Here are all our posts!! First internet in a week!!! ENJOY!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

We finally arrived in Goa yesterday. I was a bit nervous about how we would be received (or if we'd be received) by the RLSS (I). But they were at the airport just as planned. As we drove to our guest house Purush, the founder of RLSS (I), told us all about his mission and the sorry state of affairs with lifeguarding in India. It seems that India has many lifeguards, particularly in Goa, but these guards are found through private contractors. They hold no certifications, have no training, but are simply good swimmers. Often, when these guards see a swimmer in distress, they only try half heartedly or not at all in fear of their own safety and well being. This is why there are so many drowning deaths on the beaches of Goa. Indians come from all around the country, take buses for days from places like Delhi and become mesmerized by the ocean. That's when they get into trouble.

Purush's organization is the only organization within India that trains and certifies lifeguards. However, they receive no support from the government. For the past ten years, he has been working to standardize lifesaver and lifeguard qualifications throughout the entire country. He has been successful in Mumbai and Pune where most resorts only hire guards with RLSS (I) certifications.

Our guest house is pretty nice. Matt and I are sharing a room. Our shower head is plugged into the wall, for heat I guess. But every time we turn the water on to take a shower we get electrocuted. So until they fix it, we have to shower in sandals. Also, my beard trimmer apparently broke during the plane trip because when I went to trim it up I accidentally shaved it off.

We're all doing well, pretty healthy, and loving the warm Indian air.

-Ben

Friday, January 4, 2008

Yesterday was our first full day in Goa. We took it easy and hungout at the beach with some of the RLSS(I) lifeguards. They helped us tuneup our skills on rescue boards and showed us some other cool open water lifeguarding tricks. Pursh, the director of RLSS(I), went to Panjim (Goa's capital). He went there to visit with the Minister of Tourism to hopefully try and get a lifeguard training center opened in Goa. It is desperately need, because just yesterday Goa had two drownings.

Last night we enjoyed a delicious Goan meal of Pomfret fish, naan, and rice. We ate right on the beach, and watched a beautiful Goan sunset.

Today we had our first full day of teaching the lifeguard class. There are about 12 participants as of right now, but we are expecting more tomorrow. We hopefully we will be able to train close to 40 lifeguards. Our current participants traveled all night on buses from Mumbai, just to take our class. They were somewhat weary today, but they seem very enthusiastic. We have the RLSS(I) lifeguards helping us teach and translating.

-Bree


Monday, January 7, 2008

The past few days we have been teaching and perfecting the lifeguarding skills that we have taught to the 22 students that we received. We have been teaching them everything from CPR and first aid to the how to read the tides of the water to the different ways there are to perform rescues in different situations. As the days went on, we really saw great improvement each day and have become like proud parents. Its really a great reward to see how much that we can help these students and to know that we could potentially save a life if one of the students ever has to use these skills that they learned from us. Everything so far has gone pretty smoothly and are loving every second of it. Our students are so fun and really fast learners, we couldn't have asked for anything better.

On the other hand, we've also been having a nice and relaxing time when not teaching. The beaches are beautiful with not to many people, the water is warm and eating the freshest seafood for dinner at the little beach shack style restaurants is pretty awesome. Also the lady that owns the guest house we're staying at got electricians to fix our shower and they did, but its broken again. I went to turn off the shower in the girls room because lindsey said the nob was shocking her a little bit, and I touched and got electrocuted so bad and my arm twitched and slapped lindsey in the head.(HAHA)

We're having a really good time here and even though the times going by pretty fast, it still seems as if Lindsey and I have been gone for months. See you guys in a week, don't miss us to much.

-Matt

Ohh yeah, the leader(Parush) of RLSS is great and sounds like Yoda from Star Wars with all this positive advice metaphors he keeps using. Not like you wanted to know that though.


Wednesday, January 9, 2008

We finished our lifeguard training program yesterday. We had to put on a final presentation of skills in front of two officials from the Goan Tourism Department as well as several RLSS board members. We arranged the students into three groups. I led a group through a CPR demo, a carriage/drag demo, and a spinal log roll and boarding demo. Bree helped one of the Indian lifeguards, Kunal, with a shallow water rescue tube rescue demo. Matt and Lindsey assisted Tushar, another Indian lifeguard, with a rescue board rescue and beach resuscitation. Afterwards, the students were presented with certificates and although they worked as lifeguards before, with the certificate they have more clout, have more job security, and may be able to get better wages in the future. Not to mention, they won't drown now if they have to save somebody.

