Happiness Update

Since I left America I have received so many emails, comments on my blog and facebook contacts of support. I am so grateful for this. I feel so lucky to know that I have such great friends and family all over the world supporting and praying for me and for what goes on here at Shishya! Pretty soon our family will be getting bigger… my beautiful sister Annie got engaged to her boyfriend Andrew over Thanksgiving! I am so happy and excited for them! YAY!!!

So instead of shadowing the English teacher last week, I got thrown right in and started teaching English Lit and Grammar to 8th, and English Grammar to 7th and 6th graders. It’s so challenging but I feel like I am learning so much! The 8th graders are typical teenagers when it comes to being in the classroom but with a little twist since it’s India… the 6th graders are really really loud and the 7th graders are pretty sweet… but still a little loud. Ahhh classroom management. Something I need to learn for the next 5 months… and for my career as well. When it came to teaching life skills to the 8th graders last Friday morning, they were so quiet and attentive. We talked about self image and then I tied in some biblical and God references on the subject. I loved how everything went. That means the school counseling career may be a great fit after all, right? If I could teach life skills all day I would.

So on Picasa I have pictures I am uploading while I’m here for people to see. The link is on the left panel and I’ll update it as I go along.





The picture above is of my little buddy Rohan that I try to work on homework with who lives in the home and goes to the school. We think he is about 6… He doesn’t speak English besides a few words but he is so sweet. I help the other boys with homework too where I’m needed. The other picture was snapped randomly and for some reason they were all lined up and it made for an interesting shot. In the background Ratan is on the left with Barrat on the right (he can’t get enough of Alaska.) The boy’s names from the back lined up are Gatum, Rohan and Ashish. More pictures of the boys are on the link. All the boys have such great smiles I can’t get enough!

My roommates and me celebrated thanksgiving here with chicken to eat among other things…. and we even had pumpkin pie! It was quite the feast. That same week Amanda, Liz and me were invited to some ones home for food. The girl is a student at Shishya and they were so hospitable and the food was delicious. They were literally stuffing food down are throats and wanted us to stay longer than we could and insisted that we come back soon. I’ve noticed that children and school offer food to the teachers. If you decline they push you even more to eat some. I think offering food to people is so important here, and a sign of respect and hospitality.

I learned last weekend that only married women living in India wear toe rings.

We also got our clothes from the tailors last weekend. Everything turned out great! I could defiantly get used to the clothing style here—it’s so comfortable! We rode the school bus in to town to get our clothes, which was an experience in itself! All the kids literally cram into the manual 4x4 school bus and we bounced down the road in this hot hot bus! (couldn’t even imagine what it IS like during the hot months.. woowee)We picked up some groceries and rode the bus back but not without some delicious food! I had my first semosa. Delicious!

Saturday night there was a concert at the school for older boys and friends and a Christian band played and there was dancing and food and games! It was SO fun! I loved chai (chai means tea. so it's weird we call it chia tea!) before I came here but they serve it everywhere here. During break time at school all the teachers drink chai. Yummmm… I am going to learn how to make it!


We are all busy working on the Shishya School Christmas pageant and Liz and I figured out our train tickets for our Christmas break with Ken McRae. He told us which trains to get on and stuff so it was so helpful! We are leaving the day after Christmas for Goa, Kerala, Jaipor and Agra for the Taj! “Adventure is out there!” (I love the movie Up.)

I learned this weekend one of the teachers at the school, Lizzy, is Catholic. She lives near Shishya and offered to take us into Dehra Dun for mass and to get our train tickets. It’s about 30 mins away. The winter mass times changed and we ended up going to mass in Hindi! Before we met a really nice older nun named Hilary. Her English was quite good and she gave us a little walking tour where the church is as fast as she could on her walker. There is the prettiest tree there called a Bougainvillea. There are pictures on the link. The church we went to is Saint Francis Xavier. Hopefully we’ll be able to make it in to mass at least a few times while we are here. After the service there were a few beggars walking around. Just broke my heart. After mass we went to the train station, which was insane!! Liz did such a great job pushing her way through to the ticket booth only to not get the answers we needed about trains and stuff. Eventually we got a few legs of our trip figured out but only after a little hecticness! As I was waiting in line a young woman I think wanted to practice her English. She was so sweet. She told me I wore Indian Dress well :) Made my day. Lizzy has the cutest little family and after church and getting our train tickets we had lunch and I had the best spring rolls in my life. They were filled with chow mien… YUMMMM… so good!

