I am writing to you from the little (and surprisingly touristy) town of Pushkar. We spent two lovely days in Udaipur going to the palace, taking a boat trip to another palace which was where the James Bond flick Octopussywas shot (we were told this SO many times in our 2 days, it really is the city's claim to fame!). It was on its own island and was so stunning. We did an AMAZING cooking class as well, we literally made 10 dishes, at least 5 different types of bread alone (my kind of class!), and the teacher was so lovely. My favourite part was the stuffed cheese and tomato Nan bread...it was pretty much to die for. We reached Psuhkar by over night bus, only 7 hours, how bad can that be you ask?? Well as we bumped (we would got flying in the air) along the entire time and had stupidly paid extra for the sleeper bed so I was horizontal and feeling so nausious and we were both terrified of getting bed bugs, lice or some type of infectious disease! Okay I exagerate a little but I don't think the "matress" or curtains had ever ever been washed. So we did not sleep a wink and were dropped off outside the town at 5am. They drop tourists quite far out so you are forced to cab in...we were not pleased. Anyways we caught a cab with this lovely French woman and than we went down and sat on the ghats (steps to the water) and watched as the sun rose and the people of Pushkar bathed in the water. We love how a group of middle to late aged men are all bathing together at 5:30am...I just love the culture here. As was the case in Varanasi the water here is also considered holy. It was a nice ending to a terrible night for sure:) Then I had chocolate pancakes and a banana lassi for breakfast and I almost felt even better! We leave for a camel safari in half an hour. We are really excited to sleep under the stars in the middle of the desert and also to take some awesome photos of us on camels of course! We are both so tired that I am just hoping we stay on our camels:)
Only 4 more nights left...I am so sad but also excited for things at home as well (family, friends, salads, clean showers, comfy beds...I could go on!), will just have to make the most of the last few days.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Update from Udaipur
Sorry for so long since the last update...we have been really busy and on the move most days so we have a good excuse! We just arrived in Rajasthan tonight in the city of Udaipur (we already both love it, we just had dinner on a rooftop cafe overlooking the palace and lake) after spending 6 days down south in Kerala. So much to tell from the last week...I will try to give some highlights.
My favourite parts were the day and half we spent on the beach (although we both burnt terribly, especially Rach), eating amazing fresh seafood (yesterday we went down to the docks and chose what we wanted and then they went and cooked it up for us), seeing the backwaters in a canoe ride, finding out another type of Indian bread I have become a little obsessed with (parotta-it is softer than chapatis, kinda like a crepe...pretty much heaven!), eating fresh mangoes, and going a little crazy with my scarf shopping!
My least favourite parts have been the bugs in one town we encountered...now we refer to it as the city of cockroaches...lets just say we found an enormous one in our room and one on our table after eating dinner (so gross!), and many on the streets both alive and dead. Not surprisingly we could not wait to leave this city! We also had an upsetting incident where an Indian man grabbed the woman we were walking with on our way together to find a place for dinner, it was at night and it really creeped us out. Rach and I have been lucky so far and hope to stay so but it has made me so weary of Indian men again. The only other bad part was the ridiculous humidity (my shirt would be soaked after five minutes outside) and missing the ICCP. Our last day there was so sad and sweet, everyone was so good to us, we both were feeling very odd not being there this week and missing the kids already!
We had some kinda funny things happen to us as well. On a canoe boat tour of the backwaters (the canals through lush tropical forest) we got our photos taken many times that may end up in an Indian travel magazine. These two men joined our group and then proceeded to walk alongside the boat and take constant photos for almost the whole two hour trip. I think they were legit...although who knows here! I think if photos do end up in the magazine (they promised to email us) they will not be of Rach and I or the middle aged British couple but rather of the young Danish girl. Rach and I with our curly hair both had terrible afros from the humidity and I was SO sweaty whereas Andrea the Danish girl looked like she just stepped out of her room in the morning ( she is also very tall and blond!). Then yesterday as we were walking down the street a well dressed woman asked us if we would like to be in her husbands commercial (he was standing beside her on his cell). Normally I would have thought this was also a scam but we heard from our friend in Kolkata that it happens often in Mumbai where white women are asked to be in commercials. Sadly we were flying out today so we lost another chance at fame in India!
We are in Rajasthan for 7 nights, we are going to four cities (5 if you count Delhi where we fly out of) and plan to see many palaces, forts, do a cooking class, a camel safari, see the Taj, get Ayervedic massages, and much more...so hopefully we can fit it all in!! Hope to update you again soon and perhaps even add photos...a shocking idea I know! Thanks for following!
My favourite parts were the day and half we spent on the beach (although we both burnt terribly, especially Rach), eating amazing fresh seafood (yesterday we went down to the docks and chose what we wanted and then they went and cooked it up for us), seeing the backwaters in a canoe ride, finding out another type of Indian bread I have become a little obsessed with (parotta-it is softer than chapatis, kinda like a crepe...pretty much heaven!), eating fresh mangoes, and going a little crazy with my scarf shopping!
My least favourite parts have been the bugs in one town we encountered...now we refer to it as the city of cockroaches...lets just say we found an enormous one in our room and one on our table after eating dinner (so gross!), and many on the streets both alive and dead. Not surprisingly we could not wait to leave this city! We also had an upsetting incident where an Indian man grabbed the woman we were walking with on our way together to find a place for dinner, it was at night and it really creeped us out. Rach and I have been lucky so far and hope to stay so but it has made me so weary of Indian men again. The only other bad part was the ridiculous humidity (my shirt would be soaked after five minutes outside) and missing the ICCP. Our last day there was so sad and sweet, everyone was so good to us, we both were feeling very odd not being there this week and missing the kids already!
We had some kinda funny things happen to us as well. On a canoe boat tour of the backwaters (the canals through lush tropical forest) we got our photos taken many times that may end up in an Indian travel magazine. These two men joined our group and then proceeded to walk alongside the boat and take constant photos for almost the whole two hour trip. I think they were legit...although who knows here! I think if photos do end up in the magazine (they promised to email us) they will not be of Rach and I or the middle aged British couple but rather of the young Danish girl. Rach and I with our curly hair both had terrible afros from the humidity and I was SO sweaty whereas Andrea the Danish girl looked like she just stepped out of her room in the morning ( she is also very tall and blond!). Then yesterday as we were walking down the street a well dressed woman asked us if we would like to be in her husbands commercial (he was standing beside her on his cell). Normally I would have thought this was also a scam but we heard from our friend in Kolkata that it happens often in Mumbai where white women are asked to be in commercials. Sadly we were flying out today so we lost another chance at fame in India!
We are in Rajasthan for 7 nights, we are going to four cities (5 if you count Delhi where we fly out of) and plan to see many palaces, forts, do a cooking class, a camel safari, see the Taj, get Ayervedic massages, and much more...so hopefully we can fit it all in!! Hope to update you again soon and perhaps even add photos...a shocking idea I know! Thanks for following!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Bollywood Dream, Bastis, and Babies!
Hello!
I just spent 20 minutes trying to upload some images of yesterday in the slum of the adorable kids but this computer does not want to do it for me...sorry guys I think you may have to wait until we are home, as the slowness of the internet connections here drives me insane! Kat, if you are reading this, we went and saw a Bollywood film last night and it was amazing, everything I could have hoped for!! We were a little hesitant as it was in Hindi but we soon found out that with the dramatic background music, and very obvious plot we could pretty much understand the gist of things. Rach and I took turns making up the narritive which was very amusing in itself:) Also we LOVED the dance scenes and they alone were worth the price of admission (less than $3 anyways!). The only bad part was when Rachel's bag got checked and she had to give up her candy that we had bought outside. This was good jelly candy like you get in Canada and we were pretty darn excited about it so when Rachel's was taken (I somehow managed to bring in a bag of oranges, a diet coke, and a bag of candy without any problem) she was furious. Seriously in the time I have known Rachel I have never seen here so angry...note to everyone, do not get in the way of Rach and her candy:) I tried to argue that we did not know, could he make an exception this one time, they even brought out a manager for me but to no end, she did not get her candy for the movie...we will know to hide things better next time!
