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On Holiday In Baga, Jan 2007
Kim, Dave and me, at a zoo close to Dudhsagar FallsI returned to the UK at the end of August 2006, after making the decision to finish my degree before returning to continue as an English Language Trainer in a similer environment to the one I had worked in on my placement year. At first, life back in England was fun, I had a lot of catching up to do, and things were exciting. However, it wasn't long before I began to regret my decision. I didn't want to be a student anymore. The forward transition from student to employee with responsibility was tough, but one I tried damn hard to make successfully. The transition back to student after a taste of 'the real world' was far far more difficult. And I missed India, terribly.
After a less than productive first semester, I decided I NEEDED an India fix, so in Jan 2007, myself and two pals, Kimbo and Dave had two lovely weeks in Goa.
Returning to India proved to me that I really do love it, and I definately wanted to return longterm in the summer. However, I had also concluded that I needed to develop more confidence and ability to conduct training sessions
The Littlies
Some of the small children that are too young for school, so attend The Mango House all day if I was really ever going to be a successful trainer. This is when I decided I wanted to get TEFL training. After researching into TEFL courses, I found one I wanted to take part in Calcutta.
The thought of doing a TEFL course excited me. However, I realised it would involve teaching children. Children, at this point were not my thing. I had no idea how to relate too, or interact with a child, I knew nothing of their daily routines or how their minds worked. I did realise that to get the most out of teaching them, it would be advantagous for me to have spent time with them and to feel confident in communicating with them.
This is when I realised I could kill two birds with one stone. Return to Goa directly after graduating, and do 'the kid thing'. The way I planned to do this was to volunteer with a children's charity based in the area, Children Walking Tall. I applied, got my police check, and got accepted. EEEKKKKKK, I was off to work with kids, YAYYYYYYYY I got to live in Goa for five months!!
Children Walking Tall This is just
a little info about what the charity do, I have taken it from their website www.childrenwalkingtall.com, anyone who would like more info on the wonderful work Rob and the gang do, please take a look. Obviously any donations would be gratefully received, and I can vouch all donations are spent directly on the current needs of the children. Thank you!
Children Walking Tall was set up to help the children who live on the streets and in the slums of India. It started by visiting local slums and making fruit visits and providing small classes for the children to help promote education. Once it received more support it extended it's help to provide clothes runs giving out the clothes that had been kindly donated by visitors. In 2005 an old Portuguese house was secured which was turned into a centre and base for the chidlren. It was named "The Mango House" and now provides a base where the children recive healthy food, a safe/dry place to rest and allows them to join in with creative and fun education and also time to do what children the world over should do, which is PLAY!
Children Walking Tall strives to
The Children
Posing at The Mango House give children a chance of a childhood worth remembering.
Arriving At The Charity After a couple of weeks staying with a pal in Pune, I took the night bus down to Mapusa. It was at some point that night I suddenly thought 'what am I doing here??!' I can't quite remember if this was before or after an unscheduled puncture repair stop, but I do remember that being the longest overnight journey I have ever done in India.
Arriving at just about dawn into Mapusa bus station, and stepping out into the rain and scrum of auto and taxi drivers, it was a different Goa before me than the sunny tourist version I was used to, and it did little to quell that ‘what have I done’ feeling.
After some incessant haggling, I got an auto driver to drop me and my two big bags at the gates of The Mango House. A few minutes later Rob arrived, and after saying hello, his first words were ‘You look REALLY tired’. So it was decided after his frank description of the state of me, that he would drive me directly over to Calangute to a two bed bungalow
I could call home for the next three months if I liked it.
On the 13km journey we chatted, Rob told me about himself and how he and Shermina (who was in the UK on her annual holiday) ended up setting up and manning the charity. Then he asked me about myself and we got to why I was volunteering at CWT. Sleep deprivation mixed with information overload didn’t lead to me being particularly tactful with my answering. So I told him that I hadn’t really given the charity that much thought until now, and topped this off with telling him that I didn’t like children. I am so grateful that he didn’t throw me out of the van right there and then! And, I hope that over the last few months, he has seen me grow to love all the children to bits, more than I ever dared dream would be possible on that rainy morning at the end of July.
