Back again

So I am back in the UK, and have been for a few days now so it is about time that I finished this blog off.

Where was I?

Ah yes the movie, it was alright I suppose, a little odd, terrible special effects and a bit about the Tsunami which was a little close to home and very poorly thought out, but I did stay awake for the whole thing this time. Sadly Rachel and Ruth left a few minutes in as Ruth was feeling sick.

The next morning (Wednesday) a bunch of us went to visit an Oasis English course that is for the girls on their tailoring course, however the teachers, Rachel and Ruth, were by this time both very sick, hopefully nothing to do with us taking them out for dinner?! So we declined the offer to stay for the day and do some teaching and instead played some games. It was fun being with girls, they love singing and dancing but were always embarrassed when it came to their turn, Lydia and I performed a very half hearted 'great great brill brill'.

Afterwards we went off to visit the Oasis head offices. One Auto (mine, we had the tailoring teacher with us) made it, the other with Lydia, Isaac and Cathy, took a little bit longer, the driver hadn't got a clue where they were going. They did make it in the end though and Rebecca told us all about what Oasis is up to and why which was interesting stuff, they are a very cool organisation. In the evening we dolled ourselves up in Saris and went To Ebi's house for dinner. His wife cooked up and amazing meal for us, home-made chapattis! The conversation came round at one point to Auto driving and Ebi learnt that Rob and James were very keen to have a go at driving one, not a problem, one of the YMCA employees had a son with an auto, so Ebi was straight on the phone and it was all arranged!

Oooh going back to Monday, we had a morning of shopping for lovely things and getting some tailoring sorted, then in the afternoon we went over to Kottivakum for the official inauguration of the water purification system, complete with reverse osmosis, and also to open the newly air conditioned computer room and have a play on the new computer. We also got to see the progress that was being made in the painting of the school.

And so to Tuesday during the day. We went to visit Fort Boys Town School, run by the YMCA. This was one of my favourite places that we visited. Fort used to have a boys town and a school, but the government built a railway right through the middle of their site. This was a few years ago and the boys town continued, with the boys sleeping in the classrooms at night, however last year it shut and the boys went to Kottivakum. The school is still up and running though with 1400 students on a ridiculously small site, the standard classrooms are maybe twice the size of my bedroom if that, and I have a small bedroom! All of the students are from a slum area the other side of the railway and many have to study by streetlight. The government pays the salary of the teachers but the building is kept by the YMCA and they also provide a lunch for the students and teaching supplies. The average school fees in Chennai are about 10,000 Rupees a year ( about £125) but Fort charges only 100 Rupees (£1.25) a year and if you can't afford that then it is free. Despite the difficult circumstances for the pupils both at home and at school, a pass rate of 100% for 10th standard (GCSEs) has been achieved for the past four years! It really is incredible, especially when you factor in the flooding which forces the school to close for the month of November. Sadly we couldn't stay for very long as we were a little disruptive to the classes but next year Chennai Challenge will probably be a lot more involved there.

After lunch at the amazing Tidel Park (the IT site by Kottivakum) we went to visit the Kottivakum Boys town school and disturb all of their classes as well. The difference between the two schools was amazing, Kottivakum has much bigger classrooms, with desks and chairs, a computer lab, tailoring classroom and science labs, albeit very basic. It was great to see our boys all smart in their uniform and very eager to show us the school. Then a short rest and change of clothes before running a programme with the boys.

And we are leaping forward to Thursday. We started off the morning with an Auto lesson! Very exciting, they have controls like a motorbike, something I am not used to! But after a couple of false starts and some serious revving (a problem I have in a normal car) I managed three reasonable laps around the site. Amy the non driver surprised us all with some very professional driving and then scared us all by coming within an inch of a wall!

After deciding that Auto driving was better left to the professionals for now we went to visit the YMCA headquarters and enjoyed the view from the roof. It was also exciting to learn that Gandhi had given a talk in the very room in which we were sat! Then a last visit to Sathmanagar community centre to see the new floor that we had funded (debatable as to whether it had been fixed or not) and also a chance for Sarah to give out the teddies for tragedies that she had bought with her. There were no children obviously at the centre but a few were soon rounded up and posed with the teddies.

