I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!!
Hello my dear friends and family,
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a happy new year!!! I hope that everybody of you could enjoy the christmasdays, could spend some nice and quied time with you families and is feeling recharged for the next coming duties... I hope all of you will celebrate a very nice new years eve, after we survived the end of the world of the majas... =D
Thank you all so much for your nice Christmas mails. I was really happy to read all your nice wishes, even when I still have not replayed to all of you.
Amy and me we arrived happily at the 22nd of December safety Maher after a long, very interesting journey through a very colorful India. We started our journey at the 2nd of December with a train ride from Pune to Vasco da Gama in Goa, where we met Catherine again, with who I was living with in Vatsalyadham 5 weeks. It was very interesting to see the different types of classes in the train- from the first a/c to the 3. or 4. Class with just wooden benches for sitting. Our train ride was over 14hours longs. We original booked the 2nd class a/c but we had been at the waiting list and in the end we ended up in the first a/c with a type of bodyguards sitting in front of our cabin.
Goa is a very touristic place with a lot of Russians and British people. The only special thing in Goa are the beautiful beaches where we could lay on. We had been at 3 different places in Goa, because we were searching for the India felling. We could not really find it, so we went to Kerala to one of the Maher homes there and spend 4 very nice nights there. For this we took a bus from Margao to Cuchin. It turned out as a very interesting bus trip. We had been just more or less 8 people on the bus and the most of them were foreigners. On from Italy, one from America, one from Japan, one from Germany, one from where ever, we could not find out but he was speaking more or less every single language in this bus fluently and he was a steward. And then there were a few Indians- one of the was a kind of old very drunk guy who was fighting the hole time with the bus driver. We were very glad when they kicked him out in the middle of the night.
The sociaworkers of the Maher home in Kerala brought us every day to different places around Cuchin. So one day we spend in the very famous Backwaters and I got a nice home feeling, because it was nearly looking like the Spreewald what is close to my hometown in Germany. It was like a forest with small rivers in. We could see how they are doing the mattresses for sleeping out of wild pineappleleeves and how they are doing ropes out of the hair of the coconuts. It was very interesting to see.
After the few days in Maher, what we really enjoyed with all the children and the nice staff (it was very interesting to see the differences between the homes in Maharashtra and Kerala, because all have the same regulations from the governments but in Kerala the government is much more strict like in Maharashtra...) Amy and me went to Munnar. Munnar is still in Kerala but close to Tamil Nandu and in the middle of the Westgate’s- the mountains on the Westside of India. Munnar is very famous for the tee- and spiceplantations and when we arrived I felt like I got to a green paradise. It is very high up in the mountains and so it was kind of very cold, especially in the night. We found one of the nicest cottages in the middle of a tee plantation, where we got woken up from the women who were cutting the teeleeves. We had to be careful, because there should be wild elephants living, but I never saw one. It this cottage we met a lot of different people and were every evening sitting in front of a campfire to warm up and to talk about our days. So I met there a view people from the UK, two Australian boys, two from Israel and two Germans. It was very interesting to hear from their times here in India. Amy and I spend also a whole day with the two Israelis and it was very interesting to hear about their lives and the country Israel.
After our time in Munnar we wanted to go to the Chinnar wildlife Sanctuary- one day and night in the jungle. One of the Germans decided to come with us and it turned out as a very big advancer. We could not see any wild animals’ exempt some bisons but we were staying in a log house directly at a river in the middle of nowhere, protected from four guides with big knifes. It would be too much to tell all the long stories about this trip here but it is a good story!!!!!!!!!
Amy and I took at the next day a nigh bus to Trivandrum, because we wanted to see Kanyakomary- the very south point of India, where 3 oceans are meeting. We arrived in Kanyakomary at 8o`clock in the morning and decided after two hours to leave again. There had been soooooo many tourists- at this time of the day there were just the Indian tourists and we didn’t wanted to know how many people would be there when all the foreigners would get a wake as well. So we went to all important places there (it is not really big) and left just two hours later to Trivandrum. That was the best thing we ever could do. In Trivandrum we enjoyed our last day very much. We went for example to an aryuvedic college and some of the students gave us a tour through the hospital there and told us a little bit about their studies. It was very interesting!!!
