Goats, golden temples & gourmet treats...

So how was your weekend? Pretty average? I’m not too sure what an average weekend in Delhi or being a VSO volunteer actually consists of or, what I thought it would consist of when I was in London. If you had said to me, “your Friday night, which you will look forward to all week, is going to involve a BBQ goat” I don’t think I would have believed you...

But that’s where my weekend started and there was much excitement about the goat. So for all those who know me or have read a few blog entries you will know how important food is. Being a volunteer in India is great if you love curry, which I truly do, but I had perhaps not been prepared to eat a mainly vegetarian diet. Being veggie most of the week has not been too much of a problem but sometimes I get carnivorous cravings. When we first arrived in India we did some touristy things which involved a visit to Old Delhi and Karim’s restaurant. It’s a traditional Muslim restaurant which serves great food and mainly ‘non-veg’ dishes. Its piece de resistance is a BBQ goat (stuffed with biryani) that feeds twelve people quite happily. So as one of our fellow volunteers was leaving the fold we decided to go out for a meat feast to say goodbye.

And my, was the goat good. We feasted away and it was the perfect start to a weekend which revolved around more delicious food. So Saturday morning I was up early on a six hour train to Amritsar for a weekend away with a friend. Amritsar has been on my list of places to visit for a while. It has two main attractions the famous Sikh Golden Temple and the highly entertaining border ceremony where India and Pakistan have a very engaging face/off to much cheering and jingoism. We arrived just after lunch in time to get a quick plate of kulcha channa. This is a traditional Punjabi delicious dish of very flaky, spiced bread that is generously slathered in butter which you dip into chick pea curry. My, it was yummy. We then jumped in a taxi to go to the border ceremony an hour’s drive away. The road to the border was probably the smoothest I had ever been on in India. We worked out the reason for its lack of potholes was that it needed to be in tip-top condition to send in the tanks if things got a bit nasty with Pakistan. Green fields flanked the road and it was nice to see more green than rubbish/construction work for a change.

We arrived at the border to what looked to be the opening of a carnival. The route was thronged with popcorn sellers, groups of excited school children were milling with families and everyone was rushing to get a prime position in the stadium seating that lined the border gate. Due to our tourist status we got a good spot near the front. The atmosphere was incredible. It was like being at the final of X-Factor. Bollywood hits were blasted out, whilst school children ran up to the border gate with oversized Indian flags, then gangs of kids got up and danced school disco style as the compeer cheered on the crowd. Soldiers in their fancy hats (adorned with napkins and a lot of starch it seemed) had whistles to herd the crowd into some submission but were very jovial. What was particularly bizarre was that the same thing was being replicated on the other side of the gate in Pakistan in a slightly tamer form.

I felt sorry for the Pakistani side at first. There was less of a crowd, the women were separated from the men and sat high up in the stand. Their Bollywood tunes weren’t as tuneful. It was all a bit more sedate and there were fewer tourists too. Then the ceremonial pomp started. It involved a soldier from each side power walking up to the gate that had been opened, saluting and high kicking to much shouting. It was straight out of Monty Python but the crowd on both sides loved it and continued to cheer through the whole hour. The flags on both sides were lowered as the sunset and as we left it was like leaving the end of a rock concert. We got back to Amritsar tired and delighted to see our guesthouse had an excellent menu so we ordered cheese toasties and finger chips (that would be chips) and sat in bed watching particularly trashy American TV. With no access to TV and cheese being a luxury item it was my idea of a perfect Saturday night in.

The next day we got up early to visit the Golden Temple which was stunning. We wondered around watching young Sikh boys and old men have a dip and prayer in the waters surrounding the temple. I don’t think I’d ever seen more Indian men in their pants in my life. We sampled the free food cross legged in the dining room, the temple serves food to up to 80,000 meals a day and there was an impressive washing up chain gain. Then we of course tracked down a renowned kulcha channa road side stand for more eating. After a bit of shopping and a good piece of chocolate cake it was time to get back on the train and we headed home back to Delhi after a more than above average weekend.

Highlights - traffic lights – my pedestrian woes seem to be easing as thanks to the CWGs my six lane highway of death that I have to cross everyday now has traffic lights, jumping red lights are fairly normal in India but now I have an extra 0.007 seconds to cross the road, hello Mr Sunshine – the monsoon is finally over, blue skies and sunshine are here to stay so here’s to no more running in the rain. Work – with only a few months to go it’s really rewarding to see funding coming in and our marathon campaign pulling in lots of support.

“Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me...

