On the 25th of January, we went to visit a local family at their home to learn how paper is made from elephant dung.

First, the dung is collected from elephant stables (each dung varies as per season and what they eat)

1. Next, they clean it thoroughly with water and acts as a fertilizer
2. Next, the mixture is beaten (as long as it’s soft) to get the fibre ready for the next stage and is cooked up to 4-5 hours
3. Once it’s cooked, the water is drained, it’s left out in the sunlight to dry, once dried the excess fibre is then removed

After we made our paper we were then invited upstairs to join the family for an afternoon lunch.

Here’s a link to a video of me draining the water from the dung on my YouTube channel:

On the 24th of January, I and my group went out on our first full day in Jaipur. Our first stop was Amer Fort in Devisingh Pura

History

Armer fort was built by Maan Singh (The general of Akbar) in the 16th century Singh would then roll the fourth (which back then was referred to as a member state) the Amer fort is located in Devisingh Pura.

The Temple

After the fort, we all made our way down to the temple, while we were there we taught the concept of the three Hindu gods Brahma: The creator, Vishnu: the preserver and Shiva: the destroyer (each of these gods were also a representation of the three stages of our lives

While we were there we were each given a yellow dots on our foreheads from the father of the temple

The Stairwell

 

 

The Block printing museum

Our next stop was the block printing museum while we were there we looked around and saw all the tools and textiles and we were given demonstrations on how the blocks are carved and how there printed onto the fabric.

Here’s a link to a video of the block carving on my YouTube channel: