Pune Pizza & Pants!

Last weekend we had another adventure trip  to Pune.This time unattended so we had to battle the fun of the country buses ourselves!  We were doing pretty well and only waited about 40-50 mins for our second bus.  (which we skillfully pushed and squeezed our way on to).  Then we were just waiting to leave when over half the people squeezed back off the bus! We were confused but were reassured by a couple of the locals who stayed on that we were indeed heading to Pune. I must admit I still didn’t believe it until we drove up to the Pune outskirts.  We think there were maybe 2 buses heading and we got on the 10 ruppees more expensive one!  

Then we were greeted at the bus station by some incredibly cheeky auto drivers that were trying to charge us 300% more that what it actually costs. The meanies!  We came to a compromise though with a driver who was happy with ‘meter plus 20 rupees!’ J

We made it to Graeme’s flat and had a lovely dinner out in a local Indian restaurant.  I had my first lassi-a sweetened yogurt drink-it was tasty and led to many more that weekend!

Us having (yet again too much food) note little miss Abi skoffing on a whole plate of chicken-she does miss her meat!

On the Saturday we went to the snake park & zoo.  In Lonely it read like it was going to be a couple of pits with hundreds of snakes slithering around inside.  But actually it was very beautiful and clean with an amazing selection of animals.  We saw white tigers, elephants, HUGE cows and snakes and alligators and loads more!  Most of the local people were however preoccupied with one another! It appears the zoo is the place to hang out and sneakily hold hands.  We thought this was hilarious as nowhere else have we even seem young people of different sexes together never mind looking intimate! 

We saw Anna Hazare protest on way to the zoo which was pretty exciting.  It was a crowd of about 50 young people marching and chanting up the road.  They all had their ‘Anna’ white hats on.  That evening the bill was passed and there was supposedly there were parties all over the city-but we didn’t see any L

Snakes at the snake and zoo park in Pune

Again we tried to go to the Shana Wada light show (via the new town to get pants and a western style experience coffee! J) but it wasn’t on again-we now think it is all made up and refuse to try a third time!

Enjoying our 'Western style' treat at a chain coffee shop-my coffee cost more than my lunch! (it was like stepping into a coffee house in the Uk-it was the most bizarre experience!)

So we auto’d it back to Korregon Park via the off-license for cheeky wee beer then we had the consensus decision was it would be rude to go for dinner with beer breath so we ordered a pizza delivery and played cards! Completely cheating but after almost 2 months on rice twice a day I think it’s allowed.

We left Pune on Sunday morning after breakfast and began the epic trip back again.  We got back in Pabal about 430! We had about 30-40 people crowded round us at Rajgurunager  (where we change buses) all trying to speak to us-I think that’s the most attention we have had at once to date.  Everyone was lovely and pushed us extra hard when the bus came to make sure we got on!

On Tuesday I gave my last Environment lesson, I had hoped to do this on Monday but alas lack of electricity and internet got in the way. (It can get pretty frustrating at times but at least we have lap tops and don’t lose all our work when the power goes!)  My lesson was on Wind Energy and I think it went ok.  Some of the students are working on a wind turbine at the moment so I was keen to introduce some ideas that may help them.  They said it did so I was pleased.

The students with their in progress wind turbine

I have since been polishing up the environment slides and thinking about future projects and practical lessons such as covering the well etc.  I do hope that the students will benefit from these as at the moment the teacher is an ‘Electricity Man’ he has pretty much ignored this side of the curriculum in the past.  I am also making a start at producing some electricity lessons-oh my standard grade physics knowledge will need to be polished up! I’m looking forward to the challenge though!

On Wednesday we were invited to a student’s house for the Muslim Eid Festival.   So we headed down with a couple of the students to his home which again is just one room with a curtain to segregate the ‘kitchen’ from the ‘living room/bedroom’.  We were all presented with a cup of hot sweet milk with noodles in it-it was tasty! Then we were given another cup, and another cup and told to drink more! My belly was bursting with milk! But I was satisfied for it!

The rains have finally arrived in Pabal, and they have had double the amount of rain they had had all year in just two days!  It was good news for the school and village as the crops really needed more water.  Turns out that Pabal gets a lot stinkier and a lot muddier after rain! I was very pleased not to slip and end up as smelly as the pigs!

We have been heading for chai every other day which is great. Its lovely just chilling and drinking tea and half watching some funny Indian film on the small tv.  We get varying degrees of attention all the time. We have had our photo ‘slyly’ taken a few times on people’s phones and people come and try and speak to us only to realize we are useless when our mharati runs out after ‘hello’ and ‘my name is’.

Me at our 'local' with the owner and our favourite waiter