Today at lunch Barrat and I were talking about favorites (color, number, animal, ect.) I said wolf when he asked me and he said “ Like White Fang” I was SHOCKED he knew that movie! It was filmed in Haines! I thought that was really neat.

Musoorie

So that first post after getting here was very long. I guess those who really want to know what was going on got the gist of it! The electricity goes out a lot here. Am I feeling homesick yet? Yes and No. Liz’s birthday was a couple of days ago so we had a party at the little boy’s house. Chow mien on a special cup cake plate for the birthday girl and a happy extended birthday song. Liz is whom I plan on traveling around India and hopefully to Nepal with while I’m over here. I changed my return ticket for April instead of in May because of my visa. After that thunderstorm it’s definitely cooling off more and it’s dark by 6, but not without an incredible sunset first. India sunsets are by far the best I have ever seen. On our drive to Mussoorie we stopped in Dehra Dun to get some fabric for our new wardrobe. I bought fabric for three shirts and a pair of pants for about 15 dollars. We’ll take the fabric to a tailor near by to make our clothes. I’m excited I like the colors I picked out! Greens, white, reds and purples.

I knew that there was a leper colony near Dehra Dun but I learned this weekend on our drive to Mussoorie there are actually a couple of boys in the home whose parents live there.

Our weekend in Mussoorie was incredible. Frieda drove us up on Saturday and we stayed over night with someone they knew and we got back today. The drive is a couple of ours from Shishya in the Himalayas. It’s about 7 thousand feet up and you drive up this windy road that’s got two lanes, but it’s about as wide as one side of the lane in the states. There was even a landslide that covered half of the road at one spot! The road was steep with tight turns and the elevation gain was pretty drastic! There are lots of cows in this part of India and there were some on the roads too… There are monkeys all over the place and you could see them on the road and in the trees. Liz compared the number of monkeys that are around to squirrels in the states! I’m not going to lie; I got a little headache on the ride up. But the view was incredible and the location of the Mussoorie is breathtaking. The houses are literally on the sides of the mountains at the top and all over the luscious green landscape. The British established Mussoorie in 1823 and it’s a popular holiday destination. You can see the Doon Valley were Dehra Dun is and on the other side the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas. You can tell it’s’ a popular tourist spot. The place is very clean, and like I said before the sunset was I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E. But before the sunset we did some grocery shopping and saw the church that Frieda and Ken were married in called Saint Paul’s. I looked inside and it’s very pretty. The service this morning at 930 didn’t have one but would have been neat to experience! We had lunch near there when we arrived and I had a tortilla type thing with potato, cheese and onions in it with a banana type smoothie drink. Delicous! The food is so good in India. I thought maybe I would lose weight here but I don't think so! So to back track Frieda and Sharon left to go back to Shishya and Amanda, Abby, Liz and me stuck around to go to the bazaar and I bought some cute earrings. For dinner we had this delicious vegetarian dish with cauliflower in it with garlic Nan. Again, delicious. After our night in Mussoorie, we walked back to Woodstock, a boarding school, where a friend of Frieda’s is a house parent for girls that go there. Her name is Sabrina and she is from Canada. She had been working with sex trafficked women and children in Mumbai but is currently working at the school but hopes to have her own charity someday working with sex trafficked victims. She was very inspiring. You can check out the Woodstock school here to get a better idea of the area it’s in and where we were. Before our taxi ride back down on Sunday we walked the loop around and it was a crystal clear day to see the snow capped peaks in the distance. Back at Woodstock while we waited for our taxi back to Shishya, I played 2on2 basketball with some 8th grade boys and played HORSE with a kid from Nepal. It was fun! I had a great time visiting with the other girls at Shishya and getting to know them better.






I am shadowing the classes I’ll be teaching this week. The teacher I am replacing is leaving because she is getting married soon to a man that was arranged by her parents. She told me once she is married she will live with her husband and his family. He is in the military and could be transferred around a lot. There are four military academies in India and one is near Dehra Dun but there are some other bases and things we passed as well.

I decided that traveling within India is important while I am here, but I knew before I came here that my sole reason was to spend time at Shishya. We have a break in December and into January and again in March for a couple of weeks. The plan is to take a trip after Christmas for a couple of weeks then the plan in March is to see Nepal, and whatever else on the way.

