Week 41, Pune India

Dear Ethel, Family and friends

We finished our teaching in Aurangabad and it’s amazing how much they can learn in a week when they are keen students. They were a lovely group of people and they prayed for us again, gave us small gifts and much thanks. We really enjoyed our short time in Aurangabad and wish all our students and friends there all the best and thank them for their wonderful hospitality.


We traveled back to Pune during the week to stay with Melinda and Brian again. Another volunteer Jema has been staying here and teaching at the Poona School that Melinda organises, Gyanankur English School. We went out on Thursday to meet the students and teachers and sit in with each of the classes to get an idea of where they are all up to. On Friday we took a couple of the classes and will be teaching there for the next 2 weeks.

The Gyanankur English School is on the outskirts of Pune, set amongst the rural farmland and local villages. There are about 200 children at the school ranging from 3 to about 8 years, nursery to 3rd form. The children come from the surrounding villages, disadvantaged, orphaned and homeless children and children from NGO’s. Resources at the school are at bursting point and there is currently a 40% shortfall in their budget. Donations make up some of this but more is needed.

Please visit their website for more information.
http://www.gyanankur.com/

Thursday night, Brian took us out to a cultural village to meet up with another group of Australian volunteers who have been in Pune for the last week, working at the school and on other projects in Pune. It was great to be able to sit and talk with some fellow Australians for a while. The cultural village had numerous displays and activities including, camel rides, traditional dancing with a stack of pots on the head, fire eating, puppet show, rope walking with pots on the head and Louise got a henna tattoo as well. Dinner was a vegetarian Thali, numerous small bowls of different types of food. Thanks again to Brian for organising a fun night out.

We spent Saturday night at a hotel in town to give Melinda and Brian some family time. We took the opportunity to hit the shops and see what is available in this big modern town. Plenty of shopping malls, restaurants and coffee shops we also hit a few museums as well. Next weekend we will be going to the hill station of Mahabaleshwar.

All the best Ric & Louise

Week 40, Aurangabad, India

Dear Ethel, Family and friends

It has been quite a week for us. We stayed last weekend with our hosts, Melinda and Brian who live in a lovely apartment block with their two children. It’s is certainly different here than elsewhere in India. We even attended a Jazz festival, of all things, on Sunday night. The festival was held at an amphitheater attached to a brand new shopping mall, catering for home furnishings. The amphitheater has a water and laser light show that was going on in the background of the Jazz bands. It was spectacular, but we really never expected to see anything like this in India...Wow!

After some new year juggling, Melinda found us some teaching work in Aurangabad, 200km away from Puna, with a Christian group called Youth With a Mission, YWAM. They are a community organisation, helping the under privileged and poorest in their communities. They run a child care center for street children that live on the railway stations and are providing micro loans and support for abandoned women by helping them own sewing machines and providing lessons in how to use them. We have been teaching English to groups of the YWAM people for the last week. Louise takes the beginners, mostly women and I’m with the intermediates. We have also been doing a children's class in the evenings. It’s been a lot of fun and we have been welcomed very warmly and given a place to stay, basic but comfortable enough. I got sung happy birthday to in Marathi, the local language here and Louise & I were blessed and were decorated with garlands of flowers.

Aurangabad itself is much like a lot of small Indian town, chaotic dusty and strewn with rubbish, but it does have its own version of the Taj Mahal (not quite as grand), old city walls and a very long history. It also has a fantastic fort about 20 km away, which we saw yesterday and today we traveled 100km to the Heritage listed Ajanta and Ellora caves. It’s was a full days trip but well worth it. We got the feeling of Egypt and Ankor Watt from these places.

We are busy with lesson plans and domestic tasks in our humble abode, so I’ll sign off early till next week.

All The best.
Ric & Louise