Realisation via meditation

Attempting to prove my family and friends wrong, who claim I can't shut up for more than five minutes, I embarked on a mission to find some inner peace at the local meditation centre. A new year, a new country a new me? I was determined to find out. Two local bus rides, some crafty sign language communication, and a few dodgy alley ways later I arrived at the centre. I wondered why I hadn't seen any other westerners and was the only white girl in the village for miles, well this is where they had been hiding. It was a cult of clichéd ;dread bearing poncho wearing hippies doing downward dog and drinking chai. After not seeing another white person for a month however, I was none the less intrigued and waltzed in bracing myself for welcoming smiles and some English language. Yet what an anti-climax it was! They hardly acknowledged my presence. Too Zen and at one with the world or just high as a kite? For a town that is practically famous for it's local hash 'Charis' I wouldn't be surprised.

Despite my modest welcome I remained the optimist and continued my quest to find inner peace. Now let me cut to the chase before you get bored, Meditation is no picnic! I went in a little too eager picturing myself as Julia Roberts sitting attractively in an Ashram but this was no Eat Pray Love. This was constant pins and needles from sitting cross legged for hours on end, smelly hippies who clearly use natural deodorant and planning my whole life in my head because I was bored out of my mind. "You must clear your mind, see visions and words of meaning they will come to you" Our instructor whispers. Easier said than done, I surmise! All I see when I close my eyes is black! Black, black and maybe the odd swirl but that's probably just because i'm going mad. After about 45 minutes more of this we are all invited to sit around the circle and share what we saw. You've got to be kidding me! 

Circle sharing time was clearly the only time the mentees showed any emotion. One by one the comatose hippies suddenly came to life and the whole experience quickly became very overwhelming and rather dramatic. I have never been one to handle other peoples tears, growing up with three brothers and a feminist mother who's idea of a hug stems more closely to a pat on the back (love you mumsy) did not prepare me for this situation. It was one of those awkward affairs where you don't know whether to laugh or cry.  Now I am open to a lot of things but having smelly, hairy hippies crying tears of joy after finding inner peace on my shoulder is not something I would generally choose to participate in on a daily basis. 

Then the moment I had been dreading finally arrived it was my turn to share. Telling the instructor I saw nothing but black would be an insult to his livelihood, and my inner ego, yet considering more than 80% of the circle were clearly stoned I had some tough competition. I was way out of my league. I thought maybe being the new girl they would let me pass for someone more experienced but no everyone is equal in this place. So I cursed egalitarianism on the inside for the first time whilst attempting to come up with a plan. I had two options, get up and run away as fast as possible, or use my rusty drama skills and come up with some epic story about how I saw free spirits and crystals and whatever other hackneyed hippie words I could conjure up. So I chucked the biggest "when in Rome" of all time and went for it, I whipped out my uncanny bohemian vocabulary left right and centre. Yet surprisingly enough it became rather addictive like verbal diarrhoea. After mediating silently for hours the words kind of just flowed out despite their fabrication, and I enjoyed my role as the lead in the biggest bullshit play of all time. Next up was the man to my right he was clearly about 65 and dressed like a 25 year old junkie. I mean really if I told any average Joe that I saw visions of myself dancing around a fire on a mountain wearing crystals and talking to animals they would have me incarcerated yet for these people it was a daily routine. 

Happy Holi - Dharamshala

McLeod Ganj is predominantly Tibetan, thus they don't generally celebrate Holi. So we headed into Dharamshala to celebrate Holi which is a big city, 10kms down the hill. It's famous for it's massively beautiful cricket stadium, amongst lovely snowy mountains. Dressed in white, carrying water pistols and a large amount of bags with different coloured powders we set off on our way. As Wikipedia states Holi - Festival of colours is a festival celebrated by Hindus mainly in India and Nepal. The date changes every year however it is always sometime in March this year it was March 27th. Its a festival that celebrates the beginning of the new season, Spring. Originally it was a festival that commemorated good harvests and the fertile land. Hindus believe it is a time of enjoying Springs abundant colours and saying farewell to Winter. However wikipedia facts aside, from what i observed it is merely an excuse to get high and throw coloured powder at randoms. It is the only day the police turn a blind eye to Bhang lassies (weed milkshake for you untraveled folk), fried weed and street drinking. Thus the streets are overflowing with seedy drunk men screaming Happy Holi (insert Indian accent) and who may try and cop a feel as they throw copious amounts of coloured dust onto you. All in good fun they say, which of course it is but be careful into the afternoon as it gets more and more chaotic. 

