Yoga, Henna and Education

My alarm went off early today so that I could start the day with an hour of yoga in a class taken by the feudal lord for the sum of 500 rupee (£5).

The feudal lord is 68, looks very good for his age and clearly knew he'd be better than all of us in the class.  In fact when he discovered I've been doing yoga (about twice a week) for 10 years he kept pointing out how I wasn't as flexible as I should be!  The class was different to my normal class based out of the gym and started with lots of joint mobility work on the ankles and knees before moving onto hip stretching.  We did a shoulder stand, but no sun salutations and learned about parts of the hand and what organs of the body benefited from applying pressure there.  The relaxation part at the end was amazing and I started the day feeling extremely calm.

Breakfast was included so I saved my biscuits for another day and had marmalade on toast, a banana and a paratha with a good serving of decent coffee!

We met for our village safari in 2 jeeps with the first stop a school for tribal girls. Education is free in India, but for distant tribal people the time and cost of getting to and from school can be too much so we visited a free all girls boarding school set up to address this issue also supported by the Feudal Lord.  In India literacy is 77% for men and 51% for women so these schools will be vital in addressing this.  

The school was tidy and had a sense of organisation about it, but the most amazing part was how happy and well behaved the girls were.  They beamed with smiles as we entered and greeted us with whatever English phrases they knew, but carried on dutifully waiting for their breakfast or serving it to their classmates.  They had what looked like a delicious breakfast of chappatis, dhal and rice and when they'd finished they each washed up their own plates.  

Joe in our group is a teacher and he'd been carrying a book with him to try and get a good shot of him reading in an exotic location to promote reading to children and so he got in amongst the girls to read them "Mrs Scatterbrain goes on holiday" - they seemed to really enjoy the novelty of a new teacher!  We took a look at their classrooms and where they sleep as well as looked at the trophies the school has won before heading off in our jeeps and all the girls ran up to the rooftop to wave us goodbye.

Our next stop was to look at some graves, and then a beautiful waterfall, before being taken on a brief tour of some farmland where we saw peanuts, soya, gourds, peas, aubergine, turmeric, chilies and corn being grown.

We stopped briefly at a dairy and then crossed the road to another school where they were practicing for a procession.  

If it wasn't monsoon season we would have spent last night in a "permanent tent" on a campsite also owned by the Feudal Lord, so we went to visit, look at the beautiful lake and enjoy a cup of chai with the Lord who is incredibly charismatic and passionate about India and Rajasthan.  We also saw all the vegetables being grown at the campsite which are used by the restaurant in the castle that we are staying in.  

We returned in the jeeps for lunch and despite the covers the heavy rain meant some of us got rather wet!  I was certainly grateful for my panic buy of an umbrella at the airport!

For lunch back at the castle I again succumbed to a western craving for chips, but also had a delicious cashew nut curry and a couple of chapattis before a relax with my book and a nap.

We met up again as a group with the intention of playing cricket, but the rain was still strong so we went early for our henna tattoos.  The lady doing the tattoos was a teacher by day and was so quick to apply and extremely intricate brown henna powder design to my foot.  After an hour I washed it off and the skin underneath is now a vivid orange.  It was a mostly floral design, but she included the words "kiss" and "love".  At only 250 rupees (£2.50) it was a bargain!  

For dinner I had grilled vegetables with paneer and Dum Aloo - potatoes in gravy.  I'm slightly worried as now my stomach has settled I'm being a bit braver with my food choices in that I've had a couple of "saucy" curries as I've not gone for obvious "dry" dishes.  I'm hoping I'll be ok for the last few days of the trip - I'll keep my fingers crossed!