Cross Country and R.E Retreat. September 15th

Hey Hey,

Last Tuesday we had the school cross country, the course was 6km long around the top of the ridge above school. I ran with other grade 11s and 12s and somehow managed to come 11th place out of about 40 students. I was extremely happy with that due to the fact that everyone in the top ten does some sort of running outside of school and also I was over 2.5km higher up in altitude then back in Australia. The whole time I was running with Cory and without him I probably would have come a lot worse then I did. He kept on pushing me to go further and further and we didn't walk a single meter of the 6km's. When we got to the final stretch I absolutely gunned it as fast as I could and managed to just edge out Cory, I feel a bit bad for that because we had ran together for the whole time, but we're in the same house so it didn't matter point wise. That run was probably one of the hardest physical challenge's I've done in a very long time and I'm still feeling it in my legs (The walk up to school the next day was horrendous) 

On Friday night and Saturday I went on an R.E retreat that the school ran. The retreat was at a place called Torchbearer's, down in Dehradun, about an hours drive away. The main purpose of the retreat was for primarily christian students to escape all the busyness that Woodstock life brings. So Isaac, me and another friend called Emmett left straight after school on friday and got down there in time for dinner and a beautiful sunset.

Isaac

Silhouette of Emmet 

So damn beautiful

The structure of the 2 days were 4 sessions which included worship (Mighty to Save, My Redeemer Lives and all those other classics) and a 20 min devotion. The theme for the sessions was 'Blessed' and mainly resolved the 'Beatitudes'. One session that really stood out to me was one where we (Humans) are told to be salt to the world, because salt is a great disinfectant and also gives flavour to food, we talked about how we can relate those principals in our lives and we learned that we need to be salt to add flavour to God's creation, to help others, like salt helps to heal our wounds. Overall it was a great weekend and a lot of relaxation and fun occurred.  When we were leaving we got this beautiful sight of the sun shining behind the clouds.

I also went on a short hike on Sunday to Bear Hill, it was about 3 hours and we got some food from a place at the end of it. I haven't got the photos of my camera yet but ill edit this blog when I get them. 

Stay well,

Lachy Wild

School and Stuff, September 8th

Hey guys, hope you're having a great day,

So I've been in this great land for 45 days, it's been long and short,  and I've loved every minute of it (Well, most minutes).  I still have 109 days till I'm back in Aus, I'm nearly 1/3 of my way through my time here and that does make me feel pretty sad. I had a countdown back home until I left for India and those last 100 days felt incredibly quick, so i'm a bit worried everything here is just going to fly by and before I know it, i'm back in Australia.

I'm happy with how I have settled in here, I have made some good friends, my grades aren't horrendous and I don't yell in agony every morning about the day ahead. One of the best things over here is the increase in independence, you are more capable of shaping how your life is. You can sit in your room on your computer all day long or you can get out and take in all this school and place has to offer. I prefer to get out of the dorms as often as possible and extend myself because I reckon the only way to really improve yourself is to step out of what your comfortable with and 'Step into the unknown'. This is obviously a lot easier said then done and sometimes I must admit i've been scared off by something but I believe everyday I'm getting better at it. One thing I've done to get out of my comfort zone is the D.O.S.T group which works in Dunda village. I went again to the Dunda village last Saturday, the school had organised a scientist to talk to the villager's about efficient farming and to tell them to avoid using these seeds called hybrid seeds. These hybrid seeds contain lot's of chemicals that means a high chance of a successful harvest but it ruins the land so after the first crop using hybrid seeds, the farmer's cant plant natural seeds for about 3 more years. I went along with one other student and group of teacher's plus the scientist and we held 2 meetings for the people in the Dunda Village and surrounding areas. The meetings were all in Hindi so I had no idea what they were saying at the time so I just sat on the floor for 2 hours, half asleep trying to pickup the small fragments of Hindi I understood. Still it was a great opportunity to see how a large proportion of the world live. 