We bumped into a nice bunch of westerners. Two swedes, Three poms, and a coincidentally a guy from East Fremantle in Perth. They were an awesome bunch that all met in India through their film and media expertise. John one of the English guys was very interesting to talk to. He had been living in India and Nepal for the last two years filming and being a chef. He was the classic dread bearing, free spirit who hugged anyone and everyone. He didn't own any shoes and hadn't worn a pair for four months. Previously studied biology back in the UK but gave it up to move to India, which sounds very good to me right now, who will find it very difficult to leave this amazing place. This group are currently filming a movie about a young Tibetan orphan which will premier on the 6th of July in Delhi which we were lucky enough to be a part of. We also had a few go pros on board during Holi so look forward to a few crazy clips.

Into the afternoon our competitive sides came out as we filled water balloons full of coloured water, water pistols and just filled up buckets to pour onto people. We became more and more ruthless with silly tourists that expected to come outside on Holi and be unscathed by coloured powder, foolish. We followed one Russian couple for about 10 minutes until they finally gave in and let us throw coloured powder onto them, which we would have done anyway. Russians, you can't come out and take a photo of everyone else covered in powder but refuse to get powder on you, please. 

The powder throwing stopped around 3pm so we began our hike back to McLeod Ganj, exceptionally unrecognisable. Coloured powder everywhere, including places where you'd rather it wasn't… like my mouth. A good two hour bucket bath later, scrubbing and scrubbing i could finally see my own face. After farewelling my converse and white clothing defeated by Holi we set off to our usual hang-out at Carpe Diem for beers and a night time jam. Our new media friends were filming a party scene for their film at Mount View (nightclub/bar) so we went along for bit of a boogie. 

Holi festival was definitely one of the funnest experiences of my life. I mean really throwing abundant amounts colourful powder at randoms how could that not be fun. I did get egged however that wasn't fun. Stay away from moving vehicles people will have more courage to throw things at you knowing you can't chase after them…The Himachali people are generally a lot more tame and friendly though. Go into one of the big cities like Delhi or Varanasi for Holi and you won't get out alive, especially girls!

Mcleod Ganj

Winta, my volunteer partner and i had one week of school holidays so we decided to head up to McLeod Ganj, 10kms from Dharamshala (Hippie mecca of India) Now I've never been one to fear bus or car journeys on the basis that if I'm on the ground it's no where near as dangerous as being up in the air. Well that opinion went out the window quickly after coming to India. Now I'm not talking about the adrenalin rush type of fear one gets on an auto-rickshaw ride in Delhi, as that's generally a short and sweet journey with the occasional pot hole here or there. I'm talking about a 10 hour local bus ride  where one actually has time to notice how fast the driver actually drives and how steep the cliffs actually are. The never-ending signs that state "deadliest road" and "slow down on corners" don't help the discomfort and my personal favourite "love thy neighbour but not whilst driving". Now I'm not sure why it is that the drivers speed up when going around sharp corners, they definitely haven't heard of 'slow and steady wins the race' or 'better safe than sorry' perhaps their strong Hindu beliefs make them almost immortal, however despite my atheist values i was praying for my life. We opted against the $20 dollar air-conditioned bus ticket and bought the $4 local ticket as our inner egos pride themselves on being true locals. Well we definitely got what we paid for. Leaking windows, three road side toilet stops and a whole lot of rain and pain later we finally arrived. You know it's cold when you can still see your own breath sitting inside a giant bus overflowing with people.

 We arrived at Dharamshala at about 6pm and looked around for a taxi driver. The usual circles of seedy Indian men made their way towards us so it was difficult to single out a potential driver. I followed my dads notion of "if you think you could beat him in a fight then he's probably a safe bet" It must have been fate, the skinniest looking man about 5 foot 5 emerged from the masses and so we called shotgun almost instantly. Now if you've ever seen my brother Tim you will understand what lean is. This guy was even skinnier than him and was half my height so we felt safe driving off into the sunset. We paid him his 100 rupees ( 2 dollars) for our 20 minute drive and set out to look for some accommodation. A friend of a friend had organised a room for us at Kunga Guest house, however we arrived an hour later than we told them and they had already given our room away, standard. They showed us another room option at the same place for $4 dollars a night. Now i don't mind slumming it but dear god the room they showed us was like a prison cell, I'd rather not spend my only school holidays in a room without windows or any form of a squat toilet. Luckily an improvised plan B worked out very nicely, we found a lovely room at Greens hotel (would definitely recommend, lovely travellers and laid back staff), another five minutes up the hill with a bathroom and a view. Kunga where we were going to be originally however, has epic Italian food and joy desserts. 

