Finale

Better late than never..

As a wise man once said, all good things must come to an end. I am not sure who said that but I’m presuming he was wise. Two months in India went past extremely quickly, too quickly in fact. It feels like only yesterday I was unpacking and going into 4^th year. Anyway, let’s not make this a trip down memory lane. Looking back, the whole 2 months seems like a dream. Saying goodbye to the girls was hard, but inevitable. Two months in an adults life is not a very long time, but two months in a child’s life is, and I was very lucky to be part of their lives for a significant amount of time. That is something I will never forget. 

Kolkata was the next port of call before making my trip onwards to Bangkok and eventually Cambodia. I was able to hobble around without using my crutches when I travelled to Kolkata however  I decided to keep them just in case they worked to my advantage, I’m not really sure how they would, but I thought they could, but they couldn’t so I got rid of them. After a short train ride ( 8 hours is considered short compared to other ‘epic’ train journeys you can make in India) I headed to the backpacker area; where there was an overwhelming number of white people (I think I saw 3 in an hour). I booked myself into what was advertised as a hotel and had a wander around the area taking in the smells the sights and the sounds. After indulging in a number of street specialities, what they were exactly I’m unable to say I headed back for an early night. After waking up at silly o’clock I headed to the Victoria Memorial, a beautiful building which looks like it has been lifted out of the countryside in Kent a plopped into Kolkata, the colonial capitol of British India. The gardens were beautiful, however you don’t need the two hours I spent looking around them until the actual building opened up.  When leaving the memorial I started chatting to three middle-aged women who were in India on a photography course. All three of them were British and two of the ladies were bought up in Cambrdigeshire, what a small world. The afternoon was spent discovering quant tea houses and coffee shops. In fact in one coffee shop I started talking to a middle-aged couple who ended up being from the Isle of Man and knew two of the girls on the water polo team at University. I had gone from being one of the only foreigners in a state to meeting 4 people I had something in common with back in the UK. Apparently 6 degrees of separation has now gone down to 4....

That evening I headed to a beer garden and started chatting to a middle aged man, who owned his own private clinic in London however he had had a mid-life crisis and was re-discovering himself in India. He was with a friend of his, and after a number of beers we headed to a local joint where we struggled to spend 100rp on a meal each (around £1.2), which hands down was one of the best meals I had in India. I was beginning to think I was unable to meet any one below the age of 55 and the next day confirmed that. I was having some tea in the morning and decided to strike up a conversation with 4 ‘young people’ sat next to me, so I started by asking the standard questions. ‘Where about’s are you guys from?’, ‘Espain’. ‘Ooo, nice, and how long have you been in India?’, ‘Like a month already.’, ‘Very interesting, and what about Kolkata?’, ‘We have been here the whole time’. That was it. That was the conversation. I felt as small as ant and had a newly grown dislike of Spanish people. Lo Siento Espanol.

I have heard a lot of pretty negative things about woman travelling on their own in India, and I don’t question any of those things at all. I have to say my experience (despite the travelling being cut short) was pretty pleasant, and from what I can remember there were only two occasions when my bottom was grabbed which coincidently happened to be on the same day, in the same market and to be honest, most probably by the same man. But with a bottom this size, it is pretty difficult to miss. I had a great time wondering the streets of Kolkata, and with so many people around it was very difficult to ever feel threatened, despite getting lost for 6 hours during the day. I decided to go for a walk which turned into a morning and an afternoon of wondering down streets which I really didn’t and probably shouldn’t have wondered down. It was great fun though. My five days in Kolkata were fantastic and it gave me a real itch to travel on my own, which to be honest really pissed me off because I knew that was not going to happen for a while.

I headed to Bangkok for my foot to be looked and the doctor took one look at my X Ray, which the lovely doctor in India said was ‘fine’ and that there was no ‘bone fragmentations’, and confirmed that there was ‘bone fragmentation’. I’m putting the mis-diagnosis by the Indian doctor down to bad light.

After a 2 day visit to Bangkok, 3 doctors visits and MRI and a physio session later I landed in Phnom Penh to see mum and dad. Long story short, I was unable to reapply for a visa for India and was half way through applying for a visa for Myanmar when I was encouraged by my physio to not go, to ensure I crammed in enough physio sessions before I headed back to UK in Jan. It was decided, I was to spend 2 months in Cambodge.

I could give you an account of my everyday activity whilst out here but that would just be ridiculous. So I won’t. I will only mention a number of highlights..

I have been lucky to visit a few places since I arrived here. I had a visit from Hannah Rogers where we headed down south and enjoyed a few days of walking and eating too much food. Too much good food.  I headed up to Siem Reap with Ben for an extremely short visit over the Christmas holiday. After arriving at silly o’clock we found a place to stay and headed to the floating village where we saw a number of crocodiles held in captivity and tried some local delights on the road side. The best I think was blood which was covered in sweet chilli sauce and BBQ’d. I’m not sure if it’s going to be included in Tesco’s next summer sale, but it was pretty good. We visited a local school which has received 100% of its funding from the Korean government, and were expecting a kind donation from us visiting, which Ben and I conveniently by-passed (he’s the one with the job remember). On returning to Siem Reap centre we booked in 2 road bikes for the next morning which we were going to use to get around the temples. That evening we indulged in the happy house – a pint for 50 cents, it would have been very rude not to, along with a local BBQ including crocodile, snake and the usual. As imagined, one drink turned into a few and when we arrived back at the hotel we needed to set our alarm for 4:15 in order to make the sun rise at the temples. The next part I do not remember, the alarm went off and we both got up and ready. Ben then looked at my phone and realised I had set the alarm for 3:00 instead, he was not happy, but like I said I don’t remember. We woke up again an hour later and started cycling aimlessly towards the temples. Once in Ankor there were no lights to follow so we cycled for an hour in the pitch black whilst still not legally being able to pass a drink-drive test.

