July in Delhi

Well we've settled quickly back into everyday life in Delhi, made a lot easier in this weather by acquiring our own second hand car and a driver no less!! It means we can step into an air conditioned car as the auto rickshaws were unbearable in the excruciating heat. For a few days we had no driver so Tim bravely manoeuvred his way around the roads! He actually enjoyed the freedom of driving here with no real rules to abide by and got very proficient in using his horn. I, on the other hand was a nervous back seat driver and I think , at times, Tim got very close to throwing me out of the car!! Now that we have Sunil driving for us I feel more relaxed.

The monsoon has been flexing it's muscles in the last week with some very heavy downpours but nothing too prolonged. It's a wonderful sight when the hot rain falls, seeing the local slum kids running half naked in the puddles splashing each other.
However the roads quickly flood as any flood drains are blocked up with rubbish and silt or built over!! The pot holes in the roads make driving through the floods worse as suddenly you sink into hidden ponds of water. Hope our car survives?!!

Last night we went to India Gate in central Delhi. This area is basically a huge park area with famous war monuments and a view right down to the state government buildings. The heat of the day had been replaced by the relative cool of evening with a warm wind blowing and several thousand people must have been there, picnicking in family groups, wandering around and swimming in the filthy lakes. No health and safety here as young boys splashed and cavorted in the large Victorian fountain, clambering right to the top and splashing those below with water from the large dish! It was great to watch and I so wished we had our camera with us! I just want to record all these moments!!! Everywhere people were selling toys, balloons, candy floss, corn on the cob, chappatis and sweet chai. The people of Delhi seem to struggle through the day barely functioning in the heat but then as soon as dusk falls out they pour on to the streets, full of life and vitality , making the most of the cooler temperatures! There's such a buzz and party atmosphere, it's great!!

We're wanting to use the church centre more in the week to involve the whole community. So I'm busy preparing material for some English classes to be held there for beginners and intermediate level and above. Tim is going to hold some skills classes in things like giving presentations, power point etc; another course of guitar classes are starting and also we're going to have a games night where people can play table tennis , chess and carrom (an Indian cross between snooker and draughts!}

Return to Delhi

Sorry there has been such a long gap since my last entry!!Have just returned from two months in the UK, seeing family and friends. What did we love about being back in the UK ? Obviously catching up with those nearest and dearest to us was the highlight of our time there but also the amazing fresh air and sunny spring weather; walking through the rolling , green, lush countryside with our dog; the cleanliness of everything; peace and quiet; English newspapers; English puddings and cakes; sausages and roast dinners. These are just a few of the things that stand out to me now as I write this.

What things did we miss about India? The crazy hustle and bustle of life on the streets; the colour, noise , smells all around ; the whirr of ceiling fans; spicy food; the passion and resilience of the people and the unpredictability of life.

The first thing that hit me as we exited Delhi airport was the smell of India! How I love that smell that's so hard to describe! To me its a distinct smell that you don't find anywhere else. I was trying to explain it to a Venezuelan friend recently and she said that her sister who came to visit her in April said exactly the same thing about England. That it had a distinct smell too!! Fancy that!

The second thing that assaulted us was the June heat- at one in the morning it was still in the high thirties and humid too as the monsoon is approaching! We feel like we are in a continuous sauna all the time- even walking up the stairs in our duplex brings us out in a sweat. Yesterday apparently there was 96% humidity! There is talk that the monsoon rains will be early this year as we have already had the odd welcome shower – I brought my flowery wellies out with me just in case everywhere floods! I don't really fancy paddling around in flip flops knowing what the roads around here are like !!

Another thing we've noticed since our return is that the hot weather has brought an invasion of insects into our duplex. A huge lizard came down our stairs the other evening and a baby lizard jumped on Tim's foot as he was in the shower! There is obviously a family of lizards that have taken up residence with us. Lizards don't really bother me but the emergence of cockroaches and giant ants do!!! We will have to find ways of exterminating them me thinks!

Well we have unpacked , settled back in and am writing this in out in our little courtyard just as it's getting dark. Tim has cooked a wonderful curry and I wonder what the next six months will hold for us?!

Springtime in Delhi

I can't believe my last blog entry was in January! February was the month for visitors, one after another, both friends and family descended upon us! It was wonderful to see everyone and great to show them the sights of Delhi. My parents in law left in the early hours of this morning and now a stillness and emptiness has descended upon the house. Time to get back to Hindi language learning and English teaching!

