Howdy!
I heard country music today in the market place from the US so I had to say that. I hope you are all doing well. It was a rough couple of days Thursday and Friday cuz our flights overlapped our booked hotels. But Emily's dad, Papa Joe, the hero that he is, fixed everything for I us!!! I had been so sad that we were gonna leave early but he changed some things and worked his magic and poof we got the flights we needed. Thanks Joe so much for all your help!!
Yesterday was a very unproductive day at school. The teacher decided to hand out the gifts the Italian man got for the kids right in the middle of math time, so obviously no work got done. Emily and I decided to hold hostage the little girl's dolls until they finished their last few problems. It was fun. And for some reason when the girls are being especially disobedient, Emily and I get joy out of torturing the children. Not really torturing, we just would rip the heads off the dolls (they did not know that they pop on and off easily) or we would withhold stuff. Haha it is so sick but necessary.
After school we went home and hung out and decided to walk to a part of town that had a good restaurant recommended in our India book. It was sooooo far but we refused to pay for a cab. I loved the walk it just was dark out but still a thousand degrees. The place was called Kwality and I got chicken nuggets and a bottle of Kingfisher beer which was huge, Emily got coffee and ice cream and the Japanese girl got a chicken burger and a Thums Up which is kinda like ultra sugary Pepsi and yes it is spelled Thums with no "b". We took pics and it was all around a fun night!! And it was the first time we had been in a/c in a week.
This morning, Saturday, we got up and walked almost as far as Kwality to the New Market. This is a building and then some of just little shop after little shop of so many amazing deals. We did so much gift shopping and we got sarees for ourselves. I am so excited about this because they were mega cheap and custom fitted. Shopping is so much fun when you know it is so cheap!!!
We met a guy who speaks English really well named Rocky (haha) at one of our shops. He decided to take us around to all his friend's shops and knock so much off our prices. It is awesome! He also showed us the way to KFC which is where we ate lunch. Mmmm, chicken and french fries. YUM!
We are just gonna relax tonight I think because we want to use hardly any money this week. Tomorrow we might go to the baptist church down the street!!! We are so excited especially because everything here is closed on Sundays.
Anyway I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you all so much!
Talk to you soon!
I love you my precious fam!
~Michelle
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Kolkata Day 5...Mother Teresa
Hi Hi!
Today we got to go back to school and heck I don't know why I am saying got to as if it was a privelege or awesome. Today at school made me want to never go back and never teach EVER AGAIN! We got to the train station and I was in a good mood. We had some yummy tea there in Dalit cups. I got on the train and this folks is a very hard task in India. Seating is a free for all and men are crazy animals that are put on this Earth to ruin my day. So I am the best out of our whole group at pushing through, grabbing seats and laying my body out in such a way that I save a seat for all 5 of us. Today Emily got on first and we both put our legs up to save seats for the slow, naive, precious Japanese kids. I had my foot across to the backwards facing seats saving them and this man f-ing sits on my foot. OW! and HELL NO! I said "ya know I am saving these seats for my friends" in the sweetest way I could manage and he said "no that is not how it works" in a pissy I am not going to move for you way and this is when I go off on him. (HE IS STILL SITTING ON MY FEET BY THE WAY!) He goes on to tell me that that is UNCIVILIZED! So I say "um, everyone pushes and nearly tramples each other to get on here and you are calling me saving seats uncivilized!?" (Oh and also there are still seats all around us so I don't know why he is fighting it so much.) So this fighting goes on for a long time. The Japanese finally show up and find other seats and me and this guy are still arguing. Emily throws in (in response to something mean he said) "We are uncivilized??? In America it is ladies first and you respect women!" Haha kick-ass Emily! By now I am saying "Just stop, we are all seated, it is over, move on and get over it". Then he talks to his friend about how impolite we are and righty so after the way he talked to us.
Anyways then we got to the school and I find out that the weekend trip they are supposed to take us on is actually NOT inclusive like we thought the website said it actually costs like $450 US to take the weekend trip to Delhi and Agra. Now I fricken have to come back to this country just to see the Taj Mahal and the ghats.
