28 Posts later

Today is my last day.

This trip started out with little expectations, and fear of the unknown. What will India be like? Will I be able to breathe?What will the Americans be like, especially the one from the South? As my trip flew bye i got all the answers to these questions and more.

 India is an amazing place. Yes, it has alot of pollution. Yes, there is alot of corruption. Yes the traffic is HORBBILE.But all these problems i see here are the same we have back at home except we make more of an effort to hide them.Dispite these problems there is much that over shawdows them. The diversity, architechture, and the beautiful people. Indian hospitality is somthing we MUST pick up in North America. I beleive not many people would invite a random Indian girl to thier family Christmas party back in Canada. But here my friend Brandi got invited to a man's Diwali party that barley knew her. I KNOW that if i hired a taxi driver in B.C. he would not invite me and my 3 other friends to stay at his house and meet his family, if he did not have some other intentions. But agian at my surprise my taxi driver Sohdi brought me to his house in the Punjab to meet his pregnant wife, and family. He fed all of us and let us all stay in his extended family's vaction home. Amazing hospitality, with no expectation with anything in return.

 The crazy Americans which turned out not to be crazy, but some of my best friends I will never forget.I got to know more about the USA and how were not so diffrent from one another. When I first heard about this girl Carol Ann from Mississippi i thought, holy shit i'am going to living with this crazy southern girl who just wants sweet tea and to be on the cheer-leading team. Well, she was on the cheerleading team and she defiantly loves sweet tea among other southern food items, but she is also an amazing and kind hearted southern belle ;) Her compassion towards others and love for her children she taught was something you cant find in any old person. When we said goodbye to our taxi driver she was crying because he was so kind to us,is such a hard worker, and barley gets to see his pregnant wife on top of all that. Such care for a man she barley knew, showed me how truly amazing of a person she is.
 Miss Molly May for Gorham, Maine is another story. When i read she worked at Camp bow wow and lived in small town Gorham, Maine I defiantly thought she was going to be a crazy dog lady/hicktown situation. She turned out to be firery little girl with a tinge of blue :P She also was very touched by our taxi driver Sohdi and went out got pictures developed of our trip, and him with his family. One day after a very hectic class, Molly had come back with her shirt torn and face beating red. CA went to go chain smoke, and Molly sat inside eating cookies and venting about how the children went ape shit crazy beating each other, smacking crying babies, and tearing up the class room because the teacher didnt show up. After that hellish day that i know someone people would just call it quit. Molly sewed her shirt back up and went to class the next day. Although she spent more than half her time here with her skin dyed blue from this crappy shirt she bought in the market, and continued to wear for god knows what reason, she is an truly
 amazing person, with a amazing voice ;)

 Jersey Shore from Princeton aka Matt Carco is a whole nother story. With the expectations of being like Jersey shore i wasnt TOO terribly far off. The boy loves his Jordan's and food. Although he drives me a little nuts at times I wouldn't have him any other way. The first day when we were at our school it was so over whelming i just wanted to sit and cry. Matt got up infront of the class and did it all by himself until i could get my shit together. He is a awsome teacher and is great with the kids! Aside from everything being Haarrible, walking dawgs and drinking caffee he helped make my trip what it was. I'am so proud of him and how hard he has worked to be who he is today. This kid is meant for great things.

Miss Jennifer "Johnson" i really didn't know what to expect because i dont know any sterotypes for people from Denver. But i soon found out what she was like. Do not cross her, or it will be one of the last things you will do. Fiesty as all shit, and suborn. But on the inside of this hardened exterior is a compassionate hard worker. She was amazing with her patients and you could tell she truly cared about them. She was the first one up in the morning and the last one back from work in the afternoon and i never heard a complaint about it. I went to visit her placement the other day and the sisters were asking about her and telling me to say hi to her and miss her. I miss her as well and was so glad to  have gotten to know her as well as i did. I wish her all the best, and know she will achieve it with the amazing work ethic, and compassion she posses.

