Work Hard Play Hard!

This blog is jam packed because that is how the last few days have been here and there is so much to tell you!

We welcome Host Country Venturers.....


We have the pleasure of welcoming, Justin, Sasi, Richard, Prajith, Rony, Girish, Sathish, Satheesh, Neelima, Rahul and Joe who arrive from the different states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andra Pradesh. Collectively they are the Host Country Venturers (the HCV’s). Not only do they undertake the personal challenge of being a venturer themselves making a difference to their own home country but they will also help venturers to learn about Indian culture and liaise with locals helping with translations in the the villages.

( Lto R  Sasi, Satheesh, Richard, Lucy, Girish)

Lucy meets Satheesh

Group love

Into town, a veggie patch and a spot of cricket .........

The groups head into Jayapura to meet the locals who greet the venturers with enthusiam. Garlands are placed in the girls hair, cups of chai are shared and the children as ever are fascinated by our western ways desperate to greet us and practise their already fairly polished English.

( L to R Harriet, James and Alan with the local children)

Returning to field base

Five parts sand, one part cement, a bit of water, some slight guidance from local masons and we are away building walls. It is actually very therapeutic and a wall goes up with the blink of an eye making the field base vegetable patch so that we can grow our own veggies whilst we are out here. It is in its early stages but as with most things I will keep you posted.

Hard at it clearing the ground in readiness for the veggie patch

.........and along with cups of chai, in India, there always seems like there is time for a bit of cricket.

Big Dave shows Bella his handywork with the cricket bat

Trek Training

It is hard, it is hot, we are carrying our kit but because we are strong we make light work of the 14 kilometre trek and make a camp for the night without so much as a grumble...well almost without a grumble!

 ( Lto R Laura Ruth Anna Phil Merel)

Group trek

Ellie and Dave

Setting up camp

                                                          Euan

Shyam Shyam the Snake Man.....

Snake Shyam is so famous he even appears on Wikipedia. They conservatively state that he is known for his “personal flamboyance”. What an understatement for such a visual legend! He arrives at our camp, painted from top to toe with tattoos, wearing bling styley rings that even Puff Daddy would be proud of and is completed with a great big Crocodile Dundee hat. He has our immediate attention, obviously.

Shyam the Snake Man

( L to R Manju Prashanth Shyam and Sixty)

Shyam and Mark

The crowd goes quiet and we eye up the bags in front of his feet thinking “I know what you have got in there”. A girl who hasn’t quite caught up, plonks herself down close to the bags, a split second passes and realisation flashes across her face as she jumps up flinging herself to the back of the crowd. We laugh with her as the education from Shyam begins. He claims to have caught over 40,000 snakes in his snake catching career and tells us about the Big Four venomous snakes in India, The Indian Cobra, the Russell’s Viper, the Common Krait and the Saw Scaled Viper. He also talks of the King Cobra which is the one that we have all heard of and fear as it is the deadliest. He gets the first one out of the bag and low and behold chooses me to hold the slithering, wriggling snake. I get involved as much as not to humiliate myself in front of the crowd and also because I figure they are only going to get bigger.

Me with a fairly small snake

I am correct in my assessment as he gets the audience to hold bigger and bigger snakes.

Justin

                                                      Theo

                                                    Paula

                                                 A big one!

The boys all get involved with the big snakes!

He finishes by producing the cobra, no one gets to hold this baby and the mood changes as it hisses at the group. He controls the cobra by this crooked bit of equipment and doesn’t look even slightly phased as he pops it back in the box tapping it as he finishes to a loud round of applause.

What’s next? Oh yes .............Dinner!

Eight chickens are tied together, clucking into the parched ground as the last rays of the sun provide us with fading light. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what is happening next and the light hearted mood is replaced by a more sombre and serious vibe. We are asked not to take photographs out of respect for the chickens and Anna the expedition manager states that as she eats meat she feels that it is therefore only right that she can kill a chicken herself and that it is a good skill for us all to learn. We are told that we can leave at any time if we are in disagreement with what is about to happen. A few people quietly remove themselves from the group. For the remaining spectators we wait with morbid interest and learn how to humanely kill a chicken. The head is chopped off but the most shocking part, for me anyway, is that the body keeps moving for several minutes after the head has been removed. It is explained to us that the chicken is dead and is in no pain but because the chicken’s last thought process is to run away the nerve endings are still reacting. The chicken is then skinned and chopped ready for dinner. I watch with new found respect for the venturers who volunteer in each group to take the chicken to the block. Whatever your view point on this lesson if you are a meat eater no one can deny that dinner is finger lickin’ good!

And the Partieee......

Picture the debate amongst the Project Managers. How do we get 80 young people to have a party to remember without the aid of a good punch? The recipe is a lot of sugar, bin bags, music and people who aren’t afraid to make fools of themselves. That would be us PM’s! After the debate we are pretty pleased with our ideas and we are really energized by the concept. Doesn’t everyone look dashing? Ok it’s not quite black tie but it’s not a bad effort with the materials we have available.

                                                Well done PM's

Holi .....

We are going to have a Holi Party and the dress code is bin bags! Holi parties basically mean you get to throw paint at each other and it is traditionally a celebration of good over evil. There is a legend surrounding Holi festivals, and bonfires are lit to commerate the victory of  Prahlad over Holika. The legend goes that there was a demon king by the name of Hiranyakashyap who commanded that everyone should only worship him. Hiranyakashyap felt betrayed as his son Prahlad had becpme an ardent follower of Naarayana instead so Hiranyakashyap asked Holika, Prahlad's sister, to coax Prahlad into a blazing fire.  Hiranyakashyap, thought that his daughter would be safe as she had special powers that would protect her from the fire but it was Prahlad that survived the fire as he was saved by the God Vishnu because of his unshakeable devotion.

Anyway, back to the paint. If you wonder through any market in South India you see the beautiful spectrum of colours and paints that are sold on the market stalls.  

We deviously purchase the paint with glee and dressed in bin bags set up an ambush for the venturers.  All the PM's hide behind the wall and Anna leads the trusting venturers to field base for a talk on holi. As we hear them approach the PM's launch our paints! Hoorah! We aren't that cruel not to give the venturers amunition and soon the venturers are retaliating with bags of paint and we too are covered.

Jack and Duncan

                                                   Julia and Helen

Katherine and Anna

Juliet Alistair and Anna

( Lto R Anna Tom Katie Charles and Harry )

look at our dirty hands

What a group

David Ellie and Owen

Kev Jo and Kripa

Music is cranked up and we all dance the night away! Woop woop!