Yesterday there was a major blackout starting at 2am and as I am writing there is still a blackout.... WELCOME TO INDIA!

After a blackout everyone turns a bit stupid, "I'll just go watch a movie, wait there is no power." or "I'll go make a cup of tea, man! I need power for that."

Without power we couldn't get much schoolwork done so we decided to go to Narela (the local village) for lunch with Ruth (a volunteer). We were going to meet another friend there for lunch. There were no cars so we thought we would take the bus. Then we decided lets go wacky and take the ashram rickshaw!

We all crammed in and Mum, Ruth and Sam all took turns in cycling while I just enjoyed the ride satisfied that I was too small. Along the way people stopped and starred and walked off smiling others said 'hello' and came up to shake our hand. It was a wonder we didn't end up in the local newspaper!

We arrived at the restaurant and sat down for lunch. Soon Praseeda arrived and we all ate.

Sam asked Mum how much she would pay him if he rode all the way back. Mum asked Praseeda how much it would usually cost, she said 30 rupees (70 cents). Mum offered that price to Sam and Sam said "come on foreigner price, not Indian!" Sam took the 30 rupees and we started the 3 kilometre ride back. Sam was really good. He said "Yo, wass up?" to people passing by.

25th January 2010

In this blog I wanted to tell you what the ashram looks like.

In winter the plant beds are growing veggies and you can see patients all over the field gardening. Next to the veggies there is a badminton court.

When you first walk n the ashram you see the clinic and outside of that is where the meals are served. Just off that there is two rabbit enclosures.

Then there is the circle which is pretty much a circular shelter where most of the patients sleep. To the right of the circle is the bathrooms and there is two TB wards.

Then at the back of the ashram there is the mandir (temple). To the right of the mandir is 4 rooms facing each other. These are for the volunteers.

near the volunteers rooms is another building divided into 3 rooms, two of which are liked. Those two is where my family lives. And behind this is the kitchen. Next to the kitchen is a staff bedroom. On the other side of the kitchen is a duck enclosure.

On the top of the clinic is the office and some other guest rooms.

Leading to all the rooms are curved brick paths each going in different directions. In spring flowers are blooming everywhere taking up most of the path.

23 January 2010

In this blog I wanted to tell you about what I did on Sunday, It started off as an ordinary day but soon it changed. I didn't know Bobby was coming with his kids,

Bobby visits the ashram every week or so and talks to the patients and volunteers. But I love it when he brings his kids Sean and Angelie, they are about the same age as me and my bother. They brought their new Dog Eva, who is still a puppy. She is a beautiful dog.

We started off playing a couple of games of badminton. Angelie played with the baby rabbits.

After that Sean, Angelie and I climbed around the ashram wall, We find it great fun and enjoy it. We do it every time they visit and we are definitely getting faster!

Next we rode our rip-sticks ( 2 wheeled skateboards). We played tip on them so you had to touch each others rip sticks. Then we played a game where you have throw shoes under the rip-sticks to try and get the wheels caught so the person falls off.

Soon we stopped and started to watch the cows. We all sat on the wall and tried to feed them anything we could find.

We soon got bored and the boys went off to do something else. Angelie and I decided to make slice. We melted four Mars bars and some butter. Then we added Corn Flakes and mixed it together. we then put it in the fridge to set.

After that we decided to watch a movie. We picked journey to the centre of the earth!

When the movie finally finished, we ate the slice!!! It was delicious. We rip-sticked for a little while longer but then they had to go...

It was a long day but very fun. I am hoping the I between all of this we somehow had lunch...

16th January 2010

I have joined a soccer club this year, my team is called Affinity, which is apparently a hair salon! Our jersey's dark green with yellow piping down the sides, kind of Aussie colours.

We have played two games so far, we lost the first one, but I wanted to tell you about our most recent game.

I started off as the left attacker, then the whistle blew and the game began! The opponent scored after about 10 minutes ... we had to get it back. The coach pulled me off a few minutes later. Soon the half time whistle blew.