 Blea R, is actually a fellow Canadian but she still gets included. I can still remember us first talking before the trip even started. And now 11 weeks later after being roomates for more than half the time i was here it feels weird to go back and think about when we barley knew each other. She is a blunt as all be, but a very hard worker. She dedicated alot of time to helping people knit while she was here, as well as juggling two other placements. Great at helping others, and always willing to share her stuff no probelmo at all. Without my fellow Canadian i dont know who the hell i would have talked to Tim Horton;s about  :P

In all this trip was everything i wanted it to be and more. Some people have such a crappy attitude about this beautiful country, but they only see what they want to see. If you go looking for garbage,poverty, and  pollution you are going to find it. But what about if you go looking for beauty,kindness, and overall amazing people? I guarantee you will not need to look hard for. So next time you think you know somewhere i highly suggest checking it out, before painting it with one brush.India is more than you think people! So thank-you all for your support, and kind words. This trip has been life changing, and the best thing for me at this time in my life.
LOVE.PEACE.
Nameste

Chloe. Amber

White water rafting, Beatles Ashram, and Cliff jumping.

Beatles Ashram

Ganges Cliff Jump

@ beach along Ganges

Well kids its about that time;
My trip is nearing to a end it its so hard to believe! After seeing all these new people come and go it is now my time to say goodbye!This weekend was my last weekend trip. We went to Rishikesh, and Hariwar. Which is supposed to be a 7hr drive, but we got lost trying to find our hotel and it turned into 9hrs. It was well worth the drive though! We stayed in our first 4 star hotel while here. Skye and I were in heaven! Soft pillows, clean sheets, and a real shower. We joked about wanting to just go back to our hotel room take a shower, and watch discovery chanel on our HD tv and skip the sun set prayer on the Ganges.
We started off our Sat morning going to the ashram The Beatles stayed @ in the mid 60's. It was "closed down" aka had a random man with crutches pretending to be a gaurd charging 50rs a head to get in. It was completely abandoned which made it so much cooler. Our guide said to watch out for elephants because they walk aroudn wild there. This ashram was in the jungle so i would beleive it. Giant yellow and black spiders, and monkeys flailing around everywhere. We saw a monkey with a missing hand and it was very sad. On our way back through the village there was a man pushing a cart who almost rolled over a cow laying on the ground. It wouldnt have been a life threating situation, but Paula took it upon herself to yell WATCH OUT and get behinde the cart and redirect the man away from the cow. Agian people stared at us, and i laughed and walked away. Later on in the evening we went to the Ganges river to watch the sunset ceremony. TONS of poeple where there and everything was very hectic. We bought these little flower baskets with candles in them and ran down towards the river before we missed the ceremnoy. We all each got wisked off by seperate preistto preform our Pooja. He would natter away somthing in Hindi say OM and get me to go OM. He prayed for my husband and kids and then lit my candle and i sent it off down the Ganges along with my prayer. The priest of corse asked me for 200RS, which he did not get. It was a very India experince Fast Fursious and someone demanding money for a free service.
Sunday Skye and I went white water rafting down the Ganges. Who knew it was possible? Not I. It was VERY enjoyable and clean. Because we were in Rishikesh it was a feed off from the mountain and not filled with dead bodies and floating baby corpse as is Varinasis Ganges. We met up with these two Brits Hamish and Jack, and tow girls from Mumbai whos names we didnt catch. The whole time the girls were holding onto the boat for dear life and the boys and us were joking around. The rapid were level 4 out of 5 so u can imagine what kind of situation was going on there. The instructor told us if we fell out the boat just to lay on our back until the rapids were over. I would have been very scary and hard not to drown if we had fallen out. We stopped about half way through our 16km ride and went cliff jumping. This one guy did a belly flop from the top of the cliff casue he hesitated, we think he broke his jaw. It was by far the worst belly flop i have ever seen in person. He called it a day after that. We then body surfed down the Ganges floating around until it was time to tackle our next rapids. Over all it was a very successful weekend and I had much fun with Skye!

