Onam Festival 2010

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Blog 1 150x150 Onam Festival 2010This week the students in India have been celebrating Onam, the harvest festival in Kerala. It falls during the first month of the Malayalam calendar and marks the homecoming of King Mahabali. Lasting for 10 days, the festival embraces the culture and traditions of Kerala.

Our team in Trivandrum tell us that “All the students have participated in the Onam Celebrations at Kannammoola house. They have actively involved in filling flowers in the design drawn by Revathy, our housekeeper. Later, Rashmi wearing the traditional costume of Kerala inaugurated the celebrations by lighting the lamps. Manjusha the yoga teacher and her family was also part of the celebrations.

blog 3 150x150 Onam Festival 2010

The feast!

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News from the Wild East

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Alison July 10 51 150x150 News from the Wild East

The students in India

As we have approached our peak season, 10th & 11th July marked our busiest weekend in Kerala with 11 new Work the World housemates flying into Trivandrum Airport, plus 7 additional arrivals to join the dental outreach project in Amboori.

I flew in a few days before the big arrivals to work with Jay & John, our Programme Managers in India. Jay was busy confirming and reconfirming the final arrangements for the dental outreach, including checking up on the portable equipments, meetings with Dr Smitha the supervisor for the project, briefing the volunteers and making sure the house is ready in the village. Jay’s meticulous organisation ensured that the project got off to a good start. Back in the city, John and I spent a good couple of days visiting our five key partner hospitals in Trivandrum, both government and privately owned to reconfirm hospital introduction time with supervisors. This is essential as busy doctors sometimes forget!

There are some brilliant supervisors in Kerala, my particular favourites are Dr. Tiny Nair (Cardiologist), Dr. Bobby Moses (General Medicine) and  Dr Shylaja (Neurologist) who have always made me feel welcome whenever I visit their clinic. I also met new supervisors such as Dr. Shiju (A&E) and Dr Shreedevi (Paediatrician) who have quickly bonded with students and have been praised highly for their teaching. During this trip, I also found the time to sit down for dinner with students at the Vanchiyoor house, who were kind enough to teach me a few cheeky drinking games, which I will have to try out on my friends! We also went shopping together to ‘Fabindia’, which is indeed fabulous and a great place to pick up local crafts. Once I made sure all the students were picked up, introduced to other students, given a good orientation of Trivandrum and introduced to their hospital placement, it was time for me to nip across the Laccadive Sea to Sri Lanka, where the pilot programme launched at the end of June.

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Pirannal Aasamsakal! – 3 students celebrate birthdays in India

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

On Wednesday, the 21st of April 2010, we had the weekly barbecue day and a special celebration for the birthday of Ray, Helen and Martin!

Vinod prepared barbecued chicken, fish, potato stew, parotta, samosa, gopi manjoorian, sandwiched bread, fried rice, juice, soft drinks and fruits with ice cream. We won’t provide alcohol during BBQ but students brought it themselves – it was a party after all!

To celebrate the birthdays, WTW bought three high quality cakes from the very famous bakery in Trivandrum “The Ambrosia” with the name of the students written on it. We started off the celebration by lighting the candle on the cakes and sang the birthday song. All three of them stood in front of their own cake and then lit off the candle and cut the cake. Then, we started the food and the tasted the delicious food prepared by our master chef Vinod. It was awesome as usual!

Finally, we tasted the cake and all the students really appreciated its quality. The music was on and a good breeze was blowing – altogether, it was a really good ambience for the celebration and the students took lots of photos!

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Indu gets married!

Friday, April 16th, 2010
Indus wedding 7 150x150 Indu gets married!

Indu and her new husband

Yesterday, the 15th of April 2010 was  a memorable day for our students who got a rare chance to attend and witness the wedding ceremony of the Hindu religion in India. Ms.Indu, one of our former staff got married today in the presence of a huge crowd comprising of her relatives, friends and neighbors’. All the team members of WTW-India and the ten students attended the wedding.

All the female students were wearing sarees with the help of Ms.Revathy, our housekeeper. We were received by Indu’s mother and Uncle at the marriage hall and were seated very close to the “Kadirmandapam”, a small decorated stage where the wedding take place. All the local people were very surprised to see ten foreigners attending a wedding in a village and on the other hand, our students were very excited to see the wedding with all their cameras focused on the stage. Indu was dressed in a traditional bride’s costume ie., silk sari, jewels, decorated hands with mehandi and a bunch of Jasmine flower on her hair.

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My tour of Asia – I’ve been everywhere!

