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I had the time of life...
Writing this I am listening to "I had the time of my life" and it feels quite appropriate to label this the title for the blog about my last few weeks at work. The last week at work was busy and it was hard to fit in everything that we wanted to do. Everyday was busy and lots of fun. On Wednesday was our last cultural day so we went on a trip to Alandi which is a really religious place, it had a really cool temple and along the river loads of women were washing their clothes and people were bathing and playing in the water. It was really cool, to continue our jouney we went to an actual Sangam- a place where two rivers meet. It was beautiful, as we came out of the temple, of which the floor burned our feet with the heat! We walked down to the river side and a funeral service was about to start- the spreading of someone's ashes. It was very interesting and there were only men in the congregation. We also spent a while watching women washing their clothes, obiously one of the pieces of material was no good anymore because she looked at it and then chucked it in to the river, piled all her washing in a bowl and walked back up the hill to home! Afterwards we went to cool down with a drink. Everyone was very excited because there was a tiny little puppy, I'm supprised no one took him home in their bag! Our next stop was Ishwari, an NGO for empowering rural women. They go for courses on tailoring, cooking e.t.c. they cooked us lunch and it was incredible!!! We had soup, spring rolls, and homemade fresh bread. It was so tasty and stupidly we thought it was just the one course... No it was not! In true Indian style there were two more courses to follow! The second one was of rice, vegetables, popadom, chapattis and dal. The second was a noddle milk thing AND the chai!! We were so sleepy and could hardly move we had eaten so much! It reminded me of Christmas dinner at my Gran's!! :D We climbed on the bus and returned home, for me and Clare at least the moment my head hit the back of the chair I was asleep.
Once back at Sangam it was time for the SV's and Stacy's farewell presentations. They were all awesome and it was great to hear about their time at Sangam and what they had achieved. It was also very sad because Stacy was one of our Tare and she had to leave early to return home to Kenya to school. Her presentation brought tears to my eyes and it wasn't long before we were all in tears- will miss her tonnes!!!
Saturday- our last chance for shopping, so after spending the morning in the post office it was off to Lamxi Road to pick up some last bits and pieces, I may have brought some more Punjabi material... :D Bangles, sari material, spices, holi powder, tiffins and earrings were just some of the things we brought between us. Late that afternoon it was time to start preparing for International Dinner. Now don't worry I did cook but I wasn't the only one!! I decided to make scones. It turns out though Indians don't really use measurements they just geuss and it turns out great!! In my case though... well it didn't turn out so well. There was amount 1cm of burnt crust on the top and they didn't really rise but everyone said they were nice- to my face anyway!!Well at least I tried and I gave them fair warning when I signed up! :D Luckily all the other food was incredible and we left very full!!!
After dinner it was time for Steph's suprise. The instructions were meet in the hall at 8 o'clock with drinks and snacks...
Time for The Sound of Music, this is steph's favourite film of all time, when some of the girls were out shopping they found it and brought it for us all to watch. I loved it! Only having watched it halfway through I really enjoyed it and it was a lovely staff evening. Those who hadn't seen it also thought it was great and Stacy from Kenya loved it so much she brought it when she got home! :D
Sunday- Ishwari day so a few of us went over to the centre again to join in their celebrations; there were presentations, dancing, music and singing. It was really cool and we even ended joining in the dancing at the end. My lessons at work came in handy afterall! Afterwards there was chance for some shopping and then time for lunch! Once again the food was incredible and we left super full as on Wednesday! That afternoon was spent preparing final tasks that we had to do before we left Sangam.
Our last week at Sangam was also the last week of season and the Environmental Seminar. Sangam was at capacity with 50 participants from 38 different countries plus the staff. The week was very busy for everybody and I met people from all over the world in countries that I didn't even know exsited! One of the highlights of the week for me was the International Evening. Each region of the world did performances from their cultures, we learnt songs and did lots of dancing! It was so much fun and everyone's national costumes were so bright and colourful. We had some quizzes and did lots of badge swapping and everyone came away with some awesome gifts, of course I also got contact details of the lovely people I met- more travelling on the cards to go and visit them all! :D
After the evening had 'officially' finished the hall turned into the venue for a giant dance party. One girl, from Nepal was an incredible dancer; she looked like a china doll and danced like someone out of a fairytale. It was very beautiful and she danced with so much expression. We danced every kind of style from all over the world- we were all tired out by the end! It was then time for decorations to cover the walls of Sangam ready for St Patricks Day and with us we had 2 lovely and very patriotic Irish girls, so Sangam celebrated in style!
Life at Sangam was never boring and the evenings were always full of fun crazy activities. In between events we would enjoy the peace and quiet and had No Pants Pool Parties- So much fun!! We sat in inflatable chairs in the pool and had a floating bar (lilo) and popcorn and watched Bend It Like Beckham. Awesome film- even more funny watching it in India -I understood more of the jokes!! I have to say it did get rather chilly towards the end and many of us abandoned the pool for thick jumpers!
As part of our celebrations of our last weekend we had a Grease theme night. Everyone got really into it! We dressed up 50's style and danced to 50's music, drank awesome milo and coffee shakes courteously of Ally, Liv and Elly and then we watched Grease. Much to my surprise not everyone had seen it! It was so much fun and everyone danced and sang along at the top of their voices! There were T-Birds, Pink Ladies, Sandy, Rizo and many more!
Along with everything else Hindi lessons also came to end. Since Kalpana forgot one we had 2 in our last week and in our very last lesson we learnt how to write our names in Hindi script. It was logical once you understood the alferbet apparently but I thought it was pretty confusing!! Their alferbet is made out of sounds and not letters so it's very easy to have many different spellings for words. With my spelling 'skills' maybe this would be the perfect language for me! We gave Kalapana some sweets as a thankyou and she gave us a giant grapefruit from her village-I'm not quite sure what happened to it though because we gave it to the kitchen ladies and never saw it again! I geuss it ended up in our dinner one night!
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