27th May

So, I’ve been here for a month now. The course is going well, and we are preparing for another to start in July. (All going well, another full class)

I have a new companion. He popped in the other day. He’s an Indian lizard. He’s very tiny. I suspect he’s quite young. I’m hoping lizard are quite partial to ants. If he is then they’ll be plenty for him to feed on. He may even grow to be a nice big strong fella. That’s assuming it’s a he. It might be a she. Then I’d be in trouble, inviting a girl into my room. But, on the grounds that I’m not sure how I would tell, I think I’ll call him Raj. The ants are vicious little buggers. One had a chew on my foot the other night as I was cleaning my teeth. It’s a bygone ant now. (That’ll learn him. Ha!!)

I went to the movies last night. First time since I’ve been here. It started really late. 10.50pm. (I’m normally asleep and snoring by then!!!!) But at least I got Ashutosh away from the office for a while. He’s been working crazy hours for weeks. We saw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 4’ in 3D. The movie was OK. Not one of Jonny Depp’s better movies. It might have been better for me if I didn’t have the 3D glasses on. By the end of the night, I was starting to get a headache. Of course, it could also have been the time of night. I finally tucked myself in at around 1.30am. “uggggg”. The alarm mercilessly woke me at 6am as per usual. I would have been happy to yell at it and go back to sleep, but I knew the cleaner would be coming soon, so I obeyed the call and started my day. I blame it all on Ashutosh. Fancy going to the movies at that time of night. I didn’t even get to say goodnight to Raj.

20th May

We had a really wild storm last night. It started around 10pm and went through to 6.30 this morning. It was quite amazing. The sky was alive with thousands of lightening flashes and the thunder was intense. It makes our Christchurch storms seem ‘insignificant’. I woke to the alarm and no power, again. I turned on the hot water for the shower and, nothing. DOH!! Oh well. Its not as though I couldn’t have a cold shower. Especially as the cold water tap isn’t a lot different to the hot tap. (When it’s going).

The students were asked to give feedback on the course so far yesterday. On the whole they seem to be positive. There are some differences they have asked for which we wouldn’t do in NZ. They are asking for a revision day on Saturday to go over what we learned during the week.

This whole Saturday thing seems a little confusing here in India. Its as though there a split in perceptions. On one hand there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Saturday and Sunday are the weekend but, then there’s plenty of people who work Saturdays. Some of the students treat Saturday as a day to go home to the parents, then come back on Monday. It makes it kinda hard to get everyone through the course. Still, we can but do our best.

I went for a walk to the city centre with Avinash. It wasn’t quite as far as I thought it might be. There’s some fairly major reconstruction going on around the various parts of sector 17. Mostly in the courtyard areas. Given another year and it will look quite nice. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of big machinery here. Just lots of people doing the work manually. I did notice that, when they resurfaced the street I live on last week, they were using the ashfelt truck similar to what we use in NZ. But that was it. Even the vehicles that transported the ashfelt to the machine were not much better than horse and cart.

There are small businesses all around here. When I say small, they are one men operations. An electrician who’s transport is his push bike. All his tools fit in a bag on the bike rack. Or a cycle tyre repair man, who works on the corner of a street, on the footpath. His house is a tent held up by a garden wall. A richshaw driver who’s bed is the back of the rickshaw. He washes himself and his clothes at a public tap on the side of the road. The other day two men came around to install a sky dish. One chap had the dish in a bag on his back. The other had the tools in another pack. They both arrived on motor scooters.

One chap, just down the road from me, does everyone’s ironing. His house is a tent on the curbside. He lives there with his wife and daughter. You see plenty of chairs outside under trees. They are the local barber. Some even have a mirror attached to the tree or a freestanding frame.

18th May

I saw a great site today. A bus company called the ‘Chandigarh Transport Undertaking’. Well, after all, who ever said the word ‘undertaking’ only had one use.

Today was the last day of the first module of teaching. A mile stone!! Yay. In 2009, I didn’t get past this point on the grounds that I had to keep starting again with different students. It makes all the difference having a marketing team.

We have a new ‘faculty’ starting tomorrow. (That’s what they call staff here. ‘faculty’.) He’s good with animation and rigging and is keen to do some teaching. Which is really good because Rakesh is heading down to the bottom of India in early June for ten days. (Apparently it takes three days by train. Not sure that I would want to be in an Indian train for three days.) I think he’s off to a wedding or something.

17th May

Yesterday was a bit rough. I got into the office at the usual time, noly to discover that the air conditioning system wasn’t working. The classroom temperature was 33 degrees. The fans were going but they made a bit of a noise and were blowing papers around whilst the students were trying to work. During the morning, the power went of three times. When you are in a classroom with no windows, it makes it quite dark without the lights.

We had a new student start today. A slightly older lady. I think she’s got some connection with Ashutosh. I think she is currently training at another campus, and Ashutosh thinks if she starts training here, she’ll enjoy it and invite all her friend to abandon that campus for ours. I guess we’ll see. But, it wasn’t a good start to her experience.