That afternoon was our last programme with the boys, a chance to finish off the banner of hands and to paint a permanent twister board and hopscotch by their cottages. We rounded off the afternoon with a nice game of 'chase James', and all went home very sweaty and dirty.

For our last meal as a team we went to Raj Bhavan and completely pigged out on juice and ice-cream, with a total bill of less than 2000 rupees! Incredible. It was also a chance to give Isaac, Cathy and Rob their gifts from us. A biography of Regnikath for Cathy and Rob, and a c.d. 'Coffee with Regnikath' for Isaac, they seemed very pleased!

Friday was our last day in Chennai. The morning meant lots of shopping for the boys packs (toothbrush, toothpaste, sweets, talcum powder, a pencil, and a toy) Goldmine proved itself the most amazing shop in the world by supplying us with 148 small forms of transport for less than 25 rupees each! The afternoon was last bits of personal shopping and packing, and then we dressed in our nicest Indian getup for the last meal with the boys. At the meal we were presented with Lungis and shawls by Ebi and gave out the boys gifts along with some sports equipment (Cricket!!). All too soon it was time to get changed and leave for the airport. It was horrible saying good bye to the boys, not knowing when I would be back (which I will be, sometime).

It takes a very long time to get though all the checks at Chennai airport, it's almost as if they don't want you to leave the country, and we had to be rushed onto the plane, yes we were those annoying latecomers, and yes we were spread out all over the plane so no quick finding of seats. I guess the flight was o.k, I slept for most of it, we made it anyway, and now we are home!

It's kind of weird how quickly I have slipped back into life in England, no obvious reverse culture shock, it wasn't even all that cold on Saturday! The only negative effect I can think of is forgetting that my phone was set to India time and having my alarm go off at quarter to three in the morning! I do very badly want to go back though, and take people with me! Let me know if you want to come too!

So until my next trip, bye and thanks for all your support.
XxX

29!

Yes indeed, I have 29 bites on my right leg and foot, that is a crazy amount and they are driving me nuts, I must learn not to climb trees and pretend to be a monkey when there are lots of ant around.

So we are back from Yellagiri. Hello! There is a little person reading this so i am going to say HELLO!!! to him

Anyway yes back from Yellagiri. It was FANTASTIC!!! Sooooo much fun. We played lots of games, sang lots of songs, made some crafty things, had general silliness and ate good food. My group (James, Amy and myself) were leading the Twister activity, all the boys were split into four teams(Tgers, Snakes, Monkeys and Elephants) and moved around four different activities. Amy had made two giant twister mats and we basically had a lot of fun shouting out instructions(with handy tamil friendly cards)and making the boys get very twisted.

My highlights were: being an elephant, I adopted them as my team, they were rubbish! Appalling at all competreive gamnes, much like me, so I just cheered myself hoarse and fell in love with Baby Elephant, so adorable.

Also climbing the mountain(well, large rocky hill) behind the site. We went up to a place called bare rock, which does what it says on the tin, and had fantastic views. Then it was decided that we would go onwards and upwards, so we did, scrambling over boulders, avoided scratchy plants and bending double to go through narrow bush tunnels. At the top of the hill we heat a sheer rock face, but did it stop us? Of course not. Our guide whipped out a handy rope, climbed up, tied said rope around a boulder and up we went. I completely messed up the first bit, bashing my leg, so had to be half hauled up by my elbow to reach the rope, byut once up there the view was incredible. Bear in mind that Yellagiri is already about 1300m above sea level and we had just climbed even higher. The air was so clear and we were on a level with clouds, awesome!

The other best bit was the campfire on the last night. There was singing dancing and sketches, and of course we did our Balilaika dance complete with wobling tiger bellies. So much fun, and the boys loved the whole evening. It was great watchiong them dance around the fire , a really special evening.

But now I ghave to go as we are taking Rachel and Ruth, two girls here with Oasis, out for dinner and then to the cinema. Sadly though this time will not be a Regnikanth movie.

xx

Tiger!!!!!!!!!!

We are back from Bangalore. Got up at four this morning and arrived back at Vepery at half eleven. Loooong trip on a train, but Isaac, Cathy, Amy and I amused ourselves by making a Chennai Challenge team top trumps, very funny, and much discussion was had concerning everyone’s Food Extravagance score and Pon Rating (long story- I rated fairly high in both categories).