During lunches and after school on Monday and Thursday I've been doing some indoor rock climbing in the room they have in the gymnasium. My friend Cory is a big climber so he's been teaching and mentoring me on my climbing technique and showing me some cool routes. Here's a little video showing off what I've done so far. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K7B0EZV5Ik&list=UUzHuJWZbjCbmEnBZ1VpVwqQ

Hindi is going pretty well, were going through the topics incredibly fast so sometimes it is hard to keep up with everything but I'm really enjoying it. I've learnt how to have a basic conversation with someone, like: what is your name, how are you, where do you live, what do you like, do you know such and such. Drawing and Painting is also coming along pretty well, it's a pretty laid back class and we meet only twice a week. Here's a picture of the first assessment we have done. I know it's not that good but i'm pretty happy with it knowing that i'm not any sort of artist.

There is school cross country tomorrow so we have a shorter day and we run 3km's. No one is going to take it seriously so I'm looking forward to just mucking around with my mates. There is a house system at this school but it is only used for whole school days like cross country, very different to back home.

Now that i'm on the topic of back home, a few people have asked me to say the main differences between here and Aus. Obviously you got your easy differences, such as language and culture, I'm not going to dive to far into that because western movies and stuff have provided a pretty good image of how it is, and to summarise my dad "India feels as it is: multiple religions, cultures, vehicles, laws all blended into one surging pool of nonstop humanity." A personal difference I have felt is that this place give's a lot more opportunity to achieve greatness, I don't really know how to explain it, I look around and see so much more potential and most importantly, true happiness. It's a sort of happiness I've never seen or experienced before, a happiness that doesn't come from money, good job and smartness but an overall peace as hard as rock. This happiness is beautiful inside and out and comes from a place deep within, I only wish I had the words to describe it better.

Well my computer's on 2% battery so ill stop rambling on now. I hope you have a great week and ill see you all in my next post.

Stay well,
Lachy Wild

Journey's and Experiences, September 1st

Hey everyone hope you are enjoying the spring or autumn, where ever you are.

Alot has happened since the last post and the weeks have gone really quick, it's hard to believe i've been over here for more then a month, i'm over 1/5 through my time here.

I don't know if i've written this somewhere else, but I'm involved in a student community service group called D.O.S.T. One of the projects we are doing is supporting a village called "Dunda". You might have seen on the news a couple of years ago, that there were incredibly bad floods in northern India, the event was called a cloud burst, it's basically where a incredible amount of rain appears in a super short period of time. This cloud burst really affected the Dunda village because it lies in the bottom of the valley. The village had really sophisticated irrigation systems that made the land very fertile, but since the cloud burst, there had been landslides that completely destroyed the irrigation system. This ruined all of the crops and made the land really hard to grow on, This severely affected the village's food supply and there source of income. The landslides also ruined parts of the village, most importantly the school. 

The remains of the irrigation system

Half the school building (They still use it)

One of the many landslides

#roadsidesnaps

The view from the village, it's quite beautiful

 So we went to the village on thursday and had a talk to the residence about what they wanted to see in the village and what there priorities are, because there priorities are our priorities. They said they really wanted to have a new school and a community centre for meetings (We were having this meeting on someone's verandah) so we took down that information and were gonna see what we can do for them. 

The D.O.S.T  Team, minus a few other students

On saturday I went on my second hike, this time to Benog Tibba, It was roughly 35km and took us from 8:30am to 5:30pm. It was probably the furthest i've ever walked in a single day, and I really felt it afterwards. The hike started from school and we walked through the Bazar and around the back of the mountain and then up it. It was such a beautiful hike, but it wasn't the best day for it because it was pretty foggy at some moments. Here is a link to a Flickr album with the best photo's from it.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/127409953@N02/sets/72157647104174955/

If you don't have time to see the album, here's a cute puppy we found on the side of the road to cheer you up from your busy day.

He was alive if you were wondering.