In India

I MADE IT!!! 3 hours to Seattle, 20 to Seoul, 8 to New Delhi and another 9 on a bus to Dehra Dun where we took a 30-minute car ride to Shishya. The plane right from Seoul to New Delhi was SO hot and dry. That flight was the only one I actually slept on a little. I went through customs and didn’t get the answer I wanted about going into Nepal in March then took a right and sat at the coffee shop to wait for my ride and Liz. I was supposed to take a left and sit at the coffee shop so make a long story short all parties waited about an hour extra because I went to the wrong spot. Oops. A nice Indian man who worked for an airways visited with me for a while and insisted on buying me a treat or coffee. I respectfully declined but he ended up buying a piece of cake he wanted to share. He also kept checking on Liz’s flight arrival for me. He was the first person I really talked to since Seattle. He asked why I was in the country and for how long. I didn’t tell him the whole truth but he insisted that I make time to see Delhi.

(Before I forget, I thought there would be Wi-Fi in the housing here but there isn’t. There is a wireless stick so I won’t be able to text from my itouch like I thought I would be able too. But that’s okay to go without as much technology for a little bit. Not being connected all the time is kind of nice. I’m sure when I do some other traveling I’ll be able to use my itouch at some point. There are other ways to get ahold of me! )

After meeting up with Liz and Vijay we took a 45-minute taxi to the bus stop. It was early in the morning around 6 and so many people were already out. It was dark but we went by markets and so many homeless people. The traffic is crazy here. There are lines on the roads but people are swerving in and out and right before you have a head on collision or clip a motorcycle, within inches they get out of the way. Horns are constantly going on the streets. Sometimes I think people just do it just to hear it. On the highway from the airport people were walking against traffic where there wasn’t even a shoulder on the road. We were to catch a bus to Dehra Dun which was near Shishya. We saw so many people on our drive. There are a lot of men in India. Frieda said that a lot of times when people find out that they are having a girl, they abort it. It’s illegal to know what the sex of the baby is before having it in India for that reason. So seeing more men might have something to do with it just also that maybe women don’t go out as much. So we get a ride to the bus station that is in this old, dusty abandoned building. It’s something straight out of a movie. We had to walk through and down the building to get to the bottom where the buses were. I took a great mental picture but will have to take an actual picture if I go through there again. The taxi and bus ride was paid for by Shishya, but was still very cheap by the US dollar. For example the 9-hour bus ride only cost about 5 dollars. The bus was dirty and crowded but it was the experience I wanted!

A few hours out of Delhi the smog clears up and farmland is abundant. It’s luscious green and bumpy. The bus broke down in the steep winding road down to Dehra Dun. We passed this empty riverbed in a few spots and people were living along the banks in these grass huts they built. Again, I only took mental pictures but it was so incredible. The women were wearing such bright clothing it was something out of national geographic. It was warm when we got here. It was sticky and hot in Delhi and we didn’t eat much on our journey. When we got to Dehra Dun, Ken, the co-founder of Shishya picked us up on the street and took us to his home to meet Frieda and have a meal, which was delicious. A mild curry with eggs and vegetables with rice. While we were waiting for Ken some homeless children walked up to us begging. I locked eyes with one of the girls and a part of me just wanted to take her with us. After Frieda and Ken’s Frieda drove us to Shishya. After turning on the road to the school the traffic disappeared and we were in a more rural spot. The sunset was bright pink and so beautiful. The school is on 30 acres that they bought, but I guess now it’s only 22 since people are building on it. There is a chicken farm illegally right next to the school so there are lots of flies but the campus is really beautiful (and the smell could be worse). Big trees and very neat. It’s what I imagined it to be and I’m happy it is the way it is. The volunteer housing is very nice. They just got hot showers and I share a room with a girl named Abby who is 19 and from Michigan. Apparently I have been talking in my sleep plenty but what’s new? The house has an upstairs and a down stairs. There are four people up stairs and currently two downstairs. Abby, Sharon and Amanda leave in the next couple of months but new volunteers will be showing up in January.

I’m a little worried about getting lice, being bit and getting malaria (even though that isn’t in this area) or getting Japanese Encephalitis. But it’s part of the experience I guess if I get lice. Getting sick will happen at some point.
My first day at the school was yesterday. The kid’s wear uniforms Mon- Thurs and are casual on Fridays. I had to wear the proper attire but I wore my green khakis with a top I borrowed from Amanda. I’ll need to borrow clothes until this weekend when we can go shopping. Once at the school Frieda had me work on some Life Skills stuff right away. I gave her Heather Lende’s book “If You Lived Here I’d Know Your Name” For her and her husband. I love Haines. I want people to know where I’m from. I have a couple of picture books on Haines and Southeast and brought some Alaska playing cards ;) Some o the kids at school have already asked about it.

