Thatched roof buildings outside Churchandpur.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
This week we are back in Guwahati, and going daily to the school in Kalipani. Bob is teaching a class to the Bible school students, on the prison epistles, and in the afternoon, I am teaching the girls in the Bible class, and a couple of the teachers from the elementary school, a quilting class.
Since we do not have power, we are doing all the sewing by hand, but these girls have at least done some hand sewing before, so we are getting along just fine. I am precutting the pieces in the evening, so that they can do stitching and putting together, and whatever cutting needs to be done to make the blocks as they need to be. Anyway, everyone is enjoying themselves, and we have been managing a block an afternoon. We will only do three blocks, so Thursday we will turn these into pillow covers, since three is not enough to make a quilt.
Anyway, again the pictures are not posting very well, so I will add pictures later.
This morning, Ellen and I took some time and went shopping. Enjoyed it a lot. We took a motor rickshaw to the Pan Bazaar, which is one of the large shopping areas in Guwahati. One of the things on Ellen's list was to return a school book of Autumn's which had a damaged section. We had to go to the book sellers area for that. Picture two or three blocks where every store is a book or book and stationery store. Most of the stores are also not wider that about 3 m. You ask for what you need, you don't get to browse. Anyway, it ended up that she had to buy a new copy of the book, which was annoying, but it was also about 80 rupees, which is just around $2.00 Canadian. So at least not a major tragedy.
Since we do not have power, we are doing all the sewing by hand, but these girls have at least done some hand sewing before, so we are getting along just fine. I am precutting the pieces in the evening, so that they can do stitching and putting together, and whatever cutting needs to be done to make the blocks as they need to be. Anyway, everyone is enjoying themselves, and we have been managing a block an afternoon. We will only do three blocks, so Thursday we will turn these into pillow covers, since three is not enough to make a quilt.
Anyway, again the pictures are not posting very well, so I will add pictures later.
This morning, Ellen and I took some time and went shopping. Enjoyed it a lot. We took a motor rickshaw to the Pan Bazaar, which is one of the large shopping areas in Guwahati. One of the things on Ellen's list was to return a school book of Autumn's which had a damaged section. We had to go to the book sellers area for that. Picture two or three blocks where every store is a book or book and stationery store. Most of the stores are also not wider that about 3 m. You ask for what you need, you don't get to browse. Anyway, it ended up that she had to buy a new copy of the book, which was annoying, but it was also about 80 rupees, which is just around $2.00 Canadian. So at least not a major tragedy.
Monday, March 2, 2009
I'm afraid the pictures are uploading only sporadically, but I will try to get more on as I can.
We are finally back in internet access, so I will try to post a little more often this week.
Last week we went into Manipur. You need a permit to get into Manipur, and in past times as I understand, these were not given out easily or often. In any case, we did get permits, for a 10 day stay. Unfortunately, we had only 6 days, but at least if we had been delayed for any reason, we would have been okay.
Manipur is different from the other states we have been in. There are less cows and goats on the roads for example. We went to the cities of Churchandpur, and Imphal, which are at either end of a large valley in the mountains. Very beautiful place. The buildings are somewhat different. We say more wood used in building, for floors and walls for instance. The local dress style is different. The women mostly wear embroidered wrapped skirts, and shawls, rather than saris or salwars.
Another interesting thing is the power situation. The power was only on for a couple of hours a day, in either city. Keep in mind that it gets dark at about 6. So, in Churchandpur, everything closes then. There are no street lights, only a little light from people's windows. People have battery operated lights, or sometimes generators, if they are well off, or candles, and I think everyone goes to bed early. In any case, we had evening classes, till 7 or 8, and sometimes went to peoples houses afterwards, so it was very dark walking back to our guest house. We were really pleased to have remembered flashlights.
The people were all very friendly. Bob has a number of really good friends in the area, so we visited many families, and had tea everywhere.
In Imphal, there was an evening curfew, at 6:00. Shyam Salam had planned for us to have evening meetings at his school, Brighter Academy. However, because the curfew had been set, not many people were able to come. However, Shyam and his wife Peggy had us stay at their home, which is in the school, to make it more convenient to come and to for the meetings and such. It was very kind of them, and we had a good visit with them and with their children and grandchildren who were home at the time.
Shyam has several schools. We have visited 2 others on our trip: another Brighter Academy in a small village outside of Imphal, where his daughter Betty is the principal, and the Bread of Life Academy in Kalipani.
We are finally back in internet access, so I will try to post a little more often this week.
Last week we went into Manipur. You need a permit to get into Manipur, and in past times as I understand, these were not given out easily or often. In any case, we did get permits, for a 10 day stay. Unfortunately, we had only 6 days, but at least if we had been delayed for any reason, we would have been okay.
Manipur is different from the other states we have been in. There are less cows and goats on the roads for example. We went to the cities of Churchandpur, and Imphal, which are at either end of a large valley in the mountains. Very beautiful place. The buildings are somewhat different. We say more wood used in building, for floors and walls for instance. The local dress style is different. The women mostly wear embroidered wrapped skirts, and shawls, rather than saris or salwars.
Another interesting thing is the power situation. The power was only on for a couple of hours a day, in either city. Keep in mind that it gets dark at about 6. So, in Churchandpur, everything closes then. There are no street lights, only a little light from people's windows. People have battery operated lights, or sometimes generators, if they are well off, or candles, and I think everyone goes to bed early. In any case, we had evening classes, till 7 or 8, and sometimes went to peoples houses afterwards, so it was very dark walking back to our guest house. We were really pleased to have remembered flashlights.
The people were all very friendly. Bob has a number of really good friends in the area, so we visited many families, and had tea everywhere.
In Imphal, there was an evening curfew, at 6:00. Shyam Salam had planned for us to have evening meetings at his school, Brighter Academy. However, because the curfew had been set, not many people were able to come. However, Shyam and his wife Peggy had us stay at their home, which is in the school, to make it more convenient to come and to for the meetings and such. It was very kind of them, and we had a good visit with them and with their children and grandchildren who were home at the time.
Shyam has several schools. We have visited 2 others on our trip: another Brighter Academy in a small village outside of Imphal, where his daughter Betty is the principal, and the Bread of Life Academy in Kalipani.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
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