Bastis, are the Indian name for urban slums. Yesterday as I think Rachel mentioned we spent the day going to some of the slums where the IICP works with another organization to provide outreach programs to children with disabilities. It was a really fascinating day. We did two home visits, both children had cerebral palsy and both had recently received customized seating. It was such an amazing contrast to see these seats inside these tiny tiny homes, but it was also so wonderful to see that they were finally able to sit upright and interact with the world (one boy looked about 7 0r 8 so he would have spent most of his life lying down up to a few months agao). Both families seemed very happy with the seating and were so gracious. In the first home, the mother invited us in and was so lovely. It was Rach and I and her and her son (in his chair with a long lap tray) in a space about the size of two airplane bathrooms...tight is an understatment! The mother was so so kind, she held my hand as Rach took a picture of us...I wanted to take her home! We also visited a mobile bus which goes to a different slum each day and provides education to parents and the children with disabilities as well as some therapy (run by the organization Tommorow's Foundation). Finally we visited an integrated school. Seven of the fifty pupils had some types of disability (physical or cognitive) but they were fully integrated into the classroom. When Rach and I arrived the children went a little crazy and every single child wanted to shake our hand,sao we kind of caused a little commotion:) They were so so sweet and all wanted to show us their workbooks as well. It seems like a really great school and very innovative for India (being integrated) which was really great to see...and the kids were amazing so it was hard to leave:)
The final part of my title refers to our last day today in the baby clinic. Every thursday we spend the day in the infant clinic. Children under age two are referred to this clinic in the IICP if they have had some sort of birth trauma (and they are still really young, in the first few weeks of life) or if the child is a bit older and has been seen by a doctor who suspects some neuro-motor disorder (ie. CP). The really tiny babies (so cute!) are screened to see if they present with the normal reflexes (most seem to be relatively normal) that should be present whereas the older children in general do seem to have some major problems so the PTs recommend positioning and some therapeutic techniques for parents. It is kinda frustrating that we don't speak Bengali on these days...we sit there and play with the babies and try to understand the gist of what is being said! My favourite part is seeing how many people are there for each baby. In Canada probably one parent or both would go to a doctor/physio visit while in India there are always at least two adults but generally there are 3, 4 , 5 or more. It is usually grandparents and other adults (aunts of uncles I guess)...but I just love how important family is here, it makes me happy to known that the babies are geting so much support.
Tommorow is our last day of placement and I am SO excited to go travelling. Kolkata and the IICP have been so amazing and I am so glad I came and am so thankful for all the people I have met especially...but at the same time I am itching to get travelling and to leave this big, dusty, dirty city! We are headed down south to Kerala for a week and then up to the Rajasthan for a week and then flying out of Delhi. We are very excited for Kerala, it is full of little towns to explore the backwaters by canoe or boat trip and beaches. Hopefully we will be good about updating this blog but who knows we may be too busy getting tans (we are still SO white) while eating fresh fish and drinking cold drinks on the beach...fingers crossed at least:)
I just spent 20 minutes trying to upload some images of yesterday in the slum of the adorable kids but this computer does not want to do it for me...sorry guys I think you may have to wait until we are home, as the slowness of the internet connections here drives me insane! Kat, if you are reading this, we went and saw a Bollywood film last night and it was amazing, everything I could have hoped for!! We were a little hesitant as it was in Hindi but we soon found out that with the dramatic background music, and very obvious plot we could pretty much understand the gist of things. Rach and I took turns making up the narritive which was very amusing in itself:) Also we LOVED the dance scenes and they alone were worth the price of admission (less than $3 anyways!). The only bad part was when Rachel's bag got checked and she had to give up her candy that we had bought outside. This was good jelly candy like you get in Canada and we were pretty darn excited about it so when Rachel's was taken (I somehow managed to bring in a bag of oranges, a diet coke, and a bag of candy without any problem) she was furious. Seriously in the time I have known Rachel I have never seen here so angry...note to everyone, do not get in the way of Rach and her candy:) I tried to argue that we did not know, could he make an exception this one time, they even brought out a manager for me but to no end, she did not get her candy for the movie...we will know to hide things better next time!
Bastis, are the Indian name for urban slums. Yesterday as I think Rachel mentioned we spent the day going to some of the slums where the IICP works with another organization to provide outreach programs to children with disabilities. It was a really fascinating day. We did two home visits, both children had cerebral palsy and both had recently received customized seating. It was such an amazing contrast to see these seats inside these tiny tiny homes, but it was also so wonderful to see that they were finally able to sit upright and interact with the world (one boy looked about 7 0r 8 so he would have spent most of his life lying down up to a few months agao). Both families seemed very happy with the seating and were so gracious. In the first home, the mother invited us in and was so lovely. It was Rach and I and her and her son (in his chair with a long lap tray) in a space about the size of two airplane bathrooms...tight is an understatment! The mother was so so kind, she held my hand as Rach took a picture of us...I wanted to take her home! We also visited a mobile bus which goes to a different slum each day and provides education to parents and the children with disabilities as well as some therapy (run by the organization Tommorow's Foundation). Finally we visited an integrated school. Seven of the fifty pupils had some types of disability (physical or cognitive) but they were fully integrated into the classroom. When Rach and I arrived the children went a little crazy and every single child wanted to shake our hand,sao we kind of caused a little commotion:) They were so so sweet and all wanted to show us their workbooks as well. It seems like a really great school and very innovative for India (being integrated) which was really great to see...and the kids were amazing so it was hard to leave:)
The final part of my title refers to our last day today in the baby clinic. Every thursday we spend the day in the infant clinic. Children under age two are referred to this clinic in the IICP if they have had some sort of birth trauma (and they are still really young, in the first few weeks of life) or if the child is a bit older and has been seen by a doctor who suspects some neuro-motor disorder (ie. CP). The really tiny babies (so cute!) are screened to see if they present with the normal reflexes (most seem to be relatively normal) that should be present whereas the older children in general do seem to have some major problems so the PTs recommend positioning and some therapeutic techniques for parents. It is kinda frustrating that we don't speak Bengali on these days...we sit there and play with the babies and try to understand the gist of what is being said! My favourite part is seeing how many people are there for each baby. In Canada probably one parent or both would go to a doctor/physio visit while in India there are always at least two adults but generally there are 3, 4 , 5 or more. It is usually grandparents and other adults (aunts of uncles I guess)...but I just love how important family is here, it makes me happy to known that the babies are geting so much support.
Tommorow is our last day of placement and I am SO excited to go travelling. Kolkata and the IICP have been so amazing and I am so glad I came and am so thankful for all the people I have met especially...but at the same time I am itching to get travelling and to leave this big, dusty, dirty city! We are headed down south to Kerala for a week and then up to the Rajasthan for a week and then flying out of Delhi. We are very excited for Kerala, it is full of little towns to explore the backwaters by canoe or boat trip and beaches. Hopefully we will be good about updating this blog but who knows we may be too busy getting tans (we are still SO white) while eating fresh fish and drinking cold drinks on the beach...fingers crossed at least:)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Happy Holi!
Sorry for the lack of posts recently...I take the blame as my stomache has just not been itself lately :-/
It has been a week since the last post so I'll just try to cover the highlights...also, we didn't end up going to Bodh gaya because: 1. my damn stomache! 2. It seemed counter-intuitive to go to a buddhist town on the day of Holi and 3. We are still recovering from our train experience to Varanasi lol. Anyways...
Saturday was Holi which is a Hindu holiday where everyone covers eachother in bright powdered colours. We "played Holi" twice. The first was with the school kids on Friday afternoon. The kids were all lined up in their wheelchairs outside IICP then those kids that can walk, as well as teachers and special ed students etc..went around and spread colours all over the kids' faces as well as eachother, we also got completely covered, but it was so fun :) After school on Friday we went to one of the special ed student's house with her and her two adorable daughters who chatted away to us in the back of the car as we sped through traffic with the windows rolled down listening to Taylor swift blarring on the radio. At her home her youngest daughter (9yrs) gave us an extensive tour of the house and garden which included the oportunity to plant some seeds in the garden as well as the backgound stories of several Hindu gods/goddesses (smartest 9 year old ever!). We then went out to shop for some gold jewellery in a fancy store which was kinda pricey so we really didn't get much.
Saturday we played Holi for the second time with the other 3 girls who are staying here at IICP with us and the grounds keeper Jadev Ji (who is the sweetest most cutest old Indian man that I want to adopt and take home with me to Canada), it was tones of fun...we were literally covered from head to toe. We have lots of pics as Jadev ji had us pose with him in the trees out back (too cute!), we will try to get them posted asap.
We didn't get up to much else on Saturday as we discovered that Kolkata literally shuts down for Holi...it's the only time we have not seen traffic on the roads!