I’m not going to go on about how great all the temples are, but they really are as fab as people say. We watched the sun rise and proceeded to give all out food which was provided by the hostel to a bunch of children sellers which we later regretted. All in all a fun filled few days.               

In Cambodia, along with a number of other SEA countries there a huge number of Tuk Tuk roaming the streets, the driver in Siem Reap are particularly aggressive in their sales technique. You will be walking down the street and receive more propositions than one has received in their whole life.  ‘Tuk Tuk lady’, ‘Madaam Tuk Tuk’. Some are even able to make it into a slightly dirtier proposition, ‘Hey lady, you want tuk tuk later?’. Ben came up with a great idea of turning around and asking, ‘What’s a tuk tuk?’. It stumps them and shuts them up, for those who are going travelling, take note.

Christmas was spent in Phuket with the family, which was as Christmas was suppose to be, over-indulgent and ‘over-fun’ (?!).  For new year I headed to the sea-side ‘resort’ called Shiounokville, which was not the paradise which people claim it was, but was instead a shit-hole. We stayed at a hotel called ‘Cheers’ as it was the only  place that had availability on that ‘special’ weekend.  There were four of us (girls) and on arrival it hit us, we were staying at a gay resort. First things first, on arrival it was concluded that we were not a group of gay girls, which resulted in the owner immediately disliking us as he knew the only reason why we stayed there was because that accommodation closer to the ‘beach’ was all full. The clubs at the beach were swamped with Russians and Ozzies, two ‘great’ nations, of which the weekend confirmed that neither can hold their alcohol. The following evening the hotel held their daily dance show, which we decided to miss and headed for an early night and caught up on some shite TV. When we heard music we made the error of looking out the window and saw a number of local boys dancing to Rhianna for elderly western men. I could go further into this as it does start a number of moral debates and conversations about westerners exploiting local children. This happens too often in Asia, and in particularly Cambodia, but that is all I’m going to say.

In between going places I was able to spend a lot of time with mum and dad, making the most of being a ‘lady of leisure’ which getting 3 physio sessions a week. Even though I was unable to travel on my own for a month, the past 2 months have been fun and relaxing. Time has flown by, I’m now in London and it only feels like yesterday I was sitting here repacking before my Indian trip. I’m not sure what reason I have to write again, it may be through having too much time of my hands, or it may be when I’m at Sandhurst. Who knows.....

no real title

These past few weeks have without doubt been cracking.

So I didn’t mention in my previous blog something else which happened at the competition last weekend. Some of the boys and girls came to watch the match. When it was going on I felt someone flick my hair, I momentarily ignored it thinking it as just someone being nosy, I then turned around and saw it was a chap from my English class. I waved at him, and then all of a sudden one of the ‘crowd controllers’ grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the side. I was unsure what had happened to him so tried to go find him. I wasn’t able to, and one of the girls assured me that he was OK. The next day during English he told me that he had been kicked in the head a number of times because he had touched a westerners hair. I felt awful however everyone else found it hilarious.

During one of our regular power cuts the other night during English class, one of the girls was suffering from itchy eyes and tried to grab some eye drops. When she put the eye drops in her eye, she all of a sudden realised that she had put super glue in them instead. It sounds obscene, however this mistake happens quite a lot in India as the packaging and pretty much identical. We rushed her to hospital and she was ‘treated’ but a nurse who had to rip her fingers open that day because she had glued them together. After half an hour of attempting to get the eye open and after receiving very little help from the medical staff the eye eventually opened, but the glue was still on her eyeball. After around 4 hours of keeping her eyes closed and loading it up with eye drops, the glue came off her eye ball taking a layer of ‘skin’ with it and exposing new skin. We took her to see a specialist the next day, and she was given one of those old school eye patches, the large white ones which cover people’s faces. All of her eyelashes were also cut off. However 4 days later and after feeling a bit silly and sorry for herself she was back to good health

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I have noticed that the people here are not very tactful and they definitely don’t beat around the bush. If they want a sweet they say ‘Give me Sweet’. If they want a pen, they say ‘Give me pen’. They also use this rather straight forward approach when making observations. ‘Sophie, your nose is big’. ‘I know’ I say. ‘No no Sophie, your nose is very big, and you are also very fat girl’. For some reason they are obsessed with my calfs and whenever I sit down they insist that I ‘shake them’. As long as that is all they get me to shake I am happy.  It’s a bloody good job I don’t have a complex about my weight otherwise I would have turned anorexic. With regards to my nose, god guys I never knew I had a big nose? You could have told me....

I have been blessed with experiencing yet another festival, a Muslim one this time which we were invited to the land lords house for lunch. I was extremely excited about the idea of eating beef. Men and Women do not eat in the same room so when I arrived I was taken to the younger girls bedroom. The girl had already eaten, so I had prepared myself for a pretty awkward hour with her looking at me eat. The food was amazing and I’m pretty sure I ate more meat there than I had the whole time I have been in India. Half way through the meal she asked me to put on a ‘wedding shawl’, basically a head dress which her aunt wore for her wedding. I went along with the whole fancy dress idea, and she put a tonne of make up on me as well. At this point her older brother, who is obsessed with Enrique Iglesias came in and starting reciting songs to me. All in all I had 27 pictures taken of me. Twenty seven taken in 45 minutes, and not with anyone else just me. I was even told to hold the plate of beef next to me so they could get a picture of that. It was all very odd. However I was very grateful for the invitation and also very relieved when we had to leave.  

