Taxi drivers, groping men... and chocolate cake

I cannot believe its the 13th already. This year is flying by! James and i realised the other day we have only 12 weeks left..nooo!

Work has really stepped up a gear and is very challenging. We are now spending most of our time at Arunima Hospice. We are working on patients case studies. The hospice want to know what the patients think of the place and what can be done to improve it. It's going really well. The patients are really opening up. They all recognise us now and take time to come and have a conversation each day. Whether it's broken English (difficult) broken Bengali (very difficult) or just smiles and hand gestures! Either way it's really nice.

We are also setting up a training programme on HIV in the local English speaking schools. This is great as it means we can build on what we did in Uganda. Then aside from that, James is still helping the government with their research and excel stuff ( i don't really know a great deal about that) and I'm still helping at the injecting drug users project and school. Although as i thought not a lot has happened with the bead making work. It's a real shame but i keep trying to push it but no one really takes too much of an interest.

Kolkata... i still have a love hate relationship with this place. We can have a great day then something will happen that just drives us mad. We jumped in a taxi the other day and instead of taking us 5 mins down the road like we asked.. we ended up over the other side of the city. It is so annoying as everyone seems to want to rip us off.. or run us over.. or something!


I'm still finding it difficult to put up with the pervy groping men. It's horrendous and i don't know how the women put up with it. I have taken to making a bit of a scene when the men get too friendly. This works a treat as it shames them and they scuttle off like the grubby pervs they are! I will add here though - not all the men are like this. Just a select (quite large select) few.

However... The thing i have found with Kolkata is that it's a city that has no barriers. It accepts everyone, this is why there are such extremes. It's a real insight into humanity and is good to be part of it for a while. I am slowly beginning to realise how lucky we are to be spending some time here and experiencing it (even with the crazy taxi drivers and groping men!). I have never been to a place that accepts everyone and i can't imagine there are many more places in the world like this!

It's some volunteers' birthdays today so were off to eat chocolate cake.. mmmmmm

lots of love Amy xxx