Then the children come. I get the stubborn girl again and she is a bad influence on this other girl named Sonom. So I am desperately trying to get them to do something and when I am about to start beating them I realize that I could tell the teacher to tel them that they need to work NOW! She says something to them and goes back to gossiping with her teachers aid. Ugh. They work for about five minutes and then start coloring again. I have no patience for this so I turn around and ignore them the rest of the day. I would be a horrible teacher in real life. Well I could maybe do older kids....and only History, my favorite subject.
We get done and go back to the hotel for lunch and I am exhausted from this emotionallu draining morning. Emily and I set out to find Mother Teresa's House and Hospital. It is a few blocks down from our alley so we were lucky to be able to walk. We got there and looked around the hospital a little but of course it is all closed up to visitors on Thursdays. Next we walk a little further down and get to the house. I think that this is where all the nuns stay but it was closed up as well except for Mother Teresa's tomb. We got to go in and take pics and take flower petals from her tomb. It was really cool to be there and know that this was where she helped to many people. We found out that we can volunteer at the hospital whenever we want so next week we might do it a couple afternoons.
Overall this was a really cool day and I am excited we only have one more day of school and then it is the weekend. YAY!
I love you all...talk to you soon!
I love you mom!
~Michelle
Today we got to go back to school and heck I don't know why I am saying got to as if it was a privelege or awesome. Today at school made me want to never go back and never teach EVER AGAIN! We got to the train station and I was in a good mood. We had some yummy tea there in Dalit cups. I got on the train and this folks is a very hard task in India. Seating is a free for all and men are crazy animals that are put on this Earth to ruin my day. So I am the best out of our whole group at pushing through, grabbing seats and laying my body out in such a way that I save a seat for all 5 of us. Today Emily got on first and we both put our legs up to save seats for the slow, naive, precious Japanese kids. I had my foot across to the backwards facing seats saving them and this man f-ing sits on my foot. OW! and HELL NO! I said "ya know I am saving these seats for my friends" in the sweetest way I could manage and he said "no that is not how it works" in a pissy I am not going to move for you way and this is when I go off on him. (HE IS STILL SITTING ON MY FEET BY THE WAY!) He goes on to tell me that that is UNCIVILIZED! So I say "um, everyone pushes and nearly tramples each other to get on here and you are calling me saving seats uncivilized!?" (Oh and also there are still seats all around us so I don't know why he is fighting it so much.) So this fighting goes on for a long time. The Japanese finally show up and find other seats and me and this guy are still arguing. Emily throws in (in response to something mean he said) "We are uncivilized??? In America it is ladies first and you respect women!" Haha kick-ass Emily! By now I am saying "Just stop, we are all seated, it is over, move on and get over it". Then he talks to his friend about how impolite we are and righty so after the way he talked to us.
Anyways then we got to the school and I find out that the weekend trip they are supposed to take us on is actually NOT inclusive like we thought the website said it actually costs like $450 US to take the weekend trip to Delhi and Agra. Now I fricken have to come back to this country just to see the Taj Mahal and the ghats.
Then the children come. I get the stubborn girl again and she is a bad influence on this other girl named Sonom. So I am desperately trying to get them to do something and when I am about to start beating them I realize that I could tell the teacher to tel them that they need to work NOW! She says something to them and goes back to gossiping with her teachers aid. Ugh. They work for about five minutes and then start coloring again. I have no patience for this so I turn around and ignore them the rest of the day. I would be a horrible teacher in real life. Well I could maybe do older kids....and only History, my favorite subject.
We get done and go back to the hotel for lunch and I am exhausted from this emotionallu draining morning. Emily and I set out to find Mother Teresa's House and Hospital. It is a few blocks down from our alley so we were lucky to be able to walk. We got there and looked around the hospital a little but of course it is all closed up to visitors on Thursdays. Next we walk a little further down and get to the house. I think that this is where all the nuns stay but it was closed up as well except for Mother Teresa's tomb. We got to go in and take pics and take flower petals from her tomb. It was really cool to be there and know that this was where she helped to many people. We found out that we can volunteer at the hospital whenever we want so next week we might do it a couple afternoons.
Overall this was a really cool day and I am excited we only have one more day of school and then it is the weekend. YAY!
I love you all...talk to you soon!
I love you mom!
~Michelle
Longest Day Ever aka Kolkata Day 4
Hey All!