Our first night despite our tired eyes we decided to toughen up and suss out the local pub, 'Mcllo's'. Living on a farm in a small town and being the only white girl for miles, made it bizarre seeing westerners for the first time in a month. However funnily enough the first people we became friends with were a sophisticated bunch of guys from Delhi ("oh yeh, i can hear my dad saying") Sahil, Abhoy, Abhishek and Nirvan. A very hip and well educated bunch they were, studying and working in various creative fields. We also included our new German friend from Berlin, Julianna who was twice my age but she was good fun nonetheless. We bonded over the dismal bus experience and she soon became our new neighbour at the hotel. Now about the place, McLeod Ganj the hippiest place on earth. If you dislike the the bohemian vibe on offer in Fremantle, than McLeod is the last place you could ever want find yourself. I have honestly never seen so many dread bearing, poncho wearing, crystal sharing hippies in my entire life. The extent to which they express their unconventional nature is rather hyperbolic. Walking bare foot, wearing massive blankets and ponchos its almost amusing. Yet is is hard to escape such a non-conformist way of living thus i gave in to a blanket (kumbal) and a nose ring, however i instantly refused the dreads and socks and sandals look sported by about 90% of the travellers here. Yet one should not complain, as without the hippies McLeod would not be McLeod. They bring the Shanti (peace) and the relaxed vibe that is McLeod. They bring the music, the smiles and of course the copious amounts of Charis. 

We were very lucky to already have contacts before our arrival. Thanks to my lovely second mother Kandi, who paid for our weeks accommodation as an early 18th present and introduced us to her old friend Lobsang. Now for a girl who doesn't like pink and can't dance well spending time with Lobsang was a bit of a challenge.  We arrived at his studio, greeted by him dancing to Shakira, wearing gloriously flamboyant shades of pink which made him blend into the walls. He was very hospitable, i mean who else can say that they've danced the whole Shakira album before even exchanging names. We then received the best chai in the world as promised and were fortunate enough to be let in on the secrets behind its making. Lobsang was great fun, he runs the Miss Tibet pageants in McLeod and was more than happy to share his experiences in the industry. They are however lacking contestants so anyone reading this that looks remotely Tibetan and doesn't mind wearing a swimsuit in front of conservative Buddhists should get on board. A few more dances, cups of chai and a couple of monks later we were back on the main road. Rows and rows of stalls, selling beautiful trinkets, jewellery, knitted scarfs, yak wool blankets for $5, socks and beanies for a dollar. Hand-crafted heaven. 

That night in my hippiest attire to date we set off to Carpe Diem, a restaurant recommended by one of our new friends. Now if the name isn't already a dead give away let me just say this was like entering that 70's show! Groups of young European travellers smoking, drinking and sharing their stories. The top level is where its at a must go if in McLeod! Sitting on colourful cushions around small tables overlooking the night lights that shine through the town, it's so surreal. The best thing about Carpe Diem is the music and friendships it offers. The first night we spent there we were instantly welcomed into groups of travellers, meeting people from Sweden, Denmark, France, America, England, Italy, Nepal and a few fellow Aussies. There is always someone with a guitar and a bongo drum there, so its renowned for it's relaxing night-time jams. My favourite sing a long was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Hard to explain but basically it was a mash-up like no other. In my place by Coldplay meets Get Up Stand Up by Bob Marley meets Hit the Road Jack with a French guy beat boxing, an Italian chick using salt and pepper shakers as the percussion, a guy using a spoon and bottle as a bell and my Nepalese friend Shambhu on guitar. The epitome of cool. The funny thing was Shambhu on guitar was the only remotely talented musician and everyone else just let the alcohol guide their movements, and in my opinion it actually sounded quite epic (no bias of course). 

 Mcleod Ganj

 Breakfast at Kunga

 Dance lessons at Lobsangs

Winta and i 

 Monks chanting at Dalai Lama's temple

Crystals everywhere!

The blanket attire i mentioned.

  Jamming at Carpe Diem with Kevin (Paris) and Shambhu (Nepal)

Carpe diem sing a longs - with Morton (Denmark), Shambhu (Nepal) and Sarah (New Jersey) 

brekky on Kungas Terrace

Weekend shenanagins

This past weekend was amazing! Living in a small village means that on the weekend i get to venture out to the closest touristy town Manali, which is roughly about 40 minutes away. My host parents own a large hotel/restaurant there that their daughter Piya runs. She has three kids all of which are studying elsewhere. Her oldest son Dhruv (22) however, is home for a few months after finishing college and he has become one of our good friends! he is super outgoing and friendly so its great for us to have our own personal tour guide. Piya has been running the hotel for the last 14 years now and has converted the top level into a home, it is so cool getting to chill there on weekends. This past weekend eight of Dhruv's college friends came upto Manali for a holiday so Winta (my volunteer partner) and i went and spent the weekend there as well. On Saturday Dhruv took us all snowboarding in the Solang Valley about half an our out of Manali. We borrowed my host mums mini van and all went up the mountain together. The road we drove up to get there was by far the deadliest road i have ever seen! Pot holes galore! no railings on the edge and attempting to pass buses and falling rocks/snow was not comforting! Luckily Dhruv is a very good driver.

