We left Amritsar on Wednesdy and headed south east and arrived in Chandigarh (capital of Punjab) at 7:00 pm. Unfortunately I got food poisioning again!!!!! I now know my body when I get food poisioning...I just totally purged from both ends..haha. Everything came out within an hour and I slept for 14 hours that night. I felt better the next morning and was well enough to go to the Rock Garden...some random rich man decided to spend lots of money to build these rock structures using old plates, toilet bowls, rocks and recyclable stonewares...I actually thought the place was quite senseless a waste of money. The hightlight of that place was actually riding on a camel for 30 rupees (75 cents). Chandigarh is a posh city with many name brand stores with expensive merchandise! The hotel room that we stayed in was the most expensive so far (1500 rupees) and my roommate and I did not even get clean sheets and blankets...luckily I brought my own camping pillow and my sleeping bag!
We left Chandigarh on Friday morning and drove over 12 hours to Rishikesh. We stopped at Missouri which was an old British hill station. It was similar to Dharamsala but without Tibetan settlements. It appears that on Friday was a very lucky day for people to get married as it took an extra 1.5 hours to get to our hotel. There was a wedding happening at our hotel and it went from 8pm to 6:30am!!!!! The band was playing all night and people were running down the hallway throughout the morning. I was awaken at 4:30 am and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up at 7:00am and did some yoga on my balcony.
The upper Ganges lies between Rishikesh and it is the yoga capital of the world. There are many ashrams nearby where people can develop their spirituality by staying in these places. They would do meditation and yoga and help to take care of the ashrams. A few of us walked to the Gannge River and witnessed people cleansed their sins and offered flower bouquets to the river. The river is very sacred to the people of India and many people from all over India come to perform such rituals. This part of the river is quite clean as the Himalaya mountains are close by. The water further downstream in middle of India io would be a different story.
My body is not liking too much Indian food. The food is usually quite oily and meals usually sit in my stomach for hours. So for the last few meals I have been having just toast (white bread :-( with jam and curd (plain yogurt). Another reason for simple foods is that I do not want to get sick anymore!!!! The oranges and bananas are quite good here so I have been eating lots of fruits. I do miss home and all the veggies and normal home cooking!
The temperature here is warm but comfortable at ~ 23°C. One thing that is hard to get use to is the pollution!!! It is so dusty in India! My nostrils are usually black and my hair is wiry by the end of each day! We will be leaving Rishikesh tomorrow morning and drive 1 hour into Haridwar. We will spend one day there then leave for Jim Corbett National Park which is a tiger reserve.
Unfortunately, all the computers in India are infected with viruses so I can't upload pictures to my blog. I hope to give you update in a few days!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Hello from Amritsar, Punjab
I have been in Amritsar for a couple days now and I am having fun. Amritsar is famous for the Golden Temple. It is the holiest temple in India for the Sikhs. The temple is surrounded by 750 kg of pure gold which was donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh (a King) back in late 1800s. The temple is opened 24/7 and is a place of pilgrimage for Sikhs from all over India and the world. Many men walked into the pool for a holy dip. It appeared that women are not permitted to dip in the holy water. We went to the temple last night to see it during sunset and got up at 4:30 am this morning to see it at sunrise. It is a gorgeous place. My friend Melissa has a nice digital camera and we were playing around with her camera and had some really neat shots...doing yoga pose next tot he temple! The only thing that I did not like about the experience is that we had to take off our shoes to enter the temple. The marble tiles were very cold!
People in India do not see foreigners very often and treat Caucasians and foreigners like movie stars. They wanted to pose pictures with us and asked to shake hands with us. So far,this is true wherever we go in India. The food has been great and I have had praranthas with paneers (fried breads with curried cheese), lassie (yogurt drink), veg pizzas. The cooking oil they used seemed to be very heavy as the meals kind of sat in my stomach so I have only eaten 2 meals a day.
