A Cookery Course and some other happenings .

BI paid for a couple of evenings cookery course before I came away and made the decision to wait a while before committing myself incase  I missed out on trips away etc. 

Good decision as it filled a couple of evenings when a number of my new found friend volunteers had left before my last week.

So Kumar took my round to Janaki's house at 5.30 pm. , only 10 mins from where I stay.

All the houses have marble flooring which is cool under foot ( or to sleep on ) little storage space and no comfortable seating . Janaki has two children 21 and 17 and they like Anita's family all sleep in the same bedroom .

So I was welcomed into their home and offered coffee.Now Indian coffee is served very white and with enough sugar in it for a spoon to stand up on its own !!! I felt it would be rude to refuse so asked for black quite specifically without sugar . So it arrived white with sugar and when I questioned it they looked at me as if I hadn't told them I didn't want either and how could I possibly want black . Anyway. I forced down the coffee served in a boiling hot stainless steel cup with a lip that I kept burning myself on.

First hurdle over, we set about choosing the menu, now Janaki is a cookery teacher and. I very much felt like the pupil...this was going to be interesting !

Menu :

Pulka, kind of like chappati

Vegetable Kofta

Vegetable Korma

Kashmiri Pulauo Rice.

Menu chosen our next task was to go and buy the ingredients .

Stopping en route for Janaki to buy me a jasmine garland for my hair which she proceeded to clip onto my fine hair and yes it kept slipping off .Not in the same league my hair and the Indian tresses.

Passed this place. Grinding rice to make flour .

Vegetables bought.

While Janaki was busy I had a laugh watching these two choose a ball of string of all things . They wrapped and unwrapped so many balls to eventually find the right one for them. That's the balls in that kind of lobster pot .

And that I am afraid that was it for Monday night . 

So Tuesday. I got to the house at 5.30 and we  / I got stuck into preparing the vegetables.

All this took place on the floor .

The kitchen

Note the particularly attractive splash back !

This leathal weapon is the chopper . She rested it under her foot and diced the vegetables so finely , I was glad that was her job.

Vegetables done , we prepared the dough for the pulka made with whole meal flour 

See these peas by the way , I shelled them all !!

Pulka rolled , I did most of them

Then she produced our equivelant of a Sunday supplement and ingeniously I think used it to place and separate each pulka so that they wouldn't stick together .

These were put away for later.

I won't bore you with the cooking details , anyway I was an observer most of the time .

All food has to be boiled within an inch of its life and deep fried for good measure. What I was left with was a very tasty but very unhealthy meal and that's not just my observation , they all say the same themselves. That plus the fact that they do little or no exercise makes for a really unhealthy population.

I can't wait for a great big plate of salad.

Anyway here is the prepared meal .

I was then led through to the "sitting room " sat down on that flowery box seat thing and ate what had been made with all the family round about but not eating . It really is most strange.

Anyway I have done this eating thing alone enough times now to realise it's just the way . So I made a good dent on my plate and was home by 7.45..stuffed again.

Now to change the subject completely ,

I was invited by one of the social workers to go to the shops to choose an outfit as a thanks for all the contributions and hard work I had done .

They took umpteen outfits out their packets in all colours , it's all very overwhelming . The social worker  asked several times if I would like a dress like this 

I had to keep saying that I wouldn't be able to wear this style at home ... They took a lot of convincing !

So this is what I chose in the end . It had sleeves inserted as we waited , taken in a bit and the hem turned up . Had to be done as I couldn't see anything else I liked , well there was but none that I could get the use of at home.

Jumping  back a few hours , when we returned to the Orphanage I had my send off chat with the Dr. ( head of the trust ) First he handed me the said outfit and then I was presented with my trophy.

Got back to the orphanage to find this lady trying to cuddle one of our wee boys. She is his adoptive mother over from the states coming to collect her boy. The only reason he is asleep is because he was crying inconsolably for a very long time.It was all quite upsetting and there was nothing the mother could do !

She took him out overnight but we heard that he fell out the cot or off a bed and ended up in the hospital . I don't know the inns and outs of it but poor wee soul had a face like a balloon.

The latest is he has gone to the families relatives in Chennai to get final travel papers in order so he must be on the mend .

The other bit of exciting news is that this little chap was reunited with his mother and father. She was a single mother at the time of birth but has since married the dad so the situation is acceptable now. 

So there we go down from 31 children to 29 in the space of 2 days . Great news.

I think that will do for now .

An interesting last Sunday

I was up bright and early as Lakshman was taking me to the vegetable market so off we set on our chosen mode of transport.

Stopping en route to buy my breakfast .

Pawpaw.

Then it was onto the market .

All sorts of spinach.

This man was selling mushroom soup of all things ,not what. I would choose to have at 8am. but it was delicious .

I then headed off to the Gandhi Museum.

It all looks very grand from the outside .

Sandals he wore

It was all quite disappointing really but I was glad I went.

Now getting home was interesting , I had an argument with the auto driver and he refused to take me so he beckoned a cycle rickshaw and he took me for the price .

A pretty rickety journey but. I felt sorry for all his efforts and ended up giving him more .

No gears on his bike and having to pull me poor soul .

After a rest from the heat we set off for a trip to the family farm. I thought it was only going to be the three of us but no the cook and Anithas mother ( the farm owner) came along too. The cook armed with the masala tea.

And Anithas Mum eating these peculiar looking fruits that we stopped for en route .

Not poetising at all. The white bit you see has a stone inside so you eat round that.

The road to the farm.

Some of the farm hands.

$100 rooster which is a fighter and was bought to breed but hasn't come up with the goods yet.

Off to inspect the fruit trees which are suffering dreadfully from 2 yrs. drought . They grow mangoes orange trees ,lemon trees  lime trees and lots more until the drought . It really has decimated their crops. There is no money coming in from the sale of fruit ,workers need to be paid so it's not a very happy place right now . I was also told that this generation does not to work on farms , instead they are going off to Malaysia and Dubai to do manual labour which pays more than in India on a farm !

This is an orchard of Indian gooseberry trees all dried and dying.

Then we paid a visit to a farm hands house where we had coconut milk / water.

That's Anitha's Mum in the picture .

Not sure how many people live in that wee house but it's fair few.

And this gloopy mixture of wheat , rice Dahl ground down and is cooked daily to feed these noisy brutes as there isn't enough grazing left due to drought .

We then set off for a walk up a hill to see the view .the light was just perfect as we walked along .

My wee camera doesn't really do this justice , but it was beautiful. It quite reminded me of Egypt actually.

Just to let you see that all of India is not flat.

So once at the top the picnic came out .

A box full of these stuffed bread rolls lovingly made by Lakshman this morning . The smell was wonderful as they were cooking .

And that's what the inside looked like.

The breeze was warm and it was so quiet and peaceful.

I had no idea that Indians lived in huts like the Africans but we stopped and these people very kindly let me take a picture .

Back to the humdrum of the suburbs and we stopped opposit this Christian church which looked lovely in the dark.

This next picture is totally unrelated but Janet asked for a picture of Kumar my driver so here he is .

That pretty much sums up my Sunday, it's been a lovely interesting day and now I have to prepare myself for my last week with all my lovely babies but also to see my lovely husband next Saturday .