3 weeks of being in India. It’s Sunday the 21st of Feb. The weeks have been so busy and this morning I woke up for the first time with having absolutely nothing to do, only to sit here and report to the home-front what I’ve been up to. I can’t believe that I’ve only been here 3 weeks, but at the same time, it feels like so much longer. So much has happened that Australia feels like a lifetime ago. Yet, when I got here first, I never considered how fast 3 weeks would go and therefore I didn’t think too much about what I was going to do, once the course was to come to an end; which it has done!!
That’s the first thing to report: I finished the course! I got my certificate!
And now I’m faced with the decision once again: what to do??!! But before jumping ahead, I must continue where I left off. So I’ll back track to 2 weeks ago..
12 days ago, around the 8th. I started to feel stuck. After only a week and half of being in the same place, it already started to feel too long. I started to wonder what India was going to offer me. I wanted to know what was beyond this city of Cochin, that had been my first destination and had given me the first impressions of this amazing country. It started to feel too small and life had taken on a routine, so quickly. I was feeling trapped, even though I knew how temporary it was. So I was wishing for the next step. Be it the step of “stepping out of this city and into new territory” or be it the step of “taking the teaching-course to another level”. And, sure enough, my wish came true.. both of them, all with a few days.
I branched out of the city and into nature, for the first time on Indian soil, last weekend. I was invited by Doris, the Canadian girl from my course, and her “host family” to the mountains, or I should actually say to the “hill-station” called Munnar. The family was so nice. It was my first encounter with an Indian family and it was amazing. We stayed in a guesthouse overnight, after a 6 hour drive up through the mountains. I saw so much on that drive, things that I only have seen on tv or heard about from other travellers. There were monkeys just sitting along the sides of the roads and watching the traffic go by.. There were elephants in the fields, there village people and hill tribes living in shacks without anything to call their own but still managing to sell tea just to make a few rupees. It was amazing the different sights that past by and leaving the city for a few days, opened my eyes to what India has in store for me. The scenery was fantastic and I finally got to see the famous tea plantations with my own eyes.. The women were walking through the beautiful green fields, with massive baskets on their backs, picking the leaves. It was so cool!
So for 2 amazing days there was no more tooting of the horns, no more pollution, no more rushing and no more fog created by fumes. There was only fresh air, beautiful surroundings and Indian hospitality where generosity was abundant. So much so that it started to feel as being too much and giving thanks for their kindness could have been without end and still it wouldn’t have felt to be enough. It was a different side of India, a taste of what is to come, a preview, an insight, a flutter of excitement or eagerness to soon maybe get on the road and head to wherever the wind takes me. I got so inspired and after being swept away by the countryside, it suddenly was Sunday evening and I was back in Cochin in my room, preparing for my first English class I was going to be giving in a real Indian primary school!! How exciting!
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