Big Birthday

Hi it's Isha here again.

On Tuesday there will be a BIG festival here with about 50,000 people coming to celebrate Amma's 58th birthday. It will be very crowded in the ashram. The venue is about 5 soccer fields wide! There will be free food for everybody.

We have less than one week in the ashram. After we'll travel to a touristic place with a nice tropical beach. We'll stay there 4 days before the grand journey home begins.

We will fly from Cochin to Mumbai. In Mumbai we will stay one night at a hotel.

Bye

beach

Hi!

I am already looking forward to coming back! I am especially looking forward to go and swim in the Mot River (after you have read this post you will get to know why). Last week I went swimming in the sea with my dad and some guys from California. The sea was really rough and there was a very strong undertow. People do not swim here in the sea but we did not know that. That week on the same place where we were, two Indian guys got drowned. Those men were poor fishermen who did not feel having a choice taking their small boats in the waves to catch some fish so that they can sell them on the market. As you understand I got kind of scared when I tried to get out of the sea and I could not because of the undertow. When I did manage to get out this guy asked if he could take a picture of us. After the photo was taken  looked at it and I saw someting quite dirty on the background of the picture, something you will never guess...I saw three villagers doing a poo on the beach! I figured out why they did poo on the beach...they are very poor and they do not have toilets or even electricity and running water in their huts, so the beach is basically their toilet.

p.s. Floris, how is your foot doing? Hope it is getting better so we will get to play soccer again!

Bye!!!!! Isha

Half way

Hello,
Sorry, that I haven't replied on my blog so often. There has been so many things going on that it will take me 5 weeks to describe all of it.


I have borrowed a keyboard of this lady called Gitamba. Cause I want to practise a few songs. I have learnt how to play 'twinkle twinkle little star' and ' green sleeves' in 10 minutes. I have improved my reading a lot by reading the Harry Potter series (in English). So far I am up to the third. Unfortuntally, the library here does not have the fourth. So I've started reading these other book series. I just forgot the name of the title, but is a bit like Harry Potter. Also I readt 'the diary of a wimpy kid' (the green one). I like the 'Shell Silverstein' bit.
From the 1st of September to the 10th there is a Ganapati festival. It is about this guy called Ganesha who's head got chopped of by his father (an Indian god called Shiva). Shiva wanted to go in his house, then Shiva realized that the kid he killed is his own son. So, he goes to a forest and chops of the head of the first being he meets: an elephant! Afterwards he places the elephants head on the body of his son. Technically, if Mrs Goodall chops of your heads and replaces them with possum's heads, you'll be gods!!!??? Last Friday morning I saw a bird. It looked like a King Fisher, but than the size of an eagle. The bird's wing were electric blue, awesome!! PS, it's my birthday the 4th of Sept.

Bey, bey,
Isha

my first week

Hi how are you, yes you room two!!! I have heard that there is more snow up Mt Arthur.

The food here is so so so hot that is why I almost alway go to the western canteen( There are two canteens here, the western and the Indian one). There are hundreds of crows here, if you leave your food for two seconds it will be gone like a hungry shark eating a snapper. Everyone works here. I have got the best job! I sell cakes now which is better than Madhu's job which is making compost of food left overs and cow shit. I have met a guy some days ago, he is also Dutch and his name is Jonathan. He is 17 years old and he does Ju Jitsu. He is the best in Holland and the third best in Europe and goes to the world championships. I am getting private lessons from him!

I have made a friend, his name is Amar and he is french, he lives here already for six years. He goes to the Indian school here and he does not like it. If you do not listen you get beaten up by the teacher. I know that sounds crazy to us!
(: Isha

ps There is also a swimming pool here which I really like because it is very hot.

Travelling

Hi! How are you guys there in the nice and cold Winter? Here in the tropics it is normally 35 degrees in the day and in the morning. In the evening 30 degrees! So yes I know it is amazingly hot and wet too because it is Monsoon season. Here are the airplanes we have travelled with and the cities we went to: We went from Motueka with the car to Nelson. We had to wait for one hour at the Nelson airport. Then we went with Air New Zealand to Christchurch. We stopped at Chch for two hours then we went Qantas to Sydney. We waited in Sydney for three hours and we went with Qantas to Singapore. We waited for one hour and went to Mumbai where we had to wait for seven hours. Then we went with Kingfisher to Cochin. There was a taxi waiting for us who was going to bring us to the ashram. The taxi drove like mad. Traffic in India is so different! They horn all the time and there are no lanes. Evereyone is driving in the middle of the road!! So it is quite dangerous, you do not even need to wear seatbelts! So yes, it was a big big trip.


                                                     :) Isha

Packing

Hallo it´s Indian Isha here. We have been packing our stuff the past few weeks it is quite empty in my house now. We will be catching the plane to Christchurch in 8 days. From Chch we will fly to Sydney, from there to Singapore and from Singapore to Bombay. We will have a long wait of 7 hours in Bombay before we will fly to Cochin, that is a city in the very South of India. Then we will catch a taxi to the ashram, which will be a 4 hour drive.

The place we are going to is the home of an Indian woman Saint. She is well known for her compassion for all people. She is showing that by building free hospitals for the poor and she has various orphanages, looking after every childs´education. There are schools on all levels and many people that are living there help with the different jobs that are needed to be done. We will be helping in the kitchens to feed everyone or we will help out on some other things. At the moment we do not know exactly but I will keep you posted!!!
                                                                    :)Isha