The Return Home (much interrupted) Part 3

IRELAND

The Crossroads of Carnowen

Carnowen 2012

Stone cottages- Carnowen

Carnowen townland is part of the Donaghmore parish and sits at the crossroads to Convoy, Raphoe and Castlefinn. All of which are 4 km away from the huddle of a General Store, Presbyterian church and Manse, the old school and community hall and a cluster of small, rather battered looking, stone cottages that are Carnowen. It was from here that Mum and her family had emigrated in 1925.

When we first visited Carnowen, back in 1998, Joy and I had been introduced to the community when we had been invited to a  “viewing” in the old school hall. We had, initially, thought that we were being taken to a funeral wake but had found ourselves looking over the furniture, kitchen utensils and miscellaneous knick-knacks that were the estate of an elderly woman which had been left to the local church.

This time there was no such community event to attend so we could search out more information on the sprawling family tree that records the inter-relationship of the several families that had settled in the town-land from 1604. Our relations held a huge store of family stories that provided a mosaic of events, marriages and relationships which overlapped one another in time and space of a virtual historical continuum. This overlap was somewhat disconcerting as the realisation that an event being recounted with great animation had happened almost three centuries before and not, as we had assumed, in the immediate past.

Once we had adjusted to the concept of an ever flexible time and location of families by townland we could add more detail to the family story and build up images of the men and women who were part of our shared history. The poem I wrote (with considerable poetic license) in 1998 gives an idea of the stories that we were told about the different branches of the family.

TRACING THE FAMILY
"If we travel on to Convoy, set back among the
trees.
we come to the family church.
The stones here lean against the wind in green
damp field,
a record for those, like you,
returning."
"And here," she said." are John and Margaret. (your
mother's name's from her.)
Rather it's Margaret here.
John's overseas. He died mining.In California.
Lost his leg, then his life.Crushed in a mine collapse.
Gold fever does that to a man.
His name is here.
He wouldn't want Margaret to be lonely.
Her being here and him dry in distant, sun drenched
hills."
"And now -This is your Uncle David.
He's your uncle on your Gran'mother's side.
Would be, let's see, two - three generations out.
A man of letters - a lover of words -And women.
Took Julia, his cousin, to wife. Left her here and
went,
With her sister, to seek his fortune in Dublin.
Julia, that's her grave beside him, died in childbirth
some few months later.
Her sister, that's her grave beside the gate, left five
children
Before she died - of cancer - beside the Liffey."
"And this, you see this grave? That's your cousin, Kate
Albert's daughter's got her name -
She died at 83 waiting for her lover to return.
He lies alone in France.
A skeleton in some deep trench along the Western
Front.
But this is life. We can't all find love."
"Then we drive on down the road to Castlefin
They're all there - waiting.
There's Tom, he died - a heart attack - on his wedding
night.
And, Mary, that's his wife, longing for his embrace.
Died of consumption.
There's poor drowned Keith. Dead at Portrush - on
holiday.
A misfortunate family - all here together.
This fallen angel is your Aunty Norma..Or she
would've been if she'd lived.
She died within the month.
We only now have found her grave Lost - Beneath the
briar.
Over here - your Gran'parents. George and Tilly sleep
closer now 
Than they later did in marriage.
Your mother's ashes are here as well -
Her sisters' wait on mantles keep their husbands
company still -
We forgive the mason's RIP
This is, then, your family.
Here in the land
Waiting.
However, when it came to adding specific details to my grandfather and grandmother’s families the paucity of available records and memories left me with hints of answers to family questions about inherited family names but no direct connections to explain or account for their retention. So how and why my Aunts had the middle names of Morrison and Taylor or my Grandfather was J.G.Orr Bates  remain as mysteries to unravel once I can access Births, Deaths And Marriage records.

We pilgrimaged to the remains of different family homesteads scattered between the town-lands that made up the parish and discovered the remains of door steps and porches burred under grass and weeds, the remains of large family homes gradually crumbling into the paddocks and, occasionally, a house that had withstood the tides of emigration and was still occupied. However, all of the sites remained living and populated in the memories  and stories of our hosts. (A feature we, at home in New Zealand, would do when the NZ families gathered for a reunion in January 2013.)

Breaghy 1905

On the other hand, the town land of Corravady where my Grandmother had lived in 1901 was no more than a name recorded on the ordinance map in the middle of a forest.

We were taken to Portrush where we were shown the boarding house once owned by the almost legendary (at least to those of us bought up on family stories in NZ) Aunt Ena. The boarding house had been, according to Mum, been a popular visiting place for the family prior to their departure for New Zealand in 1925.

While to us 1925 was a century ago to some, in Carnowen, it was no more than the recent past for some of the locals for when we been to the “viewing” both Joy and I had become aware tat we were being followed around the hall by a woman who appeared to have focussed her attention on me. We, on being introduced, discovered why as she confidently declared: “You’re Stella’s boy” and that I was “obviously a Thompson” and that she had farewelled my Grandparents and Mum, who was, at that time, 5 years old, when the family had left Carnowen.

Later, we were to meet more family members and, from their photograph albums, add images to the family tree - a genuine putting of names to faces as the earlier post on the Bates Family reunion shows.

Family Reunion- The Bates Family from Carnowen, Ireland

The Bates Family of Carnowen
Family Reunion in New Zealand
January 18-19 2013.

The Bates family has a long connection with Donaghmore Parish in the Raphoe Diocese. There are references to the family in the 1795 Flaxgrowers List, the 1857 Griffith Valuations and in lists of wills held in Raphoe, Co. Donegal. The family were also pew holders at the Presbyterian church in Donaghmore.
Breaghy, The Bates Family Home.

The family held land in Breaghy in the Donaghamore Parish as John Bates, the ancestor of the New Zealand Bates, is listed in holding lands (2a-3B) in the registers between 1885 and 1909.