Sunday we decided to go to South city Mall to do a little shopping and wath a movie. We arrived at the mall around 11:30am, but learnt that because the day before was a holiday the mall was not open until 1pm so we bussed to a nearby market where we made a couple purchases including some shorts of the beloved alladin-style (so comfy! and stylish too ;) We did make it back to the mall to catch a flick, but unfortunately the only English movie playing that neither one of us had seen was "World Invasion, battle Los Angeles"...it was pretty awful...a full two hours of non-stop fighting and American army glorification without even a love story to intrigue us :( but it was still fun, we sat there and mad fun of it...and it was worth it for the "intermission" when all the lights came on and vendors come up the aisles in groups offering everything..."hot-dog mam?" "ice-cream mam?" it was too funny! We are hoping to go back today to see a Bollywood movie (we'll keep you posted).
Today we got to go out on the slum project with one of the IICP staff members, which was a pretty awesome experience requiring a post of it's own...maybe tomorrow?
That's all for now! We only have two days left of placement :( I'm going to miss the kids so much, especially little Sudhangshu! I already teared up when they gave us a card yesterday so I'm probably going to be a mess on Friday. I'm going to miss their smiling faces :)
Rachel xo
It has been a week since the last post so I'll just try to cover the highlights...also, we didn't end up going to Bodh gaya because: 1. my damn stomache! 2. It seemed counter-intuitive to go to a buddhist town on the day of Holi and 3. We are still recovering from our train experience to Varanasi lol. Anyways...
Saturday was Holi which is a Hindu holiday where everyone covers eachother in bright powdered colours. We "played Holi" twice. The first was with the school kids on Friday afternoon. The kids were all lined up in their wheelchairs outside IICP then those kids that can walk, as well as teachers and special ed students etc..went around and spread colours all over the kids' faces as well as eachother, we also got completely covered, but it was so fun :) After school on Friday we went to one of the special ed student's house with her and her two adorable daughters who chatted away to us in the back of the car as we sped through traffic with the windows rolled down listening to Taylor swift blarring on the radio. At her home her youngest daughter (9yrs) gave us an extensive tour of the house and garden which included the oportunity to plant some seeds in the garden as well as the backgound stories of several Hindu gods/goddesses (smartest 9 year old ever!). We then went out to shop for some gold jewellery in a fancy store which was kinda pricey so we really didn't get much.
Saturday we played Holi for the second time with the other 3 girls who are staying here at IICP with us and the grounds keeper Jadev Ji (who is the sweetest most cutest old Indian man that I want to adopt and take home with me to Canada), it was tones of fun...we were literally covered from head to toe. We have lots of pics as Jadev ji had us pose with him in the trees out back (too cute!), we will try to get them posted asap.
We didn't get up to much else on Saturday as we discovered that Kolkata literally shuts down for Holi...it's the only time we have not seen traffic on the roads!
Sunday we decided to go to South city Mall to do a little shopping and wath a movie. We arrived at the mall around 11:30am, but learnt that because the day before was a holiday the mall was not open until 1pm so we bussed to a nearby market where we made a couple purchases including some shorts of the beloved alladin-style (so comfy! and stylish too ;) We did make it back to the mall to catch a flick, but unfortunately the only English movie playing that neither one of us had seen was "World Invasion, battle Los Angeles"...it was pretty awful...a full two hours of non-stop fighting and American army glorification without even a love story to intrigue us :( but it was still fun, we sat there and mad fun of it...and it was worth it for the "intermission" when all the lights came on and vendors come up the aisles in groups offering everything..."hot-dog mam?" "ice-cream mam?" it was too funny! We are hoping to go back today to see a Bollywood movie (we'll keep you posted).
Today we got to go out on the slum project with one of the IICP staff members, which was a pretty awesome experience requiring a post of it's own...maybe tomorrow?
That's all for now! We only have two days left of placement :( I'm going to miss the kids so much, especially little Sudhangshu! I already teared up when they gave us a card yesterday so I'm probably going to be a mess on Friday. I'm going to miss their smiling faces :)
Rachel xo
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
IICP love:)
So this post is for my dad (he asked to know lots more about our placement) so I am going to try and fill anyone who is interested in on our day to day at the IICP. As I think Rachel mentioned we are working with Physio's (PTs) as OT and PT are pretty much the same thing here. As a result we are doing a lot of physiotherapy sessions. Each day a different class has a physio slot so they just tell us go and grab a kid...so we do and then we do physio with them. The focus here is on doing physio sessions involving standard exercises (ie increasing trunk strength and rotation, weight bearing on hands and feet, increasing head strength) which is so different from my experience of physio in Canada. On my last placement I was at a child development center and I got to work with a lot of physio's at the center and do joint sessions with them. In Canada the focus is more on doing therapy through play (ie. increasing trunk strength through practicing crab walks or using scooter boards). I am sure it has a lot to do with resources as well as philosophy, but that is one of the main differences I have noticed in India, here the physio room has no toys and is strictly about doing exercises. Also (I don't think there are any PTs reading this blog so I can say this safely) but both Rach and I think that physio sessions can be really boring and are so glad that we are not doing this for our profession! That sounded mean, what I really meant was that I am happy I am in OT so I get to assess and provide therapy to clients in so many differnent ways, not only increasing strength, ROM, endurance etc. Sorry if anyone is partial to PT!
In terms of more OT things we have been doing handwriting assessments and recommendations for children who are able to print or have the ability to hold a pen/pencil. We have also done feeding assessments, which is also something that is relevant to OT in Canada. Finally we are hoping to do assess and make recommendations regarding self-care and access (access refers to how non-verbal children communicate either through communication boards or specialized softwear/switches attached to computers-one guy uses his feet to type!). We have also been asked to observe and make ergonomic recommendations for the vocational programs that are run at the IICP for adults with disabilities (there is a catering, tea packing, print making, and a computer course that are continually running). Also we get to do hydrotherapy, where we take the children into the warm pool and do physio exercises. Rach and I get to do it twice a week and I really enjoy it because you can see immediately how much they benefit from being in the water, children who are so flexed are able to extend and relax so well in the water. Also I really like it because the PTs (all male) and the other volunteers who are male cannot work with the female students and there are not many female staff and volunteers who want to do hydrotherapy (being in a pool in a bathing suit with men is the reason I think). So it means that well Rach and I are here, girls are able to do hydro that otherwise would not be able to, so that is really nice.
One last thing I will explain before I should go, we are in charge of feeding our assigned student each day. We initially had to watch for a while and then do a paper and pen feeding assessment and now we are in charge of feeding our child each day. Rachel is in love with her little guy and he is adorable and loves her too! My assigned student Bitasta does not love me so much...in a therapy session yesterday she bit my knee, pulled my hair and pinched me! She refused to eat with me until this week (so lunch used to be my "favourite" part of the day)...this week though she is starting to warm up to me around mealtime, I am not sure what I did but I am hoping my luck will last for another week an a half until we leave!
Sorry if this was not interesting to everyone, but that hopefully gives you an idea of our days. Also there is some bad news...Rachel is ill again and had to miss placement today. We think it has passed and she will be okay tomorrow and back to placement. It is really frustrating though, we have not eaten any street food and been so careful so we really have no idea what happened...but a tourist did tell us that everyone gets sick in Varanasi, so who knows. I am really hoping that I do not fall a few days later as last time...keep your fingers crossed for both of us:)
In terms of more OT things we have been doing handwriting assessments and recommendations for children who are able to print or have the ability to hold a pen/pencil. We have also done feeding assessments, which is also something that is relevant to OT in Canada. Finally we are hoping to do assess and make recommendations regarding self-care and access (access refers to how non-verbal children communicate either through communication boards or specialized softwear/switches attached to computers-one guy uses his feet to type!). We have also been asked to observe and make ergonomic recommendations for the vocational programs that are run at the IICP for adults with disabilities (there is a catering, tea packing, print making, and a computer course that are continually running). Also we get to do hydrotherapy, where we take the children into the warm pool and do physio exercises. Rach and I get to do it twice a week and I really enjoy it because you can see immediately how much they benefit from being in the water, children who are so flexed are able to extend and relax so well in the water. Also I really like it because the PTs (all male) and the other volunteers who are male cannot work with the female students and there are not many female staff and volunteers who want to do hydrotherapy (being in a pool in a bathing suit with men is the reason I think). So it means that well Rach and I are here, girls are able to do hydro that otherwise would not be able to, so that is really nice.
One last thing I will explain before I should go, we are in charge of feeding our assigned student each day. We initially had to watch for a while and then do a paper and pen feeding assessment and now we are in charge of feeding our child each day. Rachel is in love with her little guy and he is adorable and loves her too! My assigned student Bitasta does not love me so much...in a therapy session yesterday she bit my knee, pulled my hair and pinched me! She refused to eat with me until this week (so lunch used to be my "favourite" part of the day)...this week though she is starting to warm up to me around mealtime, I am not sure what I did but I am hoping my luck will last for another week an a half until we leave!