We took a break while the coach talked to us. we had to at least draw. She put me on the right attack this time. We kept getting close to the goals but our team wasn't working together and passing.

At last we got the ball and dribbled it up to the goal. Nuckle (my team mate) passed it to Asif, he shoots, he scores! A beautiful goal for Affinity... but wait, the ref blew his whistle , what's going on? No way, you have got to be kidding me, he called it off side! That's it, now we really have to score.

Coach took me off again for a little while, but it seemed like ages. She finally let me on as right mid fielder, but we only had ten minutes left. I somehow got the ball and dribbled it up. I crossed it to Nuckle, he took the shot and scored. Finally we were drawing and we weren't offside or anything!!!

We had a couple of minutes left, it didn't seem possible to get another goal and win.

Soon the whistle blew and the game ended, it was a better result than last week!

They gave us some snacks, oh, I forgot to tell you that in India at the end of the Game they (the parents) give you snacks and it isn't just oranges. Its things like muffins, LCM's and chocolate!!!

A brilliant ending to the game.

Hong Kong!

My family and I went to Hong Kong just about five days ago. We went there for about 10 days. We went there to get Mum, Sam and my visa renewed, but it also made a good holiday.

Visa's

So the whole reason we went to Hong Kong was because Mum, Sam and my visa had run out. The place we had to go to was the Indian Consulate General. In the end we had to go there three times and each time it had a massive long line. According to the website we could get our visa's changed so we wouldn't have to leave the country every 6 months, but in the end we just got another 6 month tourist visa. So I think we have learned not to listen to the website and if we want to get our visa's changed we have to go back to Australia.

Disneyland

All up we spent 2 days at Disneyland. We didn't do the 2 days in a row because we wanted to go on Space Mountain which wasn't open until a certain date. The first day we went I got photos with everybody. We ended up going on the Pooh Bear ride twice! We went to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters Ride a couple of times too...It was probably my favourite ride until I met Space Mountain. We met Jack Sparrow who was really weird. The first day we went we stayed until the fireworks which looked amazing. We saw 4 shows which were Festival of the Lion King, The Golden Mickeys, High School Musical Live and Philar Magic. High School Musical was interesting. They were a bit tone deaf with there singing if you ask me! But Philar Magic was my favourite. We also went on the Jungle River Cruise. The second day was when we went on Space Mountain. The first time I wasn't so sure and I didn't like it but after a while I was in love, and it became my favourite ride! In one of the pictures Sam blocked me out with his hair. One time I thought I forgot about the photo but I had actually put my hands in the air and blocked out Sam's face, which made great pay back!

Ocean Park

Ocean Park was another good theme park in Hong Kong. The only problem is, is that it is on a mountain which makes it very tiring to walk around all the time. They have a really good cable car which went over the mountains and was quite steep. Ocean Park has 2 roller coasters. The big one with cork screws and loop-the-loops was not open, to my relief so we had to go on the Mine Train one which was scary to me. I only ended up going on it twice unlike everyone else. I can tell you that I am afraid of roller coasters. My favourite ride overall at Ocean Park was 'The Raging River!' The have these little log boats that go in the little river and they hold 4 passengers so our family all went in the same one. It is all pretty normal until you get to the end where there is a steep drop. We went on it 3 times but the last time was my favourite. We put Dad in the front then Sam, Me and lastly Mum. When we were going down the drop Dad and Sam leaned forward and we (mostly me) got soaked and water kept coming in. We then got to the end where it said, "You may get wet!"

Shopping

We spent a couple of days shopping at the markets and some shopping malls. If you ask anyone in my family the will say that I got the most and that I shopped out Hong Kong. Every time Sam would just complain and say to Me and Mum,

"Why do we always have to follow you around shopping?"

Hotels

For the first three night we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel, which even had custom made carpet and sheets and every morning at breakfast they had some of the Disney characters. There was also a pool and a really cool water slide.