At the next day we went to the airport and went back to Mumbai from where we took a bus to Pune. We were very lucky because Sr. Lucy had a late program in Pune and so she could pick us up from the bus. That was very good, because it was already half to 10pm and it was very dark. A couple of days later I got to know that Sr. Lucy had a very big fight with one of the man at the street. Because, when he saw Amy and me coming to Sr. Lucy’s car, he said that it would have been a very good catch- we two white girls. That is the thing what is so dangerous in India about. We don’t know what the people are saying and where the danger is hiding. Sr. Lucy got really angry. At the moment raping of women is a very big theme here in India. There is no day where you cannot find a story about a woman who got raped. The society is changing and is looking more forward to get more right for women. That is kind of dangerous for us as well, because the men are feeling that the public is taking their rights away... There is a lot of anger in the air. Tomorrow there will be a big protest against raping, what Maher arranged.
On our way back to Maher Sr. Lucy found a woman laying and sleeping in the middle of the highway. We always where listening to Sr. Lucy’s stories, about picking up woman from the street. This time we were there to see her in action and it was very impressive. The woman came with us and spends the night in Vadhu. The next day she went to Vatsalyadham and is there still. She is an elderly woman with no home and no family. So it was very good, that Sr. Lucy found her. Now she has a home and a big family- what is that for a christmaspresent?!
The first view days back in Maher had been very busy. At the 23rd of December we went to Vatsalyadham to pack over 800 Presents out of 1500 Presents. Because everybody should get a present from Maher. It was sooo good to see everybody again and the woman and the children kept asking when I would come back. It was not that easy to explain why I am still in Maher but not with them… At the 24th of December there we had a big program at Christmas Eve. All the Maher children came to a program, also over 50 Traibelpeople came. Those are the people very very down in the society. Sr. Lucy showed a lot of symbolic meanings when she sends the women of the Traibelpeople on the Stage, where for normally all the important guests are sitting- soothe women and not the men. Also she made us sitting just next to the women as well, so that they got to know that we- the white people- are nothing different than them. All of them got a present from Sr. Lucy and some sweets.
Before Dinner we had a little procession. All the bigger Children were staying in two long lanes and had a candle in their hands. Sr. Mina hold a Jesusbabydoll in her Hands and everybody was walking behind her, singing Marathi Christmas songs until we reached the crib, what the boys and girls builded up the whole day long. There we had a little prayer and where singing some songs with holding the candles in our hands. We had a midnight mass at 10pm till 11.30pm with the pastor from Pune. Afterwards everybody was wishing each other merry and happy Christmas and were drinking a hot chocolate- something really special, because it was Christmas. After the pastor went home, the bigger boys were turning the music on and we were dancing, with Sr. Lucy together till midnight.
At the 25th of December – that is the real Christmas day in India, we went early in the morning to Vatsalyadham, because there should be a big program for giving the presents out. All of us got a Sari on and we went. All in all there had been over 1500 People- Children, Women, Staff and friends of Maher. It was a very nice and very long day and it took 2 ½ hours to give all the presents out. I still didn’t had the feeling of Christmas- more the feeling of a big party, but it was sooo great to see all the people again!
It was strange to see, that we were celebrating Christmas and when we went home we could not even see anything from the Christmas-celebration. The cities and streets were busy like always and nothing was giving a hint that there was this fists going on.
The next days had been very quiet and I spend over a whole hour to wash all my cloth from our journey.
Yesterday Punam, Pam and I were sitting the whole time over the statistic what I have to do for Sr. Lucy about Maher. It was very interesting and I am looking sooo forward to work on it more and more. Especially it was so good, because I am learning a lot about Maher, the culture and I have the possibility to discuss some points with an Indian girl about my age. It will be very interesting to find out how many women came pregnant to Maher and how many where underage to this time. There are a lot of more questions to talk and find out about but we will start with that in January. Now I am back in Vadhu and I think I will stay here a little bit longer. I don`t know if I will have time to return to Vatsalyadham but how it is right now it is very good.
I know that this had been just view points of my last view weeks and there is so much I could tell you about. But there is just not that much time.
I was asking for the post, because I got to know that some of you were sending me some letters. The Indians told me that it would take more or less 2 month to arrive from Europe. I really hope that I will still get some of the letters. It would be just too sad if I could not get them…
Till the next time! Your Rebekka
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a happy new year!!! I hope that everybody of you could enjoy the christmasdays, could spend some nice and quied time with you families and is feeling recharged for the next coming duties... I hope all of you will celebrate a very nice new years eve, after we survived the end of the world of the majas... =D
Thank you all so much for your nice Christmas mails. I was really happy to read all your nice wishes, even when I still have not replayed to all of you.
Amy and me we arrived happily at the 22nd of December safety Maher after a long, very interesting journey through a very colorful India. We started our journey at the 2nd of December with a train ride from Pune to Vasco da Gama in Goa, where we met Catherine again, with who I was living with in Vatsalyadham 5 weeks. It was very interesting to see the different types of classes in the train- from the first a/c to the 3. or 4. Class with just wooden benches for sitting. Our train ride was over 14hours longs. We original booked the 2nd class a/c but we had been at the waiting list and in the end we ended up in the first a/c with a type of bodyguards sitting in front of our cabin.
Goa is a very touristic place with a lot of Russians and British people. The only special thing in Goa are the beautiful beaches where we could lay on. We had been at 3 different places in Goa, because we were searching for the India felling. We could not really find it, so we went to Kerala to one of the Maher homes there and spend 4 very nice nights there. For this we took a bus from Margao to Cuchin. It turned out as a very interesting bus trip. We had been just more or less 8 people on the bus and the most of them were foreigners. On from Italy, one from America, one from Japan, one from Germany, one from where ever, we could not find out but he was speaking more or less every single language in this bus fluently and he was a steward. And then there were a few Indians- one of the was a kind of old very drunk guy who was fighting the hole time with the bus driver. We were very glad when they kicked him out in the middle of the night.
The sociaworkers of the Maher home in Kerala brought us every day to different places around Cuchin. So one day we spend in the very famous Backwaters and I got a nice home feeling, because it was nearly looking like the Spreewald what is close to my hometown in Germany. It was like a forest with small rivers in. We could see how they are doing the mattresses for sleeping out of wild pineappleleeves and how they are doing ropes out of the hair of the coconuts. It was very interesting to see.
After the few days in Maher, what we really enjoyed with all the children and the nice staff (it was very interesting to see the differences between the homes in Maharashtra and Kerala, because all have the same regulations from the governments but in Kerala the government is much more strict like in Maharashtra...) Amy and me went to Munnar. Munnar is still in Kerala but close to Tamil Nandu and in the middle of the Westgate’s- the mountains on the Westside of India. Munnar is very famous for the tee- and spiceplantations and when we arrived I felt like I got to a green paradise. It is very high up in the mountains and so it was kind of very cold, especially in the night. We found one of the nicest cottages in the middle of a tee plantation, where we got woken up from the women who were cutting the teeleeves. We had to be careful, because there should be wild elephants living, but I never saw one. It this cottage we met a lot of different people and were every evening sitting in front of a campfire to warm up and to talk about our days. So I met there a view people from the UK, two Australian boys, two from Israel and two Germans. It was very interesting to hear from their times here in India. Amy and I spend also a whole day with the two Israelis and it was very interesting to hear about their lives and the country Israel.
After our time in Munnar we wanted to go to the Chinnar wildlife Sanctuary- one day and night in the jungle. One of the Germans decided to come with us and it turned out as a very big advancer. We could not see any wild animals’ exempt some bisons but we were staying in a log house directly at a river in the middle of nowhere, protected from four guides with big knifes. It would be too much to tell all the long stories about this trip here but it is a good story!!!!!!!!!
Amy and I took at the next day a nigh bus to Trivandrum, because we wanted to see Kanyakomary- the very south point of India, where 3 oceans are meeting. We arrived in Kanyakomary at 8o`clock in the morning and decided after two hours to leave again. There had been soooooo many tourists- at this time of the day there were just the Indian tourists and we didn’t wanted to know how many people would be there when all the foreigners would get a wake as well. So we went to all important places there (it is not really big) and left just two hours later to Trivandrum. That was the best thing we ever could do. In Trivandrum we enjoyed our last day very much. We went for example to an aryuvedic college and some of the students gave us a tour through the hospital there and told us a little bit about their studies. It was very interesting!!!
