One month to go...

...before we've been here for a whole year! It's just flown by, seems only a few weeks ago I was writing about our new house and life. Anyway, I'll have a proper time for reflection next month.

 

As always, the time has gone quickly, especially since we're settling back into the school routine and the hustle and bustle that goes with it.

 

I've started a side project to make a few extra rupees each month by baking cakes and desserts for C's cafe. At the moment I'm making 2 a week (a crumble and a batch of muffins or a fruit loaf or flapjacks for example). It's good as I'm only working in the mornings at Eco Femme and can bake from home in the afternoons. I love baking too so it's a win-win situation.

 

I've also just started an online course with Coursera, my third to date but first in a year as we had all the moving to do. I signed up for Social Psychology this time (previously did 'Intro to Psychology' and 'The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness'), a 7 week course of which I'm nearly at the end of week 3. The last time I did one of these courses I was a stay at home mum living in a flat in the UK and now it's been a little hard to keep up with it all as well as working, housework, childcare etc etc etc. I'm sticking it out though and really learning lots too. I think it's an amazing platform that allows people to continue learning, I thoroughly recommend having a look at their site...

 

My yoga classes have started up again too (my teacher took a break for a month) so as you can imagine, I'm pretty fully booked. Phew!

 

 

So this month, I met a few more beasties, firstly this rather huge cockroach. I moved here with a pretty bad fear of most bugs but have got so much braver. I still can't get over my fear of these though...

 

(on my first trip to India, I saw my first ever cockroach whilst waiting for a train. From a distance I was mildly interested but looked away to see if our train was coming. I looked back to see where the roach was to find it sitting on my shoulder waving its long antennae at me. I gave an unearthly shriek much to the amusement of the locals and flung it off me. Since then they have become an issue to me.)

 

...luckily we don't have too many...*shudder*.

 

 

Then I lifted the rock up which we use to keep the back door open one bright Sunday morning to find that a battle had been waged between two vicious beasties. In this instance, the scorpion appeared to have won. I left them be as both have a nasty sting. They were gone an hour later.

 

 

 

I also saw this beautiful specimen catching some afternoon rays. He let me get quite close before running up a tree.

 

 

 

Last week I took a trip the the botanical gardens and returned with this most beautiful pink hibiscus. It's just a baby and I think I'll keep it potted on the balcony. It's just lovely.

 

 

 

 

We've also just planted a new crop of tomatoes and cucumbers, we think that by monsoon season they should be big enough to deal with the rains. C bought a net which we've attached to the roof above our balcony and running down to the trough below so the cucumbers have a sturdy thing to climb up. It's a better spot for them as it gets the afternoon sun rather than the midday sun which killed off our first attempt after producing just two cucumbers.

 

 

This is the tree in the centre of the campus where I work, it provides much needed shade and has a huge perfectly tuned windchime (see in the branches to the left) made just a short distance away at Svaram. It adds a peaceful atmosphere to an already happy environment (and I really want to climb the tree!).

 

 

Artwork on the wall by my office.

 

 

 

K and the Ganesh shrine by the Solar Kitchen, where the staff make morning puja

 

 Me on the balcony in the afternoon sun.

 

 

Last sat I was invited to a ladies afternoon with some friends and new faces. We drank some wine (such a rare treat), had a swim in the pool, put on a mud mask and then made a puja on the beach at sundown before being joined by our respective partners and kids and having a pot luck dinner. Shortly before we left it started to rain and we got to drive back home with the lightning flashing overhead and a cool, gentle rain refreshing us. One thing I've observed since we moved is how alive I feel, especially during moments like this.

 

 

 

I'm rather an introvert so don't have a constant need for company but when I do share a nice day with good people it nourishes my soul and eases my homesickness, my few friends back in the UK are greatly missed. 

Anyway, that's all for now. C will be back from his evening of work soon and I have to do some more work on my studies before bed. It's C's birthday tomorrow and I won't have much time for studies until Sun. C's mum will have K tomorrow night so we can go to Pondy for a nice meal and then Sat morning we're off to the fancy resort nearby for a swim and lunch with the family.

 

 

More soon,

 

Laura

 

x

 

One week in...

...to my new job and I am feeling very positive indeed. I feel very lucky to have arrived at this point and to be working with such strong inspirational women for such an important cause. Even the drive there is joyful, butterflies and greenery all around as I trundle along on my moped.

 

I'll try not to go on too much about the evils of disposable sanitary products on here but well...they are pretty evil! If anyone reading wants to discuss further or to ask questions please feel free to drop me a line at laura@ecofemme.org :)

Anyway, summer is slowly drawing to a close here, people are returning from their nice cool holidays and K is back to kindergarten on Mon. It's been tough coping with the heat, I feel that maybe in hindsight it was harder that I realised. Tempers are frayed and the permenant sweating leads to itchy heat rash. K has been pretty hard work as a result too. Still, it should be getting progressively cooler from now on.