The Bates Family. George is at the middle rear

In 1926 John George Orr Bates (b 1892), the son of John Bates, decided to take his family to New Zealand as the land he was farming was to be inherited by his elder brother, David.(b 1890). John G.O. Bates thus joined the diaspora that had already taken two of his brothers away from Donegal and overseas. His younger brother William James (b1895) had already emigrated to Manitoba in 1912 and his other brother, Albert (b1898) had settled in Jamaica in 1918.

J.G.O Bates family of his wife, Matilda (nee Thompson of Carravady) and his three children; Margaret (Stella) (b1919), Gertrude (Wendy) (b1921) and Desmond (b1923) left for New Zealand on the Corinthic in February 1926 and arrived in Wellington (NZ) in late March- early April of that year.

On Board The Corinthic. The children at play

The family initially settled at Matarawa, a small farming community near Fordell, about 25 km from Wanganui. John apparently worked for a local farmer until the chance to buy his own small holding in Putiki, Wanganui came up. In 1928 the family moved on to the farm, which they named Carnowen, and into a large farm house, originally built by the local Maori for the Churton family, a Pakeha-Maori family closely connected with the Putiki iwi.

John, worked at the local fertiliser factory as well as working his farm for many years until, with his son, Des, the farm had become an established milk supplier and noted pedigree Friesian herd.

The family also grew with the births of Audrey (1927), Georgena (b/d 1930) and Isobel (b 1938).

The Bates Family circa 1943

Isobel lays a wreath in memory of the Bates family

In January 2013 a family reunion was held in Wanganui to celebrate the lives of John G.O. Bates, and his wife Matilda and their family as their only surviving daughter, Isobel, was on holiday in New Zealand from her home in Canada. The reunion was also a chance for all the family members to visit thePresbyterian cemetery at Matarawa and to lay a wreath at the family grave site.

The reunion brought together 60 members of the familes of Margaret (Stella), who married Frank Henry Papprill, Gertrude (Wendy) ,who married Hugh Knowles, Desmond, who married Nancy Beattie, Audrey, who married Noni Gestro, and Isobel, who married Robin Patchett. As well, members of Albert’s families, from Australia and Canada, also joined the celebration taking the opportunity to share family memories and family ties.

The reunion has allowed the family tree to be updated with recent births, deaths and marriages recorded and an archive of family photographs and records begun.
The Bates family has close ties to the Elliott, Fulton, Colhoun, Cooper, Roulston and Thompson families of Donaghmore which have been kept up through correspondence and visits over the years.

 

INDIA

India was a total unknown for us as the information on getting around was usually pitched at rough travel and emphasised the strenuousness and grot of travel on the subcontinent. Tales of Delhi belly, disease and explosive gut were almost regarded as de rigour by anyone we asked. Other people merely asked, "Why go to India? You wouldn't catch me going anywhere near India!"

Once booked, paid for and airborne we had no time to concern ourselves with other people's worries. The first leg Air NZ to Singapore was smooth and without a hitch. The second leg, Air India to Mumbai then Delhi was to prove a killer... the plane landed first at Chennai - midnight  - which required a 45 minute layover while locals disembarked and new passengers climbed on. Here the cabin crew sprayed the aircraft for possible bug infestations which did little except to encourage a couple of cockroaches to crawl out from behind the entertainment screen and amble along the wall for several minutes.

Then it was on to Mumbai. A flight accompanied by a Bollywood movie of uncertain plot structure and atrocious singing. Here we were in transit from 1.35am till 8.45am in an "empty" lounge staffed by a couple of touts who, for a fee, would collect tea & snacks from a shabby snack bar hidden in one corner of the lounge. They also collected fees from anyone who chose to lie down on the loungers arrayed in one end of the place.

There were two toilets - one at each end of the room - both of which were without toilet paper  and which encouraged anyone to consider constipation as being a religious experience.
With such facilities welcoming us to India we dozed, woke, walked around, watched a miscellany of cultures passing  and chatted with other transiting travellers until the airport eased itself into full life and our flight was called.

We arrived at Delhi around 10.20 to be met by the Oasis Tours, the tour company which had arranged our trip, to be taken to our hotel in Karol Bargh and for the first time on any of our trips we slept for fourteen hours - not jet lag just plain, old fashioned exhaustion.

Delhi, when we emerged, was a mass of hustling auto-rickshaws, self appointed guides and small children begging. There was no way we could walk any where and get our bearings which decided Joy that we should wait until the guide the Oasis provided appeared and would escort us through the maze of streets, lanes, auto rickshaws, cycles, cows, cars, mechanics repairing cars, motor bikes and machinery, clothing stalls and people and help us get some bearings amid the pot holes and tendrils of haphazard electrical wiring.

Joy had her shoes buffed to a glaze by a shoe cleaner who used his fingers to rub the polish into the leather. For this Joy paid him 100 rupees ( $NZ 3.00 ) which, our guide told us, was about a week's wages for him.

Nothing like a quick shave on the street.

We were then taken on a tiki tour of the sites of Delhi - Qitab Minal, Najafkhan's tomb, Snake charmers,  India Gate, Parliament Buildings... through squatter camps of India's poor huddled out in lives of digging, lifting, carrying under blankets, tents, flimsy shelters of cardboard, plastic and Iron. Among all this women in bright coloured saris carried loads of bricks on their heads while the men squatted, smoked and talked amid the dust and grey of the building sites.
The contrasts couldn't have been more marked that evening when we ended up in Connaught Place for New Year's Eve. The noise and enthusiasm of middle class young Indians on the town was at odds to the desperate quiet of the squatter shacks we'd seen earlier.

