Got Home from India on Sat.12th April

Hi Bloggers

Home again. 2 months is definitely not long enough. Have decided that on my next trip to the Darjeeling/ Kalimpong hill region I will go without travel insurance if I can't get 3 mts minimum at an affordable cost. Have never claimed on a holiday insurance!

Lots going on in the region. The enthusiasm for the holistic development and education of the youth and general population of the villagers, especially the parents and guardians of the school children is tangable. There is a really special feeling whilst one is there. I'm so fortunate to be able to go and live with them occassionally.

I'll be posting new blogs weekly for the next wee while to let you know all about my recent visit, so please keep logging in.

Will attach a few of my recent photoes. Thanks for visiting my blog. Pauline

The New School Year begins in The Kalimpong Hill Region Schools

Photo time in the village. This is Komalika. She is 7 years old.

Taken from further up the hill looking down on a typical hill village.

Taken on Easter Sunday. Time to relax.

Grandad. I spent the 4 day Easter school holiday with this family in a village called Merik.



Hello Friend Bloggers

Once again another academic year is commencing for the pupils of the schools in the Hill regions of West Bengal.
I think that perhaps many of the children will be happy, to be back at school and even back to living in the hostels again.
The winters in the Hill region are chilly and the majority of the children live in fairly flimsy accomodation, with toilet shed situated quite a distance from their house,no heating and just 1 electric light in their kitchen/eating room building, a one room building, which is also separate from their house.
The house itself usually consists of a front room into which you enter the house, this is the largest room and has 1 or 2 beds in it, which are used as seating during the day and for sleeping at least 3 or 4 members of the family at night. There are often, 1 or 2 small rooms ,curtained off from this main room, one for the parents or a very elderly member of the family, and if they have a second one, this will be kept for any visitor.
Most of the homes do not have any other furniture. Their few extra clothes are hung on the wall on nails. and they will use cardboard boxes to store their bits and pieces in.
The parents do not get holidays, as field work,transporting, on foot, any excess produce to Git Dubling the small market village,to sell it, or around the neighbouring villages to exchange it for other items required, still has to be done.
The children will be kept very busy looking after the younger siblings, collecting water, sticks for the cooking stove and fodder, from the surrounding woods, for the animals in the village.
They will be very unlikely to receive any food during the day, with the the meal of the day being prepared, when their mother comes home from where ever she has been working, during the day. Breakfast, which may have been eaten at 6am or even earlier, will have been a chipatti or any food left over from the evening meal.
The children will not have had much time for play or chatting to their friends during their holidays, especially the older ones.
Their life seems hard in comparison to many of our lives in the Western World,but I never heard them complaining.
However, you can maybe see why coming back to school after the 2 months Winter holiday, is quite an attractive alternative for some of the children.

My visit to West Bengal in 2006

A view of Kanchenjunga, West Bengal

Travel:
I flew from London to Kathmandu in Nepal, from Kathmandu I flew to Kakabeta on the border of Nepal and West Bengal. I was met there by a driver and jeep, who had been instructed to take me to Kalimpong.
This journey took three hours over very rough roads but through beautiful countryside. When I arrived in Kalimpong another jeep was waiting to take me to Gitdubling. This took another three hours and the roads were even worse.
By the time I arrived there I was exhautsed and not sure what to expect. I was taken to the convent of the sisters of St. Jospeh of Cluny. There I was made very welcome, given tea, and warm water in a bucket to wash with.
I then sat down to my first meal-19.30 hours- steamed rice, dal and hot curried potatoes along with a glass of warm boiled water.
I was in bed and asleep by 21.00 hours.