At the next day we went to the airport and went back to Mumbai from where we took a bus to Pune. We were very lucky because Sr. Lucy had a late program in Pune and so she could pick us up from the bus. That was very good, because it was already half to 10pm and it was very dark. A couple of days later I got to know that Sr. Lucy had a very big fight with one of the man at the street. Because, when he saw Amy and me coming to Sr. Lucy’s car, he said that it would have been a very good catch- we two white girls. That is the thing what is so dangerous in India about. We don’t know what the people are saying and where the danger is hiding. Sr. Lucy got really angry. At the moment raping of women is a very big theme here in India. There is no day where you cannot find a story about a woman who got raped. The society is changing and is looking more forward to get more right for women. That is kind of dangerous for us as well, because the men are feeling that the public is taking their rights away... There is a lot of anger in the air. Tomorrow there will be a big protest against raping, what Maher arranged.
On our way back to Maher Sr. Lucy found a woman laying and sleeping in the middle of the highway. We always where listening to Sr. Lucy’s stories, about picking up woman from the street. This time we were there to see her in action and it was very impressive. The woman came with us and spends the night in Vadhu. The next day she went to Vatsalyadham and is there still. She is an elderly woman with no home and no family. So it was very good, that Sr. Lucy found her. Now she has a home and a big family- what is that for a christmaspresent?!
The first view days back in Maher had been very busy. At the 23rd of December we went to Vatsalyadham to pack over 800 Presents out of 1500 Presents. Because everybody should get a present from Maher. It was sooo good to see everybody again and the woman and the children kept asking when I would come back. It was not that easy to explain why I am still in Maher but not with them… At the 24th of December there we had a big program at Christmas Eve. All the Maher children came to a program, also over 50 Traibelpeople came. Those are the people very very down in the society. Sr. Lucy showed a lot of symbolic meanings when she sends the women of the Traibelpeople on the Stage, where for normally all the important guests are sitting- soothe women and not the men. Also she made us sitting just next to the women as well, so that they got to know that we- the white people- are nothing different than them. All of them got a present from Sr. Lucy and some sweets.
Before Dinner we had a little procession. All the bigger Children were staying in two long lanes and had a candle in their hands. Sr. Mina hold a Jesusbabydoll in her Hands and everybody was walking behind her, singing Marathi Christmas songs until we reached the crib, what the boys and girls builded up the whole day long. There we had a little prayer and where singing some songs with holding the candles in our hands. We had a midnight mass at 10pm till 11.30pm with the pastor from Pune. Afterwards everybody was wishing each other merry and happy Christmas and were drinking a hot chocolate- something really special, because it was Christmas. After the pastor went home, the bigger boys were turning the music on and we were dancing, with Sr. Lucy together till midnight.
At the 25th of December – that is the real Christmas day in India, we went early in the morning to Vatsalyadham, because there should be a big program for giving the presents out. All of us got a Sari on and we went. All in all there had been over 1500 People- Children, Women, Staff and friends of Maher. It was a very nice and very long day and it took 2 ½ hours to give all the presents out. I still didn’t had the feeling of Christmas- more the feeling of a big party, but it was sooo great to see all the people again!
It was strange to see, that we were celebrating Christmas and when we went home we could not even see anything from the Christmas-celebration. The cities and streets were busy like always and nothing was giving a hint that there was this fists going on.
The next days had been very quiet and I spend over a whole hour to wash all my cloth from our journey.
Yesterday Punam, Pam and I were sitting the whole time over the statistic what I have to do for Sr. Lucy about Maher. It was very interesting and I am looking sooo forward to work on it more and more. Especially it was so good, because I am learning a lot about Maher, the culture and I have the possibility to discuss some points with an Indian girl about my age. It will be very interesting to find out how many women came pregnant to Maher and how many where underage to this time. There are a lot of more questions to talk and find out about but we will start with that in January. Now I am back in Vadhu and I think I will stay here a little bit longer. I don`t know if I will have time to return to Vatsalyadham but how it is right now it is very good.
I know that this had been just view points of my last view weeks and there is so much I could tell you about. But there is just not that much time.
I was asking for the post, because I got to know that some of you were sending me some letters. The Indians told me that it would take more or less 2 month to arrive from Europe. I really hope that I will still get some of the letters. It would be just too sad if I could not get them…
Till the next time! Your Rebekka
Rebekka in Indien - 28. Dez, 10:01
