The Venturers Return for the Raleigh 10K Finale

Christmas has engulfed Field base in celebration of the Venturers and PMs return this morning. With tinsel everywhere and the Christmas tunes blaring out, we were so excited to welcome them all back from their final phase.

It's a bitter sweet time though, as although we're all so excited to see everyone and catch up with their news, it's all tinged with the sad reality that the Raleigh 10K expedition is coming to a close. But not before we celebrate and party in style!

It's final skit night tonight where each group will entertain, amuse and most likely sing a theatrical account of their phase. Then tomorrow we're up at dawn for the Fun Run before a day of wash-up and reviews topped off with the big leaving party complete with Golden Ganesh Awards.

I'll be inviting some Guest Blogs from the PMs over the next few days to summarise their final phase and describe their achievements.

Thanks also to everyone who's sponsored the Fun Run, over £700 has been raised so far! All the money will go towards Raleigh projects in India like the ones the 10K expedition have been working on.  If you'd like to sponsor someone please visit http://www.justgiving.com/Raleigh-India-Fun-Run

Merry Christmas One and all!

Polly C x

Group Round Up - The Final Countdown

Myself, Polly B and Anna head out on The Loop tomorrow where we'll be swinging by Tango 6 to collect Del who's been out there with them this last week and then heading up to Charlie One for the opening ceremony of their houses.

Before we depart, here's a round up of all that's happening on the project sites:

Charlie One
The houses are nearly all complete as the group have been hard at work plastering, flooring and putting in windows. They've also been flexing their creative side designing a mural to leave a lasting legacy in the village.

Charlie Two
All twelve eco-santitation units have been built and their delightfully green coloured toilet pans fitted. It's just the painting and the finishing touches they've got left to do now.

Echo Three
Still slogging it out hard and loving it in the trench the group have also continued erecting more fencing. The group will be taking a well earned break today and go to visit the local Golden temple for a bit of culture.

Tango Five
Tango Five have been absoultely loving it out there in the wilderness. Yesterday they enjoyed an amazing trek through tea plantations and today is the biggy, the 26km trek. We wish them luck!

Tango Six

Tango Six have too been loving it, with blue skies above them and barely any leeches in sight they're having an amazing time. Yesterday they had a 50km cycle route which they loved and today they've got a gentle 14km walk with the reward to me, Polly B and Anna waiting to greet them at the end of it!

All text by Polly Carpenter and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).

Handwashing in Hagaranahalli

GUEST BLOG BY JOSSE EMANUEL

On Thursday morning three lucky fieldbase team members (Polly B, Hannah and I) headed out to check out the progress on Charlie two. It was particularly exciting for me as I was keen to see how things had progressed from the last phase in Hagaranahalli.

As soon as we arrived, we headed straight to the village primary school to see locum supply teachers Kate, Isabel and Lucy taking the equivalent year 4 class. They taught an amazing lesson on based on the health and hygiene syllabus created last phase on why, when and how to wash hands. The lesson was a good mix of interactive fun games with some educational stuff, which definitely got picked up despite the communication barrier of language.

After school, we joined in the daily chai (with ginger) break, and got some time to appreciate the winter wonderland created by the team, complete with Christmas tree, cards, decorations and a beautifully home crafted advent calendar. It was a quick break though and it wasn’t long before day leader (Sarah) motivated the team back to work.

We were taken on a tour around the village. It was great to see the 12 toilets built last phase in use (well not literally), and that the new 12 toilets are making great progress with the majority at the critical ‘1m brick height’, meaning that they are well on track to finish exactly on time for the closing ceremony.

After lunch we left them, happily learning skills in brick packing/laying, plastering and concrete mixing, looking forward to the Michel inspired ‘Sinterklass’ celebration which they are eagerly awaiting on 5th December…

All text by Josse Emanuel and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).

