Jaipur... it's growing on us!

We have taken our first Indian train trip, a train from Delhi which landed us in Jaipur at midnight - eek! We shared a train booth with a beautiful old couple, who had been visiting their son in Nagaland, and had already been on the train for 2 straight days, with 6 hours left to their home in Jaipur. The old lady spoke no English, but had the most gorgeous face and manner, and looked like a Naga tribal woman. The man chatted to us about cricket (we're learning a lot about cricket in India!!) and offered us his papers to read. They were delightful, and as they left the woman farewelled us with "goodnight" - her only word of English the whole way. They hopped off the train into the pitch black one stop before us - very brave for 85 years old! Arrived in Delhi, and managed to get a rickshaw to take us to the right place, only to discover there was no room at the Inn!! So out to the stables for us... well not quite, but not the room we were expecting. After some terse words at our original hotel informing them that we had already paid for the room, they managed to scrounge around to find a room for us at a neighbouring hotel. It is busy season in Jaipur!! We got a bit of a vibe for how Mary and Joseph felt!

Despite feeling a bit down on Jaipur (it did have an eery feeling on arrival despite the hotel debacle!), the morning sunshine showed a brighter, happier place, with a view from our room of kids all around Jaipur flying their kites from their roof tops. We've had a slow morning sitting in a park, and catching our breath and finding our feet, and now time to find our accommodation at Saharia Organic Farm (www.sahariaorganicresort.com) for some retreat. We're feeling a bit weary and ready for a bit of down time after Delhi and Christmas combined! Happy New Year all - enjoy the NYE celebrations (who knows what we'll be doing!!).

A Small House but a Big Heart

On Friday we had the priviledge of meeting a lovely young woman named Janet who works for a small NGO in Old Delhi called Sahara House. I have read a little about the work here and it's beginnings through my readings on Urban Mission. It was started as a Christian Therapeutic Community in the 1970's by a couple of Christian hippies who were living in India at the time, and exploring ideas about Urban Mission and Radical Discipleship (www.daveandrews.com.au)

Sahara House is now a therapeutic communitiy which supports people who are Injecting Drug Users, as well as people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. I was lucky enough (maybe divine intervention!?) to meet a woman at our church who had been working at Sahara House and had just returned to AUstralia, not long before we left for India. She gave us Janet's contact details, and arranged for us to be able to visit Sahara (www.saharahouse.org). Our visit began at the Crisis Centre, which provides accommodation and detox for about 20 blokes for up to 15 days. We spent some time with Kumar, a weathered program manager whose tired look gave him credo as someone used to a long life of grassroots work with the marginalised. Kumar lives at the Crisis Care Centre with a number of other staff. The crisis care centre is open 24/7/365 for people to come and go as they please - a high calling! They have a strong Harm Minimisation and educational approach, and see many relapses as a natural part of the recovery process. The crisis centre also houses and cares for children of injecting drug users while their parents are going through rehab. The children were out having fun at the annual Winter Olympics on Friday! Sahara House also runs a separate rehab centre for women with the same issues. On a Friday evening they run a coffee night where the men and women and children can get together and they have games and music and coffee with anyone involved with Sahara. This is a chance for the families to reunite regularly while rehab is happening. Janet also works doing advocacy counselling and education work with commercial sex workers, as well as working in the outreach centre.

We visited the outreach centre also. This consisted of a doctor sitting at a card table by the river with a number of frail looking men sitting around him. The doctor was dispensing clean syringes (this was their Needle and Syringe Exchange Program). They also see 35-40 clients between 2 and 4:30 each day to dress nasty abcesses which come about as a result of injecting diazepam, a very thick oily substance which is particularly bad for your veins. Of all the staff at Sahara, 80% were Injecting drug users in recovery - an impressive figure. We met a guy who was a counsellor at the home for people living with HIV/AIDS, who was in recovery from injecting drug use himself. Later, at the outreach centre, we met a guy who was now a peer educator with Sahara, not long since beginning his recovery process! They also have a strong volunteer base, mainly made up of recovering users, as a way of maintaining the support and providing meaningful work which is significant for confidence and self-esteem. They were particularly keen that this work needed to be work which harnessed the gifts and passions of people. Unfortunately, they are beginning to reach saturation point in terms of the amount of this type of work which can be offered to people.

I was struck by the simplicity of it all - they manage to provide so much with very basic and simple resources - a doctor at a card table by a river giving out clean syringes. It's easy to forget how simple it can be to support people.
Janet took us back to her small, simple home for a meal later, in South Delhi. Her home is just one small room with a small kitchen (about the size of your pantry) and a small bathroom outside. We really appreciated and enjoyed her hospitality, and she assured us that if we were ever to come to stay in Delhi again we must stay at her house - "I have a small house but a big heart". This sums up the essence of Christian hospitality for me, which was demonstrated both through the work of Sahara House and through Janet's hospitality - no matter how little you have, as long as you have a big heart it will go far.