Friday, April 16th, 2010
DSC03227 150x150 My tour of Asia Ive been everywhere!

Ali tours Asia!

Having been a full time backpacker before joining Work the World, I still can’t help but get excited when I land into a new airport in a new part of the world. I flew into Sri Lanka for the first time to set up our brand new destination in Asia – as soon as I left Colombo Airport, the smells, the sights, the adrenaline rush of being alone and looking after myself hit me. Our base is in Kandy, a gorgeous world heritage site nestled up in the hill country. The journey took 3 hours, which felt like an eternity after a long haul flight but once I reached Kandy and was met by our Programme Manager Kavinda, I felt right at home. Kavinda is new to Work the World but possesses all the qualities to be a good Programme Manager – he is not only organised and has a thorough understanding of what UK medical students desires from an elective placement, but also loves music, dancing, cooking and promises to take our girls sari shopping!

There are two large hospitals in Kandy and we visited both to check out the scope for the new Work the World programme. We were welcomed by the main Dr who showed us around the 2,200 bedded Kandy General Hospital, which will be our main partner for the pilot programme launching in June. Despite its size, the hospital was still crowded and we witnessed many floor patients and long queues for the outpatients.

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Thousands of women gather in Trivandrum to celebrate Attukal Pongala.

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
PONGALA1 150x150 Thousands of women gather in Trivandrum to celebrate Attukal Pongala.

Offering pongala

Work the World students in India have been involved in another another world famous festival – Attukal Pongala.  Lasting 10 days, the festival sees hundreds of women devotees from across India bring offerings to the Goddess and to seek blessings at the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple in Trivandrum. The focal point takes place on 9th day of the festival when the women offer Pongala (rice porridge) in earthenware pots. The rush of women is so intense that the Pongala spreads outside the temple premises and into the public roads. Trivandrum is turned into one big holy ground stretching as far as 5km from the temple, which has twice won the city the accolade of a Guinness World Record for largest gathering of women in the world.

During the ten-day festival there are other ceremonial rituals taking place. Kappukettu begins them, during which the story of Goddess Kannagi is recited. The  musical recitation ends with the part of the Goddess annihilating the Pandya King and signifies victory of good over evil, light over darkness and justice over injustice. Immediately after the end of the recitation,  the rituals for Attukal Pongala begin with the making of a fire in the temple hearth, known as Pandara Aduppu. The fire will then be passed to the women ready to offer pongala – the same fire spreading to all the tens of thousands of women.

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Lily’s trip to Goa!

Friday, June 26th, 2009

After four weeks of my placement I decided to take a week off and travel to Goa. At the end of a 20 hour train journey I arrived in the most developed southern beach, Palolem.

As it was low season, Goa was very quiet, most of the bamboo shacks that line the beaches had been knocked down. However, the beaches are still beautiful, clean stretches of sand where I swam and soaked up the sun. This was definitely the vibe of Goa and a big comparison to the hustle of Trivandrum. In Goa everything steps down a gear.

All the locals were extremely friendly throughout the state, always willing to help, give advice or just stop for a chat! After Palolem I moved on to Panaji, the capital of Goa where the Portuguese influence is most obvious, surrounded by brightly coloured buildings and brilliant white churches. I felt like I was in the Mediterranean.

From Panaji, I continued north on the local buses to Anjuna, hoping to visit the famous Wednesday flea market. Unfortunately due to the rain and season it wasn’t on, so instead I kicked back on the beach again and in the evenings sat in the bars with a glass of cashew fenny and some western style food.

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Barbecue night at the India house!

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

We have Barbeque every week at the WTW house in its very welcoming and spacious roof top where we get cool breeze flowing throughout. In this open place, students come together and meet each other from both the houses. It’s time toimgp0706 167x127 custom Barbecue night at the India house! refresh our mind by saying ‘Hai’ to everybody! Our excellent cook Mr.Vinod makes this day as one of the grand days by providing delicious food and all required drinks for the students. This cool evening is an opportunity to taste the different ethnic foods of Kerala and variety dishes like barbequed chicken, Potato salad, Karimeen Pollichuthe (Barbequed Fish cooked in real Kerala style), Fish finger, fish cutlet etc.

So, this is absolutely a day to celebrate and to make the atmosphere very healthy by interacting all the persons including the WTW staff and some of the students favourite supervisors. Students share their hospital experiences with each other and get valuable information about the healthcare system in different hospitals of Kerala. They soon come to know the exact picture of the medical treatment and hospitals. Students also share their travel experience and they can discuss the many beautiful tourist spots.

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