Sorry if this was not interesting to everyone, but that hopefully gives you an idea of our days. Also there is some bad news...Rachel is ill again and had to miss placement today. We think it has passed and she will be okay tomorrow and back to placement. It is really frustrating though, we have not eaten any street food and been so careful so we really have no idea what happened...but a tourist did tell us that everyone gets sick in Varanasi, so who knows. I am really hoping that I do not fall a few days later as last time...keep your fingers crossed for both of us:)
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The "express" train..Indian style
Hello!As you may have noticed from the bottom of the photo we did not take this, but I wanted to have something to show you what Varanasi is like and we are having some problems uploading pictures from our cameraa...Rach and I with computers is never a good combo! Anyways, we arrived a few hours ago from a worldwind trip to Varanasi. For those who don't know, I will give you a bit of background. Varanasi is one of the 7 holy cities in India for Hindus, the Ganges river flows through here and the water is considered sacred to Hindus. As a result, Hindus bathe in the water and perform rituals there, including cremations. People from all over India want to be cremated in Varanasi and have their ashes spread there, we were told a few times that there are homes for older people to live in as they wait to die so they can be cremated there. The cremations occur at special burning ghats (ghats mean the steps in the above photo and they area all over Varanasi) and the cremations go on all through the day, every day of the year, we were told that 200 cremations take place each day...very unbelievable to imagine. It was a pretty surreal experience watching this ritual out in the open, something you would never see in a million years in Canada.
As well as being a place that Hindus come especially to bathe in the waters of Varanasi it has become a stop for most international tourists. And this means that is has become so touristy unfortunately (this was the first really touristy place Rach and I have been to and I kept being slightly shocked to see tourists, a lot of European and Japanese, as we have seen so few the last month!) All and all it was a very overwhelming and fascinating place, watching people bathe in water that also has fresh ashes in it, being accosted every step by people trying to sell you things, and also trying to avoid stepping in cow dung which is EVERYWHERE and the smells were also overpowering not in a good way...it was an interesting place for sure!
Unfortunately we had a difficult journey reaching Varanasi and then on the way back as well. We took the Express train which was supposed to take 14 hours...we eventually arrived 23 hours after we had left kolkata): It was pretty much torture, we subsisted on cookies and candy for a day, I finished my book with still 8 more hours to go, and we were never told why the train was so late or when we would arrive, we just waited and waited...I know it is part of the Indian travel experience but it was SO frustrating! On the way back we were only delayed by 4 hours, which at this point impressed us! Anyways, the delays meant we had less than 24 hours in Varanasi and missed the boat ride on the river at sunset, although we did get up to go for a boat ride at sunrise (which is when people are performing rituals and bathing), which was a really unique experience. We had some delicious meals on rooftop terraces overlooking the Ganges which were also pretty memorable! I still have mixed feelings about Varanasi, the weekend was so tiring and overwhelming and so was the city...I will just say that is it something worth seeing but I am not sure I need to go back:)
Rach and I were just talking about how things in India can make us smile, break our hearts, and be SO frustrating often at the same time. Little things happen each day that I just love, today for example, we boarded a bus after reaching the train station in Kolkata to take us back to the IICP, where we work and live. Rach handed the ticket collector the exact change for our two tickets and I just loved the looks from the surrounding men on the bus, they were incredulous that we were A) on the bus with our backpacks and all and B) that we knew the exact ticket price. We get these looks in the area of kolkata where we are living often too, it is an industrial area so there are no other tourists at all, so we often get these hilarious looks as we are on the bus or doing grocery shoppping like, "are you completly crazy or lost!?" The children who are begging or are working for money break my heart the most. On trains people come on at every stop to sell you everything and anything you could imagine. Today a little boy came on (about 6 or 7) and was sweeping the garbage from under our seats hoping to get a few rupees. We gave him some of course and then he saw our almost eaten bag of cookies on the table which he pointed to. I handed him the bag and he touched it to his forehead as a sign of gratitude and then gave us the biggest smile you could imagine...it was so heart breaking. By contrast, the thing that annoys me to no end and makes me want to scream are the drivers of taxis and rickshaws...every time they try to get more money than we agreed and get angry with us and it becomes a big deal...it is SO frustrating.
Okay I have rambled on long enough, hopefully we will figure out to add some more photos this week:)
Other than that
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
MUAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just a quick update on our week as we are leaving for Varanasi tomorrow night and won't be able to update again until next week.
As for IICP we are in love with the kids from our class! My little guy, Sudhangshu is such a little cutie! His favourite thing to do is grab your hand and take it to his mouth to give you a kiss, he even says Muah! Kim and I have also taught several of the kids to blow kisses so we are blowing kisses back and forth whenever we enter or leave the classroom. This week we got to do mat evaluations on Sudhangshu and Bitasta (Kim's student) as well as a writing evaluation on Sudhangshu and another student in the slass who stays at Mother Theresa's charity - he was pretty happy because everytime he sees Kim and I he makes the signal that he wants to right for us. Today we also went up to the vocational training room where they do print and stationary work. We got to make a gift bag out of newspaper which was pretty exciting-but we clearly were not up too par at the task because the guy that was teaching us smiled hugely after each of our atemps at the various steps and then took the bag from us and fixed it for us...so we need some more training for sure ;)
Yesterday after work we went down to New market to do a little shopping...but this was so exhausting that we didn't get much :-/ Bartering is so much work!!! and you literally can not just browse because as soon as you show the slightest interest in something it is off the rack and thrown into the bag for you which is followed by fast-paced bargening that you cannot say "I'll think about it" to because they just won't let you get away with it...this has been a great challenge for me because I am the most indecisive shopper ever! But we did get away with a couple scarves and Kurtis so we made some progress :)
Anyways, gotta run-we are off to yoga. We will update next week after our trip to Varanasi - not looking forward to the overnight trains, but it'll be an experience!
Rachel
As for IICP we are in love with the kids from our class! My little guy, Sudhangshu is such a little cutie! His favourite thing to do is grab your hand and take it to his mouth to give you a kiss, he even says Muah! Kim and I have also taught several of the kids to blow kisses so we are blowing kisses back and forth whenever we enter or leave the classroom. This week we got to do mat evaluations on Sudhangshu and Bitasta (Kim's student) as well as a writing evaluation on Sudhangshu and another student in the slass who stays at Mother Theresa's charity - he was pretty happy because everytime he sees Kim and I he makes the signal that he wants to right for us. Today we also went up to the vocational training room where they do print and stationary work. We got to make a gift bag out of newspaper which was pretty exciting-but we clearly were not up too par at the task because the guy that was teaching us smiled hugely after each of our atemps at the various steps and then took the bag from us and fixed it for us...so we need some more training for sure ;)
Yesterday after work we went down to New market to do a little shopping...but this was so exhausting that we didn't get much :-/ Bartering is so much work!!! and you literally can not just browse because as soon as you show the slightest interest in something it is off the rack and thrown into the bag for you which is followed by fast-paced bargening that you cannot say "I'll think about it" to because they just won't let you get away with it...this has been a great challenge for me because I am the most indecisive shopper ever! But we did get away with a couple scarves and Kurtis so we made some progress :)
Anyways, gotta run-we are off to yoga. We will update next week after our trip to Varanasi - not looking forward to the overnight trains, but it'll be an experience!
Rachel
Monday, March 7, 2011
Eye of the Tiger
We arrived home last night after our trip to Sunderbands, the largest tiger reserve in the world, without seeing any tigers. Rachel's bad pun, the tigers at Sunderbands reserve are very reserved....was sadly true:) We think that this is probably the case for 99.9% of people who visit the reserve..one man working on the boat we were on has worked there for 20 years and never seen one! We did see tiger paw prints in the mud along the river so they really are out there somewhere! Despite this slight disappointment it was a really nice relaxing weekend. As lonely planet had recommended the tour was a lovely escape from the chaos that is Kolkata.
