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Two views from our first Sunday walk |
Two weeks on
Second week. Already it seems as if we've been here for a long time! Dot has had her first four days of teaching. Verdict: students who listen attentively and generally have a very mature attitude towards teachers; some strugglng with the work - using what is for them a second language; lots of work needed - they go through the material faster than she is used to - and five forty-minute lessons a fortnight for all middle school students, compared with 2x50 minutes at Broadgreen.
We walked down to the bazaar on Saturday to do our first real bit of shopping. It was a day for students to go into the bazaar, and lots of teachers were there too, so it was really very friendly. There's more or less only one main street through Mussoorie, so you can hardly miss seeing people you know. There's plenty of chance to compare notes about what you've bought where, and how much it was. The best moment (sorry, Dot!) must have been when we went into a clothing shop on the recommendation of some students looking for a couple of cotton tops. The assistant came forward, very professional: "Can I help you?" Dot: "I'm looking for a cotton top". Assistant: "For you?" Dot: "Yes". You just can't capture in words the look he gave. "What makes you think we'd have anything in your size? What possessed you to come in here wasting my time? What sort of clothes do you think we stock? What are you doing breathing air that someone else could use?" "Er, thanks, I'll try somewhere else."
More successful was the trip to Ram Chander to stock up on foodie basics. It was heaven - just like being back in Liverpool exploring Matta's (although, to be honest, Matta's selection of Indian spices and delicacies is far, far superior). And for once I was on home territory: masoor dal, channa, dhaniya, methi, chapatti flour - all the good old British standards! I didn't realise how much Hindi I could speak. Later on at the veg shop, where the assistant spoke no English, I was able to order "piazza" (onions), "bhindi" (okra), "brinjal" (aubergines) and, er, I pointed at the tomatoes. All those meals out weren't wasted after all. Actually, Ram Chander specialises in all the things that ferengi (foreigners) can't do without. As long as you don't mind paying import prices you can get Kelloggs cornflakes, Tetley tea bags, Nescafe, Weight Watchers mayo, Buitoni pasta. One colleague in an unguarded moment even managed to buy four slices of German rye bread for Rs 255 - about £3.70: dear enough in the UK, but a fortune here. To give you an idea, at the veg shop mentioned above we bought a kilo of onions,and half a pound or so each of baby aubergines and okra (I was kidding about the tomatoes) for Rs 16 (about 20p) Motto: eat local, not global.
Sunday was church in the morning followed by our first venture into cookery. True to the self-destructive Wildy approach to these things, we invited three people to lunch. Potato and pea curry, okra and tomatoes, aubergine pakoras (slices deep-fried in a spicy gram flour batter), poppadoms and Basmati rice (grown in the valleys in our region). They were very gracious about it and went for seconds. Mind you, they were all 20-something singles who know how to build a relationship against the day when the cookery improves.
It was a day of firsts: we had our first Sunday afternoon walk! Up to now we (well, I) had been struggling with breathing and things and hadn't been up to even a short walk, other than the 162 steps up to our house. Today, though, the weather was fine so we decided to do the length of the hill, the extremes of the Woodstock estate lengthways (it's a good 1500 feet up and down "widthways", as it were). There's a narrow path called the "eyebrow" which traces along a fairly steady contour at just above the level of our house, so we walked eastwards along this and then up the hill to Mount Hermon, the latest property to be acquired as student residences. It's pretty well at the end of the ridge, in a beautiful setting. From there we walked back westwards along the road at the top of the ridge, past Sisters' bazaar. This is where Prakash has his shops, particularly featuring some nice fresh-baked breads and a pizza delivery service (I kid you not).
Further on we passed Kellogg Memorial Church (where we have been the last two weeks) and St. Paul's Church and arrive at Char Dukan ("four shops"). That's the after-church hangout where you can get a plate of chips and a toastie for lunch. Or pakoras, if you'd rather. Then down the main road a bit and we picked up the other end of the eyebrow to walk eastwards back to our house, which is more or less in the middle of the hill, right above the school. Each turn of the path reveals another bungalow or cottage, perched on every available bit of flat ground, with amazing views from the terraces, or buried in the woods like something from Grimm's.
It's really a very interesting place..