Ganesh Chaturthi

Festival season is upon us and my favourite festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, will be soon. Today I went to pottery town with two friends, to have a look at all the Ganesha statues that are made there. These statues are made out of clay and are painted, blinged up and dressed for the occasion and then thrown into water (a lake or the sea) at the end of the festival, to turn into clay again.

Fresh, new Ganeshas. The one on the top left hand corner was the first one as saw that looks like a real elephant. Wonder why it's an African elephant and not an Indian...

Paint, glitter and gems. The brighter the better!

We were followed around by a photographer of the Bangalore Times, so keep an eye out for Tuesday's newspaper!

Some of the more 'over the top' statues.

An explosion of colours

Also important, for any festival: diya's. You fill them with oil/ghee and put a wick in it to light. The potter put a big lump of clay on the wheel and made it into the shape you see on the second picture. With a little instrument he made a nice edge on the diya and then cut it off.

Hard work combined with some black and white Bollywood romance.

                                                          Ready to be sold and worshipped.

My boys are lucky!

Many children in developed countries will hear their parents say they are lucky. Lucky because they are not hungry, like the children in Africa. Lucky because there is no child labour like in India.

I have told my boys the same on many occasions and because we have lived in Africa and now in India, they have seen that it is true. My boys know how well off they are compared to many children their age in Africa or India.

Today I saw children working in our own street. The roads of Vista are being resurfaced and there were a few children/teenagers working. The boy in the photo had to keep the rollers of the machine wet, so he walked around it with a bucket of water. He did this while the machine was moving!

I took a picture and then walked away, because I couldn't watch it. What could I have done? It feels so wrong to see a child work, hard manual labour, on stinking hot, freshly laid asphalt. It is wrong on so many levels and it was happening literally on my doorstep....but I did nothing but give him a packed of cookies when he had a break....nothing!

When I took this photograph, the machine was going backwards and the driver never checked where the boy was, he just kept going at quite some speed! With the noise and the position he is in, he would never have noticed if the boy slipped and fell...and still I did nothing at all but feel sorry for the boy.

Weekend!

Friday night, our Domino's Pizza's have just been delivered, so the weekend has officially started!

We are all ready for the weekend. Adriaan has had another busy week at work, he can't even remember the holidays anymore I am sure and the boys are exhausted after their first 2 (!) days back in school.

Nine weeks of school holidays, of which eight were spent in NL, lull you into believing that life is good and easy and relaxed...but then reality comes knocking at your door and it knocks hard.

Adriaan has to get used to sharing the house again (and living by my rules as a family) after being on his own for almost 3 weeks.

The boys have had to adjust the most. Getting up early, long bus rides, teachers that try to put the fear of God in them to make sure they take the two upcoming IGCSE (Ruben)/ IB (Joshua) years seriously and worst of all: homework.

For me it's not that difficult to settle back in. Sure, when the alarm clock goes off at 5:45 AM, I am not the happiest person on the planet, but once I am up, have breakfast and lunch + snacks organised for the boys and have waved them off at the bus stop, my day as a lady of leisure can begin.

The last two days have been fun filled with a visit to the ladies at ANU in the slum, followed by lunch with a friend on Thursday and an informative morning at an Ayurveda Wellness Centre (I have learnt that it's not my cup of tea), lunch and a visit to the hairdresser today with another friend.

I have had two nice days with a lot of 'me-time', so I am ready to spend the weekend with my 4 men.

Have a lovely weekend and I hope you can spend it with your loved ones too!

Home again

The school holidays are almost over and I can't believe those 9 weeks have flown by so fast. We have arrived back home in Bangalore last Friday. Sad to leave our family and friends in the Netherlands again, but happy to be reunited with Adriaan and our friends here.

The holidays were fun filled and busy. We have had lots of visitors, made nice (day)trips and had beautiful weather to enjoy.

To top it all off, Joshua got the good news that he passed his IGCSE's with great marks and a merit.

Today is the last lazy day for us all, tomorrow we will (try to) get back into a routine, so the adjustment to getting up early for school on Thursday won't be as difficult.

Amsterdam

Today we went to Amsterdam to meet Joshua's IB Dutch tutor and as we were in town we decided to make a day of it.

                                                Bicycle Flat outside the Central Station


We had planned to visit Anne Frank's house, but the line was too long and we didn't feel like waiting for more than 2 hours.

The next stop on our list was Madam Tussaud's. The line was a lot shorter so we did make it inside and were welcomed by Barack Obama.

                                                              Rubbing shoulders with Barack ;-)

I had been at Tussaud's ages ago and didn't really like it then, but it has changed so much since then and the best thing is that you are allowed to get up close and personal with the rich and famous now.

                                                         We met Anne Frank after all....

                                                 Ruben and our former queen, Beatrix

               While the boys had fun with Jennifer Lopez, I had a coffee and a chat with George

                                                        Joshua is taller than Bond, James Bond

                                    Please phone home when you've dropped ET off Simon!

                                                                              Smart cookies

Next stop: science museum Nemo (we found it). The boys had lots of fun with all the hands on experiments.

Enjoying Holland

                                                               Cycling with Mum & Dad

Escher

Today the boys and I went to the Escher museum in The Hague. I have been impressed by Escher's drawings for as long as I can remember, because my parents had a poster of 'Night and day' above their bed. The boys had fun to try and find all the impossibilities in Escher's drawings and were as impressed as I am.

After our visit to the museum we looked at the art on the Lange Voorhout and walked through the Binnenhof, where the government resides.

            The boys in front of 'Night and Day' and having fun at the interactive part of the exposition

For more info:
www.escherinhetpaleis.nl