Feels Like Home.

Can't believe it's been two weeks already. Feels like it's been about three days but then it feels like I've known most people here forever!
Week Two of the Goa adventure has been just as amazing, if not better, than Week One. After I last wrote a few of us went out to the local Pizza restaurant for a much needed break from curry. It may not have been the best pizza in the world, or even close, but when all you eat is rice and dahl with the occasional bit of pineapple, anything different can taste like heaven.
This week I achieved something quite remarkable. I got a cold. In India. I've had a bad throat all week which isn't helped by having to shout over 15 excitable Indian children every morning.

Feel like I've really got stuck in now that the first week is over, especially at work and getting stuck in means that I'm beginning to find a lot of problems.
At the Netweaver's school, the volunteers and project executives that are working there change every month of so and it definitely shows. The kids seem to get the same things taught to them over and over again but the way that they've been taught is to just memorise everything so they can remember the alphabet if they say it all in one go but they can barely recognise each separate letter. And that's the older kids. I finally have another volunteer with me though, called Alisha and she speaks Hindi which is an absolute God send because it's nearly impossible to explain subtraction to kids when they don't understand your language but now I can just rope Alisha in to help me out.
All week it felt like we hadn't been making any progress with the kids and that they weren't taking anything in but on Friday, me and Alisha hijacked our PE's lesson plan so that we could teach the kids to read properly and I think it might actually work. It's going to be seriously tricky but if, at the end of 8 weeks, one kid can read something that they couldn't before, I can go home a happy bunny.

We've also had a week of some pretty interesting Indian experiences.
On Tuesday we had a very early start to go have a yoga lesson and it didn't disappoint on the entertainment front but I'm not sure that any of us felt particularly relaxed or mellow afterwards. Yoga tends to involve you looking like a bit of a tit but there was one exercise where we had to kneel on all fours and then roar like a lion. I don't know of anyone that could do this with a straight face. There was also another exercise which is basically a shoulder stand where you balance on the very top of your back with your legs in the air and let's just say that it's apparently not very good if you're feeling a little windy. There were a few bottom burps in the room - none from me, I would like to add - and after that, any hope of my feeling connected to my spiritual self or any of that business went out of the window.

On Wednesday we were semi-forced into going to see a Bollywood film which was entirely in Hindi. I was quite impressed that I could pretty much follow what was going on. The film itself was pretty ridiculous though. There were 3 really graphic hanging scenes and at the end, the hero was stabbed about ten times in his stomach and when he took his shirt off (as you do) there was barely a mark on him. Guess that's Bollywood for you. On Friday, it was one of the other volunteers' birthdays so about 30 of us descended on this little beach shack where the owner knows the guy who's birthday it was. After everyone got a couple of drinks down them (only one for me, I'm still on medication and being a good girl - I promise mummy) they all
really started to unwind and even thought the food took about an hour to arrive, we were all dancing around on the sand and genuinely couldn't have cared less. The food was perfect, though. I never thought I'd enjoy a veggie burger so much but after two weeks of pure carbs, any form of protein is seriously welcome.
The owners of the restaurant were amazing and gave us all baskets and baskets of some of the best naan I've ever had, all for free. It was an awesome night and everyone got on so well but it was kind or ruined when we got back to camp and found out that half of the people from our group had left without paying. It really angered all of us who had paid because the staff were so lovely and took so much trouble to make it a good night, giving us two bottles of alcohol for free and they made a birthday cake. We're definitely going to try to get to the bottom of who it was though cos it's such a sucky thing to do.

Yesterday a few of us decided to take ourselves off for a little adventure. We hired a car to take us on the 90 minute journey to Dhudsagar waterfall, which is the second highest waterfall in India and a bit of a must see when you're in Goa. When you actually get to the closest village to the waterfalls, you have to take a separate jeep along the ridiculously rocky road to the waterfall itself. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but imagine being on a rollercoaster or the waltzers for half an hour, then you've pretty much got that car ride. I'm extremely impressed that I didn't spew right there and then. The waterfall itself, though, was gorgeous. There was a lagoon at the base which you could swim in and there were hundreds of monkeys scurrying around, trying to get food off of people. It felt even better that the rest of the volunteers were being dragged around churches and temples in Old Goa and we'd managed to get out of it. HOORAY.

When we got back, me, Poppy, Marianne and Ian headed to the beach for some lunch - cheese toastie and chips, in case you were wondering. Actually ended up having a two hour long nap on the sun lounger and I may or may not have drooled and snored. Embarrassing, yes, but a sign of a VERY good nap.
Couldn't face another curry so the four of us headed to a pretty classy restaurant for the perfect end the an awesome day. It was so nice to actually feel clean for once and I ended my vegetarianism for the night. It was such a good change to have some Indian food that actually tasted of something. We even had starters and a bottle of wine. Not very backpacker-y but I think we deserved it. 

Homesick update - Made the mistake of looking through old pictures on my camera which made me feel a bit of a pang for home but mostly I just really miss cheese and good tea. Sorry family.

Delhi Belly update - Had a bit of a scare tonight, but, touch wood, everything seems to be pretty calm on the southern front. Watch this space, though.