Acclimatisation

Having been to Tanzania for three months when I was 18, I had an idea of what being outside your comfort zone felt like. Those feelings came flooding back this week. The first thing is the noise. Car horns make up for a large proportion of that noise. I have come to the conclusion that a beep of the horn can mean the following:

• You are in my way.
• You are going to be in my way.
• You were in my way.
• I am going to over/undertake you.
• I am over/undertaking you.
• I have over/undertook you.
• Thank you
• The opposite of thank you.
• Hello.
• Goodbye.
• Just checking nobody is round the corner.
• I'm glad nobody is round the corner.

For four days we are staying in Shillong. A mountain stop which seems to never sleep. Staying at Bonnie's Guest House, we have internet, a toilet and a room each. It's basic but it's fine. The people here are incredibly welcoming and upon seeing blonde hair, we are often passed with mutterings of, "American". There is a fairly large Army presence here, with numerous bases, soldiers, checkpoints and army vehicles.

 

The biggest thing to get used to is the food. Eating for pleasure has been put on hold . . . or transferred rather, to my nightly dreams. For now, rice and rice with a side of rice will have to do. The East Khasi Hill people are big meat eaters but for the sake of my stomach it is meat-no-more. 

We have brought along water filters as we can't drink the tap water here. I haven't had to use it as of yet - but once we move to Nongkrem to start our work with LBQ, I suspect it will be in frequent use.

Our main contacts over here are Wanlang, Khraw and Hop. They all work for the Bowland Charitable Trust in one way or another and will be our main avenue into schools to support the use of LBQ.

Our first meeting with them was last night. We were picked up by Wanlang and taken high into the mountainside to a village where his mother-in-law lives (it is a matrilineal society in Meghalaya where women inherit the family wealth).The thunderstorms in the mountain village shook the whole area - thirteen cows were recently struck in the village by huge bolts of lightening.  

We had a meeting to outline how we envisaged the following weeks working. There is a great appetite to improve education in this region but there are significant barriers at every turn. It is going to be a gargantuan effort to embed LBQ but one certainly worth the effort.

Next week we are getting a feel for four different schools which our hosts have shortlisted. These are schools with the best connectivity, English as a spoken language and consistency of teaching. We will be moving from Shillong to the remote village of Nongkrem.