Week 3.5, Meet Charlotte and Ian in Mumbai

While I’m here in India, I have a few friends coming to visit me from home. First are Charlotte and Ian, who arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday 28 July. They’re going to spend almost 2 weeks traveling up to Delhi while I work, and then they’ll fly down to Goa on 10 August. I’ll take a week off work and meet them there, which I’m really looking forward to.

In the mean time, I left work early on Tuesday, and took Wednesday off, to meet them in Mumbai. I took the bus there, which was a bit of a disaster. I bought a ticket for the 11am bus to the airport that was supposed to get in at the same time as Charlotte and Ian, at about 3pm; when I showed up there was no 11am bus! I got on the 11:30 bus instead, and because of traffic in Mumbai we didn’t get to the airport till 4:45. While we were stuck in traffic, I had no idea where we were or how long it would take, so Charlotte and Ian went ahead and took a pre-paid taxi to the hotel. When I finally arrived, I took a rickshaw to the nearest train station, a train to Mumbai CST, and then a taxi to the hotel. I beat them there in the end because they got stuck in the same traffic that I was stuck in and their driver couldn’t find the hotel.

When we met up in the end we had a really nice evening together. In the morning we got them train tickets for the first leg of their journey to Udaipur, and had a little look around the Gateway of India.

We had lunch together and then they had to leave to get to their overnight train at 3:45. I had a little time to myself, so I walked around, got some post cards printed, took some photos, sat in a café, and still got to my train an hour early. The train back to Pune went without any problems. I bought a ticket online, my name was on the reservation list when I got on the train (in English and in Hindi!) and I showed my ticket and ID to the conductor without any troubles.


It was really nice to meet Charlotte and Ian when they arrived in India, and I learned some very useful information about traveling to Mumbai and to the airport. Trains to Mumbai are much more reliable than buses! I get to try the whole thing again a week from Sunday (9 Aug) when Euan arrives.

Week 3, Weekend in Phaltan

This weekend Jenny and I went to visit two other EWB volunteers, Jack and John, who are working at ARTI in Phaltan. We took a government bus direct from Swargate Bus Stand; it takes 3 hours and costs only 70 rupees, that’s 1 pound! (Just to compare, the 3 hour bus ride from Cambridge to Heathrow Airport costs about 35 pounds.) It was really nice to get out of Pune and get some fresh air. Phaltan is quite a small town (only 50,000 people), and I think the guys are a bit bored there. But I really liked it. First we got a tour of ARTI and the project they are working on. They are converting a diesel generator to bio gas, which people in rural communities can generate themselves.

Then we somehow managed to get into the Palace, which is not open to the public. They said it belonged to one of Shivagi’s wives, which means it’s from the late 1600’s. It was kind of like a National Trust house in the UK that hasn’t been looked after. I guess they never get any tourists in Phaltan, so there is no motivation to keep it in good shape. They were filming a movie while we were there, so we met a famous Marathi film star. Here we are in one of the sitting rooms.


In the afternoon we went over to the house of one of the other guys who works at ARTI. We had tea and snacks (including boiled peanuts, like you can get in Florida! Yum!), and the guy’s wife did henna for us.


On Sunday there was a kite festival, kind of like in Kite Runner (which I haven’t seen or read). We were on the roof of someone’s house, and they had a bunch of kites with string that has glass glued to it. They would launch the kites, and battle with the other kites that seemed to be all over the sky. Most of the time we would cut down the other people’s kite and it would slowly float to the ground, but a few times we got cut down too. There was a drum band on our roof too, and everyone was dancing. It was really fun, but there were no girls except us and a few kids; it’s not fair that the girls don’t get to play with kites.

Week 2, Shelter Associates

I've been working at Shelter for about 10 days now, so I thought I'd update everyone on what we're doing. They just started a new project in Solapur, which is about 4hrs south east of Pune. They want to get a city-wide view of the slums, so they can make improvements to the sewage systems that are in place at the moment. We started this past week by mapping all 220 slums in google earth. We are only missing about 10 of them, which we just couldn't find. We have outlined them, and labelled them, and entered them into a spreadsheet. This week, we are actually going to Solapur to check that what we mapped is correct. I'm not sure we will be able to cover all 220 in 5 days, but we should be able to make a good start on it. After that, the idea is for the social workers to go survey all the slums with fewer than 200 houses, to find out about the facilities there. We can then add this to the maps, along with information about the existing sewers from the government, to get a complete picture of the city and make recomendations about how to improve the situation.

