Fight Against Torture - Part III - Camp!

Two interesting things have come from having a travel blog. Firstly, I feel that we have become a google for people searching for pornography from India. We can see how many times each of our diaries have been viewed. Most have been viewed about 150 times (although numbers are dropping, so get your acts together and spread the word!), however the diary entitled 'Sex in India' has been viewed a whopping 2000 times. Hence my decision to put the word 'sex' in the title of every blog page we write from now on.

Secondly, if you haven't read Steve G's comment on the 'Love in Times of Dysentery' entry, it's hilarious. Apparently for you viewers, you get ads picked by google based on the content of the blogs. Hence all my rabbitting on about my and Ana's stools resulted in us getting an ad about bar stools and other furniture! Ah the wonders of modern technology.

However, back on topic. While this blog is about the summer camp, I thought we’d take this opportunity to tell you about another weekend in Kodaikanal. Our second trip up the mountain was a welcome escape from the heat of both Madurai and Karnataka. So nice in fact, that Jordan could not resist the G&Ts by the lake and so joined us for the weekend. The best part was my parents introduced us to a wonderful couple called George and Vera. They were great people to talk and hang out with but best of all they loved hiking and knew a lot of easy but beautiful walks around Kodai. So off we went with Daisy (my parents young retriever who was desperately unfit) and explored some beautiful areas.

Poor Jordan. On his way up he had the bus trip from hell. Not only did he have the seat over the engine (so hot that he had to keep his feet off the floor) but they let on about 300 people (an exaggeration but probably 3 or 4 times the amount of seats on the bus). While Indian people generally have no personal space issues (only between your sex, not between the sexes) apparently four fights broke out.

Anyway, back to the summer camp. The camp has been set up by People’s Watch for the children of torture victims. Before going, I had my doubts about the beneficial nature and expense of a yearly camp of 10 days for the children and not victims. But obviously children are affected too. Teachers told me that the kids were really quiet when they first arrived. When we got there, they were anything but quiet!

The purpose of the camps is to allow the children to be children! They get to play games, sport, drama, music, traditional dance, hiking and all with no responsibility for 10 days. They were amazing, but SO much energy, so draining. When we arrived they were already banging away at a traditional drum which Jordan joined with gusto. In the meantime, Ana and I were swamped and convinced to eat the petals of the nearby tree. Quite a zesty, citrusy flavour. We then had the opportunity to take a class for an hour and so played Duck Duck Goose (Ana: Chas nearly got caught by a little boy about a quarter of his size), Simon Says, taught them the hokey pokey (Ana: you should have been there to hear Chas sing at the top of his voice!) and finally some English phrases.

Finally I got to see one of my passions: how drama can change things. The kids showed us the product of a week’s work and were able to conjure up impros in five minutes about the issues that most preyed on their minds; road deaths were pretty common.

Anyway, I will leave the saga of getting home to its protagonist: Ana.

Firstly, I just want to say that I loved visiting the kid’s camp! These kids were just gorgeous! Their first question was always, ‘What’s your name?’ And when I sat down, and they crowded around, and about five people were asking me different things, they kept touching my chin to turn my face to give them my attention.

Can I begin our story of getting home with a sigh? *sigh*

Well, my favourite pair of thongs (or flip flops for you non-Australians out there!) decided to fall apart just as we went for lunch at the summer camp. The weather was pretty warm, standing in the sun was hot, so the ground itself was scorching to touch. Well, to me anyway. I was astounded to see lots of little kids walking around bare foot, whereas I could only set my foot down for half a second.

After lunch, the kids were going off to have siestas, so the three of us, Chas, Jordan and I decided to head back into Madurai so the guys could do some work. We had come in with the People’s Watch bus, but as that would head back in the evening, we had to get our own way back.

There was a rickshaw at the school, but he wanted to over charge us for just taking us from the school to the main road, and as it was not far, we decided to just walk there. Well, it was not far if you have shoes! One of the kids found me some glue to try and fix the shoe, but despite drying it in the sun for 20min, after taking a few steps, it came apart again. So Jordan gave me his pair to walk in, saying he’d be fine. It was bearable where there was shade. Then it became evident that neither Jordan nor I could walk along the road barefoot. So then Chas and Jordan tried carrying me together, which I thought would have looked so funny, so couldn’t stop laughing, which didn’t help them. Jordan at this stage was saying that we were all being so culturally inappropriate (as guys and girls can’t even hold hands let alone carry each other!), but the road was pretty deserted, thankfully. So I decided to just hop my way along, for about 10m. Jordan then managed to tie my thong to my foot. Which was quite successful for a while.

However our progress was quite slow because the shoe kept slipping off. In the end, Jordan ripped part of the cloth he’d been using to blow his nose (beggars can’t be choosers he told me), and made another strap somehow so now it looked much more like a sandal! We did make it to the main road, and for all the trouble we had to go through, the bus arrived at the bus stop just as we did!

It felt so good to just sit on the bus and watch the world go by. Thankfully Jordan was able to work out that we were on the right bus, and knew where to get off. As we stepped off the bus, we were right in front of a couple of small stores, and it was to my great joy that we ordered freshly squeezed juice, and a chocolate ice cream! Chocolate ice cream that almost melted before I could eat it, but covered in chocolate and sweat, I could not have been happier!

It wasn’t until I got home and took off the thong-turned-sandal, that I could see that my circulation had been cut off. But I was grateful anyway, because otherwise I would still be hopping along the road!

So all in all, our day spent at the summer camp was a lot of fun! I don’t know how their leaders were able to keep up with the 250 or so energetic kids for 10 days, but if we had such a good time for half a day, I am sure it would have been very rewarding.

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