here in Delhi. The students are "hangin" with the Delhi students so we thought we would take this opportunity to tell you a little about our quick journey to the north.
It began with our introduction to Delhi traffic and our very large westernized hotel, The Ashok, as well as the inflation of prices in food and tips etc!!
Monday we were off to Agra with an early morning start on the Shatabi Express Train. Departure was 6:00am so we were up at 4:00am. The Delhi train station even at that early hour was swarming with thousands of people, coming, going and even living there. The train ride was 2 hours of comfort, compared to the trains on the other tracks over flowing with people. The views departing the station of Delhi and arriving in Agra station are exactly what we read about in India Literature. Holy cow what an eye opening experience. Shabby tents, ragged people and piles of garbage as far as the eye can see. Upon arrival to Agra our tour guide met us at the station and off we went to the Taj Mahal. It was as expected. Spectacular. We spent the morning at the Taj enjoying the views, taking pictures, having pictues taken of us with India families and watching the latest in lawn mower technology. (Two bulls pulling the mower, who then stopped for a break in the shade to eat their clippings). After a fine lunch of northern Indian cusine, we headed to the Red Fort and Baby Taj. By mid afternoon temperatures were hovering in the high 30's feeling like 50 degrees. We had a rest in a hotel lobby before catching our train back to Delhi. We arrived back at our hotel at 11:30pm for a well deserved sleep.
Tuesday we were up and off to shop till we dropped at Connaught Place, everyone purchased some fine India items. The students were elated to have McDonalds for lunch. Afternoon was spent around the pool at the hotel before eating out at Khan Market with Jyoti our teacher friend from The York School. (She now teaches here at AES).
Today is our final day in India. We are spending the morning at school - ha ha, then packing up with a final swim before heading to Dilli Haat for dinner and movie, then off to airport around midnight! See you in Toronto on Thursday late afternoon. We look forward to seeing familiar faces and family. Our trip has been like no other and we look forward to sharing our stories and pictures with all of you.
Barb and Jim

See You On Thursday!

We are not sure how much time will be devoted to Internet over the next 4 days, so this may be the last you hear of us until you come and pick us up from the airport! Tomorrow, we will be getting up for an early breakfast at FFC and then saying our last goodbyes. From there, a bus ride back to Coimbatore to catch our flight to Delhi where we will be meeting Mme. Ranganathan, our french teacher from back in the day.
Our last day at FFC was very eventful starting with a binge clean of our 'ranch' and then going our separate ways for the morning. After lunch, we met all the kids to learn a (rather violent) native Indian game. At this moment, the name escapes me. It was a lot of fun and it is defiantly a game that we are going to bring back home. It is an awesome excuse for Riley and Russell to beat up each other while Harry and Ian watch. However, when Harry, Max, Jackson and Daniel tried to teach the kids Ultimate Frisbee, there was no interest and the kids decided that they would rather play soccer. The girls got henna on their arms, hands, and ankles and it looks pretty intense. Hopefully it will still be around when we come back to Toronto.
We've had an amazing time here at FFC and we are going to have a tough time leaving. The things that we have done here have made as much of on impact to these kids as they have had on us. It is a good thing that we have Delhi as a buffer to somehow ease our way back into life as we know it.
-Max and Harry

Meanwhile Back in Podanur...

This morning, after a rainy night, we had a well deserved sleep-in. Especially for Max, who is a tank. Waking up this morning, around 9, a few of us (Max, Jackson, and Daniel, remember them?) took a quick breakfast and headed down to the beach, for a refreshing morning swim. The rest of the group slept in and had breakfast before hopping on the bus.
Now for the absolute best part of the day, we kid you not. The bus ride was out of this world and not because we could see Max’s well defined muscles from every seat. We experienced some extreme bumps on the road which made for a rockin’ good time. Some slept, got some good reading done or listened to their tunes. Most stared at the god-like one whose name starts with an M and rhymes with axe. A definite highlight was seeing an elephant on the back of a truck behind us just riding the bumpy road and a popsicle stop although our driver seemed a little confused when we gave him one. 5 hours later happily we arrived back in Podanur, happy to be home.

- Jackson, Max and Katie

It can't get any worse...