We left Kolkata on Saturday morning and boarded a bus for three hours then came to our boat where we cruised through the waters for the next day and a half. We got off at a number of locations to visit watch towers to better spot tigers..however they were usually full of noisy people so I imagine the tigers stay as far away from them as possible! We did see a deer, many monkeys, a water monitor (like a giant lizard), a turtle, and many birds...not thrilling but still nice! Our tour was quite entertaining as well. There were three other international tourists, a friendly couple from the Czech Republic who were avid bird watchers and chain smokers and a Japanese guy who did not speak too much English but told Rachel and I that we looked like teenagers (I was amused and Rachel was very pleased!). The Indian tourists were mainly families who were friendly and many wanted our picture with them or just us alone ( i still find this so odd) and then wanted to chat with us. We are having such a hard time explaining occupational therapy to Indians, each time it is a different long, confusing explanation...why could we have not chosen a simple profession! My favourite person on board was Titly (which means butterfly) who is a thirteen year old girl from Kolkata who had perfect English and was very interested in Rach and I. We chatted with her for quite some time about many topics including her desire to go to school abroad (she really likes the sounds of living in L.A.!) and how she adores Miley Cyrus/Hanah Montana. My other favourite was this little guy about 4 years old who knew about two words in English including, superman, who really liked my flashlight, so we became friends:)
We are off to yoga, we need to arrive before it gets dark so Rach can do her special exercises:)After we are going to have ice cream to celebrate that I am finally well and am eating again!!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Durgapur
As Kim mentioned in her last post I got the chance to go out to a village outside of Kolkata called Durgapur with one of the social workers, Robi from IICP, who goes there every Tuesday. Unfortunately, Kim couldn't come because she was sick :( I missed her, but it was definitely better she stay home and rest. She's finally starting to feel a bit better, but she is not stomaching much food, despite my persistent nagging ;) Don't worry Bruce and Phyllis I'll keep the nagging up!
Going out to Durgapur was such a cool experience. We left Kolkata around 7:15am and after a 2hr bus ride arrived in Durgapur. We spent the majority of the day doing home visits to people's houses in two small villages. It was amazing to see...many of the houses we were in were made of mud, including their cooking ovens. Word must have got out that a foreigner was there because we'd be sitting in one house and a crowd of other villagers would all come and surround the house. At one point a lengthy conversation was going on between Robi and many of the villagers...I assumed it was regarding the ADORABLE little 2 year old with Down's that we were visiting, but then I heard "Canada" and Robi asked me how old I was and then I heard "married?", so I'm pretty sure they were all asking questions about me lol. The visit was also heart wrenching at times...I saw one child who was deteriorating as a result of her condition (hydrocephalis), and it broke my heart...
At the end of the day we visited a mission of charity in the area (one of many of Mother Theresa's) which houses boys and men with disabilities. It was a huge (10 acre) property with cocunut trees all over the grounds. Robi informed me that they encourage those staying there to get involved in occupations (maintaining the grounds, harvesting etc...) based on their own capabilities to give meaning to their lives (totally OT). They also will bring in some women from the surrounding villages (widows) to help with the harvesting as a way to allow them to earn a small amount of money.
This weekend Kim and I are going on a 2 day 2 night boat trip to Sundervan's tiger reserve! (Phyllis we thought you would be excited about this) Chances are very very slim that we will actually see a tiger, but we are holding out hope anyways. :)
We'll update you about our weekend as soon as we can!
Rachel
Ps: we have not seen a single post card here, so for those of you who we promised to send one to we will keep looking, but chances are it's not going to happen. Sorry!
Going out to Durgapur was such a cool experience. We left Kolkata around 7:15am and after a 2hr bus ride arrived in Durgapur. We spent the majority of the day doing home visits to people's houses in two small villages. It was amazing to see...many of the houses we were in were made of mud, including their cooking ovens. Word must have got out that a foreigner was there because we'd be sitting in one house and a crowd of other villagers would all come and surround the house. At one point a lengthy conversation was going on between Robi and many of the villagers...I assumed it was regarding the ADORABLE little 2 year old with Down's that we were visiting, but then I heard "Canada" and Robi asked me how old I was and then I heard "married?", so I'm pretty sure they were all asking questions about me lol. The visit was also heart wrenching at times...I saw one child who was deteriorating as a result of her condition (hydrocephalis), and it broke my heart...
At the end of the day we visited a mission of charity in the area (one of many of Mother Theresa's) which houses boys and men with disabilities. It was a huge (10 acre) property with cocunut trees all over the grounds. Robi informed me that they encourage those staying there to get involved in occupations (maintaining the grounds, harvesting etc...) based on their own capabilities to give meaning to their lives (totally OT). They also will bring in some women from the surrounding villages (widows) to help with the harvesting as a way to allow them to earn a small amount of money.
This weekend Kim and I are going on a 2 day 2 night boat trip to Sundervan's tiger reserve! (Phyllis we thought you would be excited about this) Chances are very very slim that we will actually see a tiger, but we are holding out hope anyways. :)
We'll update you about our weekend as soon as we can!
Rachel
Ps: we have not seen a single post card here, so for those of you who we promised to send one to we will keep looking, but chances are it's not going to happen. Sorry!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A few pictures finally!
Rach and her assigned student Shodhankshu (sp?) at the picnic last Monday.
Children who saw Rach and I at one of the temples at Bishnipur and ran over and wanted to be in our photo! After we took it they kept saying choco, which we think means candy so as we had some on us, we gave them some, how could you not, how cute are they!
Terracotta Temple at Bishnupur
Flower at one of the temples
Sorry if these photos are not formatted that well...computers are not my strong point as many of you know! Also it would only let me upload 5 pictures at a time so we will try and do a few every blog if we can. The one photo I did not label is a man carrying flowers for sale at the famous flower market in Kolkata, it is this huge market underneath the very impressive Howrah bridge that only sells flowers, that are sold in these long chains that people buy and bring to Hindu temples as offering for the gods. It was a pretty interesting place, so many people, so dirty, so many smells, and so many flowers!
Not much new to update you on otherwise, I unfortunately got Delhi Belly just like Rachel did...as are classmates like to tease us we are like twins so I guess we had to get the same sickness as well:) I made the stupid mistake yesterday of thinking I was better and Rach and I went out to a market to buy loose, pants that we would need for today for traveling into smaller villages. After buying our awesome pants, think Aladin style, I started to not feel so well and we quickly caught a cab but I was not able to make it home and was sick in the cab (luckily I had a plastic bag to throw up into...however still a very unpleasant experience!). So I have spent the majority of the last three days in bed and am going a little crazy:) Rachel is having a really long day today that I imagine is really interesting. She is out on a community based outreach project into villages outside Kolkata with a doctor and maybe a physiotherapist as well. It should be a really fascinating experience so I will make sure she updates the blog when she has a minute!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Hello! Where you are from?......Japan?
So my tummy is (finally) feeling better, yay!!!!!!! However....now it is Kim's turn :( We were on the bus this morning with the plan to purchase train tickets and run some errands but Kim had to get off the bus asap. So she has gone home to rest...hopefully she will not be sick like i was, and hopefully with a day of rest she will be feeling better. Fingers crossed!!!!
Yesterday we had a looong day. We got up at 4:20am in order to make it to the train station to catch the 6:00am train into Bishnupur. After purchasing our tickets we scrambled to figure out where to catch it and although there was a bit of panic we were successful. What we quickly learned though was that we should have looked into reserved seating, as it was pretty packed in there. Kim was lucky enough to get a single seat by the window, but I was crammed onto a "five" person bench (Canadian standards three person bench) with a lovely Indian family. It wasn't so bad though they had an adorable baby which made it much more enjoyable :) I was lucky and the seat across from Kim freed up after an hour or two so for a lovely hour or so we had single window seats...then we shared those single seats with another person. The seats were VERY comfortable too (NOT!) they were rock hard and I swore I thought my ITs (sit bones) were going to be bruised. But we made it! When we got there we hired a cycle rickshaw who we bartered with, but in the end gave him what he had originally asked for because we were racked with guilt having this tiny Indian man pulling us around in the hot hot sun. He took us around to "all temple". The temples were beautiful with such detailed walls (pictures soon...we are trying!!!) and they were scattered all around the town. From the number of stares and people yelling at us "Hello, you are from where?" and guessing Japan we are assuming that Bishnupur rarely gets foreign tourists. AFter our little tour we were brought back to the train station. We still had another 4 hrs to kill before the train left so decided to try to find somewhere to eat...but after walking along the main road in the hot sun we decided to turn back and eat near the station where there were a few restaurants...honestly though it was just street food with a place to sit. I was paranoid about getting sick again so barely touched the luke warm food that had been sitting out, and I think my paranoia rubbed off on Kim too cause she barely ate it either...hopefully what she did eat is not the cause of her tummy problems today :-/ Anyways.....after lunch we bartered with another cycle rick shaw to take us up the road where we had seen ice cream. Clearly this guy did not understand us because when we asked to pull over and payed him (again more than what we had bartered for - the guilt!) he started talking in Bengali and motioning asking "all temples???", so clearly he had thought he was taking us on a tour and must have thought we were nuts...this was confirmed by the ENORMOUS smile he gave us when we once again returned to train stn via one more rickshaw....we're pretty sure the whole town thought we were crazy. We then sat around the train station playing cards (while an Indian man stared at us from about a 1 foot distance from Kim's face the entire time). We finally caught the train (it was an hour late)...had to stand at first, but Kim snagged a seat at the next stop and I got one at the next stop...unfortunately, despite looking very intently at my book and having my ipod in my ears the two men sitting next to me stared at me and looked at my book...then proceeded to ask me question afetr question. When one got off (not without first inviting me over) I called Kim over...it wasn't very nice I should have left her sitting next to the sweet couple that she was, but I needed some team support! So for the next while (until the other guy left) Kim got asked all the same questions and a couple more, including something along the lines of what do you hope will be your life accomplishment? Kim avoided this one hahaha Oh, and I forgot to mention that for the whole 3 or so hours that Kim and I were seated there the man across the isle from us starred the entire time...I'm not exagerating...I think his neck must be sore today! The train ride had some lovely surprises though that made the journey even more memorable, including a magic show and a man who walked through singing on his microphone!