One of the highlights recently was a short trip to Kerala with Mum and Dad. We felt that two weeks in the sprawling, polluted city would be too much for them so in the second week we flew right to the other end of India to Cochin on the tropical southern tip. We hired a house boat and one day sailed out into the backwaters- miles upon miles of meandering rivers, lined with palm trees and paddy fields. We lay on chairs on the sheltered deck and watched the world drift by. Lining the river bank were small huts with women and children washing pots and pans in the river water or beating sheets on the banks. Every so often small fishing boats passed us by with freshwater prawns, crabs, lobster and other varieties of fish. Out in the paddy fields we could see women sporting large hats, bending over, transplanting the rice – such hard, back breaking work! Lunch was served us on huge banana leaves – a sumptuous selection of Kerelan vegetable dishes and freshly caught fish! The spices were very subtle with fresh coconut and pineapple as well as pepper and chillies.


As I lay on the deck I felt every part of me relaxing and unwinding. It made me realise that life in the city is very demanding. Just being among so many people, always on the move, always congested can make your whole body tense up and just coming to a slower pace of life was sooo refreshing!

The benefits of Kerala were soon deleted by our third trip to see the Taj Mahal since December, this time taking Mum and Dad!! We think that the UP government should give Tim and I jobs as tourist guides as we've been there so many times!!! The Taj still never fails to stun us with its white marble glinting in the sun but the journey to Agra takes about 5 hours one way and the traffic is so crazy you always end up feeling totally exhausted! My parents couldn't believe the traffic jams with vehicles (i.e./ cars, taxis, buses, bullock carts , camels, bicycles, hand carts, rickshaws, meandering cows, in fact, you name it!!!!!) trying to cross in every possible direction all at once!!!



The weather is beginning to heat up now with the thermostat rising every day towards the mid 30's. It is still at the stage of being pleasant especially first thing in the morning. I love waking early just as it’s getting light. It's the only time you feel a sort of peace and calm settle over everything. The air is warm but fresh and the birds start chirruping in the trees outside my window. This morning a pair of chipmunks were chattering away to each other very loudly!!!Gradually you can hear the sounds of the street cleaners sweeping outside and the men cleaning the layers of dust off the cars. Occasionally you hear the chatting of groups of maids in their local Bengali, Rajasthani and Punjabi dialects, as they enter the sector to disperse to the various homes to clean.


March here is like May in the UK with everything blooming. There is a profusion of flowers in the parks and on balconies – petunias, dahlias, roses, bourgenvilia, poppies, snap dragons and many other species that I'm not familiar with! Also the scent of jasmine fills the air especially early in the morning and in the evenings as I walk in the sector. I wish Delhi could stay just like this but I know that in a months’ time everything will start to shrivel and become parched and the parks will turn to dust baths!

January in Delhi

After three weeks of family visiting from the UK, life has settled back in to the usual daily rhythm .
The Delhi winter seems to have been short lived, thank goodness!! The weather is warming up nicely in the day with clear blue skies and temperatures in the early 20's. The evening air still has a chill in it but nowhere near as cold as it was. I can't believe that soon we'll be looking back at these 'cool' days with longing! Everyone keeps going on about the horrors of a Delhi summer with it's unrelenting heat, hot winds and dust so I'm trying to make the most of these halcyon days by venturing out on foot somewhere as much a s possible to explore the city.
Yesterday Tim and I discovered Haus Kaus village, a suburb of Delhi further into the city than our sector but it didn't feel like the city at all! Forests surrounded the village, a deer park and a lake which actually is an ancient water tank built by the mogul kings to supply water to the surrounding area. The village is a mixture of ancient tombs and mosques and small 'upmarket' clothes and antique shops, art galleries and eateries. It had more of the feel of a Mediterranean village rather than an Indian one. with its narrow streets and whitewashed houses.,

On Sunday after church we ventured in to central Delhi to a renowned eatery called the Andhra Bhavan. It is more of a canteen than a restaurant and is incredibly popular. When we arrived there was a scrum of people around the entrance, fighting to get in and out!! we had to squeeze through the crowds to get a ticket – we were no.243 and they were at present on no 75!! We wondered if would we have to wait all afternoon but after 50 minutes we tried to once again fight our way through the throng of people to get to the canteen. As soon as we were seated at the formica tables vegetable thalis were given to us along with mutton curry and their famous Hyderbad Biryani. The food was delicious ,really spicy but with wonderful flavours that exploded in your mouth! It was a true Indian meal eaten with our fingers and only cost us £2 a head for as much as we could eat! Worth every minute of the wait. Andrha Bhavan has not seen the last of us!


NO day is ever boring in India – that's why I love it so much. ! I can't remember much happening on drives from my home to Morrisons in Woking but an auto rickshaw ride to the local shops here is fascinating as there is so much going on all around you. As I hurtled down the road today, the rickshaw driver swerving left and right to avoid the many potholes, there was so much to catch my gaze. I passed a bullock cart laden with sacks of grain and a man wobbling along on a bicycle with 5 gas bottles hanging precariously all around. We passed a building site and I saw women carrying huge baskets of bricks balanced expertly on their heads, their multi-coloured saris caked in dust.


