Expedition 11A is go!

Hello hello from India and welcome to the blog for the 11A expedition. This first post is pretty hefty as there’s so much to say, so keep reading as it gets really good towards the end, honest…

After an amazing five hour journey from Banagalore with the Raleigh drivers Prashanth and Manju, the bleary eyed advance team arrived at field base to a lovely welcoming ceremony with Manglamma and her daughters who we’ll be living alongside.

Bravo 1 and 2

There's so much to see on the way from Bangalore and it's a quick introduction into the Indian style of driving!

The  very tired field base team with our lovely jasmine garlands from Manglamma.

So now we’re settling in and getting everything ready for the arrival of the rest of the gang. We’re getting through lots of coffee and many, many ‘to do’ list are being written. We've also learnt to eat curry with one hand and no cutlery (messy!) and been getting to know the local wildlife pretty well. Being joined in the shower by two toads was definitely a first.

Ok so before I introduce the field base team and our new home, I just wanted to explain a bit about this blog and how it works for those out in here on expedition in India as well as you guys reading about your family and friends who will be coming to join us very soon.

The blog will be updated 2-3 times a week with news and photos of what everyone is up to, who’s working on what, how the projects are going, plus gossip on who’s got the best tan and who’s the most glam after not washing for five days – you know, the really important stuff!

This blog is also how you can send messages to people out here on expedition to let them know you’re thinking about them and reading about what they’re up to. The venturers and project managers will have no access to phones or the internet whilst out on project sites for a few weeks at a time, so coming back to field base to messages from friends and family really does create some huge smiles and possibly a few tears, but good tears. All messages for individuals will be printed, cut out and handed to them when they return back to field base between phases so it’s like getting their own letters through the post from you guys back home, just without having to wait a few weeks for the post!

While they’re out on project sites, venturers and the project managers will also have a blogbook that they can write messages in for friends and family and we’ll post these on the blog so you can see their responses to your comments. So use this blog to keep us posted on all the gossip from wherever you are and we’ll be doing the same in return.

Right, now onto the 11A field base team. Joining the permanent staff of Mark (country director), Julia (country expedition manager) Deepak (facilities manager) and Big Manju, Prashanth and Little Manju (the drivers) we also have…

  

We’re also going to be joined by Kathryn our photographer when the project managers arrive on Saturday so we’ll get her mug shot on here as soon as she arrives.

And here’s a quick tour of field base for you...

View as you come in the gates.

The main building and offices.

The field base staff and project manager dorm.

It's a large bamboo and grass hut open at the front and on the sides.

There are triple layer bunk beds with wooden boards to sleep on, so a good sleeping mat that works is a must, believe me! We were relieved to discover that the toilets are western and there are showers in the form of a tap, a bucket and a jug. There's also a few mirrors hung up and we've installed an amazing travel hairdryer for fringe emergencies. We've put in a request for a hot-tub but haven't heard anything back as yet...

The venturers dorm is right next door and in the same style just with a LOT more beds.

Next door to the venturer dorm is the dining hall where many a feast shall be had.

The new classroom building where we'll all be training together.

The logistics shed where all the expedition supplies are kept and the view back down the track past the dorms, the field base main building and out the gates.

Directly opposite the field base office is where the bravos are kept and to the left is the all important generator building for when power deserts us.

An incredible sunset that we witnessed last night.

Wow, that was a whopper, and there's so much more to come! Right, better go and decide what to name those toads, back soon...

Raleigh India 10K Fun Run!

During final wash up Field base will be organising a 5K and a 10K Fun Run for the Venturers and PMs to raise money for Raleigh India projects.

They will of had 9 weeks out on Phase to get fit. The Adventure Phase saw them tackling arduous treks, challenging cycle routes and extreme rafting. The Environmental Phase was hard core digging, giving them a full body work out. While the Community Phase involved hard manual labour carrying heavy bricks building up their muscles ... But now it's time to see what they're really made of.

So on Thursday 16th December it will be every man for himself, as we cast off the Raleigh ethos of team work and pit them head to head up against each other. Those signed up so far are:

5K

Caroline, Hannah W, Kat, Raghu, Natalie

10K

Olly, Dr Phil, Rach, Hannah L, George, Simon, Coen, Michiel, Iain, Erdinch, Jen, Anniek, Arthur, Kim, Jonny, Owen, Jack, Hubertus, David, Ryan, Sam, Olivia, Sarah, Polly C, Anna, Dr Josse

Importantly though, they will all be raising money for Raleigh India projects, so we're asking Venturer & PM friends and family to sponsor them at http://www.justgiving.com/raleigh-india-fun-run/.