.... I feel like I'm missing out a bunch...it was a very eventful day :)
Rach xo
Yesterday we had a looong day. We got up at 4:20am in order to make it to the train station to catch the 6:00am train into Bishnupur. After purchasing our tickets we scrambled to figure out where to catch it and although there was a bit of panic we were successful. What we quickly learned though was that we should have looked into reserved seating, as it was pretty packed in there. Kim was lucky enough to get a single seat by the window, but I was crammed onto a "five" person bench (Canadian standards three person bench) with a lovely Indian family. It wasn't so bad though they had an adorable baby which made it much more enjoyable :) I was lucky and the seat across from Kim freed up after an hour or two so for a lovely hour or so we had single window seats...then we shared those single seats with another person. The seats were VERY comfortable too (NOT!) they were rock hard and I swore I thought my ITs (sit bones) were going to be bruised. But we made it! When we got there we hired a cycle rickshaw who we bartered with, but in the end gave him what he had originally asked for because we were racked with guilt having this tiny Indian man pulling us around in the hot hot sun. He took us around to "all temple". The temples were beautiful with such detailed walls (pictures soon...we are trying!!!) and they were scattered all around the town. From the number of stares and people yelling at us "Hello, you are from where?" and guessing Japan we are assuming that Bishnupur rarely gets foreign tourists. AFter our little tour we were brought back to the train station. We still had another 4 hrs to kill before the train left so decided to try to find somewhere to eat...but after walking along the main road in the hot sun we decided to turn back and eat near the station where there were a few restaurants...honestly though it was just street food with a place to sit. I was paranoid about getting sick again so barely touched the luke warm food that had been sitting out, and I think my paranoia rubbed off on Kim too cause she barely ate it either...hopefully what she did eat is not the cause of her tummy problems today :-/ Anyways.....after lunch we bartered with another cycle rick shaw to take us up the road where we had seen ice cream. Clearly this guy did not understand us because when we asked to pull over and payed him (again more than what we had bartered for - the guilt!) he started talking in Bengali and motioning asking "all temples???", so clearly he had thought he was taking us on a tour and must have thought we were nuts...this was confirmed by the ENORMOUS smile he gave us when we once again returned to train stn via one more rickshaw....we're pretty sure the whole town thought we were crazy. We then sat around the train station playing cards (while an Indian man stared at us from about a 1 foot distance from Kim's face the entire time). We finally caught the train (it was an hour late)...had to stand at first, but Kim snagged a seat at the next stop and I got one at the next stop...unfortunately, despite looking very intently at my book and having my ipod in my ears the two men sitting next to me stared at me and looked at my book...then proceeded to ask me question afetr question. When one got off (not without first inviting me over) I called Kim over...it wasn't very nice I should have left her sitting next to the sweet couple that she was, but I needed some team support! So for the next while (until the other guy left) Kim got asked all the same questions and a couple more, including something along the lines of what do you hope will be your life accomplishment? Kim avoided this one hahaha Oh, and I forgot to mention that for the whole 3 or so hours that Kim and I were seated there the man across the isle from us starred the entire time...I'm not exagerating...I think his neck must be sore today! The train ride had some lovely surprises though that made the journey even more memorable, including a magic show and a man who walked through singing on his microphone!
.... I feel like I'm missing out a bunch...it was a very eventful day :)
Rach xo
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sorry no photos yet...:)
Hello,
To all of you are reading this (read: mainly my extended family!) I apologize that we have yet to post any pictures. We keep meaning to the last few days but things always come up, yesterday we spent our afternoon trying to book train tickets (we are not able to do so online with our international visa cards because of fears of terrorism apparently...it is super annoying, as it meant we spent about 3 hours getting to a tourist office to finally book train tickets...but it is done so we are happy. I was going to post today using the computer at the ICCP, which we are supposed to have access to each afternoon..however that is not always the case so I am writing from a little internet cafe on a rather old computer on which I have no idea how I would upload upload photos...so I apologize and will try to do so soon!
To update you on our week, unfortunately Rachel has gotten a stomach bug and was ill last night. She did not come to work today but is feeling better and is taking antibiotics, so if her family is reading this, she is getting better and is planning on callling home tomorrow morning which would be thursday evening around 7 your time:) We are not sure what it is from as we have eaten the same thing every day and are trying to be careful about these things. We are drinking the filtered water at the IICP (as the girls who came last year did so), but the two physiotherapists from the UK who arrived the same time as us informed me today that they are not drinking it...but I imagine it is fine:) We may have slipped up this last weekend...I admit we had two different types of streetfood on Sunday....I know I know everyone told us not to, but seriously you cannot imagine how good everything looks. Also the student teachers bought us there favourite street snack on one of the times...so we couldn't really turn it down right! Anways, we have learned our lesson and will resist the delicious temptations from now on...or until we develop very strong Indian stomachs!
This week at work has been going well, on Monday we arrived and they told us we were going on a picnic for the whole day...so yes I am working hard! The picnic was for a couple of different schools in Kolkata with children with special needs. It was a really amazing thing to see, a select few from each school put on performances of songs or dance and it was seriously the cutest thing in the entire world. Also mothers and some siblings came along to, so it was really nice to see these kids getting so much support. Karen if you are reading this, a lot of the children performing had Downs' Syndome (whom I have a particular love for as you know) they were just so happy, it was so awesome to see. Otherwise we have been doing some feeding, handwriting, and physical assessments. I am learning lots but it is very different from Canada and even the way the PTs teach is so different and even though they speak English I think I miss about 40% of what they say because of their accents...so it is deffinetly a learning curve! Unfortunately hydrotherapy (physio type therapy sessions in the pool) has still not started because it has been cold here the last few days and the pool is heated by the sun...by cold I mean that Rach and I wear t-shirts and capris and I sleep with just a sheet at night...so really lovely tempterature by Canadian standards...however, Indian men wear full pants, collared shirts, jackets, and many of the men wear sweaters or sweater vests too!
Speaking of difference between us and Indians..there are so many..but probably my favourite is the head wiggle/bobble. If any of you have read Shantaram, he describes it really well. It is a little wiggle/sideways nod to the right that can mean SO many different things, it can be a greeting or it can mean yes, I suppose so, or no...it is so variable! For example I asked the head PT if we could have a Friday off to go to Varanasi and his answer was a little head wiggle to the right...I am assuming he understood and we are able to go, but really who knows! I caught Rachel doing a little bobble the other day when I was asking her something which was pretty hilarious. Some other differences I can think of is the constant public urination (everywhere you go men are peeing!), public bathing, men clear there throat SO loudly and make sure a gutteral noise it often wakes me up in the morning, men holding hands (of all ages), and men young and old having the tiniest waists in the world, so many times we have seen men who can wrap their belts almost around themselves twice they are so petite!
One last story for this blog (there is so much I want to tell but know it is a probably not all interesting!) is the experience walking through the slum behind the IICP. We walk there to get fruits and veggies sometimes and now we found that if we walk through the whole area we reach this lovely little park on the other side. Anyways, everytime we walk through the slum everyone stares (as in most parts of India) which is fine but my favourite part is when we walk by groups of boys around 8 to 10 years old. If we say hi and wave they burst into giggles like we have said the funniest joke, it just makes my day every time:) Yesterday as we walked through, about 20 little boys were playing cricket and the whole game just came to a standstill as they all stopped playing to stare at us...I don't think I have that much presence in Canada! Okay, hope my ramblings are of some interest!
