Samosas and Saris

 

It's been a roller-coaster week here in India for me. From great workshops to bus drivers sniffing drugs. From eating ice cream to having things stolen.

 

I've seen a calf in an auto, a goat on the back of a motorbike, I had lunch somewhere in Arni where the chappatti tasted like metal. Men at an auto-stand nearly had a punch up over whose auto I would go in.

 

An older man shouting really angrily at me and Sam, as we stop to take a photo along a quiet road from the school. What is he shouting? Oh 'SAMOSA!??' He doesn't move from where is has stopped. Glaring at Sam, he really wants her to eat his samosa!

I've eaten spicy popcorn, a million bananas and enough rice to feed the cast of the Tollywood film I watched last week.

 The watchman gets involved.

 

Workshops have involved wall painting, drama, movement, salt-dough and sewing. This week the kids at Arni just kept coming up to me and saying banana. It took me a while to understand, but then I remembered a couple of weeks ago, I said banana in a very silly voice and crossed my eyes. Funny news obviously travels.

 

Wednesday couldn't have been more unpredictable, as when I met Sam at the bus stop where we catch our bus to Arni. A old happy man with hardly any teeth, seemed very happy to meet us. It was a moment of 'what is happening?' He then disappeared and returned with a bottle of Fanta for us and tried to pour it into our mouths. How did we let this happen? We are in India, sometimes I can't explain how hectic life is here, so when stuff like this happens, for some reason you go along with it. Luckily the bus appears and we run to escape the sweet sticky liquid. Near the end of the journey, I watch the bus driver pull out a pouch of brown powder and sniff and spit out of the window. Again, why did I not think, woah we need to get off this bus. Instead I just watched him. Crazy. We made it safely to Arni, only to discover someone has stolen my smartphone and purse with my card in it and about 1000IR. DOH!

 

To sum up this horrible event, at lunch time I cut up a mango, and it slipped out of my hand like a wet fish and SPLAT on the floor...

 

Sam keeps telling me, something is trying to stop us going to Arni because we are doing good things. I feel she may be right. And coming back as I sat on a bus, looking down I could see the road under my feet. Deep breathes.

 

The monthly Seb's staff meeting happened on Friday, where I always run a workshop with the teachers from the tribal schools. They then take this workshop up to their schools. So the week did end well.

 

A weekend away to attend a wedding. 50,000,000IR which is around £610,000.

 

 

3 functions over 2 days. There was traditional music, fantastic exciting food, thousands of people, beautiful dresses, necks, ears and heads full of gold. Massive fireworks, beautiful decorations, lots of sitting around and it was really extravagant, lavish, beautiful and gave me a lot to look at, take in and think about.

 

I'll keep it short and sweet this week, better get ready for the busy week ahead.