At intervals along the roadside there were barrows full of fruit and vegetables and one fruit seller was pushing a barrow laden with green and black mountains of grapes. There were other road side stalls too selling chai ( India's famous hot spicy tea) and others cooking chapatis and samosas and other snacks. I noticed a man by the side of the road having a shave and haircut by a barber, a mirror tied to a fence post . A group of cows meandered lazily down the middle of the road, heading for the overflowing rubbish bins where no doubt they would chew their way through numerous plastic bags. As well as the cows numerous stray dogs lay in the road sunbathing in the sun . The cars and rickshaws managed to manovoure around them, the cows and dogs not flinching in the slightest.! Lots of slum children, their bodies blackened by the sun and layers of grime, hung around the local temple, hoping for food. No expensive toys for them! Instead they seemed happy enough digging around in the dirt with sticks and stones and some boys were swinging on hanging overhead cables ( hopefully not live!!!)
These sights I've just recorded are only a small snapshot of the many things constantly going on on the Indian streets so you can see even a ride to the shops is definitely not boring!!

India really gets under you skin and I feel a bit like Rudyard Kipling who wrote to a friend in 1883 and said

'I am in love with this country and would sooner write about her than anything else........I find the heat and smells and oils and spices and puffs of temple incense and sweat and darkness and dust and lust and cruelty and above all, things wonderful and fascinating, inumerable.'

Dilli me Christmas

When you’re a long way from home, Christmas is a time when you feel the distance, you feel the separation and you particularly feel the difference in culture. Not that Christmas isn’t celebrated in India – the shopping malls celebrate it with great decorations, huge trees and Santa’s grottos. You can buy most Christmassy things here, at a price. We had a tree and decorations, and a limited selection of cards was available. The most ridiculous thing we saw was a box of ordinary shop mince pies on sale at 1200 Rupees - £17!
Our Christmas was a real mix of home and India. On Christmas Eve, we were at a very traditional carol service – 7 lessons and carols, followed by a delicious biryani, kebabs, daal and naan. Our sons, Michael and Simon were with us and we spent Christmas Day itself with friends in the British High Commission compound – turkey, ham and all the trimmings. The turkey was delicious – although it did arrive with the neck still attached and everything still attached inside. There weren’t many volunteers to put their hands in and fish it all out.
One of the highlights of Christmas was going over to the girls’ home and putting on a Christmas party for them. We helped them decorate their Christmas ‘tree’ (actually a couple of bare branches), played games, gave them a traditional tea of samosas and cake, and we had bought presents for all of them – mostly jumpers, jackets and socks as the home is very cold at this time of year. It was so great to see the joy in their faces and how excited they were to get gifts. It really brought home once again how blessed we are, and particularly our children to be brought up in a loving caring environment.
Delhi has been very cold for the last few weeks. I know that for people in the UK who have been struggling with snow and sub-zero temperatures, this will sound like a bit of a whinge, but in the UK, no matter how cold it is, you come home and your house is nice and warm, because it is well insulated and the central heating has been on. Here, there is no heating, we have marble floors and huge gaps around our doors and windows that let the warmth out and cold in. Fortunately, it is heating up a bit now and I am sitting outside in our courtyard as I write this at 9 in the morning.
Our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter have been with us for the last couple of weeks and on Wednesday we took them to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal (our second visit in 2 weeks). It’s about a four hour drive away so it’s a long day trip. Little Siena created quite a stir – many Indians seemed more interested in taking photos of her than the Taj. We lost count of how many times we heard ‘sooo cute’ or ‘soooo sweet’ as we walked around. It was the first time out of our three visits there that the Agra air was clear and you could see the Taj clearly from the fort from where Shah Jahan would gaze down the river to the tomb of his beloved wife Mumtaz. No matter how many times you visit, the Taj is still an incredibly beautiful building and the first sight as you come through the gateway takes your breath away.