...to be a backing dancer in the next Five Star pop video as I think they are fab.” Well that’s the letter I meant to get around to writing to Sir Jimmy Saville back in 1985 when I was aged 7 years but never did. So I was more than delighted when back in July I wrote to someone called Jimmy and he fixed it for me to go to Hong Kong.

Why Hong Kong I hear you say? This time around was my plea to star in the next Jackie Chan film after my recent Bollywood debut? Sadly no, it’s actually more to do with life post VSO. So with only a few months to go my thoughts have naturally been on what’s next? I sadly cannot sustain my volunteer lifestyle and the honourable world of employment beckons once again. So my cunning plan is to go into CSR so I can still be part of the development world but use my corporate skills for the power of good. For all those not hot on their acronyms, CSR is Corporate Social Responsibility, nothing to do with CSI Miami as someone asked me the other day.

Whilst researching the world of sustainability and CSR in July, I noticed there was a big CSR Asia Summit being held in Hong Kong which looked really interesting. So using my new fundraising skills of ‘you don’t ask, you don’t get’ I applied for a scholarship to attend and won. All I had to do was cover my flight and accommodation costs. So as VSO is all about flexibility and adaptability, I flexed my credit card for the flight and got in touch with some wonderful friends who had another wonderful friend who lived in Hong Kong to request the use of his sofa for a few nights.

To say I was more than excited about going would be an understatement. A few weeks ago I think I had reached a natural stage in the VSO lifecycle where, with only a few months to go I had reached my saturation point of India. If I heard one more Bollywood ringtone or honking horn it was going to get nasty. So civil society beckoned, and my how life is civil in Hong Kong. Firstly it’s the easiest place to get around. You can go on public transport and not get groped. Everything is clean, from the money to the pavements, I felt like I had been transported to the future. I could wear a dress in daylight, high heels, use my credit card to buy a train ticket, not eat curry for lunch and most importantly drink wine. The sofa I was supposed to be surfing on turned into a luxury bedroom with my own bathroom where the bed was made of marshmallow. I don’t think I have slept that well in 10 months. That might also have something to do with the free drinks reception on the first night.

The conference was very interesting. I had really lucked out to get a place as it was sold out and there were 400 people attending. It was really well organised and I met a lot of lovely people so it was easy to network. I had my first cultural induction to the business world in Asia outside of India when I realised I need to bow slightly and present my business card with both hands. I learnt lots about sustainability (CSR is so last year darling) and particularly enjoyed the talks on how business can get involved with solving the Millennium Development Goals, providing support in disaster preparedness and sustainable value chains - did you know that P&G recycle old shampoo bottles into plastic tiles? Amazing.

The conference was for two days and I had a day either side to explore Hong Kong. My mission was to eat everything and anything but curry. By the first morning I had tracked down Pret A Manger and had my very own When Harry Met Sally diner moment over a latte and ham, cheese and tomato croissant. I had the most amazing dim sum, sushi, beef, prawns and lots of delicious glasses of wine. I explored the city on foot, ferry, tram, metro and bus. My gracious host took me out to dinner and to a night at the famous Happy Valle races so I got to experience life as a local. My favourite area had to be Hollywood Road which is the old antiques quarter, with incense full temples, quite local parks with coy carp filled ponds and some great local graffiti.

So at the end of my four days, it was with a slightly heavy heart and full belly that I boarded my Kingfisher flight back to Delhi. But, I was invigorated by the whole trip, I arrived back to the sparkly new International terminal just opened in time for the Commonwealth Games and all was well. The smell and heat of India hits you within seconds when you arrive, I was comforted by the sound of honking as I walked to my taxi and thought that curry for dinner would be a nice change...

Highlights – seeing another side of Asia – learning about life for NGOs in China, Indonesia and Malayasia it was great to understand more about the region beyond India, being part of the VSO mafia – sitting down for lunch on the first day next to a chap, asking him what he did to find out he worked for VSO in Beijing it’s a small world, networking – until 4am, hitting the dance floor in high heels with fellow CSR conference buddies the next day I could hardly walk but all for the cause, running in the rain – the monsoon lingers so marathon training carries on and it’s actually really lovely to feel cool for a change after pounding the park, listening to 100 percussionists – I attended a great event on Saturday to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals it was called ‘Stand up and make some noise’ and 100 percussionists from all over India played in the historic ruins of Purina Quila at sunset which was breathtaking.

An ode to rickshaws...