So to Bangalore. We left at the ridiculous time of quarter to five in the morning, and froze for the whole train ride to a very cool Bangalore, arriving about nine. We were picked up by a couple of guys in a bus and taken to YMCA City. The rooms were…interesting. Half of them didn’t have windows to the outside world, no they looked straight into the badminton court, and so the peeps in those rooms were woken early in the mornings by lots of early rising shuttle players. Isaacs room didn’t have a working shower and the ceiling was covered, literally covered in green damp, it smelt foul and looked awful. My room had little patches of damp on the ceiling, bits of which crumbled onto the end of my bed, my shower wasn’t attached to running water and on the third night I managed to complete pull of my inside door handle and have to screw it back on with Isabel’s penknife. In all the rooms the sheets and pillows were damp so most of ended up sleeping on the blankets instead. In Sarah’s bathroom a genius bit of plumbing linked the shower drain to the drain leading outside so she flooded her bathroom completely (hopefully drowning Charlie the cockroach in the process). But apart from all of that they were ok rooms, at least we had somewhere to rest our weary heads.

Saturday afternoon we went off to find some lunch and then a bunch of us wandered around trying to find some interesting shops, only to walk past endless motor cycle places. In the end we decide dto get an auto and ask to go to a shopping entre, and it worked. We ended up at Bangalore central, a kind of Debenhams place, with a coffee shop! Café Coffee Day…bliss. I miss coffee shops so much. We then went to try ands find a shop that sold last years Reginikanth movie, Sivaji, only to be told that as it was such a big film it wouldn’t be out for another couple of……years!!!!! Nooo, I bought the soundtrack though as it’s quite groovy and has one of our dances on it.

Sunday we went on the Kanataka government tour to Mysore. Our guide was completely incomprehensible apart from the words left, palace, right, palace, hill, palace, hotel and palace. It was alright though I suppose, we did get to see ‘the most beautiful palace in the world’ and the musical fountain spectacle, along with a rather disappointing summer palace, several temples and a fort which no longer existed because it had been completely destroyed!
Monday we had yet another early start to go on a five hour!!!!!! Drive to Bandipur park for a one hour!!!! Safari. Included in the day was a very nice buffet lunch, the chance to stroke a Samba deer and the fun of 13 of us in a bus with 12 seats. Amy, Isaac, Cat and I perfected the four people on three seats thing with Amy lying across our laps, and James spent most of the journey on the floor.
The safari was well worth the drive though, We paid about 240 rupees (about 3 pounds) and got to see a kingfisher, lots of monkeys, samba deer, a giant squirrel, elephant, a jungle chicken and…..a tiger! It was amazing, it was only there for a few seconds, and no one managed to get a picky, but it was there for sure, in the wild, a real life wild Indian tiger, wow! It made our day.
Yesterday we had a very lazy morning, finally a chance to sleep in!!!! Then in the afternoon we split up into groups and went exploring. Liv, Cat, Lydia and I went to have a girly afternoon and had fun navigating our way around the city without a map, any idea of where we wanted to go or what it was called, and without being able to speak the language. But amazingly we mad e it to a shopping centre and enjoyed wandering round, drinking yet more café coffee day (3rd day in a row, this is why my food extravagance rating is so high) and then treated ourselves to a head massage at the spa. Some would say that it was a very western waste of our time in India but we see it more as embracing the other side of Indian culture, the very rich side, who like to buy cute dresses, drink expensive coffee, and get treatments at Spas.

The journey back wasn’t so great, our Auto drivers mate was a little over friendly, but we made it back in one piece and then legged it to meet the others at the restaurant, ruining our new beautifully soft and shiny hair in the torrential rain!

And now we are back in Chennai, the lovely Chennai. And have just over 13 hours left before we disappear yet again! Two buses, one long journey on hair pin bends up steep hill, with 150 very excited young boys! Wish us luck 

xx

Independence Day

I am back briefly before we go off to Kottivakkum to wish you all a happy Independence day. We went to a flag raising at Vepery YMCA (where we are staying) this morning and then Rob was asked to cut the ribbon to the new sports hall, and Cathy and Rob played the first badminton game on the court.

