SIKKIM

Pelenganze monastery in sikkim rooms full of the most detailed paintings of buddhas , padmasambhava and bodvisattavas , with a school for budding monks behind .prayer flags everywhere on this mountain .

'in the drowsy dark eaves of the mind , dreams build their nest wth bits of things dropped from days caravan' Tagore .



Wild river with little rickete bridges for the road makers .

wild water of the himalayas.So powerful and so cold

If you in the Family business in sikkim it means breaking stones all day eating paan

and getting paid by goverment to make or rebuild roads .I wonder if the making of the road actually makes more landslides than it does to rebuild them ?

Beautiful sikkim

Saw many women carrying wood, babies and goat food in these baskets . .

In pokaredada we stayed with latas family a girl we met on the way to Tashiding , she brought us to her home and this is her mother an old face that tells so many stories . we made butter and ate preserved mustard plant soup a delicacy .

Me in Pelling with Mt Kangchenjunga.

Spent the day

combing out my nits on the balcony flirting with the nepali workman in the building opposite , I think he may have thought combng hair on the balcony all day long very appealing or maybe just really funny ,mmm they just keep coming back the ancestry continues , nits survive even in high altitudes.

Beautiful himalayan sikkim

At Kheloperi lake a sacred lake for hindus and buddhists in beautiful sikkim that me and Lou trekked for 6 days .

I met this man on a bridge he had a cow and was taking pictures of the amazing himalayan water so powerful and so ancient and this man wanted a foto . He laughed so much when he saw his face on my dig screen ,pure happiness filled me , i dont think he had seen his face in a while .

ccd mornings and suman

beautiful suman who got really attacked by those scabies mite . interesting facts -they dig into your skin then come out in a different place making tunnels in your skin .scabies can live 4 days out of the skin they itch ,make open wounds and love little and many boys .

CCD scabies week

So two weeks in to living in the concrete maze of an orphanage loulou and soph soul sisters realised ccd was not what we had first seemed well was getting more so that way , money funneled from our organization was not reaching the basic need for the boys , halted somewhere between director and carers of boys. they all had forms of scabies , all had worms , and protein that was promised did not arrive in their plates. So we went mother theresa a bit and then burnt out and then fell into blaming all those things and then empowerment but we achieved many things . We got the health minister of west bengal ,lou and i went on a mis with two boys who had infected penises to the hospital found that india does have a basic yet free medicare system, and got chaperoned around the place by the painter of the hospital a highly distinguished fellow with crazy wolverine hair coming out his ears . Anyway the minister loved cricket and Australia was doing well and he arrange a health team to come to ccd.
doctor and nine nurses came like the wind and checked all the boys out . We organized 6 pairs of glasses , a hearing aid , scabies week was real intense , medication and denistry for so many boys . so many stories. So much learning on how to empower boys and the carers what works and what did not.

beginnings to explain feelings of women in india

The train in India are truly insane and an adventure in itself . Everyone pushes even if there is there is not a crowd they are just sio use to it . I lost my thong getting tripped up by loulou always running to get the ladies carriage which is always more a pleasant trip. So a different world especially for a women where appearances makes you everything or nothing , class , caste there seems to be a box for all . I have felt outraged , helpless , powerful and totally submissive all at once. And the realisation that still half the women of the world live to be confined to the home , to work double as hard as their husband and that so much domestic violence and abuse happens especially in west bengal.I mean I knew this but I guess really being in the mist of it and feeling it directed at me becomes another understanding

Met this amazing woman a poet , writer and feminist who came to a picnic loulou and nev organized for the ladies of ISW an organization to help empower women to set up initatives and educate children of women in prostitution . We ate cake , momos and samosas in the park while she read many of her poems about female infantcide and marriage traditions etc , intermissioning to pour goa wine into paper cups , telling us if court out to say it was coke.

Another thing about women I met at CCD and in calcutta , is that they will force feed you until you can nolonger eat another thing , if you refuse it seems to be such a big offence .Another thing I thought was how truly cultured and intellectual and heart felt to read poems in parks and share songs to eachother .

DREAMSPHERES !

Dreamspheres

DREAMSPHERES !

Some pics of the project I was working on back in melbourne just before I left to India .

As part of the Sustainable living festival at Birranung marr .The creative fusion of many artists , musicians , dancers and environmentally involved community groups. .We spent so many months making these domes and the festival was really successful ,learnt so much and cherish all the friendships I made during this project .

Reminscing in Darljeeling with tears in my eyes I really got to get a hold of myself !What can I say but that it was really amazing.

CCD

CCD time

CCD time

Art workshops at ccd ! Well I came to share my skills with the folk at ccd and we achieved many things including finishing this mosaic at front of the school .Everyone on the street was involved or was at least immensely involved in watching of the art events .Many animals painted at the school to help with learning countries, numbers etc .The boys coloured in and I touched up . Amazed how rote learning dulls the creative spirit or more creates fear to make mistakes . So the art workshops were really useful and fun events ,icecreams, screaming girls , fighting dogs ,cricket , painting , learning colour names , mossies eating white girls .

THailand Feb07

HOLI

HOLI FESTIVAL Feb.

Happy Holi ! Krishna had hundreds and thousands of girlfriends and well theyre was lots of bitch fighting going on so he thought lets have a celebration of colour where all the women can cover eachother in lots of colour and water . This was a great idea and soon orgydom and ectasy was back on.
Holi at muktaneer involved heaps of colour and an absolute decking for the Soph lou and me!
Festival is celebrated in most parts of west bengal anyway oh except for Shantiniketan on sunday .
We took a train all the way poet tagores famous town /university to discover no party just the remains of what looked like a great time.

HOLI Festival!

HOLI FESTIVAL

thailands erwatan waterfalls

FEb 07'
place a twig underneath a boulder carefully so that it connects earth and stone to make a wish.
Kt, Anna and i went swimming is these beautiful limestone waterfalls in this national park . THere were 7 of them . Scattered throughout the forest were shrines of colourful clothes , thongs and dead fones as gifts to spirits that lived within the trees known for granting prosperity and wealth.