Teaching the class overall was a great experience. It was also frustrating at times. The students really aren't good swimmers. We (the Americans) wanted to work on swimming skills with them but the Indian instructors felt that it wasn't a good use of our time. They didn't think you could make much progress on stroke in only 5 days. I don't know if that's true, but we decided to focus mostly on skills. Our amount of involvement was also frustrating occasionally. Matt and I taught and led lots of exercises. However, the girls struggled to be included. This is because in Indian culture, there isn't too much male/female workplace interaction. Our Indian instructors didn't know how to talk to them and how to use them. Matt and I discussed this with them on a few occasions and by the end the girls were feeling as though they helped out quite a bit (I think they were the students' favorite instructors). These frustrations are inevitable I think when you work in cross-cultural environments. One of the goals of this trip was to experience that environment and be productive in it and we definitely accomplished that.

We had a giant party last night to celebrate the end of the course and our time with RLSS. Purush's wife cooked a huge meal and invited our guest house family, neighbors, RLSS board members, and of course the instructors to a huge barbecue. Matt and I barbecued the chicken tandoori. But there was also rice, chicken biryani, Goan fish, naan, veggies, paneer, and drinks. It was a nice way to end things.

The RLSS crew will leave tomorrow. Today we are going with the other instructors to Panjim, Goa's capital. We'll do some shopping (they'll help us bargain) and sight see around there. After today, we still have a few more days before going back to Mumbai and home. We've been invited to a nearby resident's house one day. We also plan on checking up on some of our recruits at Palolem beach in the south.

We've been going hard 18 hours a day. This change of pace will be nice and hopefully we can stay in touch a little better.

-Ben

Ben and Bree's Plane Adventure

Big Ben and Big Bree

New Year's along the Thames River

Together at last on Chowpatty Beach

Matt and Lindsey's Highlights

On the elephant in Chitwan National Park

Kayaking on Phewa Tal Lake in Pokhara

Taj Mahal

On top of Swayanbutnath Stupa(Monkey Temple) in Kathmandu

We spied an Indaian Rhino while on top the elephant. One of two places in the world to see them.

Chitwan public transpotation(very fast).

Viva India

After 30 hours of travel (and a short visit to London on New Year's Eve) We made it to Mumbai in one piece (with the exception of Bree's voice). Matt and Lindsey were at the airport waiting for us. They looked almost as haggered as us having spent a horrible day in Delhi. They had managed to get to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and loved it. Then they celebrated New Year's with a feast from McDonalds. Delhi itself was less than welcoming especially when someone at the airport stole Matt's ticket.

Now here in Mumbai, things are a little more laid back than in Delhi. Yesterday, the four of us walked the streets and saw the India Gate, the spot where the British first landed. We also went to Chowpatty beach and bought food off the street. We're not sick yet so I guess it was okay. Today we leave for Goa to meet with a representative from the Rashtriya Life Saving Society. After that we will begin teaching. All of us are enjoying the heat, getting used to dealing with beggars, and still getting scammed by taxi drivers. Hopefully, we will have internet access so we can post more often and a computer with a USB port so we can put up some pictures.

Cheers, Ben and Bree

Teek Cha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went on our trek but had to cut it a little short because Matt got sick and almost died but he is much better now. The trek was still pretty awesome seeing the snow covered Annapurna Mountains and meeting all the mountain people in there villages that we stayed at. A medicine man in Ulleri mixed Matt up a concoction of all the trees and herbs and whatever in the forest to help. It didnt help but it was still a cool experience. Our Christmas day was good once we arrived back in Pokhara--nice dinner and awesome gelato. Yesterday we visited the International Mountain Museum to look at some pictures of people with frostbite that had completed Everest. It was neat. We are just hanging out in Pokhara today going to go kayaking on the Phewa Tal lake and getting a special Nepali massage. Tomorrow we will return to Kathmandu and meet with Ben's friend Deepak. Love, Lindsey and Matt
Bree: Are you bringing a straightening iron? You should if you can fit it, my hair is ridiculous.

Namasteeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Hello everyone,
We just got back from 3 days in Chitwan National Park where we got to ride elephants and see monkeys, rhinos, and alligators! Matt was almost eaten by the alligator. We got to visit a little village near the park where there were so many nice Nepalis and cute little kids that followed us. Chitwan was so relaxing and we got a chance to meet a ton of other tourists from around the world who were on their own crazy adventures.
We are now in Pokhara, next to the Phewa Tal lake just relaxing; we are starting our four day trek (part of the Jonsom Trek) tomorrow. After that we are off to Kathmandu for a couple more days before departing for India.
We love it here and are having the time of our lives. We might just decide to not come home.
These computers are unbelievably slow so maybe no pictures yet, we'll see how it goes. We are trying to post one at Swoyambutanth Temple and the other is at Chitwan National Park. Yeah nevermind these computers are stupid.

We made it!

• 40 hour flight--long
• got here yesterday, Kathmandu is fun and people are super nice
• went to monkey temple (Swoyambuth Temple)
• monkey stole snacks
• leprosy (gross)
• everything is amazing and fun, all the food is very tasty
• leaving for Chitwan jungle safari tomorrow
• we will post picture and write a better blog when we arent so so tired!
• miss you all, but not so much that we want to come home!
• you guys should all be jealous
• Love, Matt and Lindsey