There are a lot of schools around Shishya. Public education is a joke in India so people pay for their kids to go to school if the can. The boys that are taken care of here obviously don’t, they are sponsored. Shishya just got a grant to build on and have high school too which is great!

I noticed that kids actually play here. They kids giggle a lot too... I love it. They chase each other around and play with sticks and rocks and balls. So much different than kids in the states. The kids are so respectful and call you Ma’m. So I’m “Kelly Ma’m”. So cute. The kid’s names are hard to pronounce and they will be hard to remember. Eating with your hands is normal... which I haven't done yet and will take some getting used to. Same with the idea that big snakes are around. I also saw the biggest beetle I have ever seen in my life last night. Most people know english but sometimes teachers and students speak Hindi and I get a little lost and it's hard to understand some because of the accent but overall its easy to understand things here. The school is a Christian school but they hire teachers of many different faiths.

Shishya does a big Christmas pageant and I am helping Frieda’s daughter with a skit. Everyday I pretty much do the same thing. School, then lunch with the boys at their home, help them study, then we play with them or have our own time, then meet up with them for dinner at their home (where we eat on the floor in a circle) then help them study. Every other weekend we live with the boys in their home while their house parents are away. There is a house for the little boys where there is 13 of them. There is a big boys home but volunteers don’t go over there. I am helping one young boy in particular named Rahan. He doesn’t know English very well but he is the most adorable thing I have ever seen. So smiley and sweet. Pretty much already stole my heart. It would have been helpful to have some stuff from my reading tutor job last year. Oh well. There are quite a few resources here.

The food it good here. The water is too from the well. I think drinking from a well growing up helps with the kind of water it is. Some people here are even afraid of drinking the water from the well. It’s peaceful around Shishya. The allergies are kind of getting to me. You can see the Himalayas very close: about 10 miles away. I bought a dozen eggs for less than a dollar. Apparently you don’t refrigerate your eggs here? Last night before dinner the boys were in their room and dancing to a beat they were hitting on a tin box. It was so great. Everything the boys have fits into small box and that’s it.

I don’t feel the effects of jet lag too bad. I slept well the last two nights. Last night I woke up to a thunder and lightning storm so that we interesting. Turns out I am one of 3 catholic volunteers here. Sharon, one of my roommates upstairs is letting me borrow her daily devotional prayer book which is nice. I still can’t figure out how to change the time on the watch Annie got me… it’s hard because it’s still on Alaska Time!

For all the people who asked if I would be teacher English here and I said no, I guess I lied. They need an English teacher here and guess who gets to fill in? Yup, me. Can you say overwhelmed? Yes. Very much. I get to shadow the teacher next week then do everything on my own after that for grades 6,7 and 8. On top of that I am helping teach Sunday school class to first grade then doing assembles twice a week with Liz and on Fridays I’m teaching Life Sills to 8th graders. I am adding to the curriculum for grades 1-7 by adding bible versus and connections but won’t be teaching Life Skills to them. So here I am, in India teaching English but a lot of other things too.

This is a long post. But a lot has happened already since I’ve been here!!

This weekend we are headed to a village in the Himalayas. I'm very very excited to be here.

Some Thoughts

I've thought about how personal to make this blog. I have three journals I am taking to India with me (thank you Holl and Karina. They will come in good use, believe me.) A part of me is tempted to spill out all of my frustration and stress I've experienced lately. I actually just deleted a post that was up for about an hour that just laid out everything. Three people looked at the site. Whoever that was saw a little (lot) perspective. Then I remembered all the people that could be reading this: teachers I've had, people I've dated, and friends I really don't know anymore. A part of me thinks by spilling my guts it will help me relieve some stress. Yelling in the car isn't a good idea, especially when the dog you're taking care of is confused out of her mind as to why it's happening.

So I deleted the first post and am reposting in a more simple way. Basically this is what it was in a nutshell originally: Am I ready for India? Will I be as productive as I need to be? In what ways will I change in India? Will I allow that change to happen? Where is my life leading me?

One of my best friend's older sisters once said, "You have never really lived until you have lived outside of your comfort zone." That can have a lot of different definitions. Have you lived outside your comfort zone?