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.