~Kim
To all of you are reading this (read: mainly my extended family!) I apologize that we have yet to post any pictures. We keep meaning to the last few days but things always come up, yesterday we spent our afternoon trying to book train tickets (we are not able to do so online with our international visa cards because of fears of terrorism apparently...it is super annoying, as it meant we spent about 3 hours getting to a tourist office to finally book train tickets...but it is done so we are happy. I was going to post today using the computer at the ICCP, which we are supposed to have access to each afternoon..however that is not always the case so I am writing from a little internet cafe on a rather old computer on which I have no idea how I would upload upload photos...so I apologize and will try to do so soon!
To update you on our week, unfortunately Rachel has gotten a stomach bug and was ill last night. She did not come to work today but is feeling better and is taking antibiotics, so if her family is reading this, she is getting better and is planning on callling home tomorrow morning which would be thursday evening around 7 your time:) We are not sure what it is from as we have eaten the same thing every day and are trying to be careful about these things. We are drinking the filtered water at the IICP (as the girls who came last year did so), but the two physiotherapists from the UK who arrived the same time as us informed me today that they are not drinking it...but I imagine it is fine:) We may have slipped up this last weekend...I admit we had two different types of streetfood on Sunday....I know I know everyone told us not to, but seriously you cannot imagine how good everything looks. Also the student teachers bought us there favourite street snack on one of the times...so we couldn't really turn it down right! Anways, we have learned our lesson and will resist the delicious temptations from now on...or until we develop very strong Indian stomachs!
This week at work has been going well, on Monday we arrived and they told us we were going on a picnic for the whole day...so yes I am working hard! The picnic was for a couple of different schools in Kolkata with children with special needs. It was a really amazing thing to see, a select few from each school put on performances of songs or dance and it was seriously the cutest thing in the entire world. Also mothers and some siblings came along to, so it was really nice to see these kids getting so much support. Karen if you are reading this, a lot of the children performing had Downs' Syndome (whom I have a particular love for as you know) they were just so happy, it was so awesome to see. Otherwise we have been doing some feeding, handwriting, and physical assessments. I am learning lots but it is very different from Canada and even the way the PTs teach is so different and even though they speak English I think I miss about 40% of what they say because of their accents...so it is deffinetly a learning curve! Unfortunately hydrotherapy (physio type therapy sessions in the pool) has still not started because it has been cold here the last few days and the pool is heated by the sun...by cold I mean that Rach and I wear t-shirts and capris and I sleep with just a sheet at night...so really lovely tempterature by Canadian standards...however, Indian men wear full pants, collared shirts, jackets, and many of the men wear sweaters or sweater vests too!
Speaking of difference between us and Indians..there are so many..but probably my favourite is the head wiggle/bobble. If any of you have read Shantaram, he describes it really well. It is a little wiggle/sideways nod to the right that can mean SO many different things, it can be a greeting or it can mean yes, I suppose so, or no...it is so variable! For example I asked the head PT if we could have a Friday off to go to Varanasi and his answer was a little head wiggle to the right...I am assuming he understood and we are able to go, but really who knows! I caught Rachel doing a little bobble the other day when I was asking her something which was pretty hilarious. Some other differences I can think of is the constant public urination (everywhere you go men are peeing!), public bathing, men clear there throat SO loudly and make sure a gutteral noise it often wakes me up in the morning, men holding hands (of all ages), and men young and old having the tiniest waists in the world, so many times we have seen men who can wrap their belts almost around themselves twice they are so petite!
One last story for this blog (there is so much I want to tell but know it is a probably not all interesting!) is the experience walking through the slum behind the IICP. We walk there to get fruits and veggies sometimes and now we found that if we walk through the whole area we reach this lovely little park on the other side. Anyways, everytime we walk through the slum everyone stares (as in most parts of India) which is fine but my favourite part is when we walk by groups of boys around 8 to 10 years old. If we say hi and wave they burst into giggles like we have said the funniest joke, it just makes my day every time:) Yesterday as we walked through, about 20 little boys were playing cricket and the whole game just came to a standstill as they all stopped playing to stare at us...I don't think I have that much presence in Canada! Okay, hope my ramblings are of some interest!
~Kim
Sunday, February 20, 2011
one whole week in India
Hello!
Sorry we have not written for so long, internet is very slow and we don't get theat much access either. So much to tell from the last few days...I will try and mention some highlights! We have started yoga at this stuido near our place, which was recommended to us from the girls who went on this same placement last year. I am not sure what kind of yoga it is but they look at you and then make up a special set of exercises for you to do individually each time you come. When you are more advanced I imagine you can do the moves alone but as Rach and I are new, we get one to one attention with these yoga teachers for our whole session. I have both times gotten the strict one who repeatedly tells me I am doing things "wrong" and to "stop looking around" and she really frowns if I start to laugh! But after the session is over she is all smiles and asking me where I am from and if I am married:) The funniest part of yoga is that Rachel has a special excercise for her eyes. She was wearing her glasses the first day we came and the head instructor asked her what her perscription was and then designed a special activity to improve Rachel's vision. The pose involves Rach sitting outside on the balcony of the studio and blinking a few times and then covering her eyes with her hands a few times...fingers crossed she will have 20/20 vision when we return! I cannot look at her when she does this pose or else I canont stop laughing:)
We had a good day at placement on friday, getting to do a full physical assessment and practice a handwriting assessment. We are both really looking forward to hydrotherapy which apparently starts this week and getting to do more and more hands on stuff. I am really enjoying getting to know the kids in the one class where Rach and I have our assigned student in, they are so cute, one of my favourites is a little girl called mumpy who does not have cerebral palsy but is deaf had taught us sign language and some dance moves already!
We decided to stay in Kolkata this weekend and see some of the sights. On saturday morning we went to volunteer with 3 of the physiotherapists from the ICCP at one of mother theresa's charity homes, it is one that houses children with disabiliites (mainly CP and Downs) who are orphaned, apparently they are often just found on the street. It was a really interesting experience, it is so sad in one way but also I was amazed at how many inernational volunteers were there to work with the children, so at least the children seem to be getting a lot of attention and love. We also went to a famous hindu temple, a memorial for Queen Vistoria, botanical gardens, and this amazing bridge and flower market. We have taken a lot of public transit lately which has been an eye-opening experince for sure! I actually love the buses when we get a seat because it is so amazing to watch what is going on outside the window, the people, the animals, the clours, the sounds...its so much to take in. The trains and buses are so crowded I cannot really explain it except to say that every part of my body is touching comeone else...worse than the 99 in rush hour! But despite the ridiculous number of people (mainly men), I have felt completely safe, I am not worried about my things being stolen really at all and often people have given up their seatsd for us and insisted we take them. Also people on the streets are generally pretty helpful when they see us two looking completely lost, if they cannot understand English they find someone else who can speak a little:) The times when I have found people to be rude or pushy or really taking advantage of us is at touristy places, otherwise, I have found Indian people to be so friendly and helpful.
We are planning to got away next weekend, but just need to decide where and figure out the next public transit method..trains! Hope eveyone is doing well in Canada:)
Sorry we have not written for so long, internet is very slow and we don't get theat much access either. So much to tell from the last few days...I will try and mention some highlights! We have started yoga at this stuido near our place, which was recommended to us from the girls who went on this same placement last year. I am not sure what kind of yoga it is but they look at you and then make up a special set of exercises for you to do individually each time you come. When you are more advanced I imagine you can do the moves alone but as Rach and I are new, we get one to one attention with these yoga teachers for our whole session. I have both times gotten the strict one who repeatedly tells me I am doing things "wrong" and to "stop looking around" and she really frowns if I start to laugh! But after the session is over she is all smiles and asking me where I am from and if I am married:) The funniest part of yoga is that Rachel has a special excercise for her eyes. She was wearing her glasses the first day we came and the head instructor asked her what her perscription was and then designed a special activity to improve Rachel's vision. The pose involves Rach sitting outside on the balcony of the studio and blinking a few times and then covering her eyes with her hands a few times...fingers crossed she will have 20/20 vision when we return! I cannot look at her when she does this pose or else I canont stop laughing:)
We had a good day at placement on friday, getting to do a full physical assessment and practice a handwriting assessment. We are both really looking forward to hydrotherapy which apparently starts this week and getting to do more and more hands on stuff. I am really enjoying getting to know the kids in the one class where Rach and I have our assigned student in, they are so cute, one of my favourites is a little girl called mumpy who does not have cerebral palsy but is deaf had taught us sign language and some dance moves already!