On Tuesday, people celebrated ‘Children’s day’ at school. As expected, the emphasis was on children so myself and Franz’s friend who was visiting went to go and see some of the girls at school. There was a ‘sports day’ going on which had some pretty interesting takes on what we consider ‘sports day’ races. The first event we saw was one called a frog race. A line of around 25 young boys lined up, they adopted the squatting position and when the whistle went they starting jumping to the finish line. The race itself was around 30m, however once they got to the end, they had to jump all the way back as well. As you can imagine, a majority of people decided to drop out, but a few tough cookies kept going. It was without doubt one of the most bizarre yet wonderful things I have ever seen. The next race was called ‘The clothes race’ where the boys had to get undressed to their shorts and lay their clothes out in front of them. Once they had done that the race could start and they had to put everything back on, including belt, tie, sock and shoes before they could run the length of the court yard and back on again. There was also a game of musical chairs, which started off with 30 girls and 29 chairs. They began by taking one chair away every time the music stopped but realised that this would take up the best half of the afternoon, so at one stage they took away 10.  When we were leaving, a boy came up to me and asked for my autograph. I asked him why and his simple answer was, ‘Because you are white’. I was pretty satisfied with that so I gave it to him along with a fat kiss on the cheek. I think he went from being a boy to being a man in that moment. 

The little puppies are doing well, and will without doubt be the healthiest puppies in the whole of Jharkhand. I don’t know much about puppies but I know that they can’t see for a few weeks. A majority of the kids know this as well, but there is always one who doesn’t. I found this out when I saw someone trying to prize open one of the puppies eyes using their fingers.

After my morning English class the other day I walked around the village and saw where a number of the girls live. Unlike previously where I was made to sit down in every house I only visited two. The Indians really are fantastic hosts and from my experience will go out of their way to make sure you are pretty comfortable. At one of the girls houses, I was given half a litre of water and 4 home made sweets. Unfortunately I had to leave after 5 minutes because I was already running late for my next class so I put the sweets in my pocket and left. However before I left they insisted that I finished my water. One of the boys also had a full glass he wanted to finish as well so we started drinking it at the same time. It is sad to say that all that practice put into boat races at University hasn’t paid off as I was beaten by a 6 years old boy at finishing my class of water. I was somewhat disheartened by the experience whilst he remained completely oblivious to my thoughts.

There are definitely a number of challenges which come with teaching English. Each of the 4 classes I do every day is different. In the morning I have on average around 28 kids varying from 4 to 14 years old crammed into a small room in one of the girl’s houses in the village. The good thing is that the mornings are pretty cold here so the body heat really benefits those kids with no jumpers etc. There is so much energy in that room that as you can imagine, it is sometime hard to control. There are no ‘cliques’ as such but there are a few who stick out as trouble makers. I had to kick someone out of class the other day, a chap who comes in wearing pretty nice clothes and plays pretty awful Hindi music loudly on his phone. He kept chatting and just was generally pissing me off; he also intimidates a number of the girls. I didn’t particularly like kicking him out, but it had to be done really and he now turns up on time and listens. I’m not sure if he is being serious or taking the piss, so I’m just going to go with the first one. There have been countless occasions when I have asked the kids to write a word such as lunch. I repeated it over and over and they all look at my blankly. One kid then plucks up the courage, and asks, ‘Lunch?’ and I respond with, ‘Yes, Lunch’ . ‘Ooooo, you mean lunch Sophie? OK, Lunch’. This is not as funny written down. But basically I repeat the same word over and over again at a slower rate every time, and when the ball drops they end up saying the word in EXACTLY the same manner as I did. Still after 2 months I don’t see how I say lunch is any differently to how they say lunch, it makes absolutely no sense.

There have been a number of football matches over the past 2 weeks. At one, the second half was put on hold, whilst the ‘political big wigs’ turned up in their truck loads came onto the field to shake hands with the players. It was around an hour and a half away from where I am staying. The road going there was beautiful and the scenery was amazing with extremely uneven roads along side high cliffs overlooking tea plantations and hills. The road had signs such as, ‘Better to be late in this life than early in the next’, which I think is a pretty powerful sign however totally useless to the drivers who are illiterate in Hindi yet alone English. We ate that dinner in a road side ‘hotel/restaurant’ where we had roti and dall. It was one of the best meals I have had since being here despite having a peak at the kitchen on my way out.  

There has been a change in my plan. I am no longer going to be able to travel for a month after I finish here. Because of my ankle I need to get to a place where I can start intense physiotherapy so I am therefore going to see mum and dad in Cambodia next week. I am going to try and reapply for a tourist visa once I am in Cambodia, however it may be unlikely as you have to have been out of India for a certain amount of time before you reapply for a visa. Its sods law really. Oh well though, as is life.

I will report back before I leave on my ‘final days’

PS – I was lying early. I was the one who put super glue in my eye. I bet you aren’t feeling sorry for that girl any more, and am instead laughing at the thought on me being on crutches with an eye patch looking like a character from a children’s story book. I went to a conference during those few ‘special days’ and someone apparently said  ‘Wow, that lady is really committed, I would have never gotten out of bed looking like that’.