Arriving at the slopes was amazingly overwhelming, it was unlike anything I've ever seen before. Basically there was one large slope with a million things happening at once! People skiing, snowboarding, hang-gliding, zorbing (a giant plastic ball a person goes inside and is literally pushed down the mountain), people randomly dressed in fur coats chanting with massive sticks, men with snow bunnies and women paying $2 to wear traditional dress for a photograph. My snowboarding experience here in India was unlike any past snow holiday! There are no chair lifts so you spend about 30 minutes walking up the mountain and five minutes coming back down (depending on how steep a slope you want), so it is seriously tiring exercise but such good fun. The other difference is the organisation of the businesses on the mountain. We thought we'd hired all the right gear in advance however upon arrival we were greeted with about half the gear we thought we had hired. No goggles no gloves no waterproof pants and no helmet (sorry Mum). I literally just had a snow-board. You should have seen my attire! I wore jeans, a jacket, i shared one glove off Dhruv as he sprained his wrist and only needed one so yes i looked rather underdressed for the snow!

I can't explain how chilled it is! During snow breaks locals would just sit around tables drink chai and smoke Charis (local hash) then hit the slopes again it's crazy!. We finished around 4pm then all sat and had a hot curry and coffee on the slope. At night we made a bonfire in the outside bar area at the hotel twas nice.

Dhruv and his friends are all studying/studied really interesting courses, animation, design or film. They are so talented at what they do it's crazy! The standard of their work here is so much better than most things I've seen in Australia. For example Dhruv is incredible at animation and art! Yet here he would earn way less for his awesome work in comparison with someone in Australia who would earn a lot more for a lower standard of work! They are all seriously talented and working on really cool projects. I've never met a group of people that are all equally creative and studying such interesting courses.

Life here is so relaxed! Everyone is so welcoming and the people I've made friends with so far i feel like i have known them forever! Everyone shares everything and unlike back home age really doesn't matter everyone is friends with everyone, I'm 17 hanging out with a bunch of 23 year olds and you wouldn't know the difference because everyone is so inclusive and friendly. It is going to be so hard coming home after getting a taste of this amazingly chilled and simple life style or the hill-billy lifestyle as Dhruv would call it. Driving up the mountain in a van going for a snowboard, living in a hotel, having friends over whenever you want, buying a good coffee for 20 cents, having 100 family members, wearing cool local woollen beanies, socks and textiles that one buys for next to nothing in the village. I really can't explain it my photographs don't do this place justice! Most people when they picture India see the stereotypical hot, over-crowded cities, curry and markets etc etc However where I'm living currently is the complete opposite! Big beautiful valleys, snowy mountains and streams, it's unreal!

Back to school today with a terrible cold! Note to self don't wear jeans snowboarding...

Solang Valley - Manali

Dhruvy

It's all happening..

Dhruv and moi

Neha

Paying money to get manually pushed down a mountain in a confined plastic ball...

Chai break

Sleepovers at the hotel

Bonfire time

Checking out Manali

Buying ice-cream despite the cold

Teaching full time

Today was my fourth day of teaching and i can honestly say that i feel like i have been teaching forever and already have a teaching degree, with the responsibilities i have in the school. I am already organising and teaching classes by myself. Most would assume a volunteer would just assist another teacher which we do do, however we also take classes by ourselves on a daily basis, which requires a lot of planning and preparation in advance. I can finally respect and understand the effort my teachers put in for me in and out of the classroom, because after school we spend time making activities or planning the classes for the next day which is time consuming. The two factors that make teaching here so tiring is the fact that the children are young and the fact that they don't speak English well enough to explain something once!

My first class every morning for two hours with a local teacher Anu, is UKG English (6 year olds) a class of 17. This is the cutest class! however the most preparation is needed as they are so young. They are currently learning the alphabet and counting 1-40. English songs/poems/words are also taught. They already knew "Twinkle twinkle little star" and "1,2,3,4,5 first i caught a fish alive" I taught them Insy Winsy spider which is now their new morning song. The thing i have noticed with this class in particular is the need for extension work as some students finish writing the alphabet in five minutes and some take half an hour to write the date and their name. The need to always have a back up plan and games/activities in your head can be stressful, however over time I'm sure we will be pulling them out of our ears! I have finally learnt the names of this class as i have them every day at the same time, where as all the other classes after them change daily.