For all of those worried parents, friends, siblings and teachers who have been anxiously checking the blog for the past couple days and haven't seen much...this is for you! We understand that there's not much else to do around there these days with the wonderful weather you seem to be having and we want to know that we are suffering just as much. We just got back from the beach...and let me tell you...the short wait to rinse off the sand and salt from a lengthy day of horrible tanning and body surfing was just awful. We're are all extremely homesick and can't wait to leave this 35+ degree weather. We're boiling in our private cabins surrounded by moats at the Cherai Beach Resort and we keep getting fresh flowers thrown on us. Not to mention this strange sensation of bloating caused by painfully delicious restaurant food. We're talking four dishes, per person, per meal people...ouch. Sometimes we're even forced to eat dessert or drink tea after. Get us out of here! And furthermore, this morning we thrown into the deep end at the crack of dawn so that we could watch elephants being bathed. They even wanted to PLAY with us. Can you imagine?! Oh shoot, we are being summoned again to devour one last resort feast before we depart back to FFC (unless the teachers have their way and demand we go to the beach again for one last swim after a huge breakfast tomorrow morning).

No, but seriously. We're all happy, healthy and having the time of our lives. Some of us have even darkened in skin tone. Enjoy shoveling...drive slow.

-Matt, Daniel and Harry

p.s. Pictures to come later, don't start filing complaints.

Look Who's Finally Blogging

Hi mom.

This blog is addressed directly to Andrea Wynn, from her loving son who is tired of being nagged about not writing blogs. Today was our last day before leaving for our three day 'vacation' to Kerala. We had to spend the entire day earning our 'vacation' with some good old fasioned manual labour. The staff at FFC had suddenly decided that it was time for the co-op women's sewing project to be moved down three flights of stairs, a street over, and up two floors in a different building (you gotta use the slaves while you still have them...). This process led to a fun and exciting day of sweating and lugging extremely heavy sewing machines (antiques?...definitely made before 1900)and, better yet, sewing machine tables, along with massive bags of scrap cloth. But it wasn't all bad, because between the two locations, we were able to ride in the back of a motor rickshaw (not on the venturing out form...).

With bags of scrap material under our legs and exhaust in our lungs we were finally able to bring the entire menagerie of sewing equipment to its new location only two flights of rickety, extremely narrow, stairs above. We finally finished this task and all felt very rewarded by our successful transfer of several tons of cast iron machinery from point A all the way to point B. We really hope they don't decide they liked it better the way it was before. We finally rewarded ourselves with a game of frisbee with the older boys (who now have some new neighbours above them). Now we have begun packing for Kerala and are very excited for our three day vacation, but we'll miss the kids at FFC all the same.

Note: Blogging may be inconsistent for the next few days due to the unpredictable internet situation in Kerala.

Bye mom
Love: Josh and Daniel (see even for a blog post I can hire a ghost writer)

Early Rising

This morning the gang arose at the crack of dawn; 5:15 to be exact. As we haggardly trudged to meet the bus that would take us to the wedding that we were invited to (hence the early start), we were surprised to see the FFC girls who were awake and doing chores with gusto. We later learned that it was like this every morning.

A short bus ride away we hopped out of the car and were led into a high school gym-like ‘hall’ where the wedding was being held. We were escorted to the front row, and as we were busy looking at the beautiful Indian decorations, a blaring band consisting of two drums and two horn things began playing at decibel levels that were disturbing at times that were not 6:00 in the morning. The fatigue that we all experienced helped drown out the noise.

After some waiting, the groom was led out of one section of the hall, and sat on the floor in front of many ceremonial items. Soon the bride came out, draped in flowers and bangles, looking utterly terrified. She sat beside the groom and maintained the frightened facial expression for the rest of the ceremony. As it turns out, the couple had only met a month before, for ten minutes, and hadn’t seen each other since. The ceremony came to an end and we were offered bottled drinks, and promptly left. We spend the remainder of the day spending time with the kids (the older girls mainly), and teaching them Koob (a Swedish game that we first played at Mr. Brickell’s cottage months ago) from a set that had been specifically made for us by a carpenter named Jerry just a few doors down from FFC.

In addition to this tiring morning, the men dressed up in traditional Indian clothing, like the ladies did last week. It consisted of Lungees (a skirt like sheet wrapped around the waist), a button down short sleeve shirt and a turban. The Lungees could be rolled up, resembling diapers, allowing for a greater cooling effect. The girls at the orphanage had never seen such muscular legs as those on Harry and Max, the two behemoths of the trip.