On that same Saturday the legendary Hugh Evans was visiting the school, for those who don't know, Hugh attended the same primary school and secondary school as me, as well as going on the Woodstock exchange from Carey, which I am on now. Hugh Evans co founded the Oaktree foundation and is the CEO of the "Global Poverty Project" an organisation that aims to end severe poverty in our life time. Hugh is a big inspiration for me and is one of the main reasons I chose to go on this exchange in the first place. So when I heard he was coming to Woodstock I was really excited to meet him. He was scheduled to have a afternoon tea with students at 3 and my hike was supposed to arrive back at 3, so i went on the hike, thinking i'd meet Hugh after it. But unfortunately the hike went until 5:30. I got to school and frantically looked around for any sign of him but I couldn't find him. I was severely bummed about not meeting him, but I guess things like that you can't really control.

I'd like to end this blog with some words from the bible that have really helped me through my time here, and I hope it can have some sort of significance in your life. This verse for me solidifies the fact that everything happens for a reason, and that God knows what is best for us, contrary to what we think is best for us. "Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known" Jeremiah 33:3

Stay well,
Lachy Wild

Sales and stuff. Tuesday 26th of August

Hey everyone,

I hope you all have a had a great week as I have had a good one too.

Recently I was involved in making the Development and Outreach Student Team (DOST, it means friend in Hindi) for the school. I'm really excited about being a part of the team because we get to run all sorts of community service and really make a difference in this great part of the world.

Our first project was a clothes sale at St Paul's church to raise funds and also supply clothes for an area called Sippancoat which was recently affected by a really bad landslide as well as raise funds  for the DOST budget so we can serve other places of need. So it started last friday where we collected all the donated clothes and took them up to St Paul's church, it is about 15 mins drive from the school. When we got there we had to sort the clothes into shorts, tshirts, sweaters, etc. That was it for friday but it took about 3 hours.

So i arose early Saturday morning and headed for school to catch a bus to St Paul's. We got there at 9 and immediately started setting up tables and unpacking more clothes that were left over by the seniors that graduated last year. By 10 o'clock we had got all the clothes on all the table's, t-shirt's at one table, shoes at another and so on. I was lucky enough to have the shorts table, where we sold shorts for 10 rupee, about 20 cents. I say I was lucky because hardly anyone would buy shorts due to it being Monsoon and the end of summer, so I had a pretty easy day. Most of the time I was just watching for people trying to steal the clothes. It was fun calling out the guards if you saw someone walk away from the table with shorts in there hands without paying.

The view of the line in-between waves of desperate customers.

On friday night we had a surprise visitor to the dorms, it was a cat.

Making itself at home on Cory's bed

It first appeared when Isaac, Cory and I went out on the deck to look at the stars and stuff which we do most nights, we soon found the cat curled up under a concrete seat, it woke up when it heard us and went straight into begging mode. The cat immediately started rubbing itself all over us and being really cuddly. We thought it must be hungry so we got it some food and some water and it just devoured it. We went to our dorm parent, Mr Tim and told him about the cat, he just said to leave it because it was a stray, but of course we just couldnt leave it. Somehow it ended up in Cory's room in his bed where she (Yes we found out now the cat was a girl) fell straight asleep.

Cuddly Cory

Mathai getting some action

We put the cat out for the night, hoping that it would just go home, but suprise-suprise she returned the next morning, just as hungry and cuddly. Mr Tim was pretty annoyed so he 'Disposed' of it during the day, but long behold she returned again sunday morning. It's tuesday now and she's just in the lounge. There are rumours going around that she is infact pregnant and is just waiting to drop her babies here then leave. If that is the case, ill never love a cat again. 

Well thats all for today, I know this is posted late but i've been busy and tired and never had the energy to make a good blog. But i'm setting up a new method where ill have a draft saved of the blog then add stuff to it and upload the whole thing every week. Hopefully that makes it easier, so i don't have to do everything in one sitting.

Stay well,

Lachy Wild

Independence and other stuff. 18th August

Hey all, hope you had a great weekend.

So friday was Indian independence day, it was a great day (because we had no school) There was a flag raising ceremony and Indian performances, we heard some traditional Indian music and saw some cultural dances. It was also Korean independence day so there were some Korean performances by the Korean students, they were enjoyable. 