So yesterday, the 20th of August, Emily and I were banished to our room all day. The entire country went on strike for political reasons and evrything pretty much shut down. No trains ran, barely any flights ran, no school, and no taxis. I woke up an hour later than normal (so at 7 am) and heard silence, which is unheard of in India (hehe). Usuall you hear people laying on their horns at every hour of the day but when I looked out the window toward the busy street there was nothing. Only a couple people taking advantage of a carless street. We layed around and watched tv and read and did crossword puzzles all day.
Finally we couldn't take it any longer and we ventured out. The streets were empty except for kids playing soccer or cricket in the road and the occasional truck full o men dressed in India country colors (orange, white, and green). I assumed they were going somewhere to strike but we were not by anything big. With all the shops closed and nothing to do being out was worse than being in.We went back and layed around some more. At one point this man with two monkeys on leashes came right down our little alley and put on a show down below. We watched from our window above and they danced and walked on two legs. They were so cute and that was pretty much the highlight of our day. We watched Red Eye and went to sleep. It was very boring and I thought it would never end.
Love you all much
~Michelle
So yesterday, the 20th of August, Emily and I were banished to our room all day. The entire country went on strike for political reasons and evrything pretty much shut down. No trains ran, barely any flights ran, no school, and no taxis. I woke up an hour later than normal (so at 7 am) and heard silence, which is unheard of in India (hehe). Usuall you hear people laying on their horns at every hour of the day but when I looked out the window toward the busy street there was nothing. Only a couple people taking advantage of a carless street. We layed around and watched tv and read and did crossword puzzles all day.
Finally we couldn't take it any longer and we ventured out. The streets were empty except for kids playing soccer or cricket in the road and the occasional truck full o men dressed in India country colors (orange, white, and green). I assumed they were going somewhere to strike but we were not by anything big. With all the shops closed and nothing to do being out was worse than being in.We went back and layed around some more. At one point this man with two monkeys on leashes came right down our little alley and put on a show down below. We watched from our window above and they danced and walked on two legs. They were so cute and that was pretty much the highlight of our day. We watched Red Eye and went to sleep. It was very boring and I thought it would never end.
Love you all much
~Michelle
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Kolkata Day 3
Cheers everybody!
I hope you all are doing well!! So today I am writing you about what Emily and I did today. We got up, I keep getting up super early for some reason (maybe cuz I feel aleep before Jurassic Park 3 even started last night at nine) and so I took a shower. The shower is just the shower head pointing toward the middle of the bathroom so everything in there gets wet. I can't escape being soaked, be it with sweat or the shower or in today's case: a monsoon. Today after our breakfast of sugar toast and watching Friends on tv, we set out for school. We walked over to the train station and pushed our way onto one of the crowded trains. We have to ride in the main cars (which is mostly men) cuz we have our Japanese boys with us and the Italian guy. There are all women cars which look so nice cuz they are never crowded. 6 stops later we hop off the train and we are at the village. Today I helped a little girl who refused to do more than like 4 math problems. I have no patience for this so I say "YES NOW" and point and she says "NO FINISH" and we go back and forth but I realized that if I leave her and pay attention to someone else, she gets my attention and shows me that she is working, so I help her again. Ah, children. I am also helping my precious Tanu, who Emily keeps calling the little gay boy because of what we thought SHE was. I am trying to not think of her like that cuz she is my little homie. So today she was doing easy addition ya know 2+4 and so on and whenever she got a set right she put both hands up expecting a double high-five!! SHE IS SO CUTE!! Such good bonding when you know you just taught someone something new for the first time and they get excited. Oh, I could cry! Anyways while at school we started hearing thunder, loud loud thunder and the next thing you know it is a downpour. And it has been that way since.....so for 7 hours. We took the train home and by this time we are soaked to the bone. We get served really good spicy noodles for lunch and then Emily and I set out to see some sites. We figured, hey we are from Seattle we can handle this rain. Well it was cool at first but now we are miserable especially because we are in sandals and the puddles have Lord knows what mixed in them.
We were in search of a place we found in our India book called the Indian Coffee House where it said you can just sit and have coffee and meet people and it is right in the college district so it sounded great. We found it and it was so crowded and kinda pricey for coffee here so we left but it was cool to see. We searched aimlessly for an ATM because Emily ran out of rupees and mine were getting low from paying for both of us. We finally found one, right by our hotel after wandering forever. I love that.
