November 21 2010
Today was an awesome day.
This morning I was picked up around 8:40 by an Indian lad. He walked me to the bus station, we rode the bus together to one of the organic nurserys in the middle of the beautiful nilgiris.
They started me out on weeding the elephant garlic patches. I was soon greeted by a local Indian girl who is in the 8th standard. (8th grade).
She sat and talked to me while I weeded. She asked me my name, my parents names and my brothers names. It was kind of difficult communicating at first because she was convinced she didn't speak english. But the more we laughed at not being able to understand each other, the more she was able to speak the bits of english that she knew, and somehow we were able to hold a conversation the entire morning! Her sister joined us 15 minutes after she had, and together we laughed and tried to talk, her sister was 2 years younger than her.
They started talking about photos, and I took out my camera. They were so excited! They had no idea how to use one, and it took them a bit to figure out which way needed to point outwards, but they caught on quickly!
They took pictures all day! It was quite the event. At lunch, they brought out rice and samba, from somewhere, who knows where (Indian fast food??)! It was almost an entire pot of rice they brought me packed inside a banana leaf tied up in a string! I had a pretty hard time finishing it, it was so much food!
We took more pictures and played with the baby cats and the dog.
The mother took me down for more garden work. We harvested carrots, and washed them.
Okay so the mother washed them, I tried but just watched, she put all of the carrots into a bucket and washed them with her foot!!
She used water from a stagnant pond, and gave me a carrot and told me to eat it. I really wanted to eat it, but I couldnt get the thought of proper sanitation for the carrot off of my mind.
No need to get sick in India again.
There were soo many tadpoles in the pond! Many became beached as she took the water from the pond into the bucket, so I spent a good 15 minutes saving tadpoles.
The time was almost 6 so we headed up to catch the bus. Somehow I made it safely back to Vanyas, despite not having my phone on me, and only half spoken English by the people I was working with. But somehow things were worked out, and they took care of it! Wonderful.
Today was an awesome day.
This morning I was picked up around 8:40 by an Indian lad. He walked me to the bus station, we rode the bus together to one of the organic nurserys in the middle of the beautiful nilgiris.
They started me out on weeding the elephant garlic patches. I was soon greeted by a local Indian girl who is in the 8th standard. (8th grade).
She sat and talked to me while I weeded. She asked me my name, my parents names and my brothers names. It was kind of difficult communicating at first because she was convinced she didn't speak english. But the more we laughed at not being able to understand each other, the more she was able to speak the bits of english that she knew, and somehow we were able to hold a conversation the entire morning! Her sister joined us 15 minutes after she had, and together we laughed and tried to talk, her sister was 2 years younger than her.
They started talking about photos, and I took out my camera. They were so excited! They had no idea how to use one, and it took them a bit to figure out which way needed to point outwards, but they caught on quickly!
They took pictures all day! It was quite the event. At lunch, they brought out rice and samba, from somewhere, who knows where (Indian fast food??)! It was almost an entire pot of rice they brought me packed inside a banana leaf tied up in a string! I had a pretty hard time finishing it, it was so much food!
We took more pictures and played with the baby cats and the dog.
The mother took me down for more garden work. We harvested carrots, and washed them.
Okay so the mother washed them, I tried but just watched, she put all of the carrots into a bucket and washed them with her foot!!
She used water from a stagnant pond, and gave me a carrot and told me to eat it. I really wanted to eat it, but I couldnt get the thought of proper sanitation for the carrot off of my mind.
No need to get sick in India again.
There were soo many tadpoles in the pond! Many became beached as she took the water from the pond into the bucket, so I spent a good 15 minutes saving tadpoles.
The time was almost 6 so we headed up to catch the bus. Somehow I made it safely back to Vanyas, despite not having my phone on me, and only half spoken English by the people I was working with. But somehow things were worked out, and they took care of it! Wonderful.
Esti saved the tadpoles :)
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