Thieves Market- Delhi

New Year's Day we visited the Red Fort, Ghandi's ghat and the Thieves Market below the Red Mosque where the bustle of noise, hawkers and pilgrims grew in intensity.
We headed back into Connaught Place in the afternoon where the remains of the Raj - the last New Delhi fade into decay. Here Buildings reminiscent of Bath and neo-classic English architecture  collapse in a melange of traders, vehicles and dusty shops. The streets around the Circle were continually jammed with auto-rickshaws, taxis, carts, and buses all using the one essential instrument of an Indian vehicle- a horn which, when combined with the shouts of hawkers , the chatter of pedestrians and the jangle of speakers calling prayers in Hindi creates the overwhelming impression of India.

Nothing like a few snakes to keep one amused.

We explored Delhi over the next two days learning, at each stage, about the necessary elements of India driving - a good horn, good brakes and a relentless belief in any one of five Gods. It also helped to hang a shoe or a black hang man's noose to the bumpers of the vehicle to ward off any possible disaster that didn't come from your own driving. At one stage we were caught in a traffic jam, caused by a Sikh religious procession,  that stopped us getting back to our hotel by the most direct route so our driver took us on a two hour tour of the back alleys of Delhi, past people huddled by fires, washing in puddles left by the local water tanker, urinating, cooking, feeding their babies, welding furniture, weaving mats, dying, assembling rattan blinds, conducting business amid bullocks, horses, rickety wagons and wandering cows.

Hindu Religious procession - Delhi

On Wednesday we set off on our trip proper - to Sariska and the sights and sounds of Jaipur.
Our journey to Sariska was four hours encountering all forms of transport - children walking carrying babies, men and women cycling carrying loads of cartons , pony and cart, horse and cart, bullock and cart, camel and cart, people and cart all carrying loads that were out of all proportion to the size of the harnessed animal. Add to these tractors and carts, motorcycles and carts, motorised hoes and cart, auto rickshaws and carts all carrying at least eight passengers as well as the load between the villages that sprawl, like strange organisms,  along and across the roads and one could realise why the trip took four hours.

Camels & carts on the road to Siriska

The villages offered every sort of trade imaginable - marble carving, steel welding, brick making, dung briquette making, furniture making and TATA Truck repairing complete with itinerant ear cleaners, vegetable hawkers, somosa stalls and water sales (served in glasses of doubtful cleanliness ) which added interest to the trip.

Sariska is in the heart of the National Tiger Reserve (800 sq km with 40 tigers roaming free ) with the hotel being the maharajah's hunting lodge, a base for tiger hunting expeditions between the Wars and immediately after W/WII. Here one learnt that Tiger hunting had the odds loaded against the tiger in a greater manner than those loaded against a fox. According to the photos at Sariska to be an effective Tiger hunt one needed 15 elephants, 200 beaters, a photographer and a hunting party made up of a young Maharajah (preferably able to look smug when standing beside a dead tiger ), several weedy looking, bespectacled English men and at least three heavy, tweed clad, leather booted women who would pose for the camera with thin smiles all of whom were armed with heavy bore rifles guaranteed to knock either the firer or the target over with one shot.
Our safari drive through the park allowed us to hear of a tiger sighting the day before and lots of sightings of deer, hyenas, jackals, wild boar, peacocks and a miscellany of birds one needed a reference book to identify. (Something a bus load of Yorkshire twitchers had in abundance back at the hotel.!! )

Hawa Mahal the facade to hide the harem.

The next day was on to Jaipur - a drive through open countryside punctuated with small hamlets and occasional workers then huge truck stops with  more TATA trucks in various stages of repair spread along the roadside. Some were perched on oil drums while men crawled underneath stripping differentials or draining oil in conditions that NZ OSH inspectors would spasm over.
Jaipur, nestled under the protection of the hills and walls of the ancient fortifications, welcomed us with a parade of elephants heading towards the Amber Fort and a sky full of fighting kites looping and swirling above the city.
The city is a monument to the obsessions and hobbies of the Jaiput Royal family. The Royal Observatory, a sculpture garden, built by the Maharajah in 1728, of gigantic instruments designed to measure time and the position of the planets at particular zodiacal moments impresses one, not only for the technical brilliance but also for the dedication to the concept that larger gives greater accuracy.  The royal hobby was such that five of these massive instrument collections had been built through out India.
Throughout the city the other royal obsession can be seen in the Hawa Mahal -a giant facade that allowed the ladies of the royal court to observe the processions and people without being seen themselves, the Jal Mahal - a pleasure palace in the middle of the lake so that the royal women could be cool in the heat of summer, and the Royal Palace and Amber Fort where the Maharajah could indulge himself and his wives in mirrored and jewelled rooms where, with a single candle, one could imagine making love under the night sky or, in summer, lying on a swing, shaded by a marbled roof they could indulge their passion to the sound of artificial rain dripping from the eaves.
Mind you, the ramps and especially built carriages on which the royal women were wheeled through the Palace and Fort, by the court eunuchs, hinted that there was a lot of each woman to love.

If you need Ganges water.. take in silver only.

A feature of the Palace are the two giant silver urns, each 1.5 metres high, created by Madho Singh II in 1901 to take Ganges water to England when he attended the coronation of King Edward VIII as he didn’t trust western water to be pure enough.
From Jaipur to Agra was meant to be a four hour trip which took six on a road punctuated with villages, lifting tar seal, countless road works and stops to pay state transport tax to use a Delhi registered car in Uttah Pradesh. As is usual in India the roads were a mess of every different transport and loads so that speed was often limited to the top speed of the slowest family transport.
From Fatehup Sikar to Agra the road was lined with men and their “trained” bears all attempting to slow and stop the tourist cars so the bears could dance. Interestingly, no cars stopped even though the bear owners often moved their bears into the centre of the road.
Driving through Agra Market - narrow streets, thousands of bicycles, bullocks, auto rickshaws, walkers we saw one of the more bizarre sights - three men wheeling a cycle rickshaw with a dead cow strapped across the handle bars and seats with its rigour mortised legs sticking mournfully in the air. Their priority, to remove the cow from sight,  seemed appropriate as we hurried to see the Taj Mahal in the early evening light.... after all both were celebrations of  a deep seated love.
The Taj Mahal, once we had worked our way through the streets, touts and beggars, proved to be, as all the brochures exclaim, an architectural wonder - a marriage of Moguhl and Hindu building and art and the skill of the marble craftsman all done in the name of love.

