Easter Friday

(above: Tjebbe and Remi learn a few Kannada words from the villagers at Kalaiahnahalla)

Today our Alpha groups are celebrating Easter as best they can, mostly involving painting up chicken eggs (eggs of the chocolate variety are hard to come by in remote India) and there is talk of making hot-cross damper bread, which is a strange combination of Easter tradition wrapped in a traditional Australian recipe and prepared over a campfire in the depths of remote India.

We'll let you know how the guys get on with that one.

However, no doubt you're after news from the sites this long weekend, so here goes:

Alpha 1: is over the half-way point through the trek and this week had some precious time in the town of Kumilli to get online. There are a few wayward comments on this blog as a result (thanks, Chris A for that) but they're back on track and will meet the second Loop vehicle on Monday. Lucy Holloway (this week's special guest blogger) will join the trekkers, who have had great but hot weather and amazing views, for the final days, including the two-day raft down the spectacular Periyar river. Trek leader Ivan Phillips said this morning the team had pulled together and had consistently reached camps well ahead of schedule.

"We pushed our rest day back to day 10 because the team was doing so well," he said. As a result, the trekkers are resting up today before the final push.

(Above: Peter Pan (Remi) and Captain Hookless (PM Joey))

As you would have read yesterday, half of Alpha 2 spent the day on safari and actually saw a tiger, much to the chagrin of Raleigh India Country Director Gavin Shelton, who in his 15 months in India is yet to see one of the majestic big cats. The safari also included a boat trip and the guys were all safe and well back in Kalaiahnahalla last night. The PMs were particularly conscientious to do a head count and make sure no wayward venturers got carried away by a large, striped, suspicious-looking feline. This week they also had a fancy dress party with a Disney theme, which was attended by Captain Hook, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, at least one of the 101 Dalmations, Simba, Aladdin, Princess Jasmine and a host of other fictional (and not quite so fictional) characters. Tjebbe's impressive costume depicting Sponge-bob Squarpants did draw looks of bemusement from the locals. (And not just because SbSP is not, as all good cartoon boffins know, a Disney character).

(Above: the self-proclaimed serving staff (venturers) and reigning monarches Queen Andrew and Princess Jenny on Tiger Island at Alpha 3)

At Alpha 3, they've seen tigers of a different persuasion with a dress-up theme of jungle animals, which morphed into something vaguely resembling a remote Indian mardi-gras. The roof is going on the anti-poaching camp today so the gang at Tiger Island is reinforcing the elephant-proof trench (read: moat).

(Above: Elephant Frankie with leopards Hamish and Becca. We think.)

And at Alpha 4, work on the fence from the dwellers at bamboo city is continuing. There are rumours of a possible Easter jaunt up the mountain to check out some surrounding downs however with the advent of Indian school holidays, accommodation anywhere except for jungle bashas has proved a bit hard to come by.

The guys at Alpha 4 also held a tournament of strength, intellegence and endurance this week, run by the ever-charasmatic game-show host try-hards, James and Seb.

The group was split into two, team "Matt's muppets" which was captain by Matt, and team "Matt's mum's muppets" which was captained by Neil. The teams were pitted against each other in a series of trials, including carrying water whilst dizzy, a basha-building competition, and then a 'fight club' style competition using sleeping bags.

Team Matt's Mum streaked ahead in the early rounds, but failed dismally in the fight round when individual venturers (and PMS... and blog bosses) were pitted against each other in a blindfolded fight using weapons of a sleeping bag wrapped in a bin liner.

After a quiz round, a music round (lead by Seb on his guitar) and an eating competition between Matt and Neil during which Matt absolutely dominated, team Matt's Muppets came out victorious by one point.

It was a brilliant night for the residents of Bamboo City, although we hear the rather sore losers are yet to forgive the members of team Matt's Muppets.

That's the news for this Easter Friday, enjoy your hot cross buns and stay tuned for another update from a no-doubt chocolate-fuelled blogger early next week.

Oh, one more thing. Remember the new "global giving" widget we put on the blog last week? Well the good news is, you can put it on your Facebook page! As a young friend of mine would say: "How excitement!."

To put the widget on your facebook profile (as in, get a logo so people can click and then donate money to Raleigh) simply:

- Go to this page

- Scroll to the bottom of the page, and select the ‘share on facebook’. This will automatically take you to facebook if you are always logged in. If not, it will ask you to log in to your facebook account. Bingo, it gets added to your page!

- Then you can change your "what's on your mind" (I so preferred when it was just a status update) to something like "Help us build 14 homes in India this April with Global Giving." and you're done! Awesome.

While you're on Facebook... not that we at Raleigh India condone excessive procrastination or anything, you can join the official Raleigh group to stay in touch with all the goings on around the world. The group is here.

I've done a quick calculation: there are approximately 60 venturers at Raleigh India, and about 150 hits on this blog every day, sometimes up to 300 on a good blog day. Let's say 80 per cent of venturers have Facebook, and 50 per cent of blog readers have it...

Which means if every Facebook user has 100 friends (taking into account most of the venturers I know have about 300 friends...) that's a conservative estimate of 1500 people who could see the Global Giving widget and hear about the project! That's not a bad impact for a morning's work.

Happy Easter, from everyone at Raleigh India.