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