To top all that off, Rakesh called in sick. Not sure what the problem is.

We finally got the AC going around 2pm. Fortunately the computer lab has a number of fans and extractor fans. So it was actually cooler in there than the rest of the college.

I got home after the classes and crashed on my bed for a couple of hours. I’m convinced that I will be somewhat thinner by time I get home. (I wonder if I can ask Singapore Airlines for a half fair on the grounds that I won’t take up much room?)

16th May

I’m typing a few lines to let you know that I’m still alive and all systems functioning normally. This past week has been all about the class really. We now have 17 students. They all seem a swell bunch of kids and are getting on with things. There are a few talented artists in the class. There is one lad who is scared of drawing but his work is not bad. My guess is that he hasn’t really been encouraged to follow his creative side.

The lessons are going well. I have Rakesh with me and he is really keen. He loves the teaching in the Lab. I don’t have to do much there. More of a supervisory role really. He’s warming up to the Creative Practice classes. The first one I gave him was the Perspective class. He really wanted to give that one a go. He had finished his lesson in a little under three minutes. (Just as well I was there.) I took over, making it out to be a tag team effort and we got stuck into actually giving it a go. I give him credit for trying. The next CP I gave him to do was Face drawing. That was much better. He got them to try using his techniques to draw some faces. For this one I was able to sit back and watch. Well, I did draw a few funny faces on the whiteboard, which they immediately copied, but I was trying to get them to have fun. So, we’ve nearly done the first module. About three more days and we will have completed the Logo design exercise.

The staff here are really nice. They are working hard to try to bring in more students. They always have a smile for me and are extremely polite. Its kinda fun trying to think of ways to help them understand what I’m needing. It’s not that they don’t understand English. Its just that they have different words for things. For example, they call a 30 cm ruler a Scale. When you think of it, it makes perfect sense why they should call it a scale but who would have guessed. The funniest one of all is when I say “Can I please have some milk?” They scratch their heads and ask me to ask again. “Can I please have some milk?” No, they don’t get it. So I ask again. “Ah, milk. Yes certainly.” The funny bit is when they say milk, it sounds just like when I say milk.

India is having a major problem at the mo, especially here in the Punjab. (The Punjab is the main rice and wheat growing area of India.)I heard on a report from the BBC that the water table has dropped significantly over the last 30 years. Whereas the water table used to be at around 30 feet, its now more like 100 – 200 feet and the water is not as good down there. There’s more salt in it. Therefore the crops are not getting the correct nutrients. This in turn is causing a food shortage and the farmers are going into increased debt. I don’t think the farmers are as well looked after as they are in NZ.

The Mango crops are down to 20% of last year’s season as well. Apparently the monsoons came at the wrong time and it wasn’t enough. That’s of course if you believe everything you hear on the news.

9th and 10th May

We started our first brief today. ‘Take a walk’. I seem to recall last time, it took around three or four weeks to get to this point. But, this time is much better. We’ve had a few more students arrive. Some will start today. More tomorrow.

I was rather amused that they students gave some feedback that they didn’t want to go for the walk. They said it was too hot. I guess I wasn’t really expecting that. I imagined it was just a normal day for them. Mind you, it was around 29 degrees at 6am this morning. Rakish is really enjoying the teaching. He’s very keen, especially in the computer lab.

At the flat, I now have an electric stove and pan. They arrived during the day along with a dish rack, and a few other bits and pieces. I can now cook up my own meals. Yay!!

10^th May

I was heading home from buying some groceries tonight when I came across a car that was being used to teach drivers. I think the instructor was waiting for his client. I couldn’t help but be amused. “They actually have driving school??” Then I got to imagining what it would be like to be instructed how to drive in India. In the cabin there are two horns. One for the learner and one for the trainer. The learner’s horn is very big and easy to reach. The wing mirrors are blacked out. (Don’t need those) The rear view mirror is for hanging things off. There are two gears. One forward for going really fast, and one for reverse which means go really fast, backwards. Then there’s the road code. “Right, so when you see a red light, what should you do?” “Ignore it sir?” “Yes. That’s right. Well done. What about going around a roundabout?” “Press the horn all the way round and make sure I hit at least one car, sir?” “Yes, yes. Well done. You’ll be my top student. Oh, by the way, you can take your blindfold off now.”

8th May

Sunday is my day off. I wasn’t sure whether it was the cleaning lady’s day off so I got up the usual time. (Wouldn’t want to embarrass the poor woman.) I spent most of the day reading and not thinking too much. I tried to watch the cricket on the internet but the connection wasn’t that great. Later in the evening when I was thinking I should get some sleep, I had a call from Ashutosh. Some men were coming around to replace the air conditioning unit. Right, OK. They arrived about three quarters of an hour later and started asking me all sorts of questions in Hindi that I had no idea what they were saying. That was alright though cause they couldn’t understand me either. I managed to figure out that they were most perplexed that the ac wasn’t there. I thought it was. There it is hanging in the wall. They tried to indicate the new ac. I had no idea where the new ac was. Then one of them had a moment of brilliance. Let’s have a look outside. Just outside my door there is another door that leads to the roof. Sure enough, there it was. Some other party must have put it there during the day sometime.

