News from Raleigh Burleigh, our exchange student in Chile (2009-2010)
On 02/08/10 three additional videos about Rotary's battle against polio
On 02/08/10 three
additional videos about Rotary's battle against polio
were added to the Projects page. Click on "Projects"
at the top of this page to view them.
On 02/09/10 we received a nice note from RaleighBureigh, our exchange student in Chili, which is posted on
the "Exchange Students News" page.
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News from Elizabeth Robinson, our exchange student in India (2009-2010)
I just wanted to update my sponsoring club on what I
am doing as of late…
I really just want to thank you guys for giving me
this opportunity to be here in India. This
next segment is from my blog, but I think it pretty
much sums up the month of November. Right now I am at a new school
and a new family. Christmas is tomorrow and I wish everyone a Merry
Christmas!
As of December 15th, I have been in India for 3 and a half months, though I feel like I have been here much
longer. I have just returned from a Southern tour of India. I
am now living with my second family, in the outskirts of Hyderabad. They
have a house, instead of an apartment, and I have a room to myself
(mostly). The little community where I live has a pool and a gym and
I like to go swimming regularly.
Right now I am sitting in the garden of my host parents'
house, watching the afternoon sun cast deep shadows over the other side of the
street. I hear the ferocious bird squawks of my 7 year old host
sister's party favor break the silence as they dash around the house,
screaming. In this neighborhood, it is almost to
easy to forget that I am in India. More
foreigners live here than I have ever seen in Hyderabad.
This past month I went on a tour of Southern
India with a group of exchange students from all over India. Every
single day we saw something or experienced something that was entirely new to
us. However, I am only going to share with you the most memorable
parts of the trip. I am only going to write about the places that
really struck me and imprinted a picture that I can see clearly right now.
First stop- Mahabalipuram
First stop- Mahabalipuram
From Hyderabad, we took a
train to Mahabalipuram. Now, this was my first time
on a train in India and before
that I had only taken the train in the U.S. once or
twice. In India, the faster
way around the country is by train, mostly because the roads are unreliable,
bumpy and train tracks can be found everywhere. There are two types of trains
in India. at least to my knowledge. sleeper
trains and regular ones. Sleeper trains have bunks in them and are very nice
for over night journeys. These two types have two subtypes: AC and non AC. On
this trip, we only took sleeper trains both with and without AC. I much prefer
the AC trains as they have better security, and are
supplied with mostly fresh blankets and pillows. The bathrooms are
usually cleaner too. However, it does get hella cold in AC trains and the
windows don't open. These trains are usually
more expensive, but I think you get your rupees worth out of it.
Cheeky monkey
Mahabalipuram was one of my favorite spots. It was a
small town, but very touristy. There were shops and small little inns up to our
ears. but not a lot of the India that I
know. We stayed at a small motel. It was more like a resort though, about two
minutes from the ocean. We stayed there for two days and had a lot of free time
to see the shops and swim in the ocean. Near the place where we stayed was a
shore temple.
Apparently there were more of them. About three, but
the others are now under the sea. When we left Ahabalipuram
we got to see a silk factory, which was quite amazing.
Next stop- Bangalore
Keep in mind that on this entire tour we either
traveled by bus or
Train, ranging from 16 hours to 10 minutes. I have had
some good, memorable times on both. You know when you are an experienced
traveler when you know exactly how to get comfortable and get to sleep on the
floor isle of an Indian bus (as I said before, Indian roads range from new to
potholes –mostly the latter, though).
We got to see a national park in Bangalore, where we saw lions, tigers
and bears
We got to see a national park in Bangalore, where we
saw lions, tigers and bears.and there was also a zoo
there, where we saw other animals.
I think the weirdest part was all the monkeys - everywhere.
I saw one snatch a chocobar from a little Indian
child - smart monkey. On the whole trip I think we saw about 2 or 3 zoos and
maybe 3 botanical gardens. We also went to MG road (there is one in like every
city in India) and had a
lot of fun seeing American brands for the first time in a long time.
Jain temple
Jain temple
The most memorable part of this city was a Jain
temple. What's the catch? We had to climb 700 stairs to get up to see it.
Inside the temple is a huge statue - a monolith of a Jain saint. The scenery
from the top was amazing!
Mysore is also known as the city of palaces
Mysore is also
known as the city of palaces. I really liked MaharajaPalace. Just walking in there, you see the most
amazing artwork apart from the gigantic architecture.You look at the walls, the ceilings, the
floors, and they are all painted vibrantly in motifs or scenes of fighting
warriors. The tiling is gorgeous!