 

At the beginning of June I met another new kind of praying mantis, they are just fascinating to watch. I'm getting much better with bugs since moving here (although not the cockroaches - urgh!)

 

 

 

K having a play outside with his 'sunbrella'

 

 

Our community in bloom - the tree (Delonix Regiais or Royal Poinciana) known as a Realization tree here, fitting as it's the name of our community. The pink flowers are Oleanders and have the most amazing scent.

 

 

Me and C had a welcome day/night away in Mahabalipuram to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary. After the stress of weeks of hot, sweaty, grumpy, bored 4 year old, it really was nice!

This is the shore temple from a distance.

 

 

Here is me sitting on a stone lion :)

 

 

This amused me, needless to say, we didn't go in!

 

 

The next day before we left for home, we visited the Tiger cave, just a little distance away. I'd not been before and it was a nice way to finish off our visit.

 

 

K's been spending lots of time on our balcony as it's shaded and he has a big bucket to splash in. He's also been doing chalk drawings on the floor...

 

 

He's all into superheroes at the moment so every pose looks like this!

 

 

Another beach trip...

 

 

A few nights ago we had a wonderful but brief downpour with the most ear splitting cracks of thunder and flashes of forked lightning.

 

I really love the tropical storms, they're so dramatic, especially as the house only had mesh on the upstairs doors and the windows are covered by small slats of single pane glass. You feel so connected to it. It's exhilarating!

 

I got these shots on our small side balcony once the rain had stopped.

 

Anyway, that's it for now. It's getting late *yawn*.

 

Love,

 

Laura

                                                                               ॐ

 

 

My amazing new job.

More soon, just a quick check in as I wanted to share my good news.

 

Since emigrating I’ve been kinda bimbling around trying to find a place to work, I mean a place to really invest my time and energy in a way that feels right in my heart.

 

I mean, I’ve spent my whole adult life doing whatever work came my way. To continue in that direction after taking the leap of faith and moving here seemed a little silly.

 

This video is a few years old but wanted to show you who I’ll be working with from July: Eco Femme Video.

 

Not only do they make beautiful environmentally friendly cloth pads (with nappies and breast pads in the pipeline) stitched by local village women to provide them with livelihoods but they do extensive work to help empower and educate women here in India on menstruation. Watch the vid and you’ll see what stigma is attached to that perfectly natural monthly occurance through lack of education and communication.

 

Am so excited as it’s exactly what I hoped to do out here. Since using cloth nappies with my son, I've seen how good you can feel about making a small change and have been proudly using reusable sanitary products for a few years now. Disposable sanitary waste is bad news, full of plastic and harmful toxins and isn't going away.

 

It’s all come about due to following an inkling of an idea and just goes to show that sometimes it’s good to 'find your dream and boldly go for it' (wise words from my dear uncle) 

 

More info on the inititative available here on their website: Eco Femme.

 

 

 

Laura xx

Our day trip - 27th may

Hi, I wanted to write about our day trip to Vandalur Zoo and Dizzee world. We were approached by the mother of a girl in K's class aboiut taking a minibus up the coast near Chennai for a day trip. It sounded like fun and the sort of thing you should do at least once during the summer holidays so we said yes.

We went on the 27th May - a Tuesday - in the hope to avoid the weekend rush. The minibus picked us up outside our community at 8am where we joined the other 3 families, a Russian family with 3 kids (one girl in K's class), an Indian lady and her daughter (also in K's class) and an Italian couple and their son.

 

 

Bus view:

 

 

At one of the toll gates along the way (I love the painted trucks):

 

It was quite a long journey to get to the zoo, especially including a stop for coffee and the loo but finally we arrived there at around midday (quite a hot time of day to be out and about but nevermind).

 

 

First stop was the fish shaped aquarium, better from the outside. it contained mostly common aquarium fish and empty tanks...

 

 

Then we saw an enclosure full of albino peacocks - beautiful!

 

 

One thing I love about living here are the funny signs, misspellings etc. 'IT IS OFFENCE!!' tickled me...

 

 

The zoo is actually rather big and the little tour buses were fully booked so we hired bicycles to get about on (for the equivalent of 20p)

 

 

Another of my favourite signs, there wasn't even a noticable heap of leaf litter. :)

 

 

A white tiger having a midday snooze...

 

 

A newly arrived collection of Wild Ass (yep, I am quite immature *snigger*)

 

 

K and his monkey friend

 

 

Zoo-ed out in the midday heat

 

The zoo was ok, the price was good, 50p for me and C each and 20p for K but most animals were hidden away and without the uncomfortable bicycles we'd have had a long walk. Anyway, onwards we went towards Chennai and Dizzee World...

 

Shot from the bus

 

 

Another view of 'real' India. The littering here is immense, makes me sad but after all, India is a country of extremes.