Taj Mahal at sunset

The builder, Emperor Shah Jahan, had commanded the tomb to be built when his wife of 19 years, Mumtaz Mahal, died on giving birth to their 14th child as a statement of his devotion to her. He, however, spent the last years of his life imprisoned in the Red Fort condemned, by his son, Aurangzeb, to live on gazing at the Taj Mahal until his death in 1666.
That evening we were treated to a firework display and wedding procession that marched, instruments blaring and skyrockets exploding through the streets at 2.00am - an astrologically propitious time for the nuptials regardless of all else.

From Agra we took the train to Jhansi then a car to Khajuraho.
The Agra Railway Station  revealed the lives of the beggars of the city for, on arrival, we watched as, from a plastic sheet, a family emerged. First, a man intent on folding the blankets into orderly piles, then a little girl holding her baby brother toddled out to sit in the gutter waiting for their mother who soon emerged with what appeared to be their breakfast - a bun and a bottle of some sort of drink. This was shared, not only with the children and the blanket folder but with a puppy and two other men who appeared out of the car park. One of the men, legless from the waist,  was being dragged along on a wheeled board  by another whose feet had been distorted by elephantiasis. They later appeared on the train platform begging and offering to clean our shoes.
The train trip was a demonstration of Indian Rail efficiency. Within minutes we’d been served water, tea and a snack and the assurance that we would have breakfast as soon as we’d left the station. A promise that was rapidly kept.

The drive to Khajuraho took four hours along a road that, despite being a tourist route, varied from genuine two lane to pot-holed three quarter lane tracks through villages, townships and truck stops.
On arrival the Tour guide  took us on a brief tour of the eastern temples and an introduction to the exuberance of the sculptures that cover the many temples the village is known for. The evening Son et Luminere at the Western Complex provided the mytho-legendary history of the temples and the Chandellas - the Rajput family that commanded the 85 temples to be built, over the 500 years of the dynasty, in celebration of the union of the 16 year old widow Hemvati with Chandra, the moon god and the birth of their son, Chandravarman.

Temple carvings Khajuraho

In day light the detail and dynamic of the sculptures reveal the diversity and unabashed celebration of life in all its forms that flourished under the Chandellas. The only active temple, Matangeshwar, was, that morning, a constant line of women in brightly coloured saris, offering homage to Shiva by walking up the steps to the temple then emerging to continue by walking 108 times around the sacred fig trees in a ritual guaranteed, according to the guide, to relieve them of any of the female ills they may be suffering from and ensuring long and prosperous life for their husbands.

May their husbands live long and happy lives while they remain free of "female ills".

From Khajuraho we flew to Varanasi, the holy of holies of the Hindu cities. To live and die in Varanasi is, apparently, something to be aspired to, for here, on the banks of the Ganges, the rivers Varuna and Assi converge “from the body of the primordial person at the beginning of time”, thus making the city even more sacred.
The city presented its-self as a constant noise of horns, cows, pigs, dogs, cars carrying the dead, strapped, wrapped in gold or red foil, on thier rooves to their sacred end and pilgrims all streaming towards the Ganges and the numerous ghats that line its banks.

Devotee on the Ganges at Varanasi

We joined the throngs at 6.00am, and, following a group of other tourists and an enthusiastic band of Shiva devotees came to the Dasashvamedha Ghat where we passed through souvenir sellers,  beggars and mendicients who were all clamouring for different forms of salvation - financial or spiritual, to our boatman to row past the ghats to the first of the two cremation ghats on the river. Here a fire was burning, supervised by six men who stood in front as we drifted past.
From here, we turned and headed back down stream, accompanied by dolphins and a gradually rising sun - a red-gold globe dim in the morning mist, past the pilgrims, of all nationalities, bathing and performing puja to the rising sun, to the Dom Raja ghat - the most auspicious cremation ghat on the river. Here three fires burned fiercely while the ashes from other cremations were raked into the river while children played and chased scrawny dogs along the water edge.
We scrambled onto the steps of ghat to walk through the warren of lanes, dodging cows, people and piles of rubbish to the Vishwanath Temple - the Golden Temple built in celebration of Shiva in 1777 and coated with one tonne of gold in honour of the god.
The afternoon was spent in Sarnath, a sacred site for Buddhism, for here Buddha preached his first sermon after gaining enlightenment. The village was once a sprawl of monastries and stuphas but is now an archeological site of excavations and devout Buddhist pilgrims praying their way around the stuphas to seek their own enlightenment.

Simla- Essex in India.

From Varanasi we flew to Delhi to take the train north to Kalka to join the Himalayan Queen and crawl our way up 7000 feet through the hills to Simla, the one time summer capital of India in the days of the Empire.
Our conductor, a genial Sikh, dozed and talked as we wound our way past villages and shanties, monkeys and children smiling from the hillsides, through orchards and terraced fields to Simla.
We stayed in The woodville Palace Hotel, a decaying Mararajah’s palace built in 1938 as a wedding present. The hotel was filled with photos of the family, hobbies and  friends over the years as well as being the base for the filming of a Bollywood style soap opera - “Black” - a circumstance which apparently drew so heavily on the Hotel’s electricity supply that all heating was reduced in the guest rooms and lounge reducing us to a huddle over the two column oil heater in a communal effort to create warmth as the thermometer dropped to C9o.