Ooty from hotel room balcony
Ooty
from hotel room balcony
I think Ooty
was one of the places I had the most fun. Ooty is
just fun to Say, but other than that, it is a hill station. The elevation was
around 8,000 feet. Near Ooty, you can find Doddabetta, the highest peak in Southern India. There we found a tea factory, in which we found out
how the production of tea takes place. I think Ooty
was my favorite because it wasn't hectically scheduled and the icy coldness
felt like home.
To get there, we had to go on so many
dirt roads, but the scenery was amazing. There had been a mudslide 3 days
before that killed around 100 people and it was a struggle for our two
mini-buses to get up there, because the roads were in such bad shape. We
staying in an amazing hotel in which, for the most part, we all got under the
blankets, and ordered hot chocolate. Room service is the best
invention in the world!! Especially when it is raining,
and cold and your room doesn't have heating.
The town of Ooty
The town of Ooty
To get to Ooty, Pollachi, and Munnar, among other
places, we had to travel through various national parks and sanctuaries to get
to the towns. Needless to say, the scenery was beautiful. In Munnar, we did the thing that everyone does when they go to
India, we road
elephants It was much like riding a horse, with the
rolling movements and such. Although they don't look like it,
elephants walk surprisingly delicately. Maybe it isn't a surprise
though, when you think about what could happen if one were to fall. They are
able to put one foot in front of the other with their feet almost in a straight
line with each other.
Me (and 3 others) on an elephant.
This was my most favorite part of the entire trip
This was my most favorite part of the entire trip. We
were on a houseboat for 2 days. Actually, we had two houseboats,
because one wasn't big enough for all 18 of us. It was as nice as a really
great hotel, and it was on water. They were both about 80 feet long,
with 4 rooms, and a dining area/ lounge towards the front. We were
on the backwaters of Kerala…and it was the most peaceful time. We also went swimming
off the side of the boats, when we stopped for the night. Kinda
creepy when you can't see through what you are swimming in.
Houseboat interior
The canals we were on all kinda looked like this one
The canals we were on all kinda
looked like this one...you can also see what the full length of our boat looked
like.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Carmel Mulcahy in Sweden
March 10, 2009 Email from Carmel Mulcahy,
March 10, 2009 Email from CarmelMulcahy,
our Exchange Student in Sweden
How is everyone? Its been snowing like crazy here! For the past week it
has been constant rain and snow! Not too good of weather.
Next week its supposed to clear up a lot, and hopefully
spring will start to come around.
School has been great. We haven´t had any really big
projects yet. But we are starting to talk about our class trip in May. We are
not 100% sure where we are going. The government normally helps out the schools
with the class trips but since the economy is so bad right now, we might have
to do a few fundraiser's to earn money. Other than
that nothing else is too new with the school.
Basketball has been going great. Our last game is on Tuesday, we did really good this season. Although our season is over, we´ll still have open gyms twice a week to get ready for
our tournament in April in Denmark! This past weekend we helped clean the
stadium of the hockey arena to earn money for our trip there. I´ve also been going to a lot of hockey games. My city´s team is in the semi-finals now, so they are playing
the best 4 out of 7 and hopefully they´ll make it
into April. Its been really exciting watching them
this whole year, its a fun thing to watch.
Two weeks ago was our "sport break" we got a week off of school. My
host family took me and some friends to the northern part of Sweden to a place called Sälen.
It is just like Aspen, a big tourist spot where people from all
over the country and world go to ski during the winter. And it just so happened
to be the Vassat Race that week, which is the biggest
cross country race in the world with over 17,000 people in it and its about 90
kilometers long! (it took about 12 hours for everyone
to finish). We had a friend that competed in it so we followed him and watched
him finish. It was quite an experience that I will never forget. The rest of my
week there I went snowboarding just about everyday. There were a few days when
the weather wasn't so good, but the next day it was perfect powder!
My host family is doing great! My host dad and mom work everyday during the
week and they have the weekends off so we get to enjoy each other then. My
older host brother came back for the weekend to visit. (He is working in Norway for the winter at a skiing resort). My
oldest host brother is working with his dad and living with his girlfriend. I
still visit my last host family occasionally. They are such nice people and i miss them all the time. My last host family just bought
their plane tickets to go visit their son in Australia for 3 weeks in April! That should be fun!
Can't wait to hear from all of you! I hope all is well! Tons of hugs from Sweden!
Love Carmel