 

 

Finally arrived at Dizzee World at around 3pm *everyone in the bus cheers*

 

 

We had no idea what to expect, one thing I've learned from spending time here is to never presume to know what something will be like, be it food on a menu or a tourist destination.

 

 

But it was surprisingly clean and functional...well...except the pool areas...

They were over crowded and dirty. Many people, especially the women, go in fully dressed which is very unhygienic. C went up to go down the water slide to find a human poo on the stairs. Needless to say we stayed in long enough to cool down after our sweaty morning and made a hasty retreat. I think I've been spoilt with the pools local to us in AV. Clean, rarely busy and certainly no poo!

 

 

 

C and K on a ride

 

 

We didn't have time for the rollercoaster, maybe next time...

 

 

A funny looking caterpillar ride

 

 

K's favourite ride, he was giggling and spinning in circles for most of it.

 

 

Spot the boy...

 

 

Enjoying a motorbike ride

 

 

Me and K posing with a Triceratops, naturally.

 

 

Just before leaving.

 

 

All in all, we had a great day out. The zoo wasn't so great, maybe the midday heat contributed to that but Dizzee World was fun, not just for K but for us grown ups too. It was a very long day, we left at 8am and were home by 9.30pm. So tired the next day at work!

 

Anyway, must close now, tomorrow me and C are off back up the cost to Mahaballipuram for the night to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary. Not had a night to ourselves since Jan so looking forward to that.

 

Will be back soon as have some exciting news regarding my new job starting in July and other bits and pieces besides.

 

Sending love from hot and sweaty India.

 

Laura.

 

 

 

 

The month of May

Hello! Wow, the past few weeks just flew by.

 

Well, a few days after my last post we had the most amazing monsoon rains. It's very unusual to rain at this time of year, sometimes there are summer monsoon rains in June but never this early. The temperature has been creeping up since the beginning of the year and it's had been about 4 months since our last rain. It's a very interesting concept for me as a British person to feel such elation at the sound, smell and feel of rain but there you go. Nearly 10 months of scorching heat and roughly 10 days of rain can do that to a person. Anyway, we had a good 4-5 days of proper rain and it has done so much good. I mentioned in my last post about the water shortage worries here so as you can imagine, there were a good many smiling faces beneath raincoats over those days.

 

I took K to the Drs for a test after his dodgy tummy didn't settle down, he's now taking some medicine after both worms and amoebas were detected. It's a standard complaint though, it's wise to deworm yourelf here every 6 months or so just to be sure. Since K enjoys digging and playing in the dirt where these kind of things can be caught, it was only a matter of time. Still, he's been a good patient.

 

K in his carefully chosen 'rain outfit'

 



 

 

A soggy rest after our trip to the Drs

 

There is a big dipped area of ground in front of our neighbour's house which filled with rain creating a pool for all the kids. They all stripped off and spent hours splashing, making mud pies and just having proper messy fun. I was careful to keep a bucket of fresh water outside to prevent muddy footprints all over the house!

 

Mud beast

 

I've also started a temporary summer job at the Freestore (in their words "A place of free exchange for clothing, and some other useful items" as well as a tailoring service for repairs and alterations). I basically sort through the donations and makes sure items are put in the right place, are not too dirty, ripped etc. It is so much fun. I always loved scouring charity shops in the UK and this place is just like one except everything is free. It's very sociable (as you can imagine, it's a very popular place to visit) and I'm allowed to take things if I like them. The good thing is that I might take a few items of clothing, try them on at home and bring them back if they're not quite fitting right or bring other items that just aren't worn anymore. It encourages the spirit of sharing and most people who use the Freestore make sure to bring donations as and when they can.

 

It's just until the end of June, then I must find something else. I still have 2 possibilities but have a couple other ideas too. We'll see what happens but for now I am enjoying my summer job. The Tamil lady I work with even henna'd my foot (the beautiful rug is also from the Freestore).

 

 

 

I've left my camera at home the few times we've been out and about so don't have so many photos to share. We took a trip to Sri Ma (a community up the coast) and had a dip in the sea, lunch and a swim in the pool last weekend. I found this wonderfully spikey specimen which I added to my collection on the balcony.

 

 

We've also been over to the playground at Certitude for climbing etc.

 

 

We're off on a day trip next Tues to Vandalur Zoo (http://www.aazoopark.in/) and Dizzee World (http://www.mgmdizzeeworld.com/). It's being organised by the mum of one of K's classmates so there will be a bus load of us going up towards Chennai for the day. Should be fun although nothing is ever how you imagine it'll be here in India. Anyway, be back soon with more on that.

 

Other than that things have been much the same. The heat has increased the population of tiny-red-ants-that-bite which makes things a bit annoying. A plate with crumb on it will attract hundreds of them in seconds, so have to wash up more frequently and they seem to like towels so have had too many refreshing cold showers followed by frantically trying to brush nasty tiny-red-ants-that-bite off myself. Just so you didn't think it was all fun and games, haha!

 

Have a lovely weekend.

 

Laura x