Christmas - a bit different from year's past
on Jen's Indian Adventure (India), 28/Dec/2009 14:31, 34 days ago
It’s always nice to be at home for Christmas but if you’re going to be away then the best thing to do is to be sure you enjoy it.Christmas started on a very high note for me. The one evening I was hoping to get away from work early to kick start my first Christmas in the sun, I was asked to be sure I was still in the office at 4pm. It turned out that my Hindi colleagues were planning a surprise Christmas party for me. It was a big surprise and one which I thoroughly enjoyed. Despite being the only Christian in the building they went ahead which is now a four year tradition in CYSD. For the past few years they have recognised Christmas as a special time for their mainly VSO Christian colleagues.I was invited up to one of the conference rooms to find approx 30 of my new friends and colleagues all gathered in a room decorated by balloons, with a cake, flowers and a gift on the table at the top of the room. As guest if honour I was invited to sit in the chair next to the Chairman of the organisation and he opened the hour by explaining to his team the reason we were all gathered. Some of the group then started singing some Indian tunes as everyone got into the party spirit. When asked to return the favour I politely declined, and then was asked to tell (thankfully not sing) the story of Christmas.As a reward for my story-telling talent I was then given a Christmas gift of a lovely kurta, a pair of handmade earrings, a bouquet of flowers and a cake and sweets which I shared with everyone. Then later hot appetisers were brought in by CYSD catering staff. I was asked to model the kurta and earrings which I due obliged and as you can see plenty of photos were taken, by the unofficial office photographer, Ganesh.I was then put on the spot and asked how many of my colleagues’ names I could remember. I have said many times in the last 2 weeks that I am struggling with Indian names, not just hearing them, but remembering them and I had to be honest and say not many. But despite that I was challenged to name the ones I could remember, and thankfully in most cases I gotthe pronunciation correct. I had to admit that my challenge would be to remember everyone’s names by the end of January (I hope no one remembers I said that and decides to quiz me in 5 weeks time)Once the party ended I trotted off to the lovely Mayfair hotel, 15 mins walk from the office and approx 30 mins walk from home, to spend the next 2 days with my new friends fromCanada,UKandKenya. We started with dinner in the Thai restaurant on Christmas Eve. I was delighted to be able to tell my 7 year old nephew the next day that I had‘Poo’ for dinner. Thankfully that’s the Thai word for Crab.Christmas morning was not a traditional Christmas. We all started off by spending a few hours in the hotel spa, massages all round, followed by a buffet lunch. We hadn’t planned on lunch after such a lovely breakfast, but when the maitre d’ informed us turkey was on the lunch menu we had to return if only to see turkey on an Indian menu. It wasn’t as we would know it at home, but it was turkey. It was great to have it. It's been difficult buying meat out here. On my walk home every evening there are two stalls that have chicken for sale -but they're a bit fresh if you know what I mean !The afternoon was spent lounging by the hotel pool only to be followed by dinner in the same Thai restaurant. We decided to return to the same place as the other restaurants in theMayfairare all around an Indian theme and we thought it would be a nice break from Indian food just for the few days. Apart from that the food was delicious.Later in the bar on Christmas evening (yes, unlike at home bars still do open on the 25thover here) we met a lovely group of people who we will certainly be keeping in touch with.Unfortunately on the morning of the 26thour Christmas came to an end as we had to check out of the hotel and return to our homes, and back to living on our volunteer’s allowance. But naturally we did hold onto our room as long as we could and only checked out at the last minute, to be soon followed by wrecking the head of the hotel receptionist as we tried to split the bill into 3 so we could each pay for what we had had. A great 48 hours for €130.And to put the icing on the cake we finished off the night by finding our first cinema since arriving in India to see the film 'Avatar'. We just assumed it would be in English but of course it was dubbed in Hindi. A great film despite understanding approx 5 words. The moral of this story being I must take out my Ipod and listen to my Hindi tutorials again. At the rate I'm going I'll never master Oriya as well !As I write this it is definitely back to normality as the daily dog chorus is tuning up for it’s evening performance !