Then we split into three groups to go to the celebrations at various community centres. I went back to Sathmanaga, the nice Carom one, where we had speeches, flag raising and national anthems. We were presented with garlands and Cathy gave some felicitations. We were also given a coconut each top drink, and out of politeness had to finish it, eeeeeeeew, my tummy was not happy on the journey back.

But overall it was a good experience, though a bit strange that ‘Mis. Robert and Friends’ were treated as honoured guests, surely a little backwards for Independence day?

Bangalore tomorrow then straight on to Yellagiri so who knows when I will be back again?!?!

xx

Cinema and Saris

Hello!

We have just been shopping. WE had a free afternoon for some to collect A Level results and to give us a break from cutting up paper and dance/face painting practice. Lydia Cat and IO went to Hot Chips for Lunch (Indian fast food) then SHOPPED, bought far too much but everything is so lovely. We had great fun in the last sari shop giggling with/at the guys and getting photos taken.

Can’t remember when I last wrote so I will start with Tuesday I think. We went over to see the boys and run our first properly planned session, with badge making to help us learn names, except they would cover them up, and then keep going, ‘my name my name’, I resorted to calling them Roger. In the evening we picked up our tailoring and quickly got dressed up in our saris to go out with Prince, one of the YMCA secretarys, for dinner and to see the new Rajnikanth movie (he is the Tamil Nadu superstar). The film didn’t start till ten and was three hours long! But we had incredible seats, they were like really comfy big leather armchairs and they could recline right back. I think we all missed parts of the film through falling asleep. Apparently it wasn’t as good as last years ‘blockbuster’ but it was ok.

Yesterday was another day of prep, some of us attempted to go to the Oasis tailoring course, but our lift never showed up. We were practicing face painting and learning our dances for Yellegri though so had lots to do.

Today we spent the morning dancing again and now are free until this evening when we have to get all dressed up for Independence eve celebrations.. Tomorrow is independence day and we are going over to the boys again, then Saturday we are off to Bangalore and Mysore to see ALL the elephants.

I sup[pose I should mention some of the other stuff that Chennai Challenge is doing here. Before we came out we all had to raise 1,300 pounds to pay for flights etc, but also to pay for other projects. So many people raised over their target that we ended up having about 13,000 to spend whilst here. Partly this money goes towards providing the boys with an extra meat meal a week for a year, and we also have restricted funds to buy a computer, but with the rest we are installing a water purification system at Kottivakkum, painting the inside and outside of Kottivakkum school, providing bibles and school equipment at Egmore, putting asir conditioning in the computer room at Kottivakkum, taking 150 boys to Yellegri, providing a big celebration meal our last evening here along with packs of useful and fun stuff for all the boys, and various other little things too. So whilst we so a lot of dancing and Uno silliness, Chennai Challenge and the money we all raised is doing a lot more!

Sooo speak again soon,
xxxx

More of India

We are still in India!!!

All is going well here. We have eaten lots of really nice food and played some VERY competitive Uno. We have also done some actual work. On Friday we started out by visiting some of the YMCA community centres in Egmore, Tondiarapet and Sathamangar. Sathamangar is really tiny but the most used and loved of the three, we crowded in and immediately people flocked around peering in at the windows and standing in the courtyard. Three men in their late sixties and seventies were very excited to tell us that they had been involved at the centre since they were seven years old. We attracted an even bigger crowd when James and Emily took on the local champions at carom. Needless to say they didn’t do all that well despite the pros setting up shots for them, all good fun though.

After all that we went to the boys’ town for the first time (Kottivakkum). It was a bit of a trek in mad traffic but worth it to see all of the 150 boys lined up in height order according top which cottage they are in, all dressed smartly in their t-shirts bought by Chennai Challenge last year. We leapt straight into the fun with a bit of improve as we had only been given 12 chairs for 13 of us, much silliness. Then we had fun trying to count how many of us we were. It showed we worked really well as a team that we all knew instinctively what to do. We snag a few silly songs, call and response are funniest as the boys don’t speak English so ‘Oh Princess Pat’ turns into ‘ohinnessat’. We tried sleeping lions which turned into bundling the better players and then descended into general thumb war and patty cake madness. I think we’re going to get quite skilled at having two thumb wars at the same time with our hands crossed!

