I struggle to keep up writing here as I feel so busy and have little time to reflect (and when I do have time to reflect I’d rather spend it reflecting, rather than writing about reflecting). But it’s been a while now and I feel a blog is overdue...... I’ve never known time to quite this fast-it’s ridiculous. It’s a double edged sward really, because on one hand it prevents me from missing home but on the other hand I feel a bit panicky sometimes that I’m not savouring it enough. It’s a bit like when you go to a posh restaurant really hungry-the meal is amazing and you know you should be taking your time and appreciating all the different tastes but you’ve waited all day to eat, you’re starving and end up guzzling it down so fast you hardly taste anything. Cheesy metaphor, I know-but it does feel a lot like that.
It’s just a bit of a whirlwind here, everything is in constant flux. Nothing is permanent, even for a minute so you end up feeling swept along by it all. You’re constantly facing beginnings and endings. Yes, I know that nothing is permanent but change feels more dramatic here somehow. Since my last blog loads of staff have left or moved camps, new staff have started, Caroline’s gone back to the UK, the volunteers from the volunteers house have moved in. Things are new, then familiar, then gone. People are new, then familiar then gone. So there’s hardly any use and certainly no time to get really attached to anything, whether it be a person or an experience or a certain routine. It forces you to “live in the now” I guess, which can’t be bad.
It’s nice to have a (really top) group of people to do things with though: read next to each other in silence, share Wednesday night beers with on rooftop bars, go to pizza hut and the cinema (3D hindi horror-scary and ridiculous with an amazing interactive atmosphere as everyone talks, cheers, whoops and claps throughout); singing dancing and cheering at the Rajasthan Royals game at the cricket stadium trying to spot Shilpa Shetta and Liz Hurley and learning the rules of cricket the night before thanks to a lesson from Michael....it’s all these little things put together that give me an almost constant buzz of excitement in my stomach.
Nearly 90 % of the time I feel really happy and content here. As always in situations like this feelings are intensified-when you’re “up” it feels bubbly, intense and sometimes even overwhelming-caught up in a parade of a wedding, dancing in B2B (club in the basement of a mall), in a rickshaw listening to music in the hot breeze...it catches you by surprise sometimes and makes you feel giggly and alive ....and when you’re “down”-which is very rare, thankfully, it feels intense again. It’s ridiculously hot here (as soon as you sit in the rickshaw you start sweating and at night the mattress feels like it’s heated) so at times my patience is low and the heat makes me tried and irritable. At times I catch myself with a strange knotty anxious feeling in my stomach and have that weird feeling like I’ve forgotten something. But feelings like that are just stirred up by the whirlwind of it all and swiftly pass.
In terms of the actual work I’m doing, I try to work as hard as I play! The logistical side of time management is difficult- keeping on top of what each member of staff has learnt, re-working the timetable when staff join, leave or move camps, lesson planning, making a syllabus and then juggling the bookings and volunteer feedback forms on top of it. Sometimes I feel like hitting my head against the wall when I feel a lesson drying up, or if something isn't going in or I run out of ideas. Like, at times I think it’s going well and then I pass a student on the stairs and they’ll say “I’m fine” out the blue or they’ll give you a cup of tea and as they put it down say “you’re welcome” before I have chance to say “thank you” and I doubt whether it’s working at all.
I can be stubbornly determined at times and because I’m not here for long I want to leave feeling like I’ve done something worth everyone’s time-but perhaps wanting to cram in and “achieve” too much causes more damage than good. I guess I’ve learnt you have to be guided by your students and not your own pride to do what you set out to do. So I’m learning to slow down a little.
The IDEX staff that I teach are top though-enthusiastic, funny and entertaining. With the higher level groups I learn more from then than they will ever learn from me -the rules of cricket, the ups and downs of development in India, women in India, education, food, politics, religion and the caste system. The lower level groups, so the cooks for example, are the most challenging group as some are illiterate, have never been in education and for one girl, Sunita, Hindi isn’t even her first language. Lessons are constantly interactive, energy consuming and fun. Sometimes it’s only me and Sunita in class and even with the language divide we still find ourselves giggling singing and dancing in the kitchen-“we dance in the kitchen” and when we make chai it’s a good time to revise “crush” and “ginger”- “I crush the ginger”. It’s hard work but a lot of fun and let’s face it, I prefer a challenge and to be busy than feel unstimulated and bored.
I’d love to be able to say that I feel changed or that I’m going to come home a “different person” but I must admit my experience in India hasn’t exactly been a spiritual one full of enlightenment, de-toxing and meditation. It’s been, in all honesty really fun and very indulgent. The food is so tasty that I don’t worry about how much I eat, I tend to get seconds and going to the sweet shop at the end of the street to buy a lassi has become nearly a daily ritual. The closest I’ve got to anything that goes much deeper than that is sitting on a camel on a tourist trap camel trek feeling all “one with nature”-in the middle of the desert, sleeping under the moon etc etc! It’s riiite, next time I come to India I’ll go on a spiritual journey, find myself, achieve enlightenment and go clubbing with the Dalai Lama whilst I’m at it and come home annoying calm and at peace with myself.....but for this trip, I’m going to carry on savouring it all and come home a few pounds heavier and a tan line instead.
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