Now we bought some "sweets" from a bakery and we are gonna go back to the hotel and get dry and watch tv. I say "sweets" in quotes because I think they might have spiciness in them which would be and Indian sweet but we will have to wait and see.
I love you Mommy! And I love and miss everyone else.
~until tomorrow maybe, Michelle
I hope you all are doing well!! So today I am writing you about what Emily and I did today. We got up, I keep getting up super early for some reason (maybe cuz I feel aleep before Jurassic Park 3 even started last night at nine) and so I took a shower. The shower is just the shower head pointing toward the middle of the bathroom so everything in there gets wet. I can't escape being soaked, be it with sweat or the shower or in today's case: a monsoon. Today after our breakfast of sugar toast and watching Friends on tv, we set out for school. We walked over to the train station and pushed our way onto one of the crowded trains. We have to ride in the main cars (which is mostly men) cuz we have our Japanese boys with us and the Italian guy. There are all women cars which look so nice cuz they are never crowded. 6 stops later we hop off the train and we are at the village. Today I helped a little girl who refused to do more than like 4 math problems. I have no patience for this so I say "YES NOW" and point and she says "NO FINISH" and we go back and forth but I realized that if I leave her and pay attention to someone else, she gets my attention and shows me that she is working, so I help her again. Ah, children. I am also helping my precious Tanu, who Emily keeps calling the little gay boy because of what we thought SHE was. I am trying to not think of her like that cuz she is my little homie. So today she was doing easy addition ya know 2+4 and so on and whenever she got a set right she put both hands up expecting a double high-five!! SHE IS SO CUTE!! Such good bonding when you know you just taught someone something new for the first time and they get excited. Oh, I could cry! Anyways while at school we started hearing thunder, loud loud thunder and the next thing you know it is a downpour. And it has been that way since.....so for 7 hours. We took the train home and by this time we are soaked to the bone. We get served really good spicy noodles for lunch and then Emily and I set out to see some sites. We figured, hey we are from Seattle we can handle this rain. Well it was cool at first but now we are miserable especially because we are in sandals and the puddles have Lord knows what mixed in them.
We were in search of a place we found in our India book called the Indian Coffee House where it said you can just sit and have coffee and meet people and it is right in the college district so it sounded great. We found it and it was so crowded and kinda pricey for coffee here so we left but it was cool to see. We searched aimlessly for an ATM because Emily ran out of rupees and mine were getting low from paying for both of us. We finally found one, right by our hotel after wandering forever. I love that.
Now we bought some "sweets" from a bakery and we are gonna go back to the hotel and get dry and watch tv. I say "sweets" in quotes because I think they might have spiciness in them which would be and Indian sweet but we will have to wait and see.
I love you Mommy! And I love and miss everyone else.
~until tomorrow maybe, Michelle
Monday, August 18, 2008
ANDO
Hey buddy! I miss you so much. I am sad that you think of me to hang out with and I am not there. Frowns. I can't wait to come home and see movies with you! I hope you are doing well and saving your money......take care of yourself and do something nice for mom from me....she is worried.
I love you lots baby bro and I can't wait to see you again!
~Michelle
I love you lots baby bro and I can't wait to see you again!
~Michelle
Kolkata Days 1& 2
Hello all!
So Emily and I got in to Kolkata yesterday afternoon, the 17th. It has been so different than what we expected. We got in and the woman from Volunteer Visions found us and we hopped in a cab. She told us that all the host families were full so we were being put in a hotel for the whole two weeks along with a few other volunteers. We got there and she told us everything we needed to know about the school and where to go and eat and then she left. Emily and I are staying in a room with a girl from Japan that is volunteering also. There are also two other boys from Japan and two people from Italy (yay!) and the man from Italy is a host coordinator and has been coming every summer for the past 5 years so he knows his way around and is so nice. We pretty much stayed in our room all day yesterday. Is it normal to sleep a ridiculously huge amout of hours in hot weather maybe? We slept 9 hours the night before last then yesterday sitting around our room we slept another three and then last night slept almost eleven!!! It is cool I guess. So whenever we want meals we just go to reception and tell them and they bring up mystery food. It is so exciting to sit there and wait to see what we get each time. For dinner last night Em and I were starving and they hahaha it is so funny, they brought us each a plate with 3 little tortilla things and some spicy broth...no spoon. We ate our meager food and hoped for a good breakfast. Our room is pretty cool we just have fans so sleep with no covers but it is nice. It is suprising becuase you could find lots of places with a/c in Bangalore and Chennai but not so much here.