India – 2, Sophie - 0

The Cows wear coats

I was pretty oblivious to the fact that I was going to be in India during their main festive season of the year. When I arrived here a festival called Druja Puja, which celebrates the conquest of good over evil was in full swing. The Indians take their holidays pretty seriously and therefore around 10 days were given to a majority of students during the holiday. Soon, around 3 weeks later, Dewali took place. Dewali is renowned as being one of the prettiest festivals in India as it is the festival of light. Dewali itself lasts around 2 days, but some of the schools were on holiday for a week, and some even for 30 days so their major holiday coincides with Druja Puja and Dewali. Some of the locals went all out buying flashing Christmas lights to hang around their houses and set off fireworks for 3 days straight, we were however slightly more modest and stuck to oil lit candles. Recently, this week another festival, called Chud took place seeing the children have at least another 3 days off school. Even though each festival signifies different things, the celebrations taking place share some similarities. Drunken men and obscenely loud music being played all night long on tin like communal speakers. There is obviously a hugely romantic and fascinating side to each of these festivals. For examples, in chud the women fast for 2 days and take offerings such as food down to rivers, lakes or damns. People even laid their offerings in the same water which the 2 local hospitals clean their sheets, which ironically also hosts a popular spot for peoples ‘morning plop’. Going back to the loud music going on until 5 in the morning, the justification is as follows. If you have it, you might as well use it. Apparently people rent out time on these communal speakers and therefore have the need to use it even if people are not listening, or more importantly don’t want to listen. At this moment in time there is a football tournament set to last at least a week being held at the ground where YUWA practice, therefore the girls are training in the morning to enable the tournament to go ahead. The music started at around 1800, and gradually got louder. After a quick break at 2300, it was back in full swing and even had a number of extremely drunk men ‘singing’ along to the music, occasionally stopping everything to say ‘Hello Hello’ just to make sure the systems were still working. This happens at sports events as well, and the only way to ensure it doesn’t drive you bonkers is to say hello back. No one else gets it, it’s brilliant.  Imagine karaoke on a Friday night (which it was actually) which the whole village has to listen to. Frustrating, but hilarious at the same time. 

There has been a clear change in the weather. This happened over 3 days, where the rice paddies went from a lush green, to a sandy weathered looking colour. The mornings are bitter cold, but the days are a fantastic temperature. I am yet to see any matching shell suits, the kind you got in the 80’s and 90’s but I have been assured that I will. Similar to horses wearing a ‘coat’ in the UK and dogs wearing knitted shoes in New York over the winter, cows are the ones who benefit here. Yes, the cows are given coats, hilarious I know. I was asking one of my English classes about their families the other day and they said that they all had 2 mothers. I was naturally intrigued by this comment so tried to go further. Each of the girls has their biological mother, and also a ‘cow mother’. I couldn’t help but then ask, ‘Oh, so all your mothers are cows then?’, ‘Yes!!’ the kids responded enthusiastically. There was then a competition to see who had the biggest cow as a mother. I wish I had filmed that conversation. 

On Tuesday I made my 9^th trip to a hospital since I have been here. Nothing major has happened, but I went to get my cast off. When I was waiting for the doctors I started talking to this woman next to me, her English was pretty good and I found out that she was a nurse in the hospital. I asked her what she was waiting to see the doctor for (I think I have enjoyed going along with the general lack of social awareness and started asking questions which elsewhere would be seen as completely inappropriate and rude). She then showed me her leg and she was in this old school plaster from her toes to half way up her thigh. She had fallen over, and didn’t explain who, how, what or when and had broken a number of bones and has been in plaster for 5 months. I will tell you this now, being in plaster which goes to half way up your calf is tough enough to use a squat toilet, let along over you knee. I really wanted to ask how she coped, but after much self restraint I didn’t. Reluctantly the doctor allowed me to get my cast off. When he told the girl I was talking to she could get hers off, she kissed his feet. I was excited, but not that excited. Both I and this girl walked into a room together, she sat on one bed, I on the other. They pulled out this old school saw and started cutting her cast off at a painfully slow rate. Around 15 minutes later, they were still breaking the surface of her cast; a group of around 8 doctors came into the room with a chunky looking box. This box was solid and had 2 padlocks on it. When they eventually opened it there was a modern electric jobby you use to take the modern plasters off with. I was flattered as to how many doctors felt it necessary to come and help get the white girls plaster off, however personally felt it completely unnecessary. So I am now out of plaster, meaning that I am unable to put any weight on it at all and am therefore again confined to my crutches for at least another 2 weeks.....which pretty much takes me to the end of my time here. Fab. 

As with many kids learning, recognition and praise is a must in order to encourage and keep them engaged with what they are doing. The other day I therefore took 4 girls from different English classes who showed the most improvement which coupled nicely with good attendance, into Ranchi to get their hair cut. I had been to the area before by bike, but because we were going by auto we had to be dropped off the main road as no autos are allowed to drive down there. We arrived at around dusk and were dropped off, well to be honest, I really didn’t know. We asked a few people where the building was and started walking. We walked through a few busy markets and it was really difficult not to be distracted by the beautiful shiny things calling out to me. We got to the main road, took a gamble and turned right. I was aware that Jharkhand is known as one of the largest sex trafficking states in India, and that I was responsible for 4 young girls, whilst on crutches. Paranoia is an understatement. A while later, we arrived (rather relieved) at the building where the hairdressers were. The people who run the place are awesome, as they allow the girls to come in and get free haircuts, as long as they don’t turn up in their masses. For 4 village girls, all from Tribal families, it was completely new to them and they were shell-shocked. For 4 girls who are normally so confident and full of beans on the football pitch, they were timid and totally blown away. It was a great evening for everyone and the girls looked beautiful with their hair done. The owner started talking to me, looking at my hair, touched it and asked if I was sure I didn’t want a cut to. I was flattered, but kindly declined. The 2 hours spent in their also reminded me of my bad taste in music when I was younger as they were playing the Backstreets Back album, and I shamefully knew all the words to all the songs.  Leaving the salon, we headed back to try and find out auto on the way stopping off at a few small, crammed hair shops to buy cheap and tacky looking clips, for myself naturally.  One of the few things I was blessed with is a pretty good sense of direction and we were therefore able to make it back to the auto with very little drama. A thoroughly enjoyable day. 