Over the past few weeks I’ve been spending more time than usual riding around in the back of auto rickshaws. It’s been somewhat painful as it’s been all in the quest of trying to get my visa extended which it seems is the Holy Grail of Indian bureaucracy. On my journey my file has been lost and found due to a case of mistaken identity, causing me to gain and loose a Japanese husband on the way (careless I know). But I have completed my quest, after nine visits and between various trips to ministries with offerings of paperwork, endless queuing, photocopying and enjoying the spectacle of other foreigners go into meltdown (tears and tantrums never work in the face of an Indian bureaucrat especially before lunch time) I’ve had time to ponder...

With my time here heading into its last few months I’ve started to think about those things that have become every day and will no longer be a feature of my life back in London. Renewing your visa is definitely one of the not so glamorous sides of living in a developing country that I won’t miss neither is having to travel around in rickshaws. They are fairly safe and cheap (but still eat into your volunteer budget if you do more than one journey a day in Delhi) and surprisingly very green as they all run on compressed natural gas (CNG). But it still does not draw attention from the fact that each journey is somewhat traumatic, involves negotiations worthy of a UN peacekeeper and you are effectively riding around in a dodgem / hairdryer. And with hair like mine, I always seem to look like Bonnie Tyler having had a cat fight with a can of hairspray when I gracefully step out at my destination.

The trauma begins with trying to flag one down. Rickshaw drivers are not of the London cabbie school of customer service. They normally refuse to take you to places and drive off. Or they won’t have a clue where your destination is so you have to tell them the way. That can be pretty hard as Delhi is not the easiest city to get around as the whole place is covered in dust and rubble due to the Commonwealth Games (CWGs). You sometimes feel like you are a malfunctioning Sat Nav randomly trying to look for landmarks of familiar construction sites to find the way home.

Before you even get into a rickshaw serious negotiation needs to be made. The natural assumption is ‘blondie = rich’ therefore a ‘special’ price is given. So every day you have to barter hard which is painful if you are: a) running late b) its raining c) 6 rickshaw drivers have refused to take you so far d) just not in the mood for negotiating. Rickshaws have a meter but it rarely gets used. Until recently, as thanks to the alleged flood of tourists that will be turning up for the CWGs, rickshaw drivers have been forced to use their meters and a new rate card.

This meant happy days, hassle free travel for a while but the novelty ran off after Week 2 and most rickshaw wallah’s tend not to use it. They have conveniently slipped back to the old ‘meter broken’ excuse so it’s time to barter hard. And my, do rickshaw drivers have some valid reasons for charging a little bit extra. The usual one is ‘the traffic is bad’, well yes I can’t deny that living in a city of 16 million but it’s bad everyday and isn’t my problem. Or my favourite was last week when I got told the fare would be double ‘due to the rain’ when I responded saying ‘the rain is God’s fault not mine so charge him double’ I at least got a wry smile, head nod for get in and pay what you want. The monsoon has added a whole new twist on travel, if you are lucky enough to flag one down you then have to be prepared for being exposed to the elements, particularly large 4x4s who plough through puddles at high speed easily causing a tsunami onto your rickshaw and giving you a good soaking.

But they are not all bad, sometimes you get a great driver you can practice your poor Hindi on, they often like to sing slightly tuneless Bollywood hits throughout your journey providing some entertainment from the traffic, they know how to get rid of beggars and hawkers at traffic lights, can drive like demons when you are running late which makes it sort of feel like you’ve got AC and are definitely an unique part of India you can never forget...

Highlights: making it home on time – today is the first time in a few weeks I’ve just got back before the heavens opened, I’m writing this in the dark because the thunderstorm has caused another power cut but least I’m dry, breaking into my flat –the rain also does stealth damage it seems, as when I returned home in the wee hours merry from a night out and failed open the rusty lock on our front gate after 10mins of trying I suddenly turned a bit Yuri Geller and had bent my key in the lock. I knew that a 3am wakeup call was not going to be an option to my landlord so the only way was to get up and over the 8ft gate, luckily my mountaineering skills had been honed in Ladakh so it was a fairly painless ascent and descent, Sunday brunch bake off – it just gets to that point every few months where you’ve just had enough of curry and need a taste of home so we all piled over to another volunteers for a non-masala meal with delicacies such as tarte au citron and my contribution of Mars Bar crispie cakes seem to go down a treat, an egg upgrade – this may sound quite tragic but this week I taught myself how to make poached eggs (god bless the internet for teaching you everything) as eggs are my main source of protein in a mainly veg diet, a change from scrambled eggs and egg mayonnaise sandwiches after 10 months is so welcome, I now just need to master hollandaise - oh for eggs Benedict...!