Delhi Life

I'm sitting outside at the moment in my little courtyard writing this. The sun is just pleasantly warm like a May summer's day in the UK but already long shadows are creeping across the yard as the sun is about to disappear behind nearby buildings. The temperature is very autumnal in the early mornings and evenings though. I actually could see my breath early this morning as I ventured outside to take out the rubbish for the daily collection! No two weekly collection here!!! Everyday men with carts come round the sector collecting from every house and sweeping up the leaves and rubbish from the roads so the sectors are really clean. It's just when you step outside the gates that you see litter absolutely everywhere- in piles by the side of the road, tumbling down hillsides! Delhi is groaning under a mountain of plastic bags and bottles!! Now the sky is often very smoggy with pollutants especially in the evenings as the poor burn these bottles and bags as well as other rubbish to make fires to keep warm!
I read another horrifying statistic the other day about the city , that it produces around 75 million tonnes of sewage a day, of which only about 35 million is treated!! The rest is pumped out into the Yammuna river and into flowerbeds and lawns around the city!!! Certainly the other day Tim and I took a walk through Lodi gardens and we were enjoying the beautiful scenery when we smelt the most awful smell and realised that a hose was pumping out the public toilet contents on to the green lawns and flowerbeds!! I must remember to wash my hands next time I sit on the lush green grass!!!!
We have established a routine to our weeks now. First thing in the morning the maid comes in to sweep and wash all the floors and clean the kitchen and I try to communicate in Hindi to her with some success on occasions. She has however disappeared for the last two weeks to go back to Rajasthan for a wedding and so suddenly I am back to washing floors daily myself. Its amazing how quickly you can get used to someone else doing the work!! Our Hindi teacher comes in three times a week to teach us for an hour and what an intense hour it is with her refusing to speak any English to us!! It's amazing how, after a while ,phrases and words that were once unintelligible start to take shape and understanding comes! Then Tim disappears of to the office for the rest of the day and I spend my time either helping to home school Chloe or teach English at the girls home. I also teach a couple of girls privately once a week. Food does not keep in the same way it does in England so daily I find I need to make my way either to the Indian style supermarket known as Big Bazaar or to the many fruit and vegetable sellers along the side of the road or to the little shops on the sector. Some afternoons I get a rickshaw and head further into the city to go to some of the bigger markets to get purchases cheaply . On Thursday mornings I run a ladies prayer meeting where some of us get together to encourage one another and then we have lunch together. Thursday nights is our church prayer meeting and Saturday nights I have band practice where I have resurrected my flute after many idle years where it has remained in it's case! So all in all our weeks are now nicely busy but somehow simpler and less stressful than life in Woking!

I have found coming here has caused me to throw myself on to God far more than before as everything is so different and nearly every day I am taken out of my comfort zone so that I am so aware of my need of God to sustain me, strengthen me to cope with the rigours of Indian life and to give me wisdom to know how to act in different situations and in relating to people here. As a consequence my whole walk with God feels rejuvenated and I'm so aware of His great love and power to keep both us and our families back home.

The Dilemma of the Poor

The poor are all around you in India. Unlike in the UK where poverty is relatively hidden, here it literally screams at you in the face every where you turn!
There are some horrendous statistics about the poor in India: an estimated 450 million live on less than 50 rupees a day ( about 80 pence) and 75% of population of the country live on less than 100 rupees a day! One third of the worlds poor live here and 22,000 children die everyday due to poverty. 56% have no access to electricity. Only 40% are functionally literate and 30% are illiterate!
The real challenge about living here day by day is working out how best to respond to the poor. The danger is that over time your heart can become hardened to the needs of the poor and so you just brush them aside and ignore what is going on. Many,many people live like that here because they have been brought up seeing poverty around them all their lives. We really need to have God's compassion for the poor. Jesus demonstrated God's heart as he constantly reached out to the beggars, the lepers and the prostitutes and that is the challenge for us today.
Giving money is not always the best solution as many of the children are in organised gangs and the money goes straight to the leader and doesn't benefit the child. Also a lot of the children would rather just use the money to buy solvents which take away the hunger pains! Giving food is a better way but food that is opened and cannot be sold on. Another way to help is to get involved in the many NGO organisations around the city
Tim and I went on a tour organised by the Salaam Baalak Trust, an organisation that rescues street kids and helps to give them a home and education. We were taken around the parts of the city where the street kids hang out , like the railway stations etc and shown the contact points and one of the boys homes. A former street child, now a worker for the trust, described life on the streets and it was very moving! For girls it is especially tough as there are not so many jobs they can do and they are a lot more vulnerable than boys. He said that girls as young as 7 were taken into prostitution and a young girl could have up to 45 clients a day!! Many die by the age of 16 from pain and trauma.
Yesterday a friend and I went to visit a girls shelter home to see if we could get involved in some way. The home houses 55 girls at present who have been rescued from the streets. The youngest is 5 years up to 18 . The home was in a pleasant , leafy street and very well organised but it did remind me a little of a prison because it had a central atrium going up to the roof with walkways on different levels with rooms going off them One of the older girls showed us round . I commented on the girls excellent English to the manager and she told us that the girl and her sister had been adopted by an American family from am orphanage and taken to Boston but they had struggled with her and sent her back but had kept her sister! They had found her abandoned on the streets. The girls's day is highly structured with chores and schooling and other workshop activities. Some girls go to the local school but most are schooled in the centre as they are too far behind to go to the mainstream school. The older girls are also encouraged to learn a trade such a hairdressing or dressmaking etc.
Both my friend ( who is a doctor and also called Liz!)) and myself are very keen to volunteer there, so as from next week my friend is going to work with the teenage girls on health issues and I am going to teach English to the younger ones to try to prepare them for school. How exciting!