Here are a few photos from the office. This is the outside. We are the building on the left, and the office is in one of the appartments at the back of the buildings so you can't see it. It's actually a residential block, and the flat we are in is just used as an office.

And here is where we work. They just remodeled the place in the last year, so it is quite nice. This is the desk where the volunteers work. You can see Jenny and Beran (a french architect who has been here for about 3 months) hard at work.

Day 7, A place to live

Until now, we have been staying in a Ladies Hostel called Nikam House (see Day 2). It's very basic and only has hot water from 6-8am, but it never lasts till 8. So, this weekend we went house hunting. We got some phone numbers from people who were here in previous years, and also found a few on the web, but had no luck. Jenny called one, who said they would call back and then never did. Susan called one, who doesn't rent to foreigners. I called 4: 1) doesn't rent for only 3 months, 2) no answer, 3) doesn't rent to foreigners, 4) said they would call back and didn't.

So luckily we made an Indian friend in a cafe where we were hanging out. He knew some people, and went with us to negotiate with the rental people. His name is Akshay, and he has spent some time in Yorkshire playing cricket. Anyway he took me and Jenny and Susan (another volunteer, from America, at Shelter) around to see some places. First we just looked at rooms that were really bad - similar to the hostel, but a bit cheaper. They progressively showed us better and better rooms. Finally we convinced them to show us a 2BHK; that stands for 2 bedrooms, hallway, kitchen. And the kitchen has a bed in it too. So we took it! It costs 18,000 rup for the whole flat per month. What we were paying at the hostel works out to 15,000, and this is a lot better. And if Susan ends up moving into the kitchen, it will be even cheaper for each of us. Akshay said it was too much, but we couldn't have gotten anything else like that for only 3 months, especially since we are foreigners.

So I am very relived now that we are settling in.

Here are some photos:
Kitchen

Shower and toilet

My bedroom

Day 4, EWB from home

There are about a million things I want to BLOG about, but I need to pace myself. I'm still learning about everything, so I'll wait for the moment.

In the mean time, here's a link with list of EWB placements. I'm not in the photo because I had to leave the pre-departure training course early.

Time to go get an Indian SIM card for my mobile phone.

Day 2 in India

We made it to Pune! We left London on Monday (6 July) and our flight was 2hrs late, so we got into Mumbai later than expected on Tuesday (7 July). It was an overnight flight and I slept pretty much the whole way. We took a taxi to Pune, had dinner and went straight to bed.

We are staying at Nikam House Ladies Hostel. It's basic but clean. Still, I'm glad I brought a sheet and sleeping bag liner, cause the sheets they have are very old and stained. Jenny and I have a room to ourselves that locks with a padlock so no-one can get in when we are away. We also have our own bathroom; the toilet is just a hole in the floor, and there's a tap with a bucket for bathing. Here are some photos:
'Bathroom'

Beds and shelf


We have this place for a week so we can try to find a more long-term place to live.

Now it's Wednesday (8 July) morning. We got up and went to a shopping street but everything was closed. We were a bit confused until we learned that the shops don't open till 10:30. So we ate something (I had a vege roll, which was just a pastry roll with slightly spicy vege curry in it), and found the internet cafe when it opened. The plan for the rest of the day is just to look around, and maybe find the place where we are working. We still have a lot to figure out here.

Submitted

On Tuesday I finally submitted my PhD. I'm so glad that's done.


Now I'm hanging out in Bath for a few days. All of our stuff is in our new flat, and we are trying to make everything fit. I got some pretty flowers from my mom earlier in the week.


Not too much else to report. I got all my vaccinations, my visa, and I started the malaria tablets. We booked a hostel for the first week before we find a place to live. I think I have enerything I need (except a webcam, which I'm buying tomorrow). I'm just counting down the days till I leave. 3 more days...