Paula and Goa

Alexis and I

Hello All;

So Paula’s arrival has gone well and first week has wiped bye. I will let her do a little blurb at the end . Her and I are now roommates which has proved to be interesting seeing as she goes to MTDD at 7am and while preparing for her day she turns on ALL the lights bounces around and tries to have conversations with me. Really  Paula? She has even  thrown my sleeping out of wack because she wants to nap during the day so I nap with her and then she wakes up early 4am and crawls into bed  with me. Btw we sleep in single size beds.  So needless to say its nice to have her here but mabey not as a roommate. My other roommate Jennifer from the original group of  6 has gone home  L I now miss her and sitting in her bed while typing this blog post. For haloween we went to a pub situation for a Zombie  Party. We all dressed up like Zombies and walked to the pub. Can u imagine a pack of tourist running down the road dressed as zobies? We has pretty mixed reactions, I climbed on the front of someones  truck to scare these workers and one  guy was ligit scared so i felt bad. We passed an elder lady and she looked at her daughter confussed and her daughter responded , “Haloween Mama!” The walk there was probs the most  entertaining  part of the night.

Midweek I got  sick again! In bed with horrible shakes/fever super nautious. Thankfully i just slept it off and was ready to leave for Goa this weekend. But poor mom got sick and is still sick! She has the same thing I did and was sick for our trip to Goa.  Because it was Diwali this week there were SOOOO many firecrackers being lit, even as i write  this i can hear them  going off still. I was sitting in my bed sick talking the Jennifer  and some damn rebel rascals lit a firecracker off right  outside my window (room backs onto a alley) and when it exploded it litteraly shook my bed. So i think i have had enough of firecrackers for the time being thanks kids.... 

Anyways  Paula  and I went to Goa aka Arbian Sea this long weekend. We  left Thursday and got there in the evening  and Paula was not feeling well  so she went to bed pretty much right aways. Then the next day we walked  down to the beach like a 5min walk sat on some beach lounges under a umbrella and drank some cocktails with the ocean waves drifting right up to the base of our loungers. After  sitting there for a couple hrs Paula went back to the hotel and slept  thru till the next day.  That next morning Paula woke up at 4am still feeling ill but got the strength to do a tour with me. So we went to Turtle beach sat there for a  couple hrs relaxed  ate some King Prawns. They were delish.  After that we went to  some churches. 60% of Goa is Catholic so there were many of  ornate churches. We went to this one churchs where we saw the relics of Saint Francis Xazier, who is said to have has his hand cut off shipped to Portuagal and then it etched out its initials. Every 10 years  they put his body out on display. So after that we went to ride Elephants. I was going to wash the elephant in the river which was an option, but because it had just finished raining the river was red with iron deposit run offs. While Paula and i were riding the elephant there was A GIAT SPIDER Paula freaked  of corse and i took a picture, it was for sure bigger than my hand. As for today our last day i went parasailing! It was fun to be way up there floating aroud with the sea breeze in my face!

 Anyways after  fun in the sun catching a tan and seeing WAY to many men in speedos I’am home watching Mona Lisa Smile with my roommates.

Girls just want to have fun

Hellllllllooooooooo;

Bacon Flavour Black forest cake

Same birthday as Keri!

