Thursday 6th - Saturday 8th March

Orientation days with Idex. We had Hindi lessons at the office which came in very useful at the schools later in the month. We had Indian food at lunchtimes (rice with seeds in, tomato, cucumber and beetroot salads, beans and vegetables in spicy sauces, chappatis or other breads (can't remember the name just now).

On Thursday we were taken to see a Hindi Bollywood movie. Now this was quite interesting as it was all in Hindi, and obviously it was a humourous film as the crowd broke into laughter at regular intervals - but we couldn't understand any of it!! The movie theatre was straight out of the 1970s - swirly carpets, pink shell-shaped decor, plastic flowers, a balcony for men to view/ogle what was going on below, the smell of stale popcorn, and over all the "smell" of India - mustiness, pollution, people, dust, dirt. We all decided to leave at half-time - indeed there was an interval in the film! We headed toward the old city and Jane and I hit the markets - she made good bargaining deals on jewellery and I bought a very nice blue top from the government shop in which I paid a fixed price - I was not in the mood for bargaining!

Friday - an exhilarating but exhausting day. We were picked up early and taken to the Amber Fort, just outside town. On the way there we saw a lot more of the old city - majestic red/pink buildings, shuttered up with red and green-painted shutters, an elephant being driven down the extremely narrow street so that it filled the street. The Fort was majestic on the hills - white/pale stone, gardens below, older red sandstone forts and walls above it climbing up the hills. We walked through the elephant stable yard and I got lovely close-ups pics of their feet, their painted faces, their gentle eyes and flapping ears. We had an elephant ride up to the Fort and it turned into an elephant traffic jam as some were going up and some coming down. We were also sprayed regularly by the ellies as they exhaled!! The sun was very hot and we felt quite regal climbing up to the Fort entrance.

The Fort itself was mind-blowingly beautiful - arched doorways, intricately carved in marble and stone, with inset semi-precious stones. The main gate fascia hasn't been changed in 400 years due to the quality of the original building. Elephant images were everywhere, especially holding up arches and doorways, a glass palace full of mirrors and glass, an inner sanctum for the maharajah and his wives only, secretive passageways which were illuminated only by the flash on my camera. As we walked out of the back gateway a monkey sat on the battlements and flicked water (or something else?!?) down at us.

By the time we finished there the heat was very high and my feet were complaining hugely of too much walking and stress on them. We walked in a group back down to the minibus and had a very welcome lunch and rest back at Idex office.

In the afternoon we went shopping!! Graziella and I shopped together as we were looking for the same kind of things - dresses and silks. We had great fun in one shop as the vendors kept pulling costumes, dresses and shalwars out of plastic bags, and we tried on many of them in a room the size of a kitchen long cupboard!! I bought a pure cotton outfit in bright blue with intricate stitching on it which I wore every day when teaching, and another one which was a heavier material which I didn't wear as it was too hot for me. Graziella's, in the same material, shrank in the wash! I found blue patterned bed covers, and she bought pure silks for her sisters, and I found some blue decorated bangles to match my clothes.

We were wandering along the covered walkway outside a material shop and suddenly a big brown cow just meandered across in front of us!!! with the beautiful sari material one side and the gutter and street on the other! Only in India!

We all convened at 6.30, having been walking round the market for 4.5 hours and we were all happy with our purchases. Chris and Michael had bought real "Indian teacher clothes" - white cotton shirts and trousers, and Chris had had shirts made, which would be delivered this evening. Only in India would you get such good tailoring and customer-oriented service.

Back to the host family and Anju surprised us by bringing out saris and Graziella and I played at dressing up - I bought mine as it is a bridal sari in a deep red, with blue silk fibres and gold edgings, and very beautiful indeed. Bed very late on our very hard bed - it was literally just the metal part of a bed, no mattress, which meant that we were both very stiff and tight in the mornings. The bathroom was small and serviceable but with no hot water, so we had to get used to cold bucket showers - such is life in urban India.

Saturday: up later today, with a tepid bucket shower, and after taking our farewells of Anju and Ritesh with lots of photos, we were taken to the Idex office and then got on the minibus which would take us down to the project camp. The group of 8 of us felt as though we had known each other for years now, and we all agreed that moral and emotional support would be very important to all of us in the following 3 weeks.

Out of Jaipur and back along the tarmac road. However we turned off at Dausa and got our first taste of rural Rajasthan - the conditions in the village were dire - poverty, child destitution, women in terrible manual jobs, dirt and rubbish piled all over , streets not tarmacked, animals roaming everywhere. Lalsot was worse, but our camp was about 10km further on and we were in deepest rural India villages called Sunderpur and Bagadi.

We got to the camp after dark. It was purpose-built to house the volunteers in this area. We were welcomed with a bindi on our foreheads and very sweet chai tea in the recreation room. The buildings were long low mud huts, with straw roofs, a long thin "bathroom" area with a concrete floor, only cold piped water, no hot water unless it is heated when the power came on and it came out of a standpipe. The bed was hardboard tacked onto a metal frame, and I had a full mosquito net over mine. The mattresses were thin palliases, and I pulled two from the spare bed (as I had paid for a single room for this month) onto mine to make a really comfortable bed for the 3 weeks. The walls of my hut were nicely decorated with patterns and images but others had plain walls. The electric power was always intermittent, and we relied on the generator when the government-controlled power went off. Viv and I turned our beds over and over to check for er, bugs, and I saw evidence of mice being in the hut. We both feared that we had done the wrong thing coming here, but this was first night nerves.

After dinner, the brandy and vodka came out and a good time was had by all, and I mean all.

On Sunday we went to Lalsot for the market, but it was such a horrid experience for us all (being tagged by kids, cameras being pulled off shoulders, being pushed and shoved by the kids, digging into my back) that we went back to the camp within an hour. I was also very ill (er, bowel-wise) in the afternoon so felt under the weather, which was very hot and sultry this afternoon. Viv woke me up for dinner and I felt better later.

Monday 10th March: more updates to come. See you soon......