So, after walking the boggy gauntlet (thanks to the monsoon) to my new home, I was left in peace to really contemplate what the hell I had done. The contemplation didn’t take too much time, as
King of the castle
Independance Day at the park in Panjim soon a restless sleep took over. I woke up around lunch time, and headed out, waded back through the mud to orientate myself and buy some water and other essentials. On the way back from the shop I bumped into three of my Goan pals Ilu, Anto and Lucky, driving down my road. I’m not sure who was more surprised, them or me! They came and checked out my place and instantly deemed it unsuitable. A couple of weeks later they got there way and I moved into a (much nicer) apartment just a minutes walk away where I lived happily for four months with Sophie, Julia and Kimbo at different times.
On my first night I was saved from my worries that I had made a massive mistake by Sophie, another volunteer from Manchester, who I spoke to and she invited me out for dinner with her and the other volunteers. That evening I met her, Lisa from Australia and Olli and Stu the doctors from Southern England. We had a great night, with plenty of Kingfisher thrown in with our dinner at Krishna on the Baga/Calangute Road. I swam back down that damn path to my house,
with arrangements to meet Sophie at 8.10am to catch the bus to Mapusa in the morning, for day one with the kids. I had gone from anxious to excited in the space of one dinnertime. I was ready for anything, or was I??!
My First Journey to Work!
I am writing this more than six months down the line, and can still remember most of it with crystal clarity. I woke up early, and the sun was just breaking out into the sky, yay, it was lovely to see after all the rain the day before. I got ready, and had time to kill waiting for it to be time to go meet Sophie. I felt so much like the new girl starting school, excited but sooooo nervous!
By 8.10am I was outside Sophie’s place where we were to catch the bus, but there was no sign of her, so I went up n knocked on the door, to find her answer it wrapped in her sheet straight out of bed. She told me she’d be two minutes, and she didn’t lie, I have never known anyone get ready as fast as Sophie can!
Then it
was on to the bus journey. For all the time I had spent in India, I had never used a local bus before, so felt like a total novice. The journey was brilliant. We were squished on the back seat with about six others, with nothing to hold onto and having trouble touching the floor with our feet as the seat was too high. The best bit that I just couldn’t get over was the fact that the bus had flashing lights and cheesy dance music blaring out of the stereo. What a way to travel to work everyday, and all this, plus the entertainment of Sophie being chatted up by John, a random boy in his school uniform sat next to her, all for the bargain price of 7 rupees!
From Mapusa bus station, we took a second short bus trip, this one was much more sedate and quiet, and with the most lovely conductor I ever came across. I came to learn that his name is Arjun, and he is fab, always stopping the bus right outside The Mango House, even if I’d passed into a dream world and was paying no attention. He was lovely in
Giggle-go-round
The littlies on the roundabout, with a lot of infectious giggling! everyway, always smiley, happy and polite, and will be forever my favourite bus man, even after Julia had to go and spoil his perfection just slightly by pointing out he has freaky ears. Adds to his unique charm I say, bless him!
So we arrived at the house unscathed, bang on time just a minute before 9am, and with me badly needing a sit down after all the excitement and sensory overload of the journey!
For most of the three months this is how I traveled too and from work everyday, and it really was a love hate thing. I loved it for the vibrancy, the sights, for its unpredictability and for that feeling of achieving something every morning, before 9am just by successfully arriving at the charity door! I hated it for the smells, the crazy driving, the overcrowding and the frustrations the journey could often bring.
Some days, when I just didn’t have my adventurous hat on I would take a motorbike pilot, or a few of us would share a taxi if the rain was particularly bad or we had bags to take. But whenever I deviated from the bus, it wasn’t long before
its madness and true Goan heart lured me back to get the ‘Vengabus’ to work.
Falling in Love The one thing that I never expected to happen was to fall in love. But that is exactly what I did, with 40 amazing and beautiful children. I never, ever thought I would go from clueless to competent. I thought I'd do ok, help out a little, but I could never ever anticipate the inpact these little people would have on my life.
They have inpacted enough that I know that I will always return. I will always wonder how they are doing, what the news is, I will never go for long without my mind drifting back to Children Walking Tall.
I realise I'm lucky to be able to go back again so soon, and this time, from day one I can get stuck in, and love it, rather than the first time when it took me a while to find my feet, and work out how little people work.
And I hope, that when I have to leave again, that it will never be the end of my CWT story
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