ITS MY BIRTHDAY

HJ getting a manicure

So just everyone knows Paula is joining me in 2 and a half days!! Iam so excited to show her my world, and also wish that everyone who reads my blog could also come and see what i write about! So at the old folks place aka Earth Saviours there are these two girls that one of the worker's kids. Joyti=brick wall. NO kidding she is thick and strong, probably like 4. When she takes things from me its really ahrd to get it out of her stealy grip. It's not just me, Harold says she really strong to. Joyti's little sisters name is Shivawni, she is two and is SO SMALL. Mom she is like a Rachel from Zambia. Her hair is really brittle and a tinge of orange in it. They both are too young ot go to school that we have at Earth Saviours so they just hang out wiht me and the old people all day. Joyti wonders around and does her own thing but she mostly likes to sit on my lap while i try to other tasks making my life more difficult. Shivawni dost walk by herself yett becasuse she is to weak to do so. I try to feed her food but she only wants to breast feed. So in turn Joyti eats her portion thus growning into a brick wall. But when the elders go to the hall to eat thier breakfast I take Shivawni for walks holding both her hands as she waddles between my legs. She gets tired pretty fast and is really aprehensive when the ground gets really bumpy. If i try to walk beside her while holding bother her hands she starts screaming, she HAS to see my feet on ither side of her or its a no go and she stops walking. The other day it was nice and sunny so i brough one of the elders out into the sun to sit with me. I put one of my head phones in her ear and listend to Billie Holiday, Frank, Ella, and Louis. There was a nice warm breeze sweaping across the yard keeping me from sweating profusly. But then brick wall Joyti came and sat on my lap and then the sweat started comming really good. I tried pushing her off a couple times but she would just climb back up. She is a true Yuncha Bozo. Today i was at the preschool, and decided to have girls day. I brought the older girls into the teachers room and did thier nails and braided freindship braclets with them. They sat there nattering away about somthing as we braided our braclets. Then they wanted me to put bindi dots on thier faces with nail polish, as well as give me one. Girls day went over extremely well! and at the end two girls came up to me and asked for kisses on thier cheeks and in turn kissed me on the cheek. It was sweet. On my way walking thru the slums to my class i noticed there was a big pile of wood all chopped up and thought mabey they were doing a cremation but saw no body. On the way back through my walk  where the path forks and there is a rancid urine smell i was covering my face. I also smelt smoke but thoguht nothing of it cause they burn the garbage on the side on the path all the time. But then a whole bunch of men came out of nowhere and were walking together. Turns out they did cremate a body.

Nasty toes

Birthday @ earth saviours

Avi and I

Maya @ Vidya =evil

Joyti eating and Shvawani smelling a cacker

I dont know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

Hello All;

Well another 3 weeks has flown bye, Molly and Carol Ann have already been home for a week and the last batch of new people leave today/this weekend. I feel like i was just getting to know all them and now they are going away :( I have really enjoyed getting to know Nancy imparticular. She reminds me of mom and its nice to have a mom figure around. We watch movies together each night, but sometimes she has to go to bed early because she cant stay awake, remind you of anyone? She lives in New York and is a volunteer at the Neonatial dep holding very sick babies. We had a last meal out last night out with everyone. It was really good, nancy and i shared these stuffed potatoes with cottage chesse and spices backed in a tandoor then rolled in seaseme seeds. I also got a pomagrante marinated chicken rubbed with Indian spices baked in a tandoor. Delsih all around. OH i also learned how to make Nann bread!!! We have a clay oven outside aka one of those drum things that Pappa used to burn garbage in or hold water in at the Bradner farm. What you do is flatten out your Nann then put it on like this oval songe thing and slap it against the side of the oven. But make you you do it hard enough of eles it falls off into the ashes! Pawan the cook looked at me like i was stupid when i was trying to flap the dough between my hands to make it bigger. It turned out well and delish, i love Nann. Auntie J i had a dream about you last night we were eating food you brought some new appy you were trying out and i think it went arye. I have been having such vivid dreams about everything latly! Like really vivid dreams mabey its all the spices ive been eating. Its starting to get cooler at night now which is nice casue iam pretty tired of sweating so much that i need to change my clothes. But it is still a must to sleep with the fan on the dead air is so gross. OHHH i did somthing really indish yesterday. I went to a travelors tea shop where you pay what you want for the tea you drink. And you can just chill there all day and not pay a thing if you want. You can put your own ipod on to listen to music, and read the books / travel journals that people have left there. On our way there with Avi and Matt we walked through Deer Park and it started POURING rain SOOO WINDY. I was tripping out for sure. Then like 4 meter infront of us we hear this big crack and a tree fell down on the path!! We all got so sketch we started running to get out of Death Park. Oh have a i told you guys that there are dirty little orange and white kittens living in the garden baskets in my next door neighbours.I havnt touched them, but it makes me think of a certain two black cat sisters that would not last a day out here with all the traffic dogs and mean rabid cats.
Today we are planning to go to the worlds largest temple. Which should be cool, even tho pictures are prohibited. So i think today it will be Avi, Matt, Matt and Jennifer. Oh i havnt talked about my new friends yett. Avi is 19 turning 20 soon from Chiacgo he is very sweet and we get along well. Matt Roman, no not Jersey this is a diffrent Matt. He is 21 from San Fransisco, super energetic and deffo a jock. He goes for runs quite frequently through Death Park and plays lacross back home. Then there is Jenn and Pam the mother daughter duo from Calgary. They wake up every morning at 5am even on the weekend to go for runs and do Yoga, how bout it mom you up for the challenge? Pam is a head nurse on emerge, and Jenn is attending UBC next year HOLLA. Alright iam very hungry must go change and get ready for lunch :)
Husky Jane