Ah no, running out of time! Ok so Sat we went back to the boys and had a tour of the sight after losing twice (at least) our body weight in sweat playing stuck in the mud, volleyball and the hokey kokey (brilliant, 150 small boys charging full speed into and on top of Emily and Isaac leading in the middle, much laughter when the crowd cleared and there was Emily lying on top of one of them!)

Yesterday was more restful, we did a lot of planning for the trip to Yellegri and then visited the government museum, very big and lots of very dead things in jars! Today however Rob, Isaac, James, Amy, Emily and I got up at the ridiculous time of five o’clock to go to a sports training programme run by Oasis (yay). Imagine me getting up in the early hours of the morning (half eleven last night for the UK) to go play football! I think I may be ill! But it was good fun, we all joined in for the exhausting workout, again much sweat lost, and the Rob and James played a match with them , unfortunately I couldn’t as James had borrowed my trainers , shame.

And now we are doing yet more planning and preparation as we need to get it all done by Saturday when we go to Bangalore for a mini break!

Much love
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here we are!

Hello from India

We are all alive and well, hot, tired and very full up. We have nearly completed our first day in Chennai! We landed, after a LOT of flying, at about 12 last night (that’s about half 6 for you guys in the UK). It took a while to get through customs and collect our bags so we eventually got to the YMCA at Vepery about 2 I guess. We were picked up by the YMCA guys in two buses, one old beast for the luggage, Rob and James, and an air-conditioned luxury bus for the rest of us!

The YMCA has been newly built and our accommodation is amazing, much better than I had been expecting! I am sharing a room with Sarah and we have our own bathroom and balcony, a ceiling fan and…air conditioning, luxury! I do feel quite at home though as there are buckets in the bathroom for water, in case the water is off.

We started this morning with a team meeting, and then met with Mr. Ebenesan a head guy at the YMCA to meet each other and have our first try of Indian coffee (very sweet brown milk- as opposed to Mozambican coffee which is very sweet brown water- with a slight hint of coffee). After discussing things with Isaac, Rob and Cathy he took us out to lunch at Breeze ( I think anyway), a really posh hotel, where we ate loads (in our defence we hadn’t eaten since the plane last night and it was buffet!). Then off to Spencer Plaza to change travelers’ cheques and buy water in bulk, then to the train station to try and get tickets to Cochin for our mini-break. Unfortunately we couldn’t, what with Independence Day holidays; all the trains were booked up, so we are revising our plans.

Feeling a leetle bit tired now, but you have to be awake when walking anywhere, traffic is all over the place, there are no rules, everyone has right of way and to cross the road you wait for some sort of gap, pray, and walk out, apparently we will get used to it. I hope so as we will b doing it everyday for breakfast and dinner and general going out and about-ness.

Tomorrow we are off to visit the boys for the first time for a two hour programme, along with some other stuff. But first we have to play Uno and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

Oh by the way, it is very hot!

Bye for now
xxx

Here we go again

It's tomorrow! We fly tomorrow! As in the day after today. As in less than twelve hours we will be on a plane headed to Germany. Aaaaaaaah. I am more than a little bit nervous. Stomach churning a bit. Just had a 'last dinner' of my choice, finally an excuse to get my parents to buy fish and chips!
Amazingly I am all packed, and I was by the middle of this afternoon, this is deffinate progress for me. So now I just need to try and calm myself by watching friends, and try to get an early night.
Next time from India!!!
xxxx

The beginning

Hello!
So to give a brief intro, on Wednesday I am off to Chennai, India, with 12 others for three weeks. The charity we are all with is Chennai Challenge, set up by Cathy and Rob Short and Isaac Jones. Whilst there we will be visiting various projects around Chennai and going to a boys town most afternoons. We will also be taking away all of the boys for a few nights on an activity holiday. We then f;ly home on 30th August.
All of us except Cathy and Rob are meeting at the impossible time of 3.45 AM on Wednesday and being bussed to the airport by Andy. Think that I may be a little ill, but I am going to dose up on travel tablets and rescue remedy to avoid repeating the horror of last time.
I think that I have just about everything that I need, off to Guildford soon to get the last few bits and bobs sorted. I have skirts, various tablets to prevent various things, lots of t-shirts (I have learnt from Moz), travellers cheques, and I have checked that Rob has my passport so all is good. I even have a pair of sunglasses which I might actually wear, shock horror!
Eeeek.
xx