Today we woke up and called for breakfast and watched tv...the only thing in English is VH1. Our breakfast came and it was hahahaha two slices of bread with sugar and butter on top!! Now don't get me wrong that was delicious but I am not used to eating so little at every meal. The lady from Volunteer Visions came to pick us up to go to the school we were going to be teaching at. We walked across our busy street (the Indian woman was dodging cars and motorbikes like the bad ass that she is and we stayed on the curb for so long cuz that is a learned skill) and we went to the train station and hopped on a super ghetto train. It has planty of seats and fans and wind but man at every stop more and more people piled on. It got real crowded but luckily our stop had come. The little village is 20 minutes down the line and literally right on the edge of the train tracks. We went in to find a one room schoolhouse. We took off our shoes and sat around waiting for the kids to arrive. 16 kids came all in uniform and they are so cute!!! They said their pledge of allegiance(sp?) and we jumped right in to sitting down and teaching them from their English books. I was working with an older girl maybe 10 named Vipik and the baby of the class maybe 4 Tanu. Tanu is adorable but the girls there have pretty short boy length hair and Emily and I thought she was a boy at first. I figured it out not when I saw her painted nails and toes (cuz my little bro Garrett def has painted nails most of the time) but when she acted really feminine and kinda OCD about her markers and the way her books were laid out neatly (kind of how I am) and it was confirmed but her brother when he said this is my sister. The older kids can speak English enough to talk a little and it is so fun. We did an hour of English followed by an hour of Math, and for some reason I found it way easier to teach the math than the English. We ended the schoolday with a game sort of like duck duck goose but not. We get to go there everyday and do this and I am so excited!
We just got back to our room and had lunch (rice and potato stuff and broth, again no utensils) and it was pretty good.
Oh I gotta talk about the toilet situation here. Most of the bathrooms in India have one Western style toilet (that's ours) and the rest are squat style. It is like a toilet built into the ground with grooves on each side so you can squat over the whole and not slip. We have been fortunate enough to only have to use those once. No where do they have toilet paper except the nice hotels and restaurants. We brought our own don't worry. What they do supposedly is use a hose thing and hose off over the hole....ew. Anyways our hotel has a normal looking above ground toilet BUT it has, instead of a seat, the grooves for not slipping. Now I haven't figured this out but are we supposed to climb up and squat way up there to use this toilet?? I have been just squating normal cuz it works and I have no idea. I know ou all wanted to hear that :)
Anyways we are just hanging out trying to figure out what to do ext with our cool Japanese and Italian friends.
I miss you all and I will write back porbably tomorrow or the next day. Internet is right by our hotel and we have lots of free time.
I love you mom!
I love you everyone else!
~Michelle
So Emily and I got in to Kolkata yesterday afternoon, the 17th. It has been so different than what we expected. We got in and the woman from Volunteer Visions found us and we hopped in a cab. She told us that all the host families were full so we were being put in a hotel for the whole two weeks along with a few other volunteers. We got there and she told us everything we needed to know about the school and where to go and eat and then she left. Emily and I are staying in a room with a girl from Japan that is volunteering also. There are also two other boys from Japan and two people from Italy (yay!) and the man from Italy is a host coordinator and has been coming every summer for the past 5 years so he knows his way around and is so nice. We pretty much stayed in our room all day yesterday. Is it normal to sleep a ridiculously huge amout of hours in hot weather maybe? We slept 9 hours the night before last then yesterday sitting around our room we slept another three and then last night slept almost eleven!!! It is cool I guess. So whenever we want meals we just go to reception and tell them and they bring up mystery food. It is so exciting to sit there and wait to see what we get each time. For dinner last night Em and I were starving and they hahaha it is so funny, they brought us each a plate with 3 little tortilla things and some spicy broth...no spoon. We ate our meager food and hoped for a good breakfast. Our room is pretty cool we just have fans so sleep with no covers but it is nice. It is suprising becuase you could find lots of places with a/c in Bangalore and Chennai but not so much here.