Fundraising money from venturers to join a Raleigh expedition covers the cost of their experience and of running our permanent field bases. However, it only goes some of the way of covering the costs of building materials and local labour for our projects which support marginalised communities and environments in India.

India witnesses a huge disparity between the urbanised wealthy and the rural poor. Although government initiatives are targeting this and attempting to redress the balance; changing an embedded culture in a sub-continent as huge as India is not a fast process.

By partnering with both local grass roots NGOs, government agencies and international NGOs, Raleigh has been able to access and address some core issues here in India.

The Community projects focus on a targeted areas, building relationships, friendships and exchanging culture, educating them in the importance of education for their children, community health, and giving them the means to sustain a their livelihood in an environmentally friendly way.

Our Environmental projects in India focus on educating communities and youth in reducing the human impact upon habitats to preserve the natural biodiversity. The projects concentrate measures on reducing the interaction between wild animals and people and the resultant negative impact on people or their resources, or wild animals or their habitat.

To learn more about the Raleigh India community and environmental project strategies please link here http://www.raleighinternational.org/countries/india

Although Raleigh expeditions are relatively small groups, the message we send in our presence and activities here has a huge multiplying effect. Through concentrated and sustained efforts our project groups have begun to make a tangible difference in the areas Raleigh India has focused. But we always need more money, as there is so much more we can do. So please dig deep and donate now.

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

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

X Factor Allocations – “Your Phase One starts right here” ...

Allocations are always hot topic on Raleigh – “where am I going, what am I going to be doing, who am I going with and what am I going to be sleeping in?!”.

The buzz of nervous excitement was in the air and so in order to throw the Venturers off the scent they’d been told that allocations were going to be announced on Friday morning. Instead they were told that after two days of intensive training they were being treated to an X Factor karaoke party last night.

So the Venturers pulled on their glad rags (including some dashing outfits some of them had picked up in Mysore earlier in the day) and headed to the Fieldbase roof terrace which had been transformed into a karaoke disco for the evening.

DJ Doctor Luke was on the decks spinning the floorfillers and Raja and Ajeesh, two of the expedition’s Host Country Venturers displayed his dancing skills and taught the group some Indian moves.

The PMs were first up on the mic with ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas to get the party started. They followed this up with an ear screechingly terrible rendition of The Police’s Roxanne.

The Ventureres were then split into ‘bootcamp groups’ and each given a karaoke classic to sing:

• We Built This City by Starship for the Coummunity group who will be building houses for a tribal village
• Eye of the Tiger by Survivor and Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and The Waves for the Environmental groups who will providing solar panelled elephant proof fences for rural communities
• I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers and Is this the way to Amarillo? by Tony Christie for the Adventure groups who will be going out trekking.

Admittedly the links were quite tenuous, but the penny didn’t seem to drop within any of the groups that this was actually allocation announcements.

The ‘bootcamp groups’ had 10 minutes to come up with their routines to their songs before performing in front of our ‘Raleigh Factor’ Judges and the crowd. We were treated to high energy performances with some great dance routines (and slightly suspect singing), however Judges ‘Simon’ and ‘Louis’ were true to form and not too kind on them!


Raleigh Factor Judges
Louis, Cheryl, Simon & Danni



After all the performances, the Volunteer Managers huddled together to argue over who had given the best performances, but for some reason they couldn’t all agree on who was the winner! Dramatics ensued as the Project Managers each aligned themselves with their favourite ‘bootcamp group’ ... and still the penny didn’t drop!

So it was Compére Anna that revealed to the Venturers that their ‘bootcamp groups’ were actually their Alpha groups on Phase One! Despite the unexpected shock of allocations being revealed the group were delighted to form their Phase One groups.

 And so, here are the group allocations for Phase One:

Charlie One
Aimee Welch
Anupama
James Rowantree
Narthan
Irene Yiu
Owen Duffin
Philip Smith
Rosie Ward
Ryan Heeley
Tessa Nooteboom
Elisabeth van der Zee

Echo Three
Ajeesh
Amy Gannon
David Frattinger
Fiona Marchbank
Hubertus Kramer
James Mcintosh
Jess Norgrove
Kavita Shah
Kirsten Elliot
Simon Majtlis

Echo Four
Basil
George Miller
Jack Phillips
Jonny Womack
Justine Stuart
Kimberley Delamare
Laura Hulley
Natalie Gordon
Ros Page
Shanelle Ward
Shaun Green

Tango Five
Isabelle Wijsmuller
Arthur Fane
Coen de Mol van Otterloo
Denise Stoelzel
Erdinch Yigitce
Katarzyna Ulichnowska
Katharine Studley
Lucy Flint
Raja
Robert Dwyer
Sean edlin

Tango Six
Anniek Akerboom
Iain Hood
Jennifer Rimmer
Kane Grennan
Katie Macnaughton
Michiel Kruize
Olivia Ferrari
Reghu
Samuel Mason
Sarah Ward

For full details on each of Alpha groups projects and to meet their Project Managers click here.

