Real challenges kicking in...

Hello any one - if any one is still looking at this..
After a bit of a break from blogging we hope to get back to some sort of regular update on these pages.
Well we have settled in now. Apartment organised and school organised, broadband organised andtransport problems largely sorted. We have made connections with a number of locals and met with organizations. Various state and semi state bodies have invited us out to a number of gigs, some of them fairly salubrious. We have gotten to know a number of locals and are acquiring a great social circle, people are very friendly here.

A Hindu and Muslim in Rickshaws



Toraigh and Dara are becoming very well known, many of their classmates are starting to invite them to their homes. Out here you see whole families traveling on 250cc motor bikes through what appears to us to be crazy traffic. Husband driving, wife sitting side saddle and a couple of kids sitting everywhere from the handle bars to the back seat. One parent wants to pick up Toraigh and Dara on her motor bike.. we are not sure who else will be riding pillion?

We traveled to a resort called Puri at the weekend. It is in the next state - Orissa, a state that is even poorer than Bengal and Calcutta. It was great to get out of the smog and noise of Calcutta, I was swimming in the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal, and every day we were basking in the hotel swimming pool. The journey was on an overnight sleeper train, which was an experience! The girls loved it, they were on the top bunks, there were eight people sleeping in our birth, four of whom we did not know. The trains here are about thirty carriages long with every part of them being occupied.

The real challenges are now kicking in.

I am winding up for the production of a sculpture with the assistance of kids from Loreto Sealdah School. I have refocused on the possibilities of using clay as the primary material, with bamboo as a supporting core. I have been trying to make contact with local craftsmen who produce the Durga Pooja models since arriving. I was out yesterday negotiating with one of the craftsmen and his family. The family live in the back of the workshop as most families here do. All I can say is it is an amazing set up and I am looking forward to starting the project on Monday. I will post a few pics after I start. I now seem to have gotten access to material technology and an infrastructure, workshop etc. Nothing here is as easy to organise as it is back home.

The court yard of the school is manic so I will be working in the area where all the Durga model makers work and live - which is a place that I will try to describe at a later date, lets just say that it feels like it has not changes in 1000 years.

We have visited the Nehru children's museum - there is a specific arts rationale to the museum and I have proposed to the director that he might facilitate aspects of the sculpture's production. At some point the sculpture will be located there.

I traveled to Kalighat Temple (Thought to be the source of the name Calcutta or Kolkata because the toe of the God Kali was cut off and landed there), the first journey had to be abandoned because of crowds and so called priests who view white people as sources of income. Some times this place can be a bit over bearing, as certain groups here, especially in areas where innocent tourists frequent, have come to view white people as soft touches for real money. The guide who was with me refused to hand me over to the 'care' of the priests, after being bribed he was threatened with physical violence the next time he returns to the shrine. Generally religion here and our European views of its inherent wisdom is just not as clearly cut as it appears while sitting in the comfort of a pub in Belfast or over a cup of tea in Conway Mill.