A few of us rode on cycle rickshaws to go to the market and we had a lot of fun...I video taped it and it was hilarious. Traffic in Amritsar is just as crazy as in Delhi. The city is very dusty and the air is filled with smog. There are many dried fruit stores where they sell almonds, walnuts, dried mangoes, masala tea spice and peanut brittle. The fruits here are excellent with juicy oranges at 25 rupees (60 cents per kg ), bananas are 40 rupees per kg and apples are 60 rupees per kg. The papayas are very fresh here but I hadn't bought one yet, however, I had a pomegranate (20 rupees) and it was delicious.
Unfortunately I am not able to send pictures through in the mail as almost all the computers are infected with viruses and I do not want to lose my photos. I will definitely have a photo session when I come back.
We will be heading to Chandigarh tomorrow. It is still in the Punjab state and will take 5 hours to get there and we will be there for a couple nights. We will then head to Rishekesh on the 27th.
I will talk to you later!
People in India do not see foreigners very often and treat Caucasians and foreigners like movie stars. They wanted to pose pictures with us and asked to shake hands with us. So far,this is true wherever we go in India. The food has been great and I have had praranthas with paneers (fried breads with curried cheese), lassie (yogurt drink), veg pizzas. The cooking oil they used seemed to be very heavy as the meals kind of sat in my stomach so I have only eaten 2 meals a day.
A few of us rode on cycle rickshaws to go to the market and we had a lot of fun...I video taped it and it was hilarious. Traffic in Amritsar is just as crazy as in Delhi. The city is very dusty and the air is filled with smog. There are many dried fruit stores where they sell almonds, walnuts, dried mangoes, masala tea spice and peanut brittle. The fruits here are excellent with juicy oranges at 25 rupees (60 cents per kg ), bananas are 40 rupees per kg and apples are 60 rupees per kg. The papayas are very fresh here but I hadn't bought one yet, however, I had a pomegranate (20 rupees) and it was delicious.
Unfortunately I am not able to send pictures through in the mail as almost all the computers are infected with viruses and I do not want to lose my photos. I will definitely have a photo session when I come back.
We will be heading to Chandigarh tomorrow. It is still in the Punjab state and will take 5 hours to get there and we will be there for a couple nights. We will then head to Rishekesh on the 27th.
I will talk to you later!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
I have completed my practicum!
The teaching experience at the Petoen Model School has been wonderful! I can't believe my teaching practicum is officially completed (November 20th). In these past 5 weeks at the school I have gained many different experiences from the Tibetan culture, the school community where most teachers and students live on campus. The children not only learn and play in this community but they treat each other like brothers and sisters. The teachers are not only educators but also play the parenting roles. The teachers' dormatories are always opened to the children and they share a large part of their non-teaching time with the children. This is certainly very different from the Canadian schools.
At Petoen School, students are taught only Tibetan from kindergarten to class 3. Students begin learning the English in class 4, Chinese (Mandarin) in class 6 and HIndi in class 7. Starting at class 6 level all subjects are taught in English but most subjects required Tibetan translation. The students loved singing so we did a lot of singing with them during lunch time. Unforturnately, the school does not encourage children to watch movies in English, they only watch movies in Tibetan language during free time.
The school curriculum is based on the India Education system and students are expected to write board exams that start in class 10. One large difference I noticed between the students in India and the students in the lower mainland is that in India students are required to memorize information rather than understand the concepts. Although the education director of the Tibetan schools has encourage teachers to teach for understanding, I have observed that many local teachers teach according to their textbooks. For many of the Canadian teachers we used teaching methods and strategies that require group work in which empower students to think and discuss ideas. This type of learning has been quite difficult for the Tibetan students. Initially, many of them were not able to think for themselves and struggled with the activities. This type of learning was definitely different for them but we pushed the students' boundaries and some of them began to contribute their ideas to class discussions.