Everyone deploys tomorrow for the first Phase, returning on Wednesday 3rd November. Check back to this blog regularly to hear updates of how each alpha group is getting on out on Phase.

If you’d like to send a message to anyone out on Phase you can add a comment to the bottom of any blog entry by clicking the link. 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 distributed via 'Radio Raleigh' or sent out to the project sites with all the supplies.

On a personal note, I'm deploying out with Tango 5 for the first week of their trek. In the meantime Susan and Doug at Fieldbase will be holding the blog fort and providing an update early next week.

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

Our Project Managers have returned to Fieldbase, dirty but full of tales and excitement from their site visits. I’ve caught up with the teams to hear about their projects and find out what they’re looking forward to most.

Community Phase

Charlie One

Location: Uluvadu, Tamil Nadu

Charlie One will be building five houses for a tribal village set in the heart of the Nilgiri Mountains in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. Working with CTRD (a local NGO), local masons and our team of Raleigh Venturers. They will be sleeping in tents amongst the community who will also feeding the hungry Charlie 1 workers. This is the first CTRD project in this village, part of their Integrated Tribal Development Program which plans to provide, housing, sanitation, education facilities and biogas power over the next five years.

What are you looking forward to most about your project?

Liam: “The villagers genuinely want these houses and genuinely appreciate the help. I’m really looking forward to handing over the keys to the families once the house is finished and seeing their reaction.”

Eira: “Giving a dry home to a family who will have proper keys to a front door for the first time. At the moment they live in huts but these new houses will have separate kitchens and bathrooms.”

Caroline: “The effects on my skin from having a three week mud pack! On a serious note, I’m really excited about working with the community who have been so positive and welcoming and seem to really want us to help. We will be really improving standards.”

Environmental Phases

Echo Three

Location: Basava Pura, Karnataka

Echo Three will be repairing and digging new elephant proof trenches and putting up a solar power electric fence. Working alongside Echo three, the local community, who have also invested financially in the project, will be helping them. Setting up their camp in a field, Echo Three will sleep out under the stars in Bashas.

What are you looking forward to most about your project?

Hannah L: “Being completely self sufficient – sleeping out and making our own food.”

Charlotte: “Working with the local community, getting involved and learning about their culture.”

Christina: “Making a difference to the livelihood of the local community. I’m also looking forward to working as part of a team and looking after each other.”


Echo Four

Location: Huskurahardi, Karnataka

Echo Four will be carrying out two projects, one will be Elephant Proof solar fencing to protect the crops of the local community and decrease levels of elephant human conflict. They will also continue the work of Raleigh 10E digging a 2 metre deep and 2 metre wide elephant proof trench in order to provide additional protection to the community of Huskurhadi.   The fencing project will be working with technicians and on the trench project the local community will be helping out. Sleeping in Bashas, Echo Four have plans to create a deluxe campsite aka ‘glampcite’ with spa like amenities!

What are you looking forward to most about your project?

Laura: “Living outdoors and seeing the big wide world above me every night.”

Hannah W: “The simple living and creating our own entertainment. I’m looking forward to becoming creative and resourceful from living in that environment.”

Sterling: “The practice of being completely self sufficient.”


Adventure Phases

Tango Five

Location: Western Ghats, Kerala

Tango Five start their trek by climbing Missapulimala Peak, the second highest in India outside the Himalayas. After this the group will experience a ‘survival day’, living off the land without the usual luxury of the equipment in their backpacks! From here their route then takes them down lakeside for rafting across a reservoir. The group then ascend up over ridges and through tea plantations, including the highest tea estate in the world.

What are you looking forward to most about your project?

Lynne: “The whole adventure – everything!”

Bethan: “Seeing that we’ve got what it takes to survive without modern luxuries.”

Josse: “The survival night!”

Tango Six

Location: Wayanad National Park, Kerala

Tango Six will be embarking on a brand new trek that no other group has done before. They will be trekking, mountain biking and rafting over 19 days covering 200km.  The route will take them across grasslands, into the jungle, through tea plantations and up mountains. The group will be embracing nature, sleeping in tents each night and should also be able to spy amazing wildlife including Elephants and Bison.

What are you looking forward to most about your project?

Olly: “Getting to know the Venturers, on treks you spend most of the day just talking to people.It will also be amazing to see them overcoming their personal challenges and conquering their preconceptions about what they’re able to physically achieve.”

Rachel: “Being part of a team, trekking in an area that’s never been trekked before. Oh and the porridge!”