Yes, I did in fact get dressed in Indian formal wear ;)

After the flag raising ceremony we had a special lunch in the quad. The quad is a big open area that has no shelter from the rain, so due to it being monsoon, where it rains everyday, they set up tarp's to act as shelter from the rain. The only problem was that they didn't predict how heavy the rain was going to be. About halfway through the ceremony we start hearing a little tip tap on the roof of the gymnasium, quickly those tip taps of rain get louder  and louder until it was hard to here the speaker over the atrocious noise from the roof. Luckily there is shelter for the walk from the gymnasium to the quad.

This is what the quad looked like, and you can see the tarps. It was a great atmosphere and the food was great but all that joy soon turned to panic when the tarp's gave way due to the sheer amount of water. 

The walk back to dorms was probably the worst part. My friend Isaac and I decided to try be brave a face the rain and not wait for it to pass. We both huddled under my umbrella and started our journey back to dorms. I do have videos but there is some course language so just tell me if ya wanna see them but I won't post them here. But I do have a photo, there was a lot more rain in person. There was so much water it completely covered my shoes, and they took 2 days in the sun to dry out.

On Saturday we went into town again, my friend Mathai showed us this really good punjab restaurant which apparently had the best butter chicken, it was pretty damn good. Some of the boys needed haircuts, so 2 others and I headed for this little cafe. It was really nice and the best part was that they have wifi. We do have wifi at dorms but it has a stupid filter called "Cyberroam" which pretty much blocks 2/3 of the internet. So at this cafe we were finally free to check the internet without everything being blocked. Oh and the food there was great we got nachos that cost 60rs which is a bit over 1 dollar, and there was a fair amount of nacho's there.

On the walk back to dorms from the town the weather cleared and we got a good view of the dorm level of the school. The building I am in is the one closest to the camera with the pool out the front. 

After dinner we saw it was a good sunset so Cory set up the hammock and a guy called Reuben brought out his ukulele and played some smooth tunes, the mixture of a good sunset, hammock and ukulele was perfect, it seemed like a scene from a movie. 

When the sunset we played card games outside until bedtime, it was a great night.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day like always, I had homework to do which was read the Hindi holy text "Bhagavad Gita" for Indian History then write a summary and commentary on chapter 2. I thought it was going to be boring but it turned out to be really interesting. It talks about how to live a god-dedicated life and how to block out un-healthy desires. I got quite absorbed in it. There was also this optional Sufi music show at the school which i decided to go to. They did this beautiful rendition of "Imagine" by John Lennon.

Well that's all folks for today, i'm going to try get these blog's up at least twice a week. I hope you all have a great week.

Stay well,

Lachy Wild

All settled in! 11th of August

Hey everyone!

So I've finally had my first full week of school and am some what developing a routine. The school days are non stop from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening, so i'm pretty tired majority of the day, but it's fun and I am enjoying all the new experiences I am having.

There are a couple of questions people have been asking me about my time over here, so i thought i might as well answer them in a blog because i'm sure some others would be thinking the same questions.

Q. What's the food like?

A. It varies, alot. We get three meals a day. Breakfast normally consists of toast, tea and another dish that changes every morning (normally egg related) Lunch is pretty much dinner in the middle of the day. There are your standard rice and Dahl, but there's normally some sort of westernish dish, like the other day there was pizza and ice cream. Dinner is same as lunch essentially. Overall the food is pretty good, it's not amazing, but I haven't been food poisoned yet so that's good.

Q. What's been your biggest challenge?

A. I haven't had one 'Big' challenge, it's more just a collection of small challenges. Things like understanding accents, branching out to meet new people and keeping organised are thing I have to face daily, but actually i haven't had too much challenge at all. This school really is so warm and welcoming and i always have people asking how I am going.

Q. What's been the best moment or highlight?

A. I have really enjoyed the friendships I have made so far, i also have enjoy looking at the scenery and thinking how lucky i am to have this experience.

Q. Everyday things I miss most about home?

A. My guitar, my dogs, friends and family. I believe i'm coping pretty well with all the homesickness, there's the occasional moment of sadness when i think of friends and stuff and i know that's natural but to quote Barney Stinson "When i get sad, i stop being sad and be awesome instead... true story"

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me.