The more time you spend with the people here, the more your respect grows for them. Last night I dished out 10 plasters to the A team girls alone, all of which had cut their hands cutting grass or bamboo, the youngest one was 9. Depending on the team and the village, their routine varies slightly, but here is an idea of their day. They wake up around 0500 in the morning to do a few hours of housework before they head to school. After finishing school they then throw they sports kit on and go and play football for a few hours. They then go back to their house and finish off the work from that morning and then come over for English. They go to bed later than they should because they WANT to study. This is what happens however on a good day, when they go to school. Because of the fantastic work done here, many parents are coming around to the idea of valuing education, but many of them still don’t and therefore simply cannot see the point in their daughters going to school. The eldest daughter tends to carry a majority of the burden and suffers the most. Whilst the younger brothers and sisters will head off to school, she will be responsible for the house and if they have them, animals and farm. Social change is something where there can be no immediate quick fix. It takes a huge amount of time and dedication, especially when you are trying to influence a society which is so reluctant to change. It starts with the kids you work with and the values you teach them in the hope that even if they cannot avoid an arranged marriage at the age of 16, maybe they will then give their children an opportunity to make their own decisions. I have never come across a more robust group of people than I have coming here. There is something in the girls which makes them determined on and off the football pitch. Maybe it is the tough time they have at home, potentially abuse they get at home which drives them to run that much harder and that much faster for the ball when they play football. The concept of escapism cannot be clearer.

Wow. That was rather serious. Let’s not end on a low note. The girls had another football match on Sunday afternoon which they just lost. It was an extremely exciting match and I was just relieved that the referee didn’t understand any English otherwise he would have been offended by my comments.  A goat was presented to the winning boy’s team by some ‘big-wig’ politician and the girls received a small trophy each, 1^st and 2^nd place get the same prizes here so the girls were happy. As it began to get darker the crowds started getting more rowdy. There was a huge amount of commotion happening around the stage. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but the announcer was having none of it. After around 10 minutes of shouting, cheering (what at exactly I had no idea), the ‘MC’ ran off with the bouquet of flowers and a trophy. This obviously closed the curtain on yet another well organised sporting event hosted by the Indians. On the way back we ran out of fuel. Not an ideal situation as you can imagine. However I was fortunate to see India at its best, as a number of people stopped to ask what had happened, and it had just so happened that we stopped around a 5 minute walk from a lady selling petrol by the bucket full. So all was not lost.

That evening at around 12 I was woken by a whimpering noise, it sounded similar to a loud mouse but I couldn’t quite figure it out. I decided to try and ignore it and put my ipod on loud. However the noise kept growing. I turned on my phone and scanned the room, seeing a small black shape moving where by clothes are piled on the floor (nicely obviously). All these thought were going through my head, has the dog taken a chunk out of a mouse, or even worse a rat and left the poor thing to die, in my clothes? The dog sleeps under my bed and has a taste for vermin. I turned the light on pretty unprepared for what I saw. It was a tiny puppy. Completely shocked and taken back at what was in front of me, I looked under the bed and there was another tiny little thing sitting next to its mum. We had thought that the dog was looking ‘under the weather’ and only that morning I joked about her being pregnant. Never joke about pregnancy, lesson learnt.  When the mum had finished cleaning them I put them both into a small box next to the mum. Thinking about it, I have never been so close to a birth before, and to be honest I don’t really want to again for a while. I now have a mountain of washing to do because of a little puppies adventure, but they are pretty cute so I am sure they will keep me entertained for a while.

TaTaa

you can’t kiss in the street but you can s*** in the street

On the way to my 0530 class in the mornings we drive past a number of rice paddies. It is at this time in the morning that I get to see an array of people’s bottoms. Before you jump to conclusions, I do not try and make a conscious effort to see this. Everywhere you look you see people attending to their morning business without a care or thought in the world towards the person 8 metres away doing exactly the same thing. This is one of the many traits contributing to a general lack of social awareness. For those of you who have been to India will be well aware of the 10 second glare. For those of you who aren’t allow me to enlighten you. A gormless glare, generally done by middle aged men with big moustaches and massive bellies (however females and younger males also partake in this exciting activity) who do not stop looking until you start looking back. When I say looking back, I don’t mean in a sort of – oh heeeey kind of way, I mean a look which is clearly telling them to f*** off.  Where I am going with this so far, I am unsure so allow me to start again.

For those who read my previous ‘blog’ I would like to congratulate the few people picking up on my blindingly obvious error, of naming the arm bones wrong. Yes I did do Sports Science, yes I did get a 2.1 and no, I didn’t have to sleep with anyone to get it either. Thank you. Also, for those who have asked for me to send them the address of where I am, I am actually pretty unsure to start off with and it takes around 3 months to get mail, so I have not bothered telling you the information.