Phil: “I’m excited that it’s a brand new trek and the variety of different activities and environments.”

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

New Arrivals

Hello it is Jo here. I have arrived! I am the communications officer and I have the role of keeping you entertained with the up to date news from the projects and field base throughout the expedition. I am also joined at field base by Sophie Cragg who is the finance officer on the expedition.

Sophie Cragg hard at work as our finance officer

Both of us are new to Raleigh and newcomers to India so we are both understandably excited as to what our adventure is going to bring and the last 24 hours have not disappointed us. The trip from the airport to field base is packed with fairly overwhelming sights to an inexperienced visitor to India. Cows roam the streets, the smell in the air is not unpleasant but indefinable at this stage and the Indian driving can only be described as madness although that said there appears to be a system that everyone understands and everyone races about their business without crashing or drama.

First stop is breakfast and it is our first chance to experience authentic Indian cuisine. I am if I am honest a bit out of my depth with the menu but I am helped out by our driver Manju who recommends the Masala Dosala; a scrumptious South Indian dish which is essentially a light crispy pancake stuffed with spicy potato. The idea of curry for breakfast is, for me anyway, a bizarre concept but I have to say I am pleasantly surprised.

On arrival at field base I am shown our new home for the next 3 months and I am delighted at how welcome I am made to feel and how green and picturesque my surroundings are.

Our new home

We chat and plans are formulated to keep fit at field base. Anna who is a keen runner discusses the possibility of a daily 6am run through the local village and we are all keenly awaiting the arrival of Claire who we understand is a yoga teacher. We are all hoping that she will have us maneuvering through the downward dog in no time at all. It is of course a possibility that we are all talk especially taking into our account our demanding schedules and the imminent arrival of the venturers but I will let you know how we get on.

Now to work! The music is turned up and with the sun on our faces we set to putting up the tents to ensure that they are in full working order. Hard work but after the twentieth tent goes up we decide that’s enough hard graft for one day.

Mark (Country Director) fiddling with pole again!

  Jo Burton (communications officer) putting up the last tent of the day

Don't cry because it's over, laugh because it happened: 09C wraps up.

Goodbye, and thank you.

Thank you to all the blog followers who came on the India 09C expedition via the wonders of cyberspace. To those who commented on the blog (probably when they should have been doing work!) to get messages to their loved ones on expedition, you made a huge difference to the venturers and project managers out on the sites.

Thank you to all the parents and friends who encouraged the venturers and volunteer managers of 09C to put away 10 (or 12, or 14) weeks of their lives to join a Raleigh expedition and make a difference in the world, both to themselves and those who have benefited from our projects.



Thank you to the Raleigh head office team who have been a huge support to the volunteer managers and permanent staff on the ground in the Mysore field base.



Thank you to the Raleigh permanent staff: Country Programme Manager Mark Ashby, Facilities Manager Deepak, Host Country Venturer coordinator (the immensley talented) Vijay, Logistics Manager Amanda Ockwell, drivers 60/60, Girish and Manju, security guard Ashok, to the cleaners and the caterers, to Ravi the taxi driver: Thank you for making 09C an amazing expedition.

To Country Director Gavin Shelton (pictured below, with Helen), who today hangs up his Raleigh t-shirt for the last time, we all thank you and wish you all the best. Those who have worked with him know the time and effort Gavin put in to getting the Raleigh India expedition off the ground to become a roaring success has been extraordinary. The story of Mark and Gavin arriving in India with nothing more than a credit card and a laptop with a view to creating an expedition base is fondly (and often) recounted.

To the volunteer managers Ivan, Julia, Dani, Jenny, Neil, Lucy, Caz, Dr Andy, Andrew, Paul, Savage, Liz, Matt, Joey and Anni: You came from all walks of life to join Raleigh 09C, thank you for committing to making this expedition something truly extraordinary.



And to the venturers:

Well done!! Thank you for choosing to make a difference to your lives, and to the world around you.



Make Raleigh count: take this experience with you and apply it to your lives.



Join the Raleigh alumni group, load your pictures to Facebook, and make a lot of noise about your Raleigh experience so that others might have the chance to take the same journey.



In a phrase often quoted by Gavin Shelton from anthropoligist Margaret Mead:



"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has."



PLUG: Our amazing photographer Ann Taylor will be heading back to the UK in the coming weeks. She has done a remarkable job capturing the story of the Raleigh 09C expedition. And she's not too bad at portraiture either, check these out!


(above: Fieldbase medic Caz Stephens)

(Below: the three witches of field base, from left: Dr Julia Mitchell, Blog Boss Rule, Deputy Programme Manager Danielle Esterhuysen)You can check out Ann's website here, she's available for photographic work in the UK's north-east.

All the best everyone,

The 09C team