Claire takes on the world….

Some of my favourite times in Shillong are the trips we go on with the students. It started in 2006, when we decided to make sightseeing more exciting by bringing a gang of ten year olds with us. And when 10 minutes into a 3 hour bus journey one guy started throwing up, it certainly did get interesting. Nowadays we stay closer to home, and out of buses. We walked to the local park with class I, one Saturday morning to go look at the animals. The park has monkeys, bears, deers, a domestic cat and lots of birds. But to the disappointment of many of them, no elephant. After I told them there was no elephant I had to stop one little fella who raced ahead of the group. I politely asked him why the hell he was running away and he said, “To find the elephant, Miss”. He was dealt an even greater blow when we went to the museum and found the skull of an elephant.
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Part of the work of the teachers in Providence School is to visit the homes of the students, find out what their living conditions are and see if they have any immediate needs, rice being the main one. As the three of us were still struggling to put a sentence together in Khasi, our visit turned out to be more about head nodding and smiling in the houses with parents were home, and dancing to Hindi music in the houses without adults. Most of the students live in wooden homes, usually with one room and sometimes a small kitchen off the back.

We took off one Saturday morning to Pynthor, with two students, Wadborlang and Marius as our guides. They’d been warned not to have us walking in circles so they had a perfect plan of the neighborhood made. When we got to the houses it was; polite hellos, vain attempt at communicating and then photo time. We were all far too shy to ask for a photo but our little recruits aren’t burdened with such things as shyness. They grabbed the three cameras and whatever phones had cameras on them and started snapping, getting the parents and children in the homes to move to different positions to get the perfect shot. One little guy, Smit, had my camera and in one house said “Can’t take Miss, too much light”. I didn’t know what he was on about and told him to just take the photo. After begrudgingly taking it he came up to me, very smugly, and showed that indeed, the bulb over my head had ruined the photo. Smart kids!

After the photo session was over we were quickly ushered out of the houses by our guides, they were eager for us to fit in every house in the time we had. They really like us going to their houses. One student, Monaliza, tried to coax me to her house one day. “You want to see baby? I have baby, real small baby. I’ll show you!” I hope to get to her house soon to check out this baby.

Back in Pynthor, Marius and Watborlang led us all over their ‘hood, taking photos of everything they thought we’d like, getting lots of photos we would never have taken. Ones of women cutting grass with a blade, little kids collecting water, and a boy with a plank of wood over his shoulders and two big containers of water hanging from each side. We even ended up with a photo of Marius’ uncle who was sick in bed!

Photos will be up the minute I find them…..

I’m back! After a long absence I’ve returned to my random writings.

In Calcutta I got a crazy fever and didn’t eat for a few days. When my appetite came back my stomach was in such a bad way it was painful to eat so I stayed off food for another few days, all the while popping ‘take after food’ tablets. That wasn’t fun. I staying in India just long enough to meet some volunteers from my college. I showed them the ATM and the pub, and headed home. Irish food sorted me out so I came back. Now I’m in Shillong, in the north east of India, where I spent the summers of 2005 and 2006, working in Providence School. I’m here with two of the volunteers I left in Calcutta, Andrea and Louise.

I won’t even attempt to describe the school. Here’s a link that can do it better.
Also, a chap from Tipperary is cycling from the west to east coast of the USA for the school. This is his blog.

In short, it caters for students who can’t afford to go to government schools, which are also free, but uniforms and books put them beyond the reach of a lot of people. There are 7 different classes, from kindergarten to the top class; in which they are studying for the National Open Schooling Exam. The school also teaches the students trades so they can be self employable when they’re older. Everything from knitting, cooking, carpentry, paper making, bag making hairdressing and candle making. There’s 20 altogether so I must be missing a few.
The class 1 teacher, who doubles as the confectionery teacher is abroad at a conference right now and I am attempting to replace her. Day1 in the confectionery class I noticed the cake mixture was an illuminous shade of green. Not being the best at baking I decided to whisper to one of the older kids (didn’t want to make a fuss if the cake was supposed to be this fun colour). Once she heard the word green she raced over to the offending child. My Khasi isn’t the best but I understood enough to know the cake was not supposed to be green. I manged to make out ‘No, not vanilla essence, food colouring!” After giving the girl an earful we later baked her crazy mixture and so ‘Alien Cake’ was born. Next St. Patrick’s Day everyone’s getting green Alien Cake from me.
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Since I’ve blogged last I’ve travelling a bit of Thailand, left my passport on a bus, finished my pottery course in Malaysia, spent 2 hours queuing up to get into Singapore, got sick in India and damn near starved to skinny-hood, given up, gone home, and then decided to give it another go.