Discovering Delhi

We leave Delhi tonight after four fantastic and varied days here, so thought we'd catch you up on our adventures before we leave the hotel. Unfortunately we havent found a place to upload our photos yet, but we'll add some as soon as we can. (just found a good netcafe!!)
Our first day in Delhi was mostly wandering around Connaught Place, where the city centre is basically in the round, focusing in on a new park in the centre. This made it easy to wander around, and get our bearings. Things didnt feel too busy, but we discovered later that CP (Connaught Place) is a bit removed from everything else. We meandered markets, bought chai from boys on the street, and strangely enough...I had my ears cleaned by a funny little man in a park. I'm not quite sure why I agreed to it...I think I wanted to get into the vibe of the place! Anyway, it worked out fine, and I now have immaculately clean ears! I recommend it! We ate samosa style pastries from a street vendor for dinner, and then an auto rickshaw weaved us through traffic back to the hotel. I crashed out early and we slept very well.
Thursday was a little different. We ended up with a driver...not exactly deliberately...and Siwar became our guide for the day. We went to Old Delhi which had the bustle and craziness that we expected of Delhi. It was great. We visited Jamma Mosque, the world's second largest Muslim Mosque, and several other local sights. We went to the fantastic Silk Palace, where we were treated like royalty as we purchased some local clothing...very nice! We visited Ghandi's Memorial, his tomb set in beautiful gardens, with some of his quotes carved in stone around the walls. We ate lunch in an upmarket restaraunt called Lodhi Gardens. Lush setting with 5 star service and jazz playing. It felt a lot devoid from the culture we were in, but I guess Siwar was doing his best to make us feel comfortable! We picked up our train tix from an agent in CP, fantastic service from a guy called Latif, and avoided a minor drama when our driver attempted to claim commission from the agent! Back to the hote for dinner, and we crashed early again.
On Friday we met Janet who Virginia had emailed before we left, and were lucky enough to be shown the work of Sahara House, which is a Drug Rehab organisation working to minimise the impact of HIV in India. I'll let Gin fill you in on this more shortly, but it was eye opening, and we felt blessed to be able to experience this side of Delhi's City life for a short while. I'm about to get kicked off the Net here, and we should check out...so we'll write more soon.
A little sight seeing today, and then we tackle the trains to head to jaipur.
Love to you all.
Jeff n Gin

The beginnings in Delhi...

We've arrived in Delhi. Our plane landed brilliantly despite a thick orange haze that left the runway closed until minutes before we landed. A very professional pilot! A pleasant rendezvous in Hong Kong on the way prepared us a little for the smells and the atmosphere of Delhi, although still very different. We spent four hours seeing the sights of Hong Kong city during our stopover which was an unexpected bonus. Both flights were really smooth and our biggest issue was nearly missing the plane in Melbourne because we were so relaxed - eek!! We're enjoying a relaxed and comfortable hotel with a lovely garden in which to take our tea, which has allowed us to ease in a bit. Last 2 days have been days of exploring Delhi. We managed to arrive to a quieter Delhi than expected which was pleasant, however peak hour was not far around the corner!! We're experiencing the contrasts of this weird and wonderful city - colour, chai, ear cleaners, markets, very rich, very poor, clean, dirty - but very friendly people. On our first day we had a number of wonderful encounters with a range of Delhi-ites. One in particular showing us to a reputable travel agent (we think - let you know!!) to help us out with the details of the remainder of this part of the trip. Raj, a street curio seller, assured us that he knows of Australia well - he has a friend who comes from Sunshine Hospital and another from Royal Womens' Hospital!! What more is there to possibly know of Australia! He was very friendly despite the fact that we knocked him back on the hand made chess set! More details on Delhi before we leave here for Jaipur in the next few days... thanks for your interest and support and the messages from home thus far...

Christmas Night Pre-departure reflections

So, it's Christmas night. Our bellies are full and so are our packs. Christmas was somewhat overshadowed with the anticipation of our adventure, but only a few hours til boarding now and we have enjoyed hanging out with family and friends over Christmas - a good way to leave for a few weeks. An early start tomorrow, and hopefully some interesting souls to meet on the plane... who knows??!! Next stop, 8 hours at the airport in Hong Kong (they might let us out if we're lucky!). We're preparing ourselves for the onslaught of Delhi. Christmas in Melbourne's CBD provided some preparation perhaps!? (perhaps not!) We're feeling slightly nervous about what lies ahead - probably fair enough. Reactions from fellow travellers have been extreme in either direction. We had Christmas dinner with a couple of Italian tourists at home in Brunswick - friends of our housemate. They were in awe of India and showered us with fantastic stories and advice and reminded us that we must go with open hearts - nice. We've definitely started to feel excited. Another friendly warning was to give it a chance - it won't be love at first sight! Others farewell us with much more trepidation - "please be careful!". We're sure it will be an amazing and eye-opening experience and can't wait to get started. Talk to you next from crazy Delhi.
Bonvoyage, Jeff and Gin.

Friends of Kolkata

As part of our time in India we'll be spending a few weeks with Friends of Kolkata doing some work through CCD, which is a local Kolkata based organisation that supports kids that have been affected by child labour. They run some schools, a boys home for boys that can't be supported at home, and they also do a lot of work advocating for the rights of children in India. What we do when we 're there will probably unfold more once we're in Kolkata, but we're planning to help in one of the CCD schools doing some literacy and numeracy stuff. We also hope to work on a mosaic project with some of the boys, to brighten up the space around the school. We'll be going with the flow, and slotting in wherever is helpful. Overall, we're looking forward to the opportunity to hang out with some locals in the place they live, and hopefully get a glimpse of life off the tourist route.

The First Post

Here's our first post before we head off on our adventure in India. We're busy getting our heads around travel preparation amidst christmas craziness, and very much looking forward to heading off. We're leaving early on Tuesday 26th Feb, flying to Delhi with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong. We'll do our best to post fairly regularly, we'll see how we go finding Internet. Feel free to leave comments or fire us off an email.