The final countdown...

Hello all, hope you’re well wherever you are reading this. Life here on expedition in India is about to ramp up another notch (are there any left?!) as the venturers from India arrive with us today and then all the others arrive first thing tomorrow morning.

We’ve been busy finishing off all the training so our heads are jam-packed with all sorts of useful information that we’ll need during the next three months. The ill-fitting marigolds have also been back out again and field base is sparkling and ready to be packed to the rafters with people.

Mona and Kate

Dan trying out his lippy skills, turns out they're pretty good! This is all part of soft skills training, honest...

Dave all geared up for manicure

Ros and Susan sporting cracking hats and ties.

Testing how much we trust each other.

Sukanya from next door pops in for a go on Kathryn's camera.

Sukanya then tries out the aviators. Good look.

A new basha city has been constructed opposite the venturer dorm so we can house everyone, and we've been going through the very exhausting process of testing them all out, they’re amazingly comfortable!

Manju testing out the basha he built.

Stuart and Eeva.

Becca and Jen

This was also the setting for our staff photograph taken yesterday morning where Kathryn had the hard task of making us all look lovely pretty early in the morning...

After the photo shoot yesterday we then walked over to the local school in the nearest village of Jayapura to meet the teachers, children and to give to them the notebooks, pens and flip flops that we’d brought with us from the UK.

Celine handing over the flip flips to Jayapura school.

Kate brought half a stationery shop with her.

It was an amazing experience for all with Dave, and the Stuarts trying to play cricket with about 50 of the school kids which then just turned into a game of ‘lob it and run’.

We were then lucky enough to watch on during their prayers session accompanied by the school band which was a great thing to watch.

After all the excitement of the morning there was even more to come as we headed into Mysore for the afternoon so the project managers could complete their swim test which was a welcome break from the heat of the sunshine. Due to local celebrations we couldn’t head back down to the river that the field base staff were lucky enough to swim in, so it was a dip in the local pool instead with a much smaller crowd and no fish treading water alongside them.

Photo girl Kathryn after the swim test.

To finish off the very busy two weeks of training, cleaning and preparation, we got all glammed up and each put on our one good outfit and headed for some dinner back in Mysore.

Eleri, Becca and Polly at dinner.

Julia, Jen, Dan and Mona.

So today, everyone’s getting a bit giddy as a few venturers have now arrived from India and some of us are heading off to Bangalore shortly to collect all the other venturers  that arrive at the airport very early tomorrow morning. We’ll be back tomorrow with an update when they’re all back here safe and sound at field base, so until then...