Nomad Life Of Anni

change in blog address

anni — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:08:06 +0000

am facing major problems in posting here at the wordpress so am changing back to blogger.

address is : http://shantinomadlife.blogspot.com

see you there!!!

happy pongal

anni — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:47:26 +0000

tamil nadu has been celebrating the harvesting festival pongal last week. also the school was closed so i had time to explore around the city. first day of the festival we made food called sweet pongal. it is kind of rice porridge, sweetened with raw sugar and some nuts. it was nice, but got it too much during the 3 days. people were cleaning the houses and decorating the front of the houses with kolam-art.

second day i was lucky to get possibility to visit a village “nearby”. One Finnish guy is doing research on this area and i got the invitation to go with him and his girlfriend to visit their local friend. second day of pongal is dedicated for the cattle and thanking them for their good work in harvesting. all the cows were painted in bright colours and i guess they got better food this day. the whole village was celebrating and we were offered again some sweet pongal. some village people were walking around the city with one of the cows shouting and singing and giving blessings for every house of the village. in the end everybody gathered on the village temple (with the cow) and they were playing bells and drums and singing and cheering. it was nice to see the pongal celebration both in city and village.

on 3rd day we basically rested. but on the evening my local host took me and the female side of the finnish couple for some shopping. showing the best places to buy cotton. so soon i will be wearing the so-called-authentic-outfits, as soon as the tailor get those ready. though no saris for me, even though my roommate shanti wants me to wear that. that would look ridicilous. salwari is fine

only bad side right now is that i have got cold the season is changing for summer and everybody is suffering from this. first the kids (kavia and tabasia) of jeena (daughter to my host ritama), thenhusband of ritama (david) and now me. luckily there is plenty of ayurvedic medicines available and am feeding myself with these.

tommorrow the school again. am trying to teach one 19-year old girl Sintu some english. She used to go to a normal class some 4 year ago but had to quit due to some mental problems. now we are trying to remind her of things she basically already know but have forgotten. difficult as i dont speak tamil but i try to learn at least something.

take care people.

india india

anni — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:11:22 +0000

so here i am finally again. india india. somehow i feel like home but same time this feels a big chaos. or well landing in mumbai after peaceful and nice christmas holiday in finland…it can be a big change. and not much to say about mumbai but that i really did not like it. i love kolkata which is big and noisy but something there still makes me love it. in mumbai i did not see anything worth to stay more than 1 night.

and so i hopped in a train that took me here in madurai. tamil nadu. here i will spend next 2-3 months working for handicapped girls school. we’ll see what it will bring. many many other projects going on around here too.

today the kids sang me a song for my bday (29 huh….) and someone had bought a cake so even though am alone here i had a party:) one girl also danced me an indian dance. and i promised to learn this dance too later.

this alone thing is bothering me. so far i have loved travelling alone and exploring on my own. but this time….for somereason…i feel like it would be so nice to share this with someone. here is of courselots of people to talk with, and even one finnish couple working for a while now, but still….for somereason i feel like travelling with someone would be…well good.

am i getting old or something?

it´s a final countdown

anni — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:13:50 +0000

so. new travels of nomadminded finnish girl will be starting soon again. to be exact 6th of January. can´t explain how exited i am again. me, my backbag and camera. what else do i need?