After about an hour of bashing and smashing and a general amount of noise, the ‘new’ ac unit was in. They sealed around the outside of the unit with a plastercine substance of some kind. (Wasn’t the tidiest of jobs) This one was a lot quieter and seemed to work much better. I had much more control over what temperature I wanted.

7th May

Sorry. I haven’t been on my blog for a while. I’ve been quite sick. Luck of the draw really. You try everything you can to stay safe, but … I’m slowly coming right. I’m back at work at least.

Now for an update.

I needed to spend an extra couple of days in the Hotel. Partially because Ashutosh was having a lot of trouble securing an apartment for me and partially because of the illness. About three days ago, I moved into my room. It’s situated in a rather posh part of town. The landlord/owner lives downstairs and has three levels above him that he rents out. Mine is on the top level. If I step out onto the roof and look north, I can see the Himalayas. The place has a single room with a kitchen and bathroom coming off that. There is a single bed in the main room, a desk and a wardrobe. The mattress belongs to the owner. I believe he probably had it second hand when he was a boy. (He’s older than me) As I lie on it I can hear the straw rustle. My first night was not the most comfortable night I’ve ever had.

The air conditioning consists of an ac unit that Ashutosh had removed from one of his offices and installed in the flat, plus a ceiling fan. The ac unit sound like a 747 jumbo taking off and the fan has its own rhythms and squeaks.

So the first night in my room, I stayed up reading for most of the night trying to get tired enough that my body would ignore the mattress and my mind would ignore the army of ants that came for a visit. I think I finally crashed around 5am.

Next day I braved the elements and found my way to the market. The first thing I was looking for was some fly spray. I figured, if the ants want to stay, then they can jolly well pay rent. Otherwise, they get blasted. I purchased a few other munchies and headed back home. (I ask the ants nicely. They couldn’t come up with their portion of the rent, so I evicted them. Chuckle, chuckle.)

The next evening, I had hoped that Ashutosh could replace the mattress. He had so many things he was trying to do that it way quite late before ha got underway with my situation. I had another night on the straw rustling mattress. What made life more interesting was that somewhere in the night, the power went off. This meant that the ceiling fan was off. (I had already turned the ac off. Couldn’t sleep with that thing going.) I woke up sweating. I needed to open all the doors to the outside to let some coolness in. Believe it or not, it was colder outside. The power hadn’t come back on until after I had gone to work.

In the evening, the mattress was finally replaced with something much better. Phew. I felt like going straight to bed. I was just considering the possibility when the power went off again. DOH!! I checked out side and saw some lights on here and there, so I was a bit confussed. So I popped down to talk to the judge. He invited me to sit in the ‘cool’ of the evening to have a chat. Very pleasant fellow. He assured me that this sort of thing rarely happens in their part of town. Then we went on to talk about his many trips to New Zealand and some of his favorite areas. He informed me that the kiwis are very friendly and the aussies are very rude. (Sorry Carol. His words, not mine.) He blames the aussies behaviour on immigration problems.

The classes are going well. I have ten students with at least one more starting on Monday. Maybe more during the week. Which is somewhat better than last time. They are mostly keen. I might need to move them along a bit with their homework though. (I have a plan) They have bonded well and give me heaps of cheek. Rakish is the Indian tutor. He seems to be enjoying himself. He’s in all of the classes, listening carefully. I get him to do some of the Lab sessions.

Fun Times

Sounds great :D, how many students are there going to be in the end? seems like india might be picking up in the multimedia area.

1 May

Ashutosh came to the office for the first time today. It was lovely to see him again. We were able to discuss more about what still needed doing. Maya was there too. We walked around the classrooms and discussed their ideas of the shape of things.

Later in the evening, we headed out for dinner. I got a chance to say hello to Aramon. He’s 6 going on 12. He’s just started primary school so he’s really tired. It’s a pity. If I had known, I would have suggested me meet up on Sunday instead. Still, he woke up enough to say hello and have a small meal with us. Unfortunately for me, I think the meal was way to late in the evening. I got home and couldn’t sleep. By early morning I was quite ill. Ashutosh took me to a doctors around midday. He poked around and concluded that a little bit of medicine and lots of water should bring the situation under control. By the time we were talking to the doctor, I was already feeling better. Ashutosh needed to go to an appointment himself, so he got one of his friends to take me back to the hotel. The driver wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary for Indian drivers, but I was really glad when I got to my room and sat on the bed. No movement. So much for me feeling better.

I decided to try to sleep. I guess with the restless night and dehydration, my attempts to drop off were spasmodic at best.

I’m feeling a lot better today. Which is just as well. Today we start our first class.

As far as I know we have 10 students starting with more coming during the week. I have Rakish with me. Should be good.