Simla is an English village transported from Essex and placed along the ridges that dictate the structure of the town. From the town square at one end
of the ridge to “Scandal Point” at the other end all of Simla parades, gossips and trades against the backdrop of the lower Himalayas. Here we experienced, for the first time, the pure Dickensian nature of the Indian banking system when we attempted to exchange some US dollars for rupees.
We went to five banks asking if we could exchange money only to be directed to the next bank. Finally we discovered the State Bank of Punjab which declared, in bold print above its uneven roof, that it was a Foreign Exchange. We eased our way past a moustachioed, shot-gun toting guard into a room with four large battered desks, covered in ledgers and files, behind which were the clerks all busily entering archane data into even more battered ledgers. Above them hung a sign proudly declaring that The State Bank of Punjab was a fully computerised bank. We were directed up a set of narrow steep stairs to another room with three more clerks all scribbling in huge ledgers to the man in charge of foreign exchange. After inspecting Joy’s passport and examining the US 50.00 note we wanted changed he carefully and slowly filled out, in triplicate, the specific details of the transaction.
Once completed he handed the top two copies to the youngest clerk and told us to follow him down the stairs, past the guard and out of the building, along the street to the Bank agency where, after being admitted by another shot gun bearing guard and another sign assuring us that the bank was fully computerised, the papers were passed over to a teller who then slowly counted out the rupees until satisfied that he had counted accurately passed them over to Joy.

Unfortunately for us, The Gaiety Theatre, made even more famous after Michael Palin’s Travel show, was reduced to a skelton of restoration so we couldn’t see any local Theatre group production but the stree theatre that is India provided plenty of entertainment as we explored the markets that sprawl down the sides of the ridge, watching Kashmiri porters carry what seemed to be increasingly heavier loads along the narrow lanes, up the ridges and through the crowds to whatever site or person had ordered them, all the while weaving through stall holders who plied trades from street barber to knife sharper, from tailor to clock repairer,   balloon seller and volunteer tourist guiding.

From Simla it was back to Delhi, to be welcomed off the train by the Oasis Tours representative to be taken to our hotel and preparation for our flight home.
The twenty days an experience to definitely remember.




Flew:
Air New Zealand  - Auckland - Singapore. Hong Kong - Auckland.
Air India  - Singapore-Delhi.  Delhi-Hong Kong
Travel in India arranged by
OASIS TOURS -
2 Hauz Khas Village
New Delhi110016
Tel: 91 11 26963482, 26963483, 30907759
Telefax: 91 11 26963483
www.excursionsindia.com
email: oasis@excursionsindia.com,

Total cost: India Travel: $NZ 3721.00 for two.Included Hotels, Breakfasts, Car & Driver, English speaking Guides, admission fees, train and internal air travel.

Ski Through History in Lebanon

Ski Through History in Lebanon.


For many New Zealanders Lebanon may seem to be an unlikely place to consider for a Northern Hemisphere ski holiday but, despite the ravages of the 1975-92 Civil War and the brief 2006 Lebanon war, there is a thriving and well developed ski industry high in the Mt Lebanon range above the coastal town of Jouneih.

We were introduced to the area by our guide, Khalid, who, when he wasn’t guiding, was a professional ski instructor based in his home town of Kfardebian with a dream of skiing in New Zealand.

The ski fields were developed in the mid 1960s and, after the Civil War, expanded into the present 20 lift, 42 hill resort with over 80 kilometres of slopes which are hugely popular with the local Lebanese who drive the hour from Beirut for a day of great skiing.

We drove up from Jouneih through villages dotted along the ridges, past snow shrouded Greek and Roman ruins, cliffs with waterfalls cascading down their sheer faces and rock arches carved from the mountain sides by years of wind and erosion which span gorges at the bottom of which houses crouch huddled in snow to the ski fields of the 2465 metre Faraya Mzaar. Here, the car park and the lifts buzzed with activity as cars and vans filled with well bundled families pulled in, parked and unloaded excited skiers and snow boarders heading off for a day in the snow.

Khalid told us that during the four month ski season (December - April ) the mountain villages are bustling with activity as hundreds of cross country skiers, downhill skiers and snowboarders enjoy the many opportunities the fields offer.  For those who prefer a less physical form of activity on the slopes there are lots of snow mobiles and toboggans for rent from the numerous stalls dotted around the village.

We rode a lift to the top of one of the fields from where we were able to gaze out over the wine producing Bekka valley towards the impressive Phoenican, Byzantine, Greek, Roman and Crusader ruins of Baalbek until, wind and sun burnt, we descended for hot coffee and food at the Austria cafe and Bar. Khalid told us that the highest mountain, Jabal el Mzaar (2465 metres), had had a small Roman temple on its summit until it was destroyed during the Civil War. The temple area was reputed to be used by the Romans as a fire signal point to communicate between the coast and the temple complex of Baalbek or Heliopolis as there is a line of temples that stretch up the range from the coast to the Bekka valley.

We drove, from the cafe, to the private ski resort of Faqra with its ski fields reserved for the hotel guests and chalet owners,  which nestles among the remains of Greek tombs, temples and the ruins of homes from an ancient township dedicated to the worship of Adonis. Here you can take time off skiing and send time exploring the semi-restored ruins before heading back to the slopes for more exhilaration!

Khalid took us to meet his family who welcomed us with warmed cider, Lebanese coffee and apples chilled from the snow covered storage shed before we headed off, down the mountain, to Harissa, the religious centre for the Maronite Catholics, where the huge, white painted bronze statue of “Our Lady of Lebanon” stands, judging from the number of monks and large modern Maronite Cathedral, as a pilgrimage site, on the hill above the town. We climbed the spiral staircase around the base to grab some spectacular photographs of the bay curving from Jouneih around to Beirut which could be seen in the mid afternoon light.

We finished our day sitting, enjoying the warmth of the late April sun, at a cafe-bar that sprawled along the narrow ridge beside the road and ate deep fried whole sardines, hummus, bread and tabbouleh washed down with local beer and coffee amid groups of chattering locals celebrating a family birthday while we watched the little fishing boats and merchant ships plying the bay far below. Perfect!!