We decided to stay in Kolkata this weekend and see some of the sights. On saturday morning we went to volunteer with 3 of the physiotherapists from the ICCP at one of mother theresa's charity homes, it is one that houses children with disabiliites (mainly CP and Downs) who are orphaned, apparently they are often just found on the street. It was a really interesting experience, it is so sad in one way but also I was amazed at how many inernational volunteers were there to work with the children, so at least the children seem to be getting a lot of attention and love. We also went to a famous hindu temple, a memorial for Queen Vistoria, botanical gardens, and this amazing bridge and flower market. We have taken a lot of public transit lately which has been an eye-opening experince for sure! I actually love the buses when we get a seat because it is so amazing to watch what is going on outside the window, the people, the animals, the clours, the sounds...its so much to take in. The trains and buses are so crowded I cannot really explain it except to say that every part of my body is touching comeone else...worse than the 99 in rush hour! But despite the ridiculous number of people (mainly men), I have felt completely safe, I am not worried about my things being stolen really at all and often people have given up their seatsd for us and insisted we take them. Also people on the streets are generally pretty helpful when they see us two looking completely lost, if they cannot understand English they find someone else who can speak a little:) The times when I have found people to be rude or pushy or really taking advantage of us is at touristy places, otherwise, I have found Indian people to be so friendly and helpful.
We are planning to got away next weekend, but just need to decide where and figure out the next public transit method..trains! Hope eveyone is doing well in Canada:)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
IICP
Today was day 3 working at the IICP (yesterday was a holiday), so far this week we have been doing classroom, treatment and feeding assessment observations. The kidies are adorable and full of smiles when they see us, they call us "Aunty" . We are hoping that next week, after a week of observation, we will get to do more hands on stuff. We've been told that for our assigned child we will have to go through the various different assessments (physical, seating, feeding, handwriting etc...) and then make recommendations...at least that's what we think, but to be honest we are not totaly sure...half the time we don't catch what is being said :-/ On Thursdays we get to work either in the outpatient clinic (I was there today) where parents bring in their kids for assessment and treatment recommendations, or in the baby clinic (Kim was there today). Next week we also start hydrotherapy.
As far as non OT stuff...on Tuesday afternoon we took the bus (all by ourselves!!!) down the street then walked into New Alipore where we found the yoga studio the girls went to last year, we inquired and are going to go to our first session tonight! The yoga institute is apparently the 3rd oldest yoga studio in India so it should be pretty interesting :) Yesterday we went out with the 3 other girls staying here at the Institute (they are from Shillong in North-East India) to go shopping. We bussed down to the mall which was fun in itself, there is so much going on along the streets it is impossible to take it all in...India is a sensory overload, I have never seen, smelt or heard so much in my life! The mall was very interesting...once inside you could easily forget that you were in India, it was just like any other mall you'd see in North America...well except that they make you go through metal detectors at the entrance and check your bags in every store, sometimes giving you a ticket which says that you have a camera in your bag...then give you back your camera...not sure what the purpose of this was?)After the mall we took the bus down to a huge street market, which neither one of us can remember the name of (despite being told at least 4 times). It was so neat to see, the stalls were lined up along the sidewalks and seemed to go on and on, I don't think we even covered 1/2 of the market. We were the only two foreigners in there lol.
This weekend we are going to volunteer at Mother Theresa's on Saturday morning, then we are going to check out some of the sights in Kolkata, including Victoria Memorial.
We'll update you again soon...and try to get some pics uploaded too!
Rachel xo
As far as non OT stuff...on Tuesday afternoon we took the bus (all by ourselves!!!) down the street then walked into New Alipore where we found the yoga studio the girls went to last year, we inquired and are going to go to our first session tonight! The yoga institute is apparently the 3rd oldest yoga studio in India so it should be pretty interesting :) Yesterday we went out with the 3 other girls staying here at the Institute (they are from Shillong in North-East India) to go shopping. We bussed down to the mall which was fun in itself, there is so much going on along the streets it is impossible to take it all in...India is a sensory overload, I have never seen, smelt or heard so much in my life! The mall was very interesting...once inside you could easily forget that you were in India, it was just like any other mall you'd see in North America...well except that they make you go through metal detectors at the entrance and check your bags in every store, sometimes giving you a ticket which says that you have a camera in your bag...then give you back your camera...not sure what the purpose of this was?)After the mall we took the bus down to a huge street market, which neither one of us can remember the name of (despite being told at least 4 times). It was so neat to see, the stalls were lined up along the sidewalks and seemed to go on and on, I don't think we even covered 1/2 of the market. We were the only two foreigners in there lol.
This weekend we are going to volunteer at Mother Theresa's on Saturday morning, then we are going to check out some of the sights in Kolkata, including Victoria Memorial.
We'll update you again soon...and try to get some pics uploaded too!
Rachel xo
Monday, February 14, 2011
Expect the Unexpected
So we decided yesterday to head into downtown Kolkata which has most of the restaurants and shops. We cabbed there are we are still a little frightened to use public transit after hearing that it does not really stop and you just have to jump off! Anyways so we were cabbing in and there were suddenly huge numbers of people walking on the side of the road, by huge numbers I mean thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands. I think we saw more people in half a day in Kolkata than you see in Vancouver in a month! We had no idea what was going on and could not communicate with our driver to figure it out (it ended up being a political rally, but no one seems to really know what for). So we just watched in awe at the mass of people, including the women in their beautiful saris (I cannot get over the how beautiful the women are in their saris are, I feel so drab and boring in comparison).
After spending some time looking around, eating, and attempting to shop (we got led down these dark narrow alleyways that smelled so terrible I cannot even describe...we decided after all this not to buy anything which did not make the man selling very happy:), we wanted to catch a cab back to our place. We unknowingly decided to catch a cab just as the political rally ended. Rach and I hopelessly tried to catch a cab among the thousands of other people that were on this one street corner for quite a while until one finally stopped. We got into the cab and he said that the meter was broken (this is a way to overcharge tourists by just making up a huge price once you arrive). We tried to get him to turn it on and were having no luck until a man passing by noticed the meter was not on and started to yell at the cab driver. Within seconds at least 50 Indian men swarmed the car and were all yelling furiously in Bengali at the driver while rach and I cowered in the back seat. I honestly thought the cab driver was going to fight the other men or at least kick us out of the cab but he finally turned on the meter on. It was such a surreal moment as it was so unexpected. In general Indian men have a pretty bad reputation and we have already felt pretty uncomfortable when walking around, but then they surprised us by making sure we were not being taken advantage of by the driver. Anyways, it was a very interesting day to say the least!
We started work today and it was amazing...we are both already in love with all the kids:)
~Kim
After spending some time looking around, eating, and attempting to shop (we got led down these dark narrow alleyways that smelled so terrible I cannot even describe...we decided after all this not to buy anything which did not make the man selling very happy:), we wanted to catch a cab back to our place. We unknowingly decided to catch a cab just as the political rally ended. Rach and I hopelessly tried to catch a cab among the thousands of other people that were on this one street corner for quite a while until one finally stopped. We got into the cab and he said that the meter was broken (this is a way to overcharge tourists by just making up a huge price once you arrive). We tried to get him to turn it on and were having no luck until a man passing by noticed the meter was not on and started to yell at the cab driver. Within seconds at least 50 Indian men swarmed the car and were all yelling furiously in Bengali at the driver while rach and I cowered in the back seat. I honestly thought the cab driver was going to fight the other men or at least kick us out of the cab but he finally turned on the meter on. It was such a surreal moment as it was so unexpected. In general Indian men have a pretty bad reputation and we have already felt pretty uncomfortable when walking around, but then they surprised us by making sure we were not being taken advantage of by the driver. Anyways, it was a very interesting day to say the least!
We started work today and it was amazing...we are both already in love with all the kids:)
~Kim
Friday, February 11, 2011
Arrived!
After approximately 40 hrs of travelling we have arrived safely to Kolkata! We landed around 2:00am last night and made it in to the IICP (Indian Institute for cerebral palsy) around 2:30 am where we were shown to our rooms and went to sleep...last night we heard dogs barking, sirens ringing and a rooster cawing?...then we were woken up at 7:00am by blarring music in the street, definitely going to make use of my ear plugs tonight ;)
We will update you a little later this week.
Rachel xo
We will update you a little later this week.
Rachel xo
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Leaving in 8 hours!
As most of you have already heard, Rach and I have decided to start a blog of our trip to India. We are both pretty incompetent when it comes to anything technological...so wish us luck and we will do our best to keep you posted on our travels:) We leave in 8 hours for a ridiculously long travel time of almost 48 hours (we stop in both Toronto and Frankfurt)...nevertheless I am so so excited that I don't mind that much. We promise to update as soon as we arrive in Kolkata!!!!!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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