A Christmas Far From Home

So on the run up to Christmas we were all preparing ourselves for the homesickness that was bound to come when the big day arrived and our families were still half-way around the world. Christmas has always been such a family orientated time for me and spending it away was, truth be told, very difficult.

This, however, was eased by the face that we got to dress up in a slightly different way. We went down to a small shopping mall with Anu, our supervisor, and each picked out the most beautiful Saris. Beautifully coloured flowing material, metres long, that we wound round and round ourselves, pleating at the front. Walking down the street on Christmas day all dressed in our Saris and Indian jewellery certainly turned a few heads!

Posing with the Domino's Pizza Delivery man

Thankfully, Josh chose a rather more gentlemanly outfit than a Sari.

 As tradition compelled us to have a Christmas tree for our celebrations, we put our heads together and thought of a creative, low-budget and eco friendly way of doing this. The product was truly magnificent and we were most proud of our success. Then we decided on a 250 rupee limit with which we could buy each other presents. The limit worked both ways though, and it was decided that we could spend not one rupee over, nor under the limit. This led to some interesting gifts of biscuits in wrapping paper.

We also got our Henna done by an Indian woman but after she had finished it we managed to get our hands on some henna and decided to give it a go ourselves. This was the outcome:

Anu invited us up to her house for dinner. We were put in charge of the salad...

Our Christmas present to Anu was a Sari blanket made by women at a business called Connexions that we went to visit a few weeks back. The blankets are made out of 6 layers of Saris and despite all the detailed hard work that is put into them, the women are able to make one in just a few days. Connexions does the same kind of work as Freeset. Giving women in the sex trade the option to get out of a life of selling their bodies.

Christmas didn't  feel like Christmas. But we managed to stay on top by seeing it as a glorified day off and by Skyping all our families. Seeing my family gave me that little seasonal flavour I was missing.