Archive for the 'England' Category
Liz in Gudalur
I can’t believe that I have been here three months already. With each day it feels more and more like a home from home. It is now automatic to use the sideways head wobble that everyone does to show you agree with something. I am starting to speak and understand a few words of Tamil and it is wonderful to be able to communicate more with the children and teachers. I still have a lot to learn though!
Earlier this month I visited a nearby village in Erumad, where I learned about pepper picking.
Vijikumar, climbing up a bamboo pole to pick the pepper.
The pepper is the vine growing around the tree.
Peppercorns drying in the sun.
As I walked through the peaceful village with Vijikumar, the local education co-ordinator, we tried some jackfruit and drank tea using leaves picked from his garden. Further on someone clambered up a coconut tree and a few minutes later we were drinking fresh coconut water.
Vijikumar breaking open a cocout to drink the fresh water inside.
So often in cities children can grow up without ever really knowing or seeing where their food comes from (beyond the supermarket). Here everything is alive and growing outside your house. Our flat looks out over farmland that is always changing. When I arrived it was rice paddies, now it is a field of green beans. It is nice going shopping in town and knowing that most of the food that you are buying and eating has been grown not so far away. Over the next few months ActionAid will be putting together some information and activities about farming and some of the other ways in which the adivasis depend on their forest.
A week ago I went to a very special dance performance in Chembakolli village. A famous dance troop from Gujarat (in the north west of India) travelled all the way to Chembakolli to perform a dance for the villagers. The dance was a story all about the history and lifestyle of the adivasis here. The best bit for me was at the end when some local people from the Kattunaicken and Mullakurumba tribes got up on the stage to do some traditional dancing and singing.
Everyone enjoyed watching the dance in Chembakolli village.
The children in Group 2 have been learning about India and are now learning about life in the UK. I asked them to choose some items to describe what their locality and life are like. However all their objects had to fit into a shoebox! Some Year 4 children from a school in England, have done the same thing. They have posted us their shoe box and we have e-mailed them photographs and information about our objects. We couldn’t post our box as I didn’t think that the postman in the UK would like the snake skin and plants that the children had put inside it! The children really enjoyed looking at each others boxes and talking about what was the same and what was different about their lives. I wonder what you would put in a shoe box to describe where you live and your way of life.
The children’s shoe box. What things can you see?
Our environmental project at school is continuing to go well. The children have just harvested some greens from their school garden and tomorrow they are going to use the vegetables to cook samba (dahl) for everyone in the school! We have also been making recycled paper and looking at ways that we can conserve water. It has been particularly hot and dry this year and it has hardly rained at all since I arrived. The monsoon season doesn’t start until the beginning of June but some people are already facing water shortages. The main water supply here is from wells. We are lucky and have running water in our house. Some people in the villages have to collect water from a tap or well on the road and in Chembakolli they have to collect water from a pond near their house. In the UK I used to take electricity and water for granted, you learn to value it a bit more here.
You often see water pots lined up by the roadside taps.
Something that has been on my mind a lot this month is what your community means and how important it is. Ever since I was a child I have moved around a lot, so much so that I never really know what to say when I am asked where I am from. Your community is at the centre of everything for the adivasis. However in many places around the world this community spirit is being lost. Hopefully that won’t happen here.
I will finish off by letting you know that I have finally met the cobra living at the end of our driveway. He (or she) was basking in the sunshine as I walked past on my way home from school. I decided it was probably best to keep on walking rather than go any closer!
Take care,
Liz x
Earlier this month I visited a nearby village in Erumad, where I learned about pepper picking.
Vijikumar, climbing up a bamboo pole to pick the pepper.
The pepper is the vine growing around the tree.
Peppercorns drying in the sun.
As I walked through the peaceful village with Vijikumar, the local education co-ordinator, we tried some jackfruit and drank tea using leaves picked from his garden. Further on someone clambered up a coconut tree and a few minutes later we were drinking fresh coconut water.
Vijikumar breaking open a cocout to drink the fresh water inside.
So often in cities children can grow up without ever really knowing or seeing where their food comes from (beyond the supermarket). Here everything is alive and growing outside your house. Our flat looks out over farmland that is always changing. When I arrived it was rice paddies, now it is a field of green beans. It is nice going shopping in town and knowing that most of the food that you are buying and eating has been grown not so far away. Over the next few months ActionAid will be putting together some information and activities about farming and some of the other ways in which the adivasis depend on their forest.
A week ago I went to a very special dance performance in Chembakolli village. A famous dance troop from Gujarat (in the north west of India) travelled all the way to Chembakolli to perform a dance for the villagers. The dance was a story all about the history and lifestyle of the adivasis here. The best bit for me was at the end when some local people from the Kattunaicken and Mullakurumba tribes got up on the stage to do some traditional dancing and singing.
Everyone enjoyed watching the dance in Chembakolli village.
The children in Group 2 have been learning about India and are now learning about life in the UK. I asked them to choose some items to describe what their locality and life are like. However all their objects had to fit into a shoebox! Some Year 4 children from a school in England, have done the same thing. They have posted us their shoe box and we have e-mailed them photographs and information about our objects. We couldn’t post our box as I didn’t think that the postman in the UK would like the snake skin and plants that the children had put inside it! The children really enjoyed looking at each others boxes and talking about what was the same and what was different about their lives. I wonder what you would put in a shoe box to describe where you live and your way of life.
The children’s shoe box. What things can you see?
Our environmental project at school is continuing to go well. The children have just harvested some greens from their school garden and tomorrow they are going to use the vegetables to cook samba (dahl) for everyone in the school! We have also been making recycled paper and looking at ways that we can conserve water. It has been particularly hot and dry this year and it has hardly rained at all since I arrived. The monsoon season doesn’t start until the beginning of June but some people are already facing water shortages. The main water supply here is from wells. We are lucky and have running water in our house. Some people in the villages have to collect water from a tap or well on the road and in Chembakolli they have to collect water from a pond near their house. In the UK I used to take electricity and water for granted, you learn to value it a bit more here.
You often see water pots lined up by the roadside taps.
Something that has been on my mind a lot this month is what your community means and how important it is. Ever since I was a child I have moved around a lot, so much so that I never really know what to say when I am asked where I am from. Your community is at the centre of everything for the adivasis. However in many places around the world this community spirit is being lost. Hopefully that won’t happen here.
I will finish off by letting you know that I have finally met the cobra living at the end of our driveway. He (or she) was basking in the sunshine as I walked past on my way home from school. I decided it was probably best to keep on walking rather than go any closer!
Take care,
Liz x
கருத்துகள் இல்லை:
கருத்துரையிடுக