( We flew to Lebanon with Emirates. Our tour was organised by Atlas Tours. )

The Final Trip- The Return Home 2

Newgrange Neolithic Barrow

We met up with Roy and Inez and spent time with them catching up on family histories and events since their visit to us in Manukau just before we headed off on our Middle East adventures.

They took us to NewGrange Neolithic barrow to experience more of Ireland's ancient history. The tour was very informative and especially moving when the guide demonstrated the effect of the dawn sun coming through the entrance on the winter solstice. One could almost sense the awe our neolithic ancestors must have experienced as they huddled in the central cavern waiting for the dawn on a cold winter morning as the light edged its way along the entrance tunnel to finally settle in the centre of the room and then disappear as the sun moved above the barrow and away from the narrow window built to channel its light into the mound.

Joy at Newgrange

We left the Grange and headed off to County Fermanaugh to visit Sylvia and Kate in Enniskillen.

Kate, Joy & Sylvia at Enniskillen

We had last visited them back in 1998 when Joy and I had  made a flying trip to Ireland on our first sojourn in the UK. With this visit we added more detail to our shared family history and, from Sylvia's stock of photographs, added to the album and information we will share when, in January next year, we have a Bates family reunion in Wanganui which would mark off 90 years since my Grandparents bought the family to New Zealand.

A newspaper name to be proud of!

Enniskillen sits on a island between Upper and lower Lough Erne and is a Northern Ireland tourist centre. The town is dominated by the 15th century Enniskillen Castle with its museums for both the county and the Inniskilling Regiments. The town is also noted for the past pupils of Portora Royal School (1618) - Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde. We were told, with some glee, that when Wilde had been sentenced for homosexuality his name had been removed from the school honours board but then in more recent times been re-enstated. The brighter gold of the new lettering serving to accentuate his name and notoriety!

Joy and I explored the town and visited Castle Coole, a magnificent Neo-Classical house originally built as a summer residence for the first Earl of Belmore in the late 1790s. Apparently the building almost bankrupted him but, after his death, his son was able to both rescue the family finances and complete the house in the 1820s. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the house and property would have been bustling with servants and activity generated by vistors and tradesmen. Now, part of the estate is still the home of the Belmores while the bulk is administered by the National Trust and the bustle is generated by the tourists and locals picnicking and walking through the surrounding parklands.

Back in 1998 Joy and I had driven around the lough and visited Belleek, Boa Island and Devenish Island where St Molaise had established a monastry in the 6th century so, this time, we contented ourselves with exploring the town before moving on to Raphoe and Carnowen to both catch up with John and Joan Fulton and to add to our photograph collection of both family and the village where Mum had been born.

Carnowen School where Mum had once been a pupil.

The Final Trip... the return home. Part 1.

The Final Trip - the return home.

Departure

With the contract finishing in the UAE Joy and I, along with our colleagues, began to pack up and ship our furniture and possessions home. Joy got really enthusiastic so that every time I came home there would be more and more of our stuff bubble wrapped and stacked ready for the packers to box up and ship off back to NZ.

While Joy & I were preparing to return home several of our friends got enthusiastic over a contract as advisors in Khasakstan. The initial contract was to be four months with possibilities of extension for two to three years which was very attractive to those who applied and were accepted. Now, once they're back home, the contracts appear to have been held up, altered and somewhat vague and the initial four month time cut back to three months. For us the process of settling back home has begun as we wait for the tenants to move out and we can redecorate the place before moving our furniture back in.

Anyway, before coming home Joy and I decided that we should take the opportunity to do a tour of Eire, England and northern Italy as a sort of swan song to our Middle East experiences. There were good reasons for the tour, apart from the tourist thing, as I wanted to add more information to the Bates side of our genealogy as well as building up a file of family photographs that would illustrate the Irish side of the history.

With all our worldly goods dispatched to New Zealand we were basically camping in our apartment until the last day of the contract so quitting Abu Dhabi was easy. We simply closed the door, left the key for Cognition to access the flat and headed off to Dubai for the evening to be ready for a 3.00am start and the flight to Dublin.

We had booked a room in an hotel close to shops, restaurants and the airportso we wouldn't have too many hassles for our early morning start. Unfortunately, we had booked into The Royal Falcon Hotel which looked OK from the website and had had reasonable reviews on the booking site but now had started the decline towards an inevitable restructuring and possible disappearance. ( The link gives reviews from Trip Advisor which weren't on the booking site for obvious reasons.) On arrival we discovered that our room wasn't ready but a temporary room was available as a transit until "our room" woud be ready. Fat chance!!

Despite several requests and promises of a better room than Room 210 with its solid hard wood mattress nothing happened. Joy and I decided to make the best of it - after all we were leaving at 3.00am the next day - so we went looking for a meal at the restaurant advertised on the hotel website and reception board only to be told that it had been transformed into a Bollywood nightclub and no longer served meals. We weren't told that it was directly below room 210 and would begin its throbbing at 9.00pm and would not stop its beating until 3.00am.

A later review of the hotel we read on Trip Advisor said:
"The Royal Falcon Hotel is a two star Dubai Hotel which has obviously seen better days in the Dubai sun. The Restaurant no longer trades, except as room service, and appears to have been converted to a Bollywood nightclub.
Why anyone would choose to stay here would be a decision based on a masochistic desire to be deprived of sleep on a bed as solid as a bed of marble while being subject to torture by cacophony of what passes for music from the nightclub on the mezzanine floor.
The nightclub throb and crash began at 9.00 pm and ended in a crash of cymbals at 3.00am with crescendos of desperate drumming every hour between which, if one has an early morning flight and wants a modicum of sleep before heading to the airport, doesn't make for a restful night.
The plumbing in the bathroom was a prime example of botching to ensure the pipes remained in place and smelt as well and the room lacked any accessible electrical plugs to recharge phones and computers.
The only advantage to a traveller is that it is on the metro green- red lines to the airport and across the road from the Reef Shopping Mall otherwise avoid this hotel. There are better and more comfortable two star hotels in the area." 