Bittersweet Weekend

Helllo all!
Iam now talking to you as a 19 year old. Do i sounds more mature? Perhaps. This weekend was my first weekend home in a long time. I will start off with my week. Because of a holiday my placement Vidiya closed down so i went to Earth Saviours Foundaiton. It is ran by a man named Ravi I think. He was a wealthy man but has put everthing he had into this foundation he started. He had a wife and two kids, who are on all his posters for the foundation (which is really cute) But she left him just recently and now he lives at the foundation. Its on a farm and has a school adn a oldfloks home all bundled up in one on it. As well as a trampoline rat pet cages, adn parrtos. Its SO nice to change up and not work in the slums. To have grass to play on and run around on. While there iam working with old people. One lady was abondond on the door step by her son. The other was found living in a old TV box in a dump, she has slight dementia which we think is due to trauma she claims she saw her daughter murderd in front of her or says somthign eles i forget the other one. But somthing happend. She has a huge scar on her inner thigh she keeps showing me. The other one i forget but she dosnt talk. Anyways the one lady who was abonded still talks to her son but only phones him to curse him. He aprnt misses her and is sorry for leaving her. Anyways she has a rats nest for hair, or shoud i say did. I started off by thinking mabey to get a few knots out. and two days later I brushed all it out. It was GROSS i felt my fingers crawling. As i unbrushed each clumb of hair i was discovering nasty ass crumbs and like dead skin flakes in it and TONS of hair was falling out becasue it was trapped in the knots. She was SO happy she kept praising me and blessing me. Then someone stole my hair conditoner while i was away, i think it was one of the workers. I was kinda teeved. Then I washed the other ladies feet and massaged them with burts bees coconut oil. they loved it. The Handicap lady was getting impatient saw that i brushed the one ladies hair and washed and rubbed the other ladies feet. She kept nattering away to me and was like pacing waitng for her feet to be done. I got aroudn to her eventually. And when i was done she said thankyou in English!! I was so surpised and so happy. That all happend on my birthday. So while i was washing the feet of the ladies i didnt notice but they set up a surpise birthday for me. They bouht me a chocolate cake and made a poster. Everyone sang me happy bithday and they gave me a gift and An old Sir Ji i think he was like the most respected one came up blessed me and gave me the gift and 1,100 RS which is like 25 bucks. and thast a HUGE DEAL. Like these ppl were all taken off the streets. I dont even work with the men i work with the women. I got chooked up and tried to give the money back but aprnt it tradtion. So i went back and told the CCS boss here  they guy who takes care of me what happend. He said he was sooo surprised and gave me special permission to spend the moeny on gifts for them. What? Id ont know knoe any suggestions? I dont wanna give anyhting that can be stolen easily without noone noticing liek a book soap or clothes. Anyways i had to cut my cake and serve it as tradtion as blessing the other people or somthing. but not before all the elders fed me a bite of cake and i did the same. As out of respect. THEN i got home to my flat and everyone was eating lunch (mutton stew) and they had another cake for me and Carrie another volunteers 31st birthday! and more gifts i got a pillow case india style and a key chain. I got 4 cards and tons of wishes!!!!!!!!! After Lunch i went and got my nails done at the salon! YAY then went to the mall with Jennifer and got a dress highheels and necklace. Poopey Doopey cleaned up real good for her 19th. We then headed out to a club and danced the nighaway. The next day i said goodbye to Molly and the day after that CarolAnn. It was a very bittersweet weekend. it feels so quite as i peck away at the keyboard sitting beside Jennifer, knowing that CarolAnn and molly would be here right now. I skyped Molly already and it SO weird to see her at home when she was just with me a couple nights ago but will now sleep in her own bed tongiht for the first time in 6weeks. Her parents made her chicken pot pi and apple crumble. Iam jelous. I miss them both terribly. But its all part of the experince making good friends but having to say goodbye. Although iam sad iam so happy to have met them.its 118am and i should probably go to sleep. goodnight yall

