Indian Life: welcome to 2011

Three weeks ago, on the night my family arrived, i wrote my last post. This morning Niels and my mother left again. Time to send you an update on the last three weeks. Much has happened since the 25^th December. We started into a new year, went traveling, spend much money, had good foods, got sick, saw some monkeys, a dolphin and elephants and some tiger footprints, celebrated my mums birthday, finally started to have our own children and own schedule in the school, met some nice people, went to a beach, got sunburned, read books, FINALLY handed in our project plan (bachelor thesis) and discovered more of indian life. Unfortunately I haven't been the best friend and family member in answering e-mails or showing up on skype. I am sorry!!

The longer we stay here, the more we see, the more we do – the more I value this nice and quiet place called Fort Kochi. You always see and smell the dirty streets, the chaotic traffic, the early morning and late evening fires on every corner of the streets to burn their rubbish (there is no such thing like rubbish collection here, sometimes you may see people collecting some in push carts – but the primary garbage disposal is burning it). It is a place of extremes. Poor and rich, old and new, tidy and dirty, smelly and nice, temples, mosques and churches next to eachother. Every time we walk on the streets I like to look up into the sky and see my view of the blue sky being encircled with tall green coconut palm trees. It gives me a relaxed, southern, beach feeling. It is one glimpse to escape the impressions from the street. But actually I love this chaotic, sometimes totally absurd life, most often it just makes me laugh and shake my head and wondering “how is this possible??!”.

I think we are becoming better in bargaining, but we still need much much MUCH practice. The most difficult part for me is to not be scared to offer an absurdly low price. Nothing will happen when offering a very low price to them...but still somehow this is incredibly difficult.

But I should update you a little on what we have done:

After my families arrival we have spend the first few days in fort kochi, made a visit to Ernakulam, went to a very good eye clinic and their VIP room (just because of being white and coming from Europe being put into a VIP waiting room made us feel a little uncomfortable, but we were in the end actually quite glad to be sitting in the comfortable, air conditioned room which made us all fall asleep) we went on a backwater tour and had some wonderful meals at Beenas home stay – but more on this later.

Following those days in fort kochi we went to MUNNAR. Because of a strike we had to take a private taxi....a little more expensive than a normal one, but we arrived safely to munnar. On our way there we stopped at a river to watch some elephants being washed. I really feel deep respect for these huge, grey animals and felt very sorry for them being taken to that river twice a day to let tourists see how they are being washed. But still they were extremely cute and it was an experience to touch their skin :)

Munnar: A boring town in beautiful surroundings. Here I learned to value my cup of tea. Munnar is a beautiful place in the hills which are covered with tea plantations. We didn't expect it to be so cold there, but it was nice to have a break of the constant (and increasingly) hot and sticky feeling in kochi. We stayed approx 10 km outside of munnar center in the hills in a cottage. At first we were a little disappointed of being so far from the exciting places ;) but it actually turned out to be a great place to stay at. The daily bus or jeep ride to munnar was worth the stay so far away. The roads were the most horrible or the most exciting ones we have seen so far. I guess it depends on what you make of it. Fact is, I loved it!!! The slopy small roads winding through the hills of munnar with stunning views of the tea plantations. And actually it isn't so much the roads I guess...more the driving style of the drivers...or the combination of both :-)

We made a one day trek through the plantations. It took us 3 days to recover from the muscle pain following it, but it was definitely worth it. We walked up to 2100m, starting the day with breakfast above the clouds. We saw not only tea, but also coffee, cardamom, pepper, cocoa, vanilla.... It was really an experience for me, I didn't know before how pepper and cardamom grows. Now I am drinking my tea, my coffee and using the pepper with a totally new awareness.

For 250g of tea, the workers (all women) pick and collect 1000g of tea leaves!!!! And of course it is sold in every single shop in munnar. We left munnar after two nights with 2 kg of tea in our luggage. If anyone should ever come to kerala, I can only recommend to visit munnar! Search for the green view hotel. The team working there organizes great treks!!

From munnar we took another exciting bus ride to KUMILY. Kumily is situated at the Periyar national park. Here we spend new years eve and made a half day walk, called green walk, in the indian jungle. When I thought of india I never pictured these landscapes! Huge areas of jungle-like forests accommodating tigers, monkeys and leech (blutegel!!) and many more animals. But these three were probably the most exciting ones we got confronted with. We couldn't see a tiger, but we did see tiger footprints!!! And fresh elephant footprints!! Very exciting ;) and many monkeys!

Denise and I left my parents and brother in kumily and had to go back to fort kochi: our christmas vacation was over and we had to go to the school again. My family had to have an extra recovery night in kumily after having some bad food (for the real indian experience and then continued to varkala, a seaside place.

Denise and I had a good start with the clinical. Not much has changed. Still quite relaxed and not so much to do. Since this week we have our own patients and own times, which makes it much more interesting and fun!

I was very surprised when I told our clinical instructor about the wall bars (wand rek/ sporssenleiter) which we know to be a standard equipment in most schools and physiotherapy practices in europe. A great tool for working with children. They really miss something in the physiotherapy unit for children to pull themselves up into a standing position or to hold on to sth or to climb etc. He really liked it. He immediately talked to the others, then talked to the principal of the school who gave her consent and then came back to me with the task of finding a suitable spot for it in the room. This was more difficult. I discovered they are very open for new things, but not so open for change. Finding a space on a wall was more difficult than expected. We made many suggestions, but nothing is possible to be moved. They have so much stuff in that room and never use it!!! But throwing it away or selling it is also not possible. CHANGE: NOT POSSIBLE. Anyway, after much discussion they agreed to an idea. I wrote a paper with a description of a wall bar and a long bench and added some photos: The financial department gave their okay!!! It will be built!!!!!!!!!!!! Juchaaay!!! When I told him about the equipments we use in europe I didn't expect anything, and the suprize now is even bigger that it happened so quick!! The only disadvantage is: All the paper work and financial stuff and building might take up to 6 months....we are trying to make them have it finished before we leave. I fear if it'll be built after we leave it will, just as all the other things they have, never be used. I hope we can show them what is possible with it and hope they will accept it and will be willing to change their treatment approach a little away from passive to more functional-fun- activities.

They do search for our opinions and advise more often and also accept and support them. One child will have a new chair. Our instructor asked us how her chair should be. We added our ideas. The problem is, we don't have much knowledge on these things....but they still trust our suggestions and opinions.

Last week my dad came to fort kochi and spend his last night here before going back to germany. It was nice seeing him again before he left! My mum and niels stayed a little longer in varkala. On their way to fort kochi they stopped in aleppley for one night. I went their to meet them. It was my mums birthday the following day.

I went to allepey with an irish travel journalist on a motor scooter. It was great!!!! It is so wonderful to just get away from the touristy parts and see more of the country. On the road to our left we had the backwaters, to our right the Arabian see. It was quite an extraordinary ride. We stopped at a beach, a beautiful big sand beach with palm trees, only known to the local fisher men.

ALEPPEY is nothing special. They call this place “venice of the east”, I couldn't see any resemblance....maybe the two canals which cross the town? :) But it was worth the ride to meet the two others there! I really enjoyed our time there!! We went to a hotel on the beach to have some wine and beer in the evening and went back to the beach early next morning to see a dolphin not even 10 m away from us. He came to say happy birthday to my mum. :)

Back in kochi they stayed with denise and me in our homestay. I am very thank full for my parents and niels to visit us! Now they are gone and it does feel like something is missing here! I hope you enjoyed your time here!!

My dad has written some posts on the time in india on their blog as well: akaminden.blogspot.com

Many greetings from hot kochi!!!