After that we stayed at the Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel which also had a pool and a not as cool slide. One day me and Sam found heaps of balloons and went to the jets an filled them up with water and pushed them down the slide. We also did really funny stuff on the slide!

But overall I liked the Disneyland Hotel better.

I hope you can see that we had a really cool time in Hong Kong.

Talk soon,

Hunter

Driving in Delhi

Mum and dad have started to drive in Delhi. Dads the one that usually drives. When Mum does drive we tend to make sure we are wearing our seatbelts. It almost is like she aims for the potholes. One time we got a flat tire when Mum was driving...me and Mum just sat in the car while Dad and Sam sorted it all out. Mum says she is a better driver though because Dad has bumped a number of cars let alone people!

We are kind of used to seeing people hanging out of the doors of buses but the other day we saw people hanging on to the bars across the windows at the back of the bus. So if you were one of the people on the bus and you looked out the back window you would see some people hanging there...for dear life.

We have seen some cycle rickshaws packed with some weird stuff. My two favorite would be the time when we saw a guy on a cycle rickshaw with his broken down motorbike and all we could say was, "How the heck did they get it on there?"

We have also seen a number of goats on cycle rickshaws!

All the trucks here seem to have a little bit of a tilt as they really like to pack stuff on them. I once saw one that looked like it was about to fall over. We have also seen a truck that had driven straight into the concrete diversion after making his "which way do I go?" choice too late.

We have seen a number of dead dogs on the road with their guts coming out. We have also seen a buffalo sitting on the road with is guts coming out...it was about to die. But my favorite is when we see a dead cow. Yes cows cross the road and people stop for them but this is a time where that probably didn't happen. One ordinary day when we were driving home from Splash...what did we see? A dead cow lying on the medium strip. It had its legs in the air its tummy was bloated and it looked like a balloon, and its eyes were crossed and all goofy, but no guts. We actually once saw a car with a trailer on the back of it which was filled with dead cows!

Hope you can see why I like driving in Delhi and what unusual things happen!

Talk soon,

Hunter

Diwali

On Saturday the ashram celebrated Diwali. We didn't really celebrate until the afternoon.

The Family House and the Dream House all came over to the main ashram. We planned on putting lights everywhere and doing some fireworks and then topping it off with a special chicken dinner.

We (Dad, Mum, Sam and I) got to the ashram just in time for lunch. After lunch we just kinda lazed around until it was time to start preparing all the lights, they had already laid little clay holders all over a charpoy.

The time finally came when we got to start putting the oil and wicks into the little clay holders....I helped with this. Dad then prayed and after that they started to put the little candles everywhere.

When it became dark some people including me and Mum went around lighting them all. When they were all lit up the ashram looked beautiful or in hindi "sundar."

We all stood around and did a couple of sparklers and things that spray all these sparks....I call them sprayers or fountains, but we were all just waiting for them to let off the big ones. When everyone was ready we all went to the badminton caught for the big ones. They did a rocket one and it made the coolest sound. They then let off some actual fireworks. There was one that went up into the sky and then kept on exploding. You should have seen the expression on some of the patients faces...they were so excited. We did two fountains/sprayers next to each other at the same time and it looked amazing. Next they did the biggest one of all but no one wanted to light it so Dad was left to do it...luckily he ran away quick enough. The fireworks kept going off and Mum, Jenni and I had started going "oooh ahhhh" every time one went off. Rasheed got the honors of doing the last one and he was full of excitement. He lit it and then Sarin immediately pulled him back and then it went off into the sky, it was beautiful.

After we all started to settle down they brought dinner over. It was a special meal. They had prepared rice and chicken, it was very special for us, they had just the right amount of chicken.

On the way home we stopped by a firework shop and Me and Sam both got to choose something. I got a pack of pen torches which spray sparks and Sam got a pack of three fireworks. We got home and let them off, which was really fun because I never expected I'd be the one letting a firework off.

And soon I fell asleep to the continuous sound of fireworks.