This may be a long one, so either stop now if you don’t have enough time/canny be bothered, or get yourself a cuppa and a dictionary so if you are really bored you can pick me up on all my grammatical errors (at least I spelt that right...). Since last writing, a lot has happened, as it does in any one’s life over a 2 week period. I shed my first tear, which was after I walked past a chicken with only one leg who was struggling to walk (and I thought I had problems with my crutches). For those of you who know me well know that I have a pretty large and embarrassing fear/massive hatred towards frogs. Frogs are bloody everywhere here. I was just about to fall asleep the other night and I could hear a very faint repetitive banging. I had no idea what it was so turned on the light and saw a tiny tiny frog trying to jump up the wall. I screamed. The next night, I was cooking dinner on the fire stove with the girls, when I saw this rock shape figure in a corner. I walked up to it and it was a toad, not just any toad but a toad which I’m pretty sure would have made the World records. I screamed and hid in my room.  I never knew I could have the piss taken out of me by an 8 year old who doesn’t speak any English, but I did. Teaching is going better than what I thought. The kids are hilarious and laugh at anything, so I automatically have something in common with all of them. They asked me to teach them swear words, and at first I was shocked at the idea, however 5 minutes later there I was teaching them bollocks and crap. I agreed to only teach them as long as they taught me swear words in Hindi, it’s a learning experience both ways you know. I have had more done here to my hair and nails than I have ever had done anywhere else. Every English class I leave with a new hair style and a new colour on my fingers and toes. The days here are still pretty long, getting up at 4:45, not eating dinner until 2100 and am usually in bed by 2330 so the weekend wake up at 6:00 is always appreciated.

Just over a week ago, Yuwa had three visitors, head of Nike equipment design, the director of Waves for Water NGO and an artist who does community based projects. Two of them visited for 3 days whilst, the artist stayed for just short of a week.  During their time here they demonstrated new water filtration systems to the girls and helped promote the strong partnership between Nike and Waves for Water. Over the weekend, the girls had 2 matches to play around 4 hours away from where we are staying. So I thought, well I’m going on tour then aren’t I? We squeezed 21 of us into 3 auto rickshaws and headed off to the bus station in Ranchi. Soon enough we jumped onto another bus where after a pretty bumpy 4 hours we arrived where we needed to be, Jamshudpur .  We were staying at the TATA stadium. TATA in India is a pretty big name. The city we were in is pretty much run by the TATAs and they have their fingers in all sorts of businesses. The stadium itself was wicked, as it was not only a football and athletics stadium but also a centre for sports including swimming, basketball, archery, badminton and a few others too. For the girls who live in mud-houses, as you can imagine it was a pretty big deal. One of the matches was played in one of the most beautiful locations I have ever seen. Around 40 minutes outside the busy city alongside a number of over-powering hills, there was a pretty dodgey football ground playing host to a village tournament. By the time the girls started playing there were around 3,000 spectators all supporting the girl’s opposition. The girls won with no major traumas and a few hours later a number of our players had won prizes including man of the match. I’ve been told that at some tournaments the man of the match received a goat or a chicken which is later killed and eaten. Personally I was about ready for some goat, but unfortunately they were given a jumper instead.

Life in India is made that much more difficult when you are on crutches.  I have walked through all sorts of terrain and racked up a few miles to get places. The best so far is walking on a village road in mist after rain in the dark with no torch. There were 4 of us and we were making the half an hour walk (crutches speed) to the main road to jump in an auto and go and have a few beers. I was with a bunch of Americans and they were somewhat impressed by what a Brit would do to go and have a few drinks. When we were at a match, a quick walk turned into a 2 hour trek, through varying terrain however I have to see the positive side and see it as a work-out.  I still have my foot in a cast and the doctor here wants it to stay like that for at least another two. I have torn my ankle ligament and am unsure as to what to do, keep it in a cast or get a tight wrap around bandage thing. For those medics out there, I would really appreciate your thoughts. My main concern is recovering well enough to start fitness for sandhurst, because after this that programme is going to be diffffffficult.

There have also been a number of hilarious incidences which I must report on.  Two weekends ago I spent Saturday afternoon in a hotel. I had arranged for an auto driver to pick me up at 3 but wanted to change it to 3:30. So I txt one of the coaches asking him to tell the dude to come at 3:30. I did not hear back, but was not expecting to. That morning, at 3:30 I was woken up by the coach I had txt, saying that the auto would pick me up in ten minutes. He must have thought I was mental wanting something so early in the morning. I went into a restaurant the other day and got a drink. I looked down at the menu and saw that the place I was in was called ‘Twat restaurant’. We have recently had Dewali here, a Hindu celebration of light. Fireworks are pretty big here and the largest supplier of fireworks is a company called ‘Cock fireworks’. I was buying food the other day when an utterly fantastic song came on the radio, which links in quite nicely with the blog title. The lyrics went, ‘No kissing, no kissing, only seeing only see. No touching no touching, only seeing only see’. I looked around and all the women we singing to this whilst casually gyrating alongside a man near them. This country is however full of irony. When the girls cook in the house, before dinner they all come up to me telling me to ‘hand wash’ and in my head I can’t help thinking, ‘Sorry love, but you’re the one who wipes your bottom with your hand, are you sure you’re not the one who should be hand washing?’. Just to also add to my previous comment about cows living a life of luxury here – I went to a villagers house the other night for dinner, he told me (in very basic English) that his cow had done ‘the same thing’ I had done to my ankle. They paid around £5 to get a physiotherapist out to the village and ‘fix the cow’. He wanted to know if I wanted that physiotherapists number....

