The fieldbase family gears up for trek training!

(The team, roughly from left to right: Andrew, Girish, Lucy, Vijay, Ivan, Matt, Jen, Julie, Amanda, Joe, Deepak, Peta, Caz, Caroline, Liz, Paul, Neil, Mark, Peter, Dani, Gavin, 60/60, Dr Andy.)

Raleigh India field base is at Latitude 12 degrees 17’451 and Longitude 76 degrees 40’234.

It took most of this morning for the staff team – including the 10 newcomers who arrived early on Wednesday morning to Bangalore airport –to sort out the exact location of Field Base on the international scale during map reading training.However with careful guidance from Country Programme Manager, Mark Ashby, the team has got it now and has been busily plotting the weekend’s trek training route on to maps. (right: the main staff team en route from Bangalore check out fellow road users)

It has been a whirlwind tour for the newcomers to fieldbase, which includes:

Andrew and Dr Andy, our new medics who have been carefully stocktaking the FB medic office with Advance Team medic Caz.

Ann, our wonderful photographer has joined the Public Relations office. Ann has already confessed in real life she is an accident and emergency nurse who danced at the Moulin Rouge as a 20-year-old.

And our crack squad of Project Managers (PMs) Matt, Neil, Liz, Jenny, Peter, Joe and Caroline have joined Ivan to complete the team.

(Left: Matt during boot camp discovers the steps of Chamundi Hill)

Like the advance team, it was a veritable baptism of (very much voluntary) fire as Deputy Program Manager Dani and resident blogger (PRO Peta) ran a quick boot camp on their very first morning.

For most, it was a great chance to see the outskirts of Mysore come to life and get their first taste of the steps of Chamundi hill.

From there, it was an intense morning of phonetic alphabet training and we all learned that spelling Kalayanahala (the location of the Raleigh India 09C eco-sanitation project) using the phonetic alphabet sounded an awful lot like “alpha alpha alpha alpha.”

Today (Friday) started with a sock war which Jenny emerged from victorious – you’ll have to play the game as it’s pretty hard to explain in writing but let’s just say she had a secret strategy of managing to get fellow team members separated from their chosen footwear.

Tomorrow we head off for a two-day trek training course which will be lead by Ivan and Peter who have been briefing the team on exactly what to pack in their rucksacks.

The answer to which is, of course: Not much.

For a bit more random stuff, check out this link to get the recipe for Australian damper which was whipped up and cooked over the open fire to feed the troops at dinner on Australia Day. Although there were a few substitutions made in the recipe as self-raising flour is hard to come by in India... as is fresh milk.

And bookmark this page: I promise you Monday's blog will be full of news from trek training!