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