Good Morning Didi

Everywhere I walk on this campus I’m greeted with “Good Morning (Afternoon, or Evening) Didi.” In Hindi, Didi means older sister.  I like the way things are, I’m not sure how I'm ever going to go back to being just Jaimee when I get back home.  I was talking about this today with our team leader. The difficulty of transition back to home.  He said that for people who spend a lot of time in a place like this, people who live here for years and then try to move back to Western Culture, it can take up to 2 years to re-adjust to being home again.  For me, only being here a short time, I don’t expect it to take years, but allowing myself 3 or 4 months is probably accurate.  How can 10 days cause such upheaval for 3 or 4 months?

Today I walked through the mountains with Matthew and 3 staff members wielding machetes for brush clearing to go have a look at the water source.  It was an adventure.  The mountain vista’s were breathtaking and although I was good and sweaty by the time I got back, I had so much fun.  Before I left this morning I was able to show the medium girls how to use the survey GPS that we were collecting points with.  I’m starting to remember some of their names, and one of them told me she wants to be an engineer.  In general, I’ve felt that connecting with the kids has been more of a challenge than I’m used to.  The fact that I don’t speak Hindi is a stumbling block, even though most of the kids do speak English.  Although I do feel like I am getting to know some of the girls, I sometimes find the cross cultural aspect of communication in this formal and seemingly reserved part of the country to be challenging and hard to understand.  I wish I could have more time to get to know the people here. But don't be mistaken, I do feel connected, and I know I'm going to miss these people once I'm gone.  I'm just trying to take in every minute I have.  This morning as I was walking through the bush, I realized what a gift this is.  How lucky I am to be here. I've been noticing all the things that I'm going to miss once I'm back in Canada, rice for breakfast, lychee juice and cookies for morning snack (they have both morning and afternoon snack here!), the gentleness of the people.  There is so much that I want to share, I can't wait to tell people about all of this when I see them in person.

 Bambi, the resident St. Bernard needs a drink too!  She's so cute:)

 The ladies came all the way out to the water reservoir to deliver us juice and cookies for morning snack.

 Boys against girls in tug of war.  The girls won.  The boys were more than a little competitive.  Apparently, the boy's strategy of spitting in their hands to increase their grip, backfired.

 With the medium girls before they head off to school.  Love these girls.

 Walking through the "jungle" to reach the spring that is the water source for the home.