 Needless to say we won't ever be booking into the Royal Falcon again!!!

 Still shaking from our experience Joy and I quit the hotel, found a taxi and headed for the airport where we could find breakfast and some quiet before our flight to Dublin.

EIRE & ENGLAND:

 When Joy and I first went to Ireland, 15 years ago, the days were overcast and distinctly damp, at least that's what our photographs of the trip show. This trip was at the height of the Northern Hemisphere summer so we expected to experience some sunshine. However, the adage that while the Bible called 40 days and nights of rain a disaster the Northern Hemisphere merely shrugs and declares it to be a summer shower proved to be true. Although we did discover that there could be sunny spells breaking out in occasional protests.

We had booked into a B&B in central Dublin for three nights which allowed us to explore the city and discover a bit more of Ireland's history. 

James Joyce statue

The B&B was well run and very comfortable and in walking distance to the central city and good local pubs. I was able to visit the places mentioned in my favourite high school reading - "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "The Dubliners" as the James Joyce museum was just around the corner.

 
We discovered the National Museum of Ireland and spent a morning exploring Ireland's past - from the neolithic bog people, the Druids and Celts through to the invasions of the Vikings and, later, the English. 

The displays allowed us to see many of the objects I had only seen in old black & white textbook photographs. 

Preserved bog man -

Gold Torcs

Gold Votive boat

The Dublina museum also had recreations of life under the Vikings and English. This re-enactor Silversmith gave us a very personal account of how coins and silver were worked in Viking Dublin.

From the museums we headed for Trinity College to see The Book of Kells and the Long Room of the Library. Here we joined a queue to enter the Library and the display explaining the illustrations and relevance of the texts. The queue stood and chatted quietly as it drifted towards the doors apart from a trio of American women who involved the courtyard in their conversation. 

They informed the queue that they were all school teachers and that the main talker was a history specialist. Her specialist subject being English history. She expounded loudly on her qualifications and knowledge about England and Ireland to her companions and how this trip was giving her he chance to see all the places and events she taught back in "Kansas." 

In the Library shop, waiting for the tickets for the exhibition, there was a video clip being played showing Queen Elizabeth shaking hands with Martin McGuiness in an act of reconciliation between England and Eire. Immediately on seeing this the loud English history specialist turned her companions declared to all who could hear her: "Look, look, there's Queen Victoria on her diamond jubilee celebrating with her visits to parts of the United Kingdom!" 

Her companions nodded sagely and opined that that Victoria's jubilee was a great event for them to witness.  I was a trifle slow on the uptake - as I said to Joy later - I should've turned to the voice and asked, ever so politely, if that lovely President, Mr Abraham Lincoln was still taking an active role in the promoting equality in the Union and helping the Confederacy come to terms with the world? But then I doubt if any of the women would have understood irony.

We realised this when we told the story to friends we were told of an exchange that took place when they were visiting Stonehenge in which an American tourist proclaimed that  "Stonehenge was impressive but it definitely couldn't match Disneyland." Later the impression was given greater support when , while at the Bushmill's distillery, we were accosted by an irate elderly American who had just visited the Giant's Causeway and couldn't see any reason why the tour company had taken them all to see a bunch of rocks.

While in Dublin we met up with relations, Roy and Inez Cooper, and began to add more detail to the Bates Family tree.

 

Final Days in Abu Dhabi

The End of the Middle East Adventure.

What was originally going to be a seven month adventure in Qatar at the end of 2008 has ended up with us completing our work in Abu Dhabi on the 12th July 2012.

During this time I worked in two schools in Qatar, in a Teachers Training Centre in Oman and in a Boys Preparatory school in Abu Dhabi while Joy immersed herself with her painting, producing musical shows for the Qatar end of year dinners and “mall trawling” with, initially, The Doha Darlings and, in Abu Dhabi, with her friend from Doha, Priscilla Ellis.

Now Joy has been busy packing, bubble wrapping everything, including me, as we prepare to exit the UAE and return to New Zealand carrying with us souvenirs, photographs, friendships and many memories of an adventure we have no regrets embarking on.

Mind you , returning to New Zealand and rain, wind, earthquakes and temperatures in single digits is not something to contemplate with pleasure!

Immediate Plans:

Joy and I leave Abu Dhabi on the 13th July to head off on a tour of Eire, England and Northern Italy that will bring us back to Abu Dhabi around the 13th August and then the long haul home.

Our Eire and UK trip will take us to visit the Irish relatives and give me a chance to add more information on the Bates family tree, perhaps answer questions about personal names, gather photographs of ancestors and present relations and the places, villages and towns Mum’s family came from so, when we are back in New Zealand, and the Bates family meets for a reunion in January next year we can share memories, information and add to our shared histories. I’m praying that I’ll get fewer rain greyed photographs of places than I did 15 years ago when Joy and I last visited Ireland.

The Tuscany trip should, with luck, give Joy the chance to collect a file of photographs that will provide inspiration for her painting once we’re resettled at home. I can already see that I’ll be kept busy at every stop on our tour as we pass from one photogenic village to the next.

Reviewing the past 18 months in Abu Dhabi

The Team 2011-12.

Colin, Saeed, Self, Shane, Lynne, Dave, Gavin

I have spent the lat 18 months working with the teachers of English in a Boys Preparatory school in central Abu Dhabi guiding them through the demands of the Australian English curriculum as adapted to the UAE.

The entrance to the school

The first six months were with nine teachers who had already gone through one trial with an American provider, using an American scheme and syllabus, only to be told that the American trial was over and they were to revert to the old MoE curriculum then, a trimester or so into the year, to change to the new adapted Australian curriculum. Needless to say there was some opposition to the arrival of a new team of advisors coming into the school to demonstrate and advise on yet another curriculum change.