There is a considerable amount of similarity between the girls and boys here and the girls and boys from EUSWPC. Well, in some ways yes, in some ways no. Their banter from what I can understand (which isn’t that much) is brilliant and like any sports team there are some pretty strong characters who stick out. When boys and girls mix together no matter what culture they are part of there is always a bit of flirtation and ‘gossip’, even from a suppressed society like this one. Because of this my immediate reaction when I am asked to teach them ‘English song’ is to teach them the changed version of ‘Girls from Rhoden’, which EUSWPC adapted to ‘We are from Edinburgh good girls are we’. For those who know this, are aware of just how inappropriate it would be to teach a bunch of young vulnerable girls it. Another one which I started singing the other day was ‘I use to work in Chicago’. Again, not appropriate. So after knocking all the inappropriate songs out of my head I settled for ‘B.I.N.G.O’, which the loved.

When arriving here, I was expecting to see cricket being played everywhere. So far, I haven’t but ever since England’s poor performance over the past five one day tests everywhere I look there is cricket. Whoever said that England were set to have an Indian summer (when referring to the weather), were criticized by sports fans as India performed so badly.  Well they now are. Not a good time to be from England in India, especially if you like cricket. As I have mentioned before, some of the kids English is not good but a few boys can string a sentence together of ‘ England sucks’.

Well, for those of you still reading thank you, but it’s probably time you got back to work. For those of you still at Uni, I will write more frequently next month and in December to give you something to do whilst revising. I did warn you this will be a long one. I would also try and make this blog slightly more interesting by uploading photos etc, but I simply don’t know how.

I hope you are all doing well.  It would be lovely to what people have been getting up to so hit me back if you have the time. 

You for scooter?

My first few weeks have been very bizarre, and I suppose I have seen a fair bit.

I should give a little shout out to Terminal 3 at Heathrow for it living up to it’s reputation for being one of the most chaotic and unorganized terminals at Heathrow. Shout out.

On my flight over to India I sat next to a very nice Indian man who was highly educated, but the problem was he couldn’t stop talking. He even woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me a question. I could see this was going to be a very long 3 months...

I arrived at Delhi airport early, which was just fantastic as my flight to Ranchi was delayed, so the 5 ½ hour wait was extended to 7. I knew I was in India when I was the only westerner on the flight from Delhi to Ranchi. I should also add, when I spoke to the gentleman on the plane from Heathrow he asked me where I was going and I said Ranchi and I have never seen someone looked so confused. He didn’t even ask me why, he just said, ‘Oh..’ Ranchi airport itself is a quaint little thing, a make shift baggage belt and a hand full of security guards who were asleep. I was met by 2 football coaches whose English was not great, never the less we jumped onto an ‘auto-rick shaw’ (for those unfamiliar with this terminology I suggest you go travelling) and travelled for an hour in the dark eventually arriving at the village where Yuwa is based, Hutup. I was shown into a room and collapsed on the bed, expecting to be consumed by a soft mattress, however was met with a slab of wood instead, as the beds in India are just as I said, slabs of wood.

One of the coaches took me for breakfast at their local restaurant/hotels which is around 10 mins scooter drive away. It is a make shift building which has apparently been in construction for 10 years, of which you can see the stairs from the road. Unsure what to order, I ordered buttered toast, pretty crazy I know. Everyone around me though was eating the famous vegetable sandwich, which I was soon to find out was a pretty big thing around this area. The conversation as you can imagine was pretty limited and there were many awkward silences, a common occurrence for me over the past 2 weeks and without doubt the rest of my time here as well. At lunch time I was greeted at the door by a family. The father is the landlord of the house Yuwa are based in and he wanted his daughter to speak English so he was therefore going to leave her with me from 11:30 until 17:00. I know, what a bloody long time. She was however, extremely intelligent and pompous. She took me to the private hospital across the road, where her Uncle ran the canteen. We sat in his office and ate sandwiches and everyone she met along the way, she insisted on telling them I was her best friend and that I ‘took sandwiches for lunch at the hospital’. I then went for dinner at her house, where I was given so much food of which no one else was eating.....bizarre.

My first meeting with the girls who are part of the YUWA programme was the day Franz arrived back, where I went to visit a bunch of them at their houses and then had a tour of the village. They literally live in each other’s pockets, and are all somehow related. I visited around 25 different houses over a 2 hour period, sat down in 15 of them and used the words ‘Wow, this is lovely’ far too much.  Quality of life here for a majority of family’s is pretty grim, however sometimes the family’s don’t really help themselves - example: a family won £2,000 in a game of cards and spent it all on speaker systems and a flat screen TV. The family live in a mud house and apparently can’t afford to send their daughter to school.

I am yet to drive a scooter on my own. It is currently in repair and won’t be ready for another week at least. The roads, as you can imagine are pretty bad, the driving is even worse. I think I saw a record of around 8 goats and 3 people pilled onto a motor bike the other day, unfortunately my camera was not to hand. Ranchi, the town nearby has nothing charming about it. Lonely planet describes it as a pretty large space with not a lot there. Well, at least we know the Lonely Planet are doing their research correctly. I look at it like this, imagine everything shit thing about a big city, whether it be London or Brazil, everything is ten times worse in India (apart from the high prices).

The days here are very long. Yuwa coach football in three different locations. In Hutup village where they are based, and two other villages around 25 minutes away. Football practice in the morning is 6:00 until 8:00. The kids then go to school until 1500 and play football again from 1630 until it gets dark. There are 5 official teams and 2 adult coaches. YUWA paid for 7 girls to go on a coaching course last year in Delhi, and therefore they help coach a long side the adults. At yesterdays practice there were around 100 girls there, from three different teams/villages. All of which were doing high quality drills. The girls 1^st team are extremely good and even have a few national players. They all have football ‘kit’ including football foots, socks and shoes all of which are compulsory. The NGO helps set up financial plans for the girls to get them saving up for their boots, giving them responsibility and also an incentive.  The younger ‘new girls team’ are however just starting off and are still playing in their cute little dresses in bare feet. The level of commitment here from all the players and coaches is incredible.