The classes i am currently assisting are UKG English, year 1, 3, 4 and 7 sport and the little bubs (LKG 4/5 year olds) in games. The classes i am taking by myself are Craft for various years and Drama and reading for various years. Drama is the busiest as we are currently teaching them a small poem/play and introduce new warm ups/ games every class. It is so surreal teaching the kids a small drama game that we would not be enticed by as we do it so often, however their eyes light up and everyone wants to join in.

School starts at 9am and finishes at 3:15 and we walk to and from everyday. The youngest classes UKG and LKG (4 to 6 year olds) however, leave at lunch time.

Lunch time at school is the funnest! The other local staff here are super friendly and fun! They have about 10 female teachers and 3 male staff and even the principle is cool. At lunch we have formed a little group with 3 of the female teachers, where we sit and all share the lunch we bring, it is really cute. Our host family packs us something different everyday, either rice and Dal/ spinach and chapati/roti etc. They don't however pack cutlery so unlike at home we eat with our hands, which is a massive struggle. We also teach every second Saturday so our proper day off is always Sunday.

In summary school here is so much fun! The staff are so welcoming it feels like we have been here for ages! Every morning the children line up and sing the national anthem and a national song. The year 7's read a quote of the day e.g "honesty is the best policy" and every morning they also do general knowledge questions e.g this morning it was "who is the prime minister of India", "how many planets in the solar system" "what does USA stand for" I think every school should do it!

Getting cultured at the neighbours

My neighbours house - getting cultured

Village life - playing after school

Chai at the neighbours

(the family mentioned in article below)

Their washing line 

 My beautiful neighbour/student

Pretti, Vishal (brother ans sister) and Ojashvi

 The wife washing

Getting cultured - 3/03/13

Winta my volunteer partner and i hit the jack pot after receiving a lovely well off Indian host family, that live on a large British colonial style farm. Our neighbours however are not well off at all and we spend most days after school playing with their children or drinking chai with the parents. Yesterday we went for chai at one of our students houses. This particular family have two children, Vishal (6) and Preeti (4). They all live together in one room (as shown in photographs above) They have no beds, however they have one TV to watch the cricket! Ishval (the father) welcomed us with Chai tea and proudly showed us his son's school grades as well as his daughters new school uniform as her first day of school was today. They cannot afford to pay for their children's education, thus my host parents (the owners of the school) have allowed the children to attend on the basis that they pay for the school uniform and at least 100 rupees ($2) a month worth of school fees. 

It is a rather incredible set up here, the farm which i am staying at is surrounded by plots of tiny houses, home to some of the children that attend the school i am teaching at. Teaching some of my neighbours makes life easier, as we know names and faces at school and we walk to and from school together. All the staff that work here also live somewhere on the farm, it is like a small community within itself, which is very cool as we feel safe due to the fact that we know everyone within the 30 acres or we know that the person we don't know is related to the person we know well. 

The fact that everyone is related in some way even if not literally is another factor that has been hard to wrap my head around. Everyone working on the farm is either married or sisters in law, brothers in law, cousins and so on. Yet even those who aren't related at all refer to each other as family. "This is my brother but not really" is a common phrase so we are battling to figure out which kids are actually related. The younger girls at school call the older boys "Bhaiya" (brother) as a sign or friendship/respect. Every name has a meaning here which is good for our Hindi and amazing in general. For example one of my youngest students, her name is Khushi which means Happiness and one of my fellow teachers her name is Aasha, which means hope. We have been trying to learn as much Hindi as possible especially as our staff at the farm speak no english. The children at school however are encouraged to speak only english so we are not really meant to speak Hindi with them. The main words we use at school are however are vital, especially for younger students who don't listen.

Key Hindi words/ phrases learnt so far 

sooniyeh - Listen

chalo - let's go

teekay - okay

bahut aacha - very good
itarow - come here 

ha - yes

niye - no
yeh - this
k'ya - what

up ka naam k'ya hai - what is your name

meera naam Tess hai - my name is tess

up keseh hai - how are you

meh tikhu - i'm okay

meh aacha/achii (girl) hu - i'm good
meh bahut tuk gai hu - i'm very tired

paani - water
zayada - more
khana - eating
garum - hot
tanda - cold
snack - mitaya
doste - friend

(english spelling translation was guessed)