Daragoan

haidiehoi!

here some news from us. The last 2 weeks we lived in Daragoan, a little village in the nort-east of India. It's a beautiful place between Nepal, Sikkim and West-Bengal.
We met Ryan, one of the founders of the project, in Darjeeling and we immediately liked him : driven, enthusiastic and with a knowledge of about everything you have to know when you're living here :) He gave us a little bit more information about the place where we were heading, gave us directions and there we went.

We stay in a very cosy house where the family gave us a seperate room with even a living room! Bright, big and with a stunning view over the valley. We fell with our butt in the butter, like we say in Flemish :)

The frist day Ian came to Rimbik, the last stop for the jeeps and a 2,5h walk from the village, to pick us up. Ian, an American, lives here already 5 years and is a teacher in the little school. The family we stay with is really nice, currently 3 sisters and 1 brother is living there with their parents. And they make so good food!!!! We really feel welcome.

What do we do in a day? We get up at about 6 o'clock ( it sounds early but it's just a lifestyle :)) we do some housework (wash clothes, clean the room, study some Nepali,...). At 9 o'clock we eat and go to school to give some lessons to the children. The little school has 70 kids, 7 classes and only 4 teachers. I never ever thought I would be patient enough to teach but I like it and on saterday, when there is no school, I mis them already.
So at 12 we have a break and drink tea ( they are really addicted here) and then we do some consultations and if there is still time we teach some more untill 3 o'clock. Then we have a little snack, clean the health post and go home. We do some personal stuff ( reading, resting, studying,....) untill 7 o' clock when it's dinner. Chat a little bit and then go to sleep at about nine o'clock. Time flies by if you're busy!

Now we are back in Darjeeling for a couple of days to buy some medicins and collect some school books. Today we were going to fix our "Permit" for Sikkim. We live just at the border with another state, Sikkim, where tourist have to have a permit, it doesn't cost anything and it's only for 15 days. Now we come first to Darjeeling and then to Silliguri ( where we buy medicin) and it takes us minimum 8 long hours. If we go through Sikkim then it only takes 4 hours. But because we need a permit, and you only get it in the city, we can't take the short way. So we put our nicest face on and asked for a 4 month permit. pfff, was that a mistake! A guy from the office shouted that we can't work on a touristvisa and schould use it to be a tourist and that volunteeringwork is not allowed in the borderarea! and blablablabla... When Simon asked him why that was, he answered that that question was not allowed. TSSSssssss, I saw Simon boiling inside but he stayed so polite. I wanted to shout but we were so scared he would cancel our visa, that we shut our mouth and tried to get a visum for 15 days to get this first back of medicins over the stateborder. This is India with all their rules and no-one knows why, always a suprise here!

sjoef, I'm tired, this is for now folks.

Bigg kiss from the both of us