Dharmsala

Hey guys;

So i got back from Dharmsala this morning at 10am. The trip started off with a 12 hr bus ride up the mountains. That was least to say interesting.... We were pinning it the whole time and going over all these unpaved roads. Our heads smashing around, mine actually smashed the glass, that was fun. Mom you would have gotten off the bus straight up. More than once my ass actually lifted off the seat and my body caught some air. Carol Ann took a Ambien to try and help her sleep but because the bus ride was sooo turbulant she didnt fall asleep and ended up halucinating that there were forest people and mermaids in her purse. At one point after noding off for awhile i woke up to all of our bags in the over head compartment flying out into the asiles. One the way back i swear we were falling off a cliff edge. Looking back, next time i will take a train or fly. The cheaper way isnt worth it. When we arrived in Dharm we went to our hotel quickly to drop off our bag and then rushed to the monestary to mediate. But when i say rushed i really mean 5 of us slammed into a 4 person honda civic hatch back winding on 1 way mountain roads where you have to beep before going around a corner in prep for another car comming the other way. One side of the road is a mountain and the other side in the cliff. Once we got the the monestary, we sat in a free mediatation class led by a man from europe named Richard. We focused on the breathing the black out of our souls and bringing in the white light. It felt SO GOOD to breath in fresh mountain air! We were in a cozy room the smell of insence filled the room and the sun was streaming in through the trees into the room. Once we were done that we had some tea, headed back to the hotel ate lunch and crashed for 2hrs. Later on that night we went out for dinner, and tibetan refuges. they ran away from Tibet and walked to dharm in a 28day hike. It was really sad listening to thier story. But they loved me becasue they thought i was one of them! Which later on worked out to my advantage when buying goods from the vendors. In Dharm the Tibet influence is huge, tons of monks, and all the stuff they sell in Tibet goods. We were the only people in the hotel that we stayed in. It had a amazing view. I sat out on my porch with a amazing veiw of the mountains, writing in my journal breathing in the fresh mountain air! I love it! Auntie J you would have been there with my drinking Masal tea and enjoying the sun streaming through the mountains peaks. In the middle of the night a CREEPY tune was playing in the halls at 3am. It turned out being a doorbell polytone of Fur elise. But Carol Ann got soo creeped up becasue she thought it was a creepy man trying to play mind games with us before killing us. LOL. Oh yes and the hotel manager came to say goodnight to us. So sweet. The next day we went for a hike. It started off as us just walking around trying to find a path. We ended up bumping into ladies singing thier way up the mountain, as they do every sunday to sacrifse a goat at a mountain top temple. It was a amazing hike!!! I was huffing pretty good due to the steep incline and altitude. When we parted ways with the  group i ended up going up to the top of a diffrent mountain. I was litterally crawling on all fours at a couple points, because iam husky, and i got lost and went the harder way. When i finally made it to the top i just sat there and let the white light flood my body. Just such a feeling of peace and at the same time feeling so insignfiicant to these mountains that could easily swallow me up and spit me out if they wanted to. The girls later one showed up and we sat there taking some pics and just breathing in the moment, and trying to live it as much as we could. On the way back down Brandie and I swam in a glacier run off. Froze my ass off, but at the same time felt cleansing. I hiked back ahead of the crowd to sit with my thoughts. I just love the feeling of hearing nothing but your own foot steps and you trek through the mountains. I also was to preoccupied and ended up getting lost and having to climb through peoples back yards up a couple steeps, it was embarassing people were staring. After the hike we went shopping! I went to a music shop and almost bought a sami-sen type intsterment from tibet. When i was playing the G-tar the asian vendor had rancid gas. I swear everytime i started playing a new song he was blowing of another gross rotting mountain goat asian fart. It was horrible. The bus ride back home was the same thing, wehre i felt like i was dying the whole time. Now picture time.

Resting

Quater of the way

Tibet Refuge

Village home

Children that followed us

The biggest hail ive ever seen

Yoga

Chillin in glacier run off

Husky life, this ones for Geog Master GB

HJ