After the chaos of Jodphur it was nice to spend a few days in sleepy Sitrawa. After a three hour bus ride to Bawkan, I was taken the final 3km by a jeep that dropped me off at the Sambhali school itself. What a cute wee school! The rooms are brightly painted and open onto a central courtyard. The lower level is for the peacock class, which is the more advanced kids, although Florian (the volunteer in Sitrawa) explained that there had also been a family living in the classroom too, and often he would arrive to prepare his lesson and would have to negotiate sleeping and cooking equipment. Upstairs is the butterfly class which was for the more basic level kids.

Florian had prepared a workshop on rubbish. As far as I can tell there is no rubbish collection in India. Rubbish is generally thrown onto the street where it is swept up and burnt. This means that people will drop bottles, chip wrappers etc on the street when they are finished with them. At first I was shocked at this, but since the rubbish ends up on the street anyway, it seemed pointless to do anything else. Unfortunately the habit of dropping rubbish on the ground seems to apply within the classroom as well and the children sweep the pencil shavings, or biscuit wrappers onto the floor of the classroom (today in my lesson I even caught one girl sweeping her toe nail clippings onto the ground!) We explained to the kids how in Germany (Florians home country) and New Zealand rubbish was collected and taken away to the rubbish dump or for recycling.. and while that was not possible in Sitrawa we could at least put the rubbish in the bin in the classroom so that it could be taken outside. We finished with a rubbish collecting competition, which was a great success with the students and for now at least the area around Sambhali school is slightly cleaner... In the evening I met the family that Florian is staying with, they don't speak a lot of English but were very welcoming. Later we were told by the neighbour that there was soon to be a wedding in Sitrawa and we were invited to some pre wedding celebrations. As is the custom, the women and men celebrate separately, so Florian went to the grooms house, while I went a few houses up the road where the women were partying. Lively music was playing in the courtyard and many of the women were dancing. I prepared to sit on the sidelines, feeling pretty clumsy in comparison to the graceful Indian women in their elegant saris who seem to instinctively know all the bollywood dance moves from the time they can walk. Sonu, my eleven year old host would not have a bar of this however and quickly dragged me up onto the dance floor with the others. Later photos from a previous wedding were dragged out and there was much amusement when I mistook a coconut (presumably a wedding gift?) for the head of a new born baby! Wandering around the village the following morning people were friendly and one girl invited me to hold her 4 month old sister. I was soon invited inside for a cup of chai. The older daughter told me that she was coming to Jodphur the following week for an exam. She spoke very good English and I asked her where she learnt it and he told me she had learnt it at the Sambhali school! The bus was full on the way back to Jodphur and I ended up in one of the sleeping platforms with another Indian man. It was not the most comfortable journey I have had in my life. Unable to sit up properly or lie down fully and at the very back of the bus I felt like I was in a washing machine! arghh at least it was only for 3 hours and not a long haul.. Well only a week left in Jodphur before Kieran arrives and we head up to Nepal.. It will be good to be somewhere a bit cooler, but I will be sad to leave.