Advertisement
Published: July 12th 2014
It has now been 5 weeks since I left the UK and started my summer of volunteer work in India with ICS and Restless Development. So far there have been ups and downs, frustrations and challenges but I am pleased with the work we have achieved within the local communities and hope to build on this over the coming months. Life in India this time around is very different to my holiday in the North four years ago. For a start the Tamil Nadu region feels like I'm in a different country especially with the different language. While we had a few Tamil lessons during training I have only managed to master a few basic words and sentences and being understood is a real effort. Sign language and mime help but the difficulty is exacerbated by the different writing and having 247 letters in the Tamil alphabet! If only the buses had signs in Tamil and English it would make my life so much easier!
After just over two weeks training in Chennai we moved to our placement districts to begin the real work. I have two placements called Vellore 1 and 2 but for the moment I am in Vellore 2 in a town called Alangayam. It is lovely being surrounded by mountains and we are lucky in that it is a few degrees cooler here than in was in Chennai which definitely makes a difference for having a good night's sleep. The placement house is basic but functional. We only have 5 beds for 6 of us and water is scarce with regular power cuts. We use a bucket for washing ourselves and our clothes and have a small gas hob with two rings for cooking. Sadly the first few days we suffered a cockroach infestation, rat droppings and flooding but hopefully these are sorted now with just the odd cockroach to be seen. If we run out of water we can go to the end of the road and get some more from the local well. As it is so precious we have all become much more aware of how much water we use and how we take it for granted so we try to conserve as much as possible. I can now have a bucket wash and wash my hair with about a quarter of a bucket of water! I will definitely be using less when I get home. Safe drinking water for us is available through cans of treated water but many people get ill here through drinking the tap water. When we had a meeting at the primary health clinic we were told that through our work we should encourage more people to boil their water before drinking it to reduce the number of cases of diarrhea.
For 10 days we lived with a host family in a smaller village in Vallipattu about a 45 min bus journey from Alangayam and about 30 mins from Nimmiyampattu where we go to work in the Youth Resource Centre. We were split between two families - one of the boys and two girls in each. In my house we had Parameshwari, her husband Ranjan, two sons - Dhileep and Deepan and a daughter Deepika. They were very welcoming and although communication was hard we really enjoyed our time with them. Food is very important in India and we did have a few problems with not eating enough! The food was delicious but we just couldn't eat in the quantities they wanted us to. Cries of 'eating, eating' from Parameshwari came at every meal and not being able to serve yourself meant lots on your plate. I particularly enjoyed the chapattis which I would love to learn how to make but was not keen on eating spicy peas and potatoes at breakfast!
During our stay in Vallipattu we worked in our teams - livelihoods and health. The livelihood team were able to run a CV stall for Out of School Youths and the Health Team found and created a Kitchen Garden. This is a fantastic example of how communities can use up stagnant water safely to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes and Vector Borne Diseases as well as create a source of food for the family. Women workers in the fields only earn 100 rupees a day for 6 hours work 6 days a week so extra food would be welcome. We have dug the garden and planted the seeds and hope it will be an inspiration to others. Both teams met with the local headmaster and we delivered two sessions on health and livelihoods to 9th standard students (ages 13-14). We used Non Formal Education techniques (NFE) and they were well received. Last Saturday was Restless Development Values Day which we celebrated at the YRC in Nimmiyampattu. We drew the values on a big white sheet and invited the local youths and children to celebrate with us by signing their name or placing their hand print on the sheet. We were lucky enough to have a visit from the local Panjat leader so a fantastic opportunity to get ourselves known within this community. Over the coming weeks we hope to do more work in the YRC and make better use of this resource.
Socially we were lucky enough to be invited to an Indian wedding. This was a fabulous opportunity to get dressed up and learn more about Indian culture firsthand. The girls enjoyed wearing saris although they are much harder to put on than you realise. When we were staying with Parameshwari Alice and I were lucky enough to try some on and realised how important they are to Indian women. Each one seems to tell a story and Parameshwari was able to tell us how old each one was and for what occasion they were bought. Hers were beautiful silk but we went for cheap and cheerful as it might be the one and only time we get to wear them. Contrary to belief they are also very hot due to the sheer amount of fabric used!
We all attended the wedding in the evening and enjoyed a nice meal and the opportunity for a photograph with the happy couple. The next day, Barry and I got up early to see the actual wedding ceremony itself which was held between 6 and 7.30am! A band played throughout and people were arriving during the ceremony. Towards the end we all threw rice over each other and there was a mad dash which turned out to be to get to breakfast first! As I told you before, Indians love their food!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.199s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0654s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Betty Gehm
non-member comment
Looking forward to more Blogs
Thank you for the wonderful insight to your journey. I feel like I am there with you. Also enjoying the photos.