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.