As I arrived during a holiday it has been an interesting few weeks. A girl broke her arm during practice and from this I have had the privilege (cough) of visiting one of the government run hospital in Ranchi. Government run hospitals  are always under-staffed and busy no matter where you are. In India, well.....It was a huge complex with people everywhere and no staff. After walking around for an hour and getting lost (and also going past 3 dead bodies being wheeled out) we found where we needed to be. The next day we then visited a private clinic, where there was no consultation room and people listened in on other people’s problems and diagnosis.  I could tell you about a hand full of very interesting cases, but I don’t want to bore the few who are still managing to read this. The girl had broken both her Tibia and Fibula (her arm) and got 2 metal plates put in, I was able to stand in and watch the surgery which was actually very interesting. It was more however for the surgeon to show off as he kept harping on about how great he was. Modesty is not a word in the Indian language.

What else? Well the young girl I met on my first day invited me to a marriage ceremony 3 days before the wedding, whereby after the ceremony the bride is under ‘house arrest’ and is unable to leave until after the wedding. I was treated like royalty and was highly embarrassed about the whole occasion. They are a Muslim family and therefore can eat beef (unlike a majority of the other villagers who are Hindu and don’t eat beef), and by golly they had huge quantities of it, and it was lush. On that note, because the cow is a sacred animal in Hindu culture, if ever asked what animal I would want to be, the simple answer would be a cow in a village in India. The ceremony itself was bizarre. The bride to be was in floods of tears whilst her family presented here with offerings, which traditionally would have been chickens and rice, however nowadays consist of money, i-pads (RIP. Steve Jobs) and mobile phones. On paper it sounds like a very calm ceremony, however everyone was chatting on the phone and giggling away. Bizarre. Just very Bizarre.

What am I actually doing? Well, teaching English. Came as a surprise to me too, well not the teaching English part but the 4 lessons a day part. My first class starts at 0600 until 0730 and then there is one directly after. I have a lull in the day until around 1500 which is when my next one starts. I head over to practice after that and then come back to take the 1^st team and help them with homework. I have concluded that I feel my value lies in running around getting people involved rather than trying to control 40 girls in a small room, whereby the standard of English varies considerably (many girls cannot English at all compared with me having a conversation with one about the British in India...). I am however thoroughly enjoying it, it is very laid back, and it has to be in order to fit in with the nature of the locals. Living conditions are basic but pretty comfortable. The girls come in and out of my room as they wish and use my things, deodorant and hairbrush etc (and before any of you ask YES I DID bring a hairbrush with me). The girls however have nits, so simple solution to prevent me from getting them – don’t use brush (sorry mum). In the evening some of the girls cook and include Franz and I as well which is really nice, so I must repay the favour. The food however I have bought seems to have disappeared....it probably has something to do with the 50 odd girls who come in and out of the house every day.

Gossip is of a limited nature in my life here, which is bloody brilliant. So I make my own, coming up with different stories of what the girls are talking about. It’s amazing what stories you can come up with when given the opportunity.

No major dramas for me at the minute regarding health etc, oh apart from the fact that I tore my ligament on my right ankle and am now sporting a bring yellow cast and am on crutches for at least 2 weeks...GRRRREAT! Life in India is made just that mush tougher when in a cast. Also as if being a westerner in this area is not obvious enough, I am now one with a bright yellow cast and crutches.

I must dash, I’m at a hotel and have a cold Kingfisher and bar snacks waiting for me to watch Wales kill France. Wales New Zealand final anyone? Unless the bloody Ozzies pull it out the bag – highly unlikely.

Stay tune and hope the birds are singing wherever you are

P.S – again apologies for how disjointed this is. It is a true reflection of how my brain works. For those who have managed to finish this – high5’s.

The build up

After spending a summer attempting to earn money and come up with a 'life-plan', I have, as so many graduates do, decided to start blogging. Not sure about you, but the word blogging makes me laugh. For those of you who know me, know that my grammar is awful (ironically I did't spell either of those two words correctly at first)  and that my spelling is worse. For those of you who don't, why are you reading this?

As some of you may know I am heading off to India on Sunday. I am volunteering for a charity called YUWA (what that actually stands for no one will ever know) based in the Jharkhand state, 40 minutes away from the captial, Ranchi (not to be mistaken for Raunchy). YUWA is a charity which provides a basic 'platform' for girls to build up their confidence and increase social mobility by providing football coaching sessions, extra English lessons giving them a basic sense of belonging, something which we in the western world take for granted. Anyway, for those who are really interested here is the link...

http://yuwa-india.org/Index.html

My job role? Well from what I have gathered I will be acting as a mentor to the girls along with developing their English department and the charity as a whole, through talks with the government and commercial companies.

Due to the isolated nature of the village I'm going to, motorbikes are the main mode of transport. I have one waiting for me when I get there. For the people I have told, their initial response is to laugh, laugh at the idea of me riding a motorbike...in India. It's OK though because I hear their roads are really good and that their driving is wonders above that of the Swiss.

So with 20kg for the next 3 months (4kg of which is a bike helmet) I set off on a unknown, potentially hazardous yet guaranteed exciting adventure.

P.S As I am new at this, I have decided to start off short and sweet which can be partially due to my incredibly short attention span.