Right now I’m in Shillong, in India. Started working in Providence school on Wednesday. I’ll be back writing very soon….

In the meanwhile here’s a tiger I met.

Over the past few months I’ve been getting disapproving looks from people when I say I’m a backpacker, yet have never been to Bangkok. A few times people have even started stories only to trail off with “Oh, you’ve never been, I forgot…”

Well, I’m finally in the club.

I was expecting big things when I arrived on Khao San Road, the backpacker ‘ghetto’ of Bangkok. A traveller I spoke to in Malaysia said she could only stick it for about 10 minutes and had to get away. Other bloggers have described it as the scariest place they’ve ever seen. This guy had me more than a little nervous. I was expecting a dark gloomy alley where people get to and from their hotel as quickly as possible – like my old haunt, Stuart Lane in Calcutta.
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For 3 weeks* I was commuter in Kuala Lumpur. My daily routine involved skipping across 7 lanes of traffic, jumping on the monorail in time to catch the connecting train after which I would sprint to get the bus to my place of study. I have to wait for my pottery to be fired and glazed (i.e. turned from clay to ceramic) and I don’t see much point in waiting in KL.
So I’m off to Thailand to see what all the fuss is about that place. I’ve noticed over the last few months people have been giving me disapproving looks when I claim to be a backpacker but have never been to Bangkok. I’m going to be initiated into the backpacker gang by spending time in their ghetto, Khao San Road.

Photos of the pottery wil be up when I get back. Can’t let you see it til it’s done!

* I realise I posted the first pottery blog 4 days ago, but it really was 3 weeks, I just fell a bit behind on the blog with all the white sandy beaches and all…..

I couldn’t resist the pun in the title considering how many I have been hurled at me over the last few weeks!

After leaving the paradise island of Tioman, I headed back to Kuala Lumpur and got settled into life in the Trekker Lodge again. When a girl moved into my room she said she had heard about the girl who was here for her 3rd time. Yes, that’s me. This time I am here with a new mission. I’d been thinking of things to do with my students in India (where I’ll be teaching in the summer) and the principal of the school agreed pottery could be fun and educational. I’ve now enrolled in a local class and have 3 crazy weeks of commuting and building mugs.

On day two of my course I was allowed join a class. The first day I had struggled for 4 hours to make something that looked like a cup. If it had looked a little less square it would have made a fine cup. There’s two parts to this course, hand building and wheel throwing. Wheel throwing is incredibly difficult so I was glad that in my first group class I only had to use my hands.
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It’s really hard to take photos underwater, most of the ones I took came out blue and dull, as colour fades as you go deeper. Here are a few I think are ok.

First a quick photo of the place I was staying.

And of the people this craziness happened with. On the left is Rob, my diving buddy and on the right is Anna, the divemaster.

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After a few days of Pangkor Island I really wasn’t expecting much from Tioman. But Pulau Tioman, on the other side of Malaysia, was a world apart from that other place. I only went there to kill a few days while waiting for my flight to India (for which I finally have a visa). I stepped off the ferry at ABC, and it was completely silent. One other guy got off with me and zoomed off somewhere on his moped. Walking down the jetty I was a little nervous about walking around, in the dark on what seemed a deserted island. I saw a sign saying that if a muslim is caught drinking alcohol on the island they are liable to “3 years imprisonment, RM5000 (€1000) fine or a flogging of no more that 6 strokes”. Happy that I was born a Christian I proceeded to try and find a bed for the night.

There’s no road on that part of the island, only a little path between the beach and the jungle. Every few hundred feet there is a small restaurant or a few chalets people can stay in. With no one approaching me I eventually had to ask a guy how I could get to a hostel. He just said follow the path and I should find something. And sure enough I did. This being a couples place I had the dorm to myself. Smelled funnier than the last place on Pangkor but after flushing the toilet a few times and drowning the place in perfume it was just fine.
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So I made it safely to Malysia! Was a little worried when I read about Asia’s budget airlines and lots of people who knew things about airplanes said people generally shouldn’t get in them. But ask any budget traveller if safety or money is more important and the majority will give you the same answer. Being part of that majority I happily jumped on the plane. Even bought some of their budget peanuts and a budget watch.

Getting off the plane in Malaysia, I was nervous for the first time since the start of my trip. I was worried about not knowing the language and being the only one with no head scarf. But luckily these people seem to take their studies seriously and speak very good English. And with the large Indian and Chinese population here my hair blowing in the humid breeze didn’t stick out either.
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