First Real Day
Door: Stephanie
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Stephanie
28 November 2013 | India, Tiruchchirāppalli
Goodmorning, -afternoon, -evening or -night,
It's 2.30PM in Thalakudi, Tamil Nadu, where our appartment is located. It's an approximately 10min drive to the 'big' city, Trichy. While writing this we just made ourselves a bit at home in our appartment, which we will be living in for the next two months.
Yesterday morning the people from our organization picked us up at our hotel and brought us to our appartment. While driving we noticed we were going to a place with more poverty. On the side of the road there are huts made of hay and branches, with people doing their laundry in stationary, disgusting (- and probably bacterial infected) water. A couple of metres away from their huts there is a hill where people put their trash and garbage. I can't even begin to describe the smell that comes from it.
On the other side of the road there are houses who look pretty modern in a blink of an eye, but once you look closely you see the cracks in the wall, all the trash outside, maybe ten to twelve people living in a place that's build for 4 and the windows that are broken or not even there anymore.
Our appartment's a building with three floors and a stairs in the middle. There are 6 appartments in the building, one of them will we be calling home for the next 8,5 weeks. Inside it has a living room, two smaller rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom/toilet. For Indian standards it looked really need and tidy, but for us.., I mean, Bhavvik & myself are not the tidiest persons but this just screamed: 'Springcleaning!' - which we did.
We went to the store and bought cleaning stuff, food & drinks for almost 3000rps. That's about 36 euro's and A LOT of money for Indian people.
Once back at our appartment we started cleaning. Bhavvik started with the bahtroom and shower (If I could send the smell through internet, I would) and I started with the kitchen. After an hour or 3, maybe 4, we were finally finished and had swept, mopped, and cleaned the whole appartment, and we had done the dishes.
For us it was necessary to make us feel at home.
While Bhavvik was preparing dinner (adding some water to noodles-in-a-cup) the electricity cut. Yep, that happens here; Every now and then we have no electricity (meaning no ventilators, no light etc) which lasts between 1hr and 7hrs. As a consequence we ate in the dark, the room only illuminated by a small flame of a candle.
Then there came an elephant, with a long snout, who blew the candle out.
Happy Thanksgivings Day everyone :)
xoxo
Stephanie & Bhavvik
It's 2.30PM in Thalakudi, Tamil Nadu, where our appartment is located. It's an approximately 10min drive to the 'big' city, Trichy. While writing this we just made ourselves a bit at home in our appartment, which we will be living in for the next two months.
Yesterday morning the people from our organization picked us up at our hotel and brought us to our appartment. While driving we noticed we were going to a place with more poverty. On the side of the road there are huts made of hay and branches, with people doing their laundry in stationary, disgusting (- and probably bacterial infected) water. A couple of metres away from their huts there is a hill where people put their trash and garbage. I can't even begin to describe the smell that comes from it.
On the other side of the road there are houses who look pretty modern in a blink of an eye, but once you look closely you see the cracks in the wall, all the trash outside, maybe ten to twelve people living in a place that's build for 4 and the windows that are broken or not even there anymore.
Our appartment's a building with three floors and a stairs in the middle. There are 6 appartments in the building, one of them will we be calling home for the next 8,5 weeks. Inside it has a living room, two smaller rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom/toilet. For Indian standards it looked really need and tidy, but for us.., I mean, Bhavvik & myself are not the tidiest persons but this just screamed: 'Springcleaning!' - which we did.
We went to the store and bought cleaning stuff, food & drinks for almost 3000rps. That's about 36 euro's and A LOT of money for Indian people.
Once back at our appartment we started cleaning. Bhavvik started with the bahtroom and shower (If I could send the smell through internet, I would) and I started with the kitchen. After an hour or 3, maybe 4, we were finally finished and had swept, mopped, and cleaned the whole appartment, and we had done the dishes.
For us it was necessary to make us feel at home.
While Bhavvik was preparing dinner (adding some water to noodles-in-a-cup) the electricity cut. Yep, that happens here; Every now and then we have no electricity (meaning no ventilators, no light etc) which lasts between 1hr and 7hrs. As a consequence we ate in the dark, the room only illuminated by a small flame of a candle.
Then there came an elephant, with a long snout, who blew the candle out.
Happy Thanksgivings Day everyone :)
xoxo
Stephanie & Bhavvik
-
28 November 2013 - 15:34
Yvette:
At least you had a nice romantic candle light dinner. :) Keep safe guys. -
28 November 2013 - 15:38
Corrie:
Ik zit me al lezend te proberen een voorstelling te maken over wat jullie op zo'n korte tijd al hebben meegemaakt.
Zo'n leven doet je meer dan ooit stilstaan over je leven in Nederland waar zoveel zo goed geregeld is en waar kindjes op leuke stoeltjes in leuke scholen zitten met mooie kleertjes aan.
Armoede schijnt altijd samen te moeten gaan met vuil en gooi maar neer,...Ook in ons land trouwens.
Het maakt me bijna nederig van dankbaarheid dat we het goed hebben als ik zie hoeveel echte armoede jullie daar tegen komen.
Het zijn hele goeie levenslessen waar jij mee maken hebt om heel duidelijk aan den lijve ondervinden dat welzijn en welstand niet zo vanzelfsprekend zijn.
Ik wens je alweer een prachtige, leerzame en waardevolle tijd tussen mensen die zoveel missen maar desondanks ook liefhebben, kinderen krijgen en hopen op een beetje menswaardig bestaan.
Geef die prachtige kindjes maar een dikke knuffel...
Liefs en tot gauw weer.
(tante) Corrie
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