I went on a hike last saturday and the sceans were beautiful. it was a begginer hike just around the school area, but still the views were great. It was about 6 hours long

Sorry to fill the whole page, i couldn't find an album option

That's all for today

Stay well,

Lachy Wild

First Week Complete! August 4th

Hey everyone! I hope you're having a great day.

Saturday marked me surviving my first week here, and what a week it has been. It feels a lot more like a month then a week, and the memories and friends i've made here feel strong even though i've only known them for a week. 

Last thursday night we made the hammock again. It was a great sunset and we were probably out there for a solid 2 hours. 

There is some major interest in the hammock these days. Everyone that sees it wants to have a go in it. Cory was thinking about charging 250 rupees for entry.

On friday night there was a 'welcome back' dance for grades 9-12 in the hostel. No one really danced so a couple of friends and i just played table tennis and cards against humanity. It was a fun night and in the morning the whole dorm was a mess.

Saturday was open bazar day, which basically means the students are free to walk into the town of Mussoorie and buy food or go shopping. So of course my mates and i headed of at 12 for the bazar. One of my friends said he kind of knew the way there, so we trusted him and off we went. We walked for a good 30 minutes until my friend whom we had been following muttered out "I have no idea where we are" All of us just looked at each other with the most worried expressions. None of us were from India or knew any hindi, so we were in quite the dilemma. We talked about if we should head back to school or go up these really steep steps that had a chance of taking us where we wanted to go, but we weren't sure if they'd get us even more lost. We stopped everyone and asked "Bazar?" and we either got a "What the hell" expression or just random sounds none of us knew. We finally decided to just Y.O.L.O it and go up the stairs. These stairs went straight through houses and people were drying cloths and everything on them. People gave us weird looks as we casually walked through the middle of their houses. We got held up at one point when we came across a pig just chilling on the footpath. It gave us quite the scare but we got our way around it. At the top of the stairs we crawl through this gap between two shops and enter these really busy streets and the friend we had followed said "oh, i know where we are" It was such a relief to hear those words. The first stop was food. We had heard of a place called "Kalsang" which had really good food and most importantly it was safe. The only problem was that we didn't know where it was. We walked around the busy streets for another 40 minuted until we finally found it. The streets here have no footpath and there are plenty of cars just constantly honking. You had to stay really alert because cars would be within 10 cm of you and one brain fade and your foot is run over. It was nearly 2 oclock and we were absolutely starving so we orded our food at "Kalsang" and it was soooooo good. I had sweet and sour chicken on mixed meat noodles and it was the best! We all walked out of their with full stomachs and happy smiles.

 Isaac (left) Cory (right)

Saturday night there was a huge storm. It was easily the biggest storm i've ever seen and it was so damn cool. As soon as i saw the first flash of lightning i dawned on my raincoat and equiped my camera and went out on the deck for some photo's. I was joined by a kid called Mathai and Cory and together we went into the storm. The video below was by using Mathai's camera because my camera only video records at 15frames per second so it didnt pick up the lightning as well as mathai's.

Youtube Video of storm here

I did take a couple of picture's which I hope you enjoy.

For those interested, the 1st 2nd and 4th photo's were done with putting the camera on macro mode and turning on the flash, i thought it turned out pretty well.

Sunday was a super lazy day. They have the indian equivalent of foxtel in the dorms and one channel was showing all the spiderman movies back to back then redoing it. So I woke up and watched the beginning of spiderman 3 while having breakfast, then went on my computer for a while and then saw the amazing spiderman and spiderman 1 in the lounge while reading my english novel. I then played some pool and mucked around with Isaac, then came back and saw a bit of spiderman 2. After that I had dinner and watched spiderman 3, again, then 'The amazing spiderman', AGAIN! This day will always go down as Spiderman Sunday.

Well the bells about to go for lunch today i've spent my whole study period writing this entry when I should of been reading, but who cares i'm on exchange ;) Quick shoutout to my man Rohan Bunsee coz it's his bday today! 

Stay well,

Lachy Wild