Once we got over the teething troubles we got down to work attempting to develop an understanding of the pedagogy behind the curriculum, design unit and lesson plans around the very limited resources available in the school, create assessment tasks that were both understandable to the teachers and able to be completed by the students and also resource the Inquiry Based Learning modules that make up over 80% of the course. This would not be a major task in a NZ or Australian English Department as one could easily draw on readily accessible resource banks and a ready supply of reading texts that would support the thematic units of work supported by colleagues who have a good idea about Unit and Lesson planning that addresses both the needs of the students and directs the learning according to the demands of the curriculum. However, here it was not so easy  as the resource base at the school was non-existent, the data on student readiness to cope with the curriculum was sketchy, coloured by teacher beliefs and often artificially inflated to meet parental expectations of continuous success. Add in the limited experience with inquiry based learning - summed up in the often heard statement from teachers “ I know what a research is.” - and a paucity of familiarity with rubric based assessment processes and one can see that our advisory role was to be an on going challenge.

We spent much of the first six months coming to terms with the curriculum and attempting to build up a basic resource base on which to build the unit and lesson plans only to lose six of the teachers at the end of the year as the Education Council moved its supply of English speaking Arab teachers from the secondary schools into the preparatory schools as they replaced the Arab teachers with native English speakers imported from the USA, UK, Australasia, South Africa and Canada.

So this academic year started with four new teachers appearing in the English Department, all from the secondary schools and with different levels of understanding of the curriculum. It was not quite start again but it did mean that much of the first trimester was one of reviewing where teachers were in terms of understanding and, because I had, over the last half of the last trimester, reworked the curriculum to provide a clear school syllabus reworking the the few resources we had access to into reasonable units of work.

This exercise was going well until I realised that one of the teachers, whose name translated to Mr. Right, had not understood the work we’d been doing or that there actually was a curriculum that he had to engage with and prepare units and lessons to address. Every time I tried working with him, tried to explain the terminology and the pedagogy that the curriculum demanded of him he began to cry and then revert to screaming that he knew how to teach but he couldn’t teach unless he was given a proper curriculum textbook .  His final attempt to dodge any PD, to dodge out of coping with the curriculum changes and planning, which resulted in him being given a severe dressing down by the Principal, was to refuse to teach his classes if I was observing and advising in his classroom. 

The other teachers (the English translations of their names being ) , Mr’s: Winner, Selected, Builder, Double Maturity, Algebra, Opening, in the department shrugged and got on with the jobs of preparation and making do with limited resources as they worked their way to coming to solid grips with the curriculum. An attitude for which I was eternally grateful for they would be the ones who would ensure that all our work was going to be sustained and developed once we headed for different jobs in different parts of the world at the end of the contract.

After my experiences in Qatar where we succeeded in developing and cementing in inter school debating and using class newspapers / magazines as part of the English language development programme in the school I was working in I embarked on a programme, aided by Mr Jabr, that would demonstrate to the teachers that the boys were capable of doing a lot more than they were often given credit for so we set up an English Club which was able to produce a school newspaper each trimester, engage in an inter-school debate and finally write, produce and edit a 10 minute film on how to succeed at school.

The film makers in action

When I look over the  records of the newspapers, the debates and the film and compare the work with that I’d seen at home from Years 9 & 10 the boys exceeded themselves as their work was of high quality in presentation and language use. Our plan, using Mr Mustaffa's contacts in a neighbouring school to run another debate got stymed when the dates of the external exams got moved forward by a little over a week thus cutting down the time for preparation, organisation and delivery during the trimester to an impossible time frame. 

The hope is that the boys will take their experiences on to the next grade level at the school or will take their skills to the secondary school and, in both cases, persuade their teachers that they can use them in the classroom and, perhaps, the teacher will plan for and include the skills in their lessons and thus develop their language acquisition.

At the Grade 6 level we introduced a guided reading programme based on the New Zealand produced Rainbow Readers which proved to be just as interesting as the Newspapers, debating and film making programmes as the boys responded with the sort of enthusiasm I see and hear regularly from our grandchildren whose exposure to books and reading for pleasure is well developed. My argument for the introduction of the programme was based on a conversation I had had with a young Omani who had proudly informed me that she was “reading English” but who, on being asked what book, story, novel, was she reading looked blankly at me and then simply replied that she was “reading the grammar textbook.” She was surprised to discover that there was more to reading than simply “reading” the textbook and that she could improve her knowledge of English and get some pleasure from it.

There is, I think, nothing more pleasurable than going into a classroom to be greeted with a chorus of “Are we reading today
 Mr Alan? “ and then having a queue of boys, with varying degrees of reading confidence, all waiting to have their turn to read a page or two of their book to the class.

For their teacher, Mr. Ammar, the reaction to the reading programme was evidence that the boys would read and could read. That what was needed was a greater supply of reading material in the classrooms and, ultimately, the exposure to reading benefitted the boys in their acquisition of English as a means of communication and not just a language whose rules needed to be learnt as an exercise.

As well one feels rewarded when a teacher from Qatar emails and says:

 How are you Mr.Alan? i hope you are fine . Thank very much for the treasure you sent me from Radio New Zeland . I downloaded some stories especially the Mountain who wanted to live in a house.It is fantastic. I will make use of all of them in the next school year. I'm travelling to Egypt on 18th July and I will be back on 2nd Sept as the school year for teachers starts on 5 th Sept and on 9th for students. I'm looking forward to drinking more of your knowledge and experience river.
It’s then that you know that you have made and are making a difference.

Now, with the end of the contract in sight, many of my colleagues are looking for work elsewhere in the world. For some the steppes of Khazakstan look promising while for others the lights of Singapore, Australia and the UK have more appeal as they find employment and chance to continue the work we’ve been doing in the ME.

For Joy and I it is a return home to regroup and catch up with family again while I look to finding a job somewhere around Auckland or, perhaps, some short term contracts somewhere around the world.