Because the last few bloggers have had terrible memories, we have to pick up the slack on this entry. Two days ago we made the LONG journey out to a meditation temple called Isha. Last years trip went twice because they had such a fun time, so naturally we were very excited. We pulled up, expecting the place to be empty as described by last year’s trip. This, however, was not the case. It turns out that we made the hour and a half journey (down an incredibly bumpy road) on the one holy night this temple actually celebrated. It was some sort of all night festival that was capped off at 5:30am by a visit from a famous Guru named Sadhguru. It was only around 7pm, but people continued to stream in, and we estimate that around 100 000 people would eventually show up. However, we did get a chance to go into some of the ground of the temple, where we walked down an enormous staircase to a pool with a beautiful mural on the roof.

Tomorrow may be our last blog entry until Friday…So until then please don’t worry about us…we will only be chilling with the elephants and possibly deadly sea creatures.



-Max and Harry

York & FFC sisters

International womens' day was a real tribute to the strength of the women who run FFC. From the canteen, to the co-op (the women who organized the festivities), to the preschool teachers and office staff, the women at FFC are truly remarkable.
They take care of us, make us feel at home and are like mothers to the children. The spirit of FFC is demonstrated through these women who many of which have grown up at FFC and feel so at home here that they do not want to leave. FFC provides them with everything they need to be self sufficient young women. FFC encourages the kids to learn English and go to school, they will also arrange marriages if the older girls ask for it. The women at FFC are all so supportive and create individual relationships with each person and child that they meet. They pass their skills down to us through braiding our hair at dinner (supa!), teaching us to dance, and to cook.
The chapati recipe which they taught us and we made (not as well as them) is something that we will try to recreate in order to bring back memories of this unforgettable experience. So for all of those mothers who want a taste of what its like - try this at home
Ingredients
4 cups wheat (millet) flour
2 cups white flour
1 heaping tablespoon of salt
Approx. 1.5 cups of water - for the right consistency
2 tablespoons vegetable/canola/palm oil
Instructions
Sift flours and salt together.
Place into bowl.
Knead in water. Make sure it is a dough like consistency. Make sure not sticky.
Add oil.
Knead to get out air and mix ingredients.
Separate into fist sized balls.
Take 1 ball and flour the surface.
Using a rolling pin, flatten into a square, thin sheet.
Rub teaspoon of oil across flattened surface.
Fold into thirds, folding the outermost sections towards the middle.
Fold this already folded dough into thirds, folding the outermost sections towards the middle. Creating a smaller square.
Reflour the surface, using the rolling pin roll out so that it is very thin and square-shaped.
Sprinkle oil around edges of pan. Place on medium heat.
Place dough into pan. Using the back of a spoon, rub oil onto chapati.
Flip and repeat. Make sure not to burn. Cook until slightly brown and there are a few bubbles.
Enjoy and think of us.
We propose a dinner for all of the India trip parents where we will try to use our teamwork to cook. Maybe, the "Great One" will coach us through this.
As we type there are 6 of our favourite girls helping us to type.
"Hi. My name is Sindhu. I am studying 7standard and I like Loren sister and Carly sister, Erin sister and Katie sister very much. And all of the brothers. We like FFC very much. We are given freedom by Ghandi Nhadu Suba Chandra Bos. (sights to see)The nature, the Taj Mahal that was built by the Sajganth to Mumtaj, his lover, Egypt, it is wonderful and different to see. My ambition is to become a doctor and help others. One day when I'm a big girl I will come to Canada and visit the York school and the sisters also." - Sindhu, 13
That was a note fom Sindhu, our 13 year old friend and translator who speaks incredible English, we don't know what we would do without her. None of the girls speak English as well.
We love playing with the little girls, we introduced them to mint gum (they acted like it was spicier than the curry), to spice girls, 7up and new hair clips.
They are already sad about our upcoming departure, as are we. The York and FFC girls will all miss eachother very much and are enjoying the short time we have left.
More from the guys later tonight.
For now, Erin, Loren + Carly.
PS They just read the post to us and are continuing to practice their Enlgish skills as I type. If I don't stop there will be no lunch for us.
PPS We went to a Hindu wedding arranged marriage this morning - our thoughts to come.