Phase Three: Join the the dance

On Tuesday the venturers arrived back at field base eager to catch up with their friends from Phase One, to share big hugs and swap tales. It was great to see them all reunited and see all the new friendships that had formed throughout Phase Two.

Changeover was a hive of actvity but had a lovely chilled vibe. On skit night the bar had most definetly been raised with some funny, some musical and some darn right surreal! The Charlie Two girls all looked gorgeous in their new saris but it was Echo Three who scooped the prize with an awesome The Good, the Bad & the Ugly take off.

Wednesday was handed over to the Graduates to run the show, as they took the reigns of the schedule, activities, food and entertainment. A trip to local village Jayapura in the morning was a lot of fun. The group were split into teams and given a scavenger hunt to complete. The children in the village were particularly excited to have us invade!

A delicous bbq feast was prepared by them for lunch. We then bid a fond farewell to Irena and Shaun ...

The afternoons was chill out time with optional henna painting

and then an Indian Ball in the evening, complete with an Indian drumming band.

It was also a double celebration as it was Anu's birthday.

Onto Friday and at last, Phase three allocations. It's all change again as the groups get mixed up for the final time. Alan Watts, the American Writer, once said: "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." So to announce allocations this time, the PMs each started their own conga line picking up their venturers as they danced across the floor. With hillarious results ...

The groups are as folllows:

Charlie One
Off to finish the five tribal houses in Uluvadu are:

PMs
Eira Evans
Liam Gallacher
Caroline Millar

Venturers
Sean Edlin
Kirsten Elliot
Arthur Fane
Laura Hulley
Michiel Kruize
Samuel Mason
Jennifer Rimmer
Denise Stoelzel
Justine Stuart
Ajee

Charlie Two
Heading to Hagarahalli to build twelve more eco-sanatation units for the scheduled caste community are:

PMs
Rachel Allan
Charlotte Parbery-Clark
Susan Pollock

Venturers
Coen de Mol van Otterloo
Lucy Flint
Iain Hood
James Mcintosh
Jessica Norgrove
Jack Phillips
Katharine Studley
Sarah Ward
Isabelle Wijsmuller
Jonny Womack

Echo Three
Trench digging bound, to live in a homemade campsite outside the village of Basava Pura are:

PMs
Phil Dart
Bethan Jones
Hannah Lobban & Hannah White (job share)

Venturers
Anniek Akerboom
Owen Duffin
Robert Dwyer
Olivia Ferrari
Kane Grennan
Katie Macnaughton
Kat Ulichnowska
Elisabeth van der Zee
Aimee Welch
Erdinch Yigitce
Raghu

Tango Five
The Missapulimala trek is going to be tackled by the following:

PMs
Christina Ambrose
Laura Burnet
Sterling Grey

Venturers
David Frattinger
Amy Gannon
Ryan Heeley
Simon Majtlis
Tessa Nooteboom
James Rowantree
Kavita Shah
Anupama Varghese
Basil

Tango Six
The Demon Mountain trek is going to be taken on by:

PMs
Oliver Whittle
Lynne Cooper
Luke Jones

Venturers
Fiona Marchbank
Natalie Gordon
Shanelle Ward
Kimberley Delamare
Hubertus Kramer
George Miller
Philip Smith
Rosie Ward
Narthan

Field base medic this phase will be the lovely Dr Josse Emanuel and Hannah & Hannah, who not only share the same name, will also be sharing the Mointoring & Evaluation role at field base and also PMing at Echo Three.

 And then suddnelly Changeover was all over and Phase Three had begun as off they went bright and early on Friday, when we also said goodbye to Ros and Raja.

The Loop is planning to visit Charlie Two on Tuesday so get your messages on the blog by Monday evening for us to pass on.

N.B. Don't forget to tell us who the message is for including their full name and project group. Then select name/URL from the dropdown menu to tell us who it's from (URL can be left blank). Please be aware that we might not be able to publish all personal messages but we will make sure they are all distributed.

All text by Polly Carpenter and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).