Tibetan children are deeply engrained in their culture and the Buddhism religion. They are taught to pray and memorize scriptures everyday. They learn to sing and dance to traditional folk music. One interesting thing they learn at a young age is to perform Buhhdism debate. I watched young children as well as adult students in Sarah College (a Tibetan college for higher education) and found the process very fascinating. This type of philosophical debate is based on Buddhism but it trains the mind to think logically.
The school I am teaching at is the Petoen Model School which currently consists of Montessori preschool and classes 1 through 6. It has a total of 177 students with most of them being boarders. The school year is nearing its end and students and teachers go for a two month holiday starting from December 20th. The students will be picked up by their parents and will be headed back to their homes in other parts of Tibetan settlements spread throughout India.
After 6 weeks working with the students my practicum has come to an end. On the last day of school the SFU student teachers were surprised by traditional Tibetan singing and dancing that were performed by students. They were their traditional Tibetan costumes and were fabulous! The morning continued with our last visit with the students. During these few weeks, I have learned so much about the Tibetan culture from the students and developed relationship with many of them. Many of them wrote thank you notes to me and began to cry after giving me their notes. I was very touched by the messages and the kind wishes they wrote me. They asked for my home address and said that they will write me in the future. It was definitely a difficult departure for me as well as the children.
Now we have officially finished our semester we will be leaving Dharamsala on Monday, November 23 and will begin our tour of northwest India. We will be begin with the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab. So I hope to write an update from other parts of India in the near future.
At Petoen School, students are taught only Tibetan from kindergarten to class 3. Students begin learning the English in class 4, Chinese (Mandarin) in class 6 and HIndi in class 7. Starting at class 6 level all subjects are taught in English but most subjects required Tibetan translation. The students loved singing so we did a lot of singing with them during lunch time. Unforturnately, the school does not encourage children to watch movies in English, they only watch movies in Tibetan language during free time.
The school curriculum is based on the India Education system and students are expected to write board exams that start in class 10. One large difference I noticed between the students in India and the students in the lower mainland is that in India students are required to memorize information rather than understand the concepts. Although the education director of the Tibetan schools has encourage teachers to teach for understanding, I have observed that many local teachers teach according to their textbooks. For many of the Canadian teachers we used teaching methods and strategies that require group work in which empower students to think and discuss ideas. This type of learning has been quite difficult for the Tibetan students. Initially, many of them were not able to think for themselves and struggled with the activities. This type of learning was definitely different for them but we pushed the students' boundaries and some of them began to contribute their ideas to class discussions.
Tibetan children are deeply engrained in their culture and the Buddhism religion. They are taught to pray and memorize scriptures everyday. They learn to sing and dance to traditional folk music. One interesting thing they learn at a young age is to perform Buhhdism debate. I watched young children as well as adult students in Sarah College (a Tibetan college for higher education) and found the process very fascinating. This type of philosophical debate is based on Buddhism but it trains the mind to think logically.
The school I am teaching at is the Petoen Model School which currently consists of Montessori preschool and classes 1 through 6. It has a total of 177 students with most of them being boarders. The school year is nearing its end and students and teachers go for a two month holiday starting from December 20th. The students will be picked up by their parents and will be headed back to their homes in other parts of Tibetan settlements spread throughout India.
After 6 weeks working with the students my practicum has come to an end. On the last day of school the SFU student teachers were surprised by traditional Tibetan singing and dancing that were performed by students. They were their traditional Tibetan costumes and were fabulous! The morning continued with our last visit with the students. During these few weeks, I have learned so much about the Tibetan culture from the students and developed relationship with many of them. Many of them wrote thank you notes to me and began to cry after giving me their notes. I was very touched by the messages and the kind wishes they wrote me. They asked for my home address and said that they will write me in the future. It was definitely a difficult departure for me as well as the children.
Now we have officially finished our semester we will be leaving Dharamsala on Monday, November 23 and will begin our tour of northwest India. We will be begin with the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab. So I hope to write an update from other parts of India in the near future.
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