Today we woke up and called for breakfast and watched tv...the only thing in English is VH1. Our breakfast came and it was hahahaha two slices of bread with sugar and butter on top!! Now don't get me wrong that was delicious but I am not used to eating so little at every meal. The lady from Volunteer Visions came to pick us up to go to the school we were going to be teaching at. We walked across our busy street (the Indian woman was dodging cars and motorbikes like the bad ass that she is and we stayed on the curb for so long cuz that is a learned skill) and we went to the train station and hopped on a super ghetto train. It has planty of seats and fans and wind but man at every stop more and more people piled on. It got real crowded but luckily our stop had come. The little village is 20 minutes down the line and literally right on the edge of the train tracks. We went in to find a one room schoolhouse. We took off our shoes and sat around waiting for the kids to arrive. 16 kids came all in uniform and they are so cute!!! They said their pledge of allegiance(sp?) and we jumped right in to sitting down and teaching them from their English books. I was working with an older girl maybe 10 named Vipik and the baby of the class maybe 4 Tanu. Tanu is adorable but the girls there have pretty short boy length hair and Emily and I thought she was a boy at first. I figured it out not when I saw her painted nails and toes (cuz my little bro Garrett def has painted nails most of the time) but when she acted really feminine and kinda OCD about her markers and the way her books were laid out neatly (kind of how I am) and it was confirmed but her brother when he said this is my sister. The older kids can speak English enough to talk a little and it is so fun. We did an hour of English followed by an hour of Math, and for some reason I found it way easier to teach the math than the English. We ended the schoolday with a game sort of like duck duck goose but not. We get to go there everyday and do this and I am so excited!
We just got back to our room and had lunch (rice and potato stuff and broth, again no utensils) and it was pretty good.
Oh I gotta talk about the toilet situation here. Most of the bathrooms in India have one Western style toilet (that's ours) and the rest are squat style. It is like a toilet built into the ground with grooves on each side so you can squat over the whole and not slip. We have been fortunate enough to only have to use those once. No where do they have toilet paper except the nice hotels and restaurants. We brought our own don't worry. What they do supposedly is use a hose thing and hose off over the hole....ew. Anyways our hotel has a normal looking above ground toilet BUT it has, instead of a seat, the grooves for not slipping. Now I haven't figured this out but are we supposed to climb up and squat way up there to use this toilet?? I have been just squating normal cuz it works and I have no idea. I know ou all wanted to hear that :)
Anyways we are just hanging out trying to figure out what to do ext with our cool Japanese and Italian friends.
I miss you all and I will write back porbably tomorrow or the next day. Internet is right by our hotel and we have lots of free time.
I love you mom!
I love you everyone else!
~Michelle
Saturday, August 16, 2008
MOMMY :)
Mom,
I just wanted to write you special because I miss you sooooooo much and after talking on the phone with you I am really homesick. How is all the wedding planning going?? I hope you are not too stressed. I am doing well I threw up yesterday but was fine right after. I hope I can talk to you again maybe from Calcutta. Don't worry about us anymore because we are headed straight to the airport after this to meet with our group. Thank you for all your help in making this trip possible for me. You and John both I owe so much to. In the next two weeks I am gonna be getting everyone India presents and I am so excited to try and find something good for you and John. I miss you to pieces and I can't wait to talk to you next. Give Riley my love!
I love you so much mom....you are the best mother in the whole universe.
~love you Michelle
I just wanted to write you special because I miss you sooooooo much and after talking on the phone with you I am really homesick. How is all the wedding planning going?? I hope you are not too stressed. I am doing well I threw up yesterday but was fine right after. I hope I can talk to you again maybe from Calcutta. Don't worry about us anymore because we are headed straight to the airport after this to meet with our group. Thank you for all your help in making this trip possible for me. You and John both I owe so much to. In the next two weeks I am gonna be getting everyone India presents and I am so excited to try and find something good for you and John. I miss you to pieces and I can't wait to talk to you next. Give Riley my love!
I love you so much mom....you are the best mother in the whole universe.
~love you Michelle
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
