14th - 19th March

Heres the latest update (going from old down to new just to be counter intuative)
14th march
Went to commercial street to buy a kurta (traditional Indian mens top). I ended up buying three, the shop I bought them from was quite expensive, but they were nice and I definably enjoyed being in a shop where the leave you alone and its calm and quiet. We went to a great veg’ restaurant after shopping and I had a mini-meal mmmmm.
Lots of old monk rum was consumed that evening and we played a good few games of circle of fire and I taught the others to play ibble dibble, ofourse I being a master had the least ibble dibbles and was the winner.

15th March
Sunday is defiantly a day for chilling out. Spent most the day reading and sleeping which I know is lazy, but sometimes its just got to be done. At arond 8:30 thisevening the heavens opened accompanied by one hell of a thunder storm. At one point I was peering out the window with my nose against the glass when suddenly a huge bang with a strike of lightning hit right infront of the window, I jumped back off my chair and looked round at a room of very shocked people. The sound of heavey rain and thunder brings back some very fond memories. First of all being with mum in the car, safe and dry while all hell brakes loose on the roads surrounding us, this is always a comforting feeling. Also memories of the whole family going to Elliotts room to peer out of the window at lightening. The most recent of memories though was 2007 and 2008 at sanctuary festival. Hollie, Will and myself all inside the tent while water pours down from the sky for hours on end. That incredible feeling of being safe and warm with good mates is one tht I wont forget, however the festival feels a million miles away from here. The smell of humidity is thick, and the very downstairs is flooding. Inside my room the occaisional spattering of water makes it to where by bed is, and the walls are wet with puddles collecting at the floor. I did have to move my cupboard from against the wall to stop my clothes from getting wet. (I say wall, it is a bamboo blind that runs from ceiling to floor!)

16th – 18th march
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday was a pretty standard day; a good mix of games, rugby and I even managed to do some football skills with the boys, that’s right I taught football skills! My sports skills are on the increase for sure! (I can now tackle a 16 year old!)
On Wednesday morning I was feeling a bit dodgy so after chilling for an hour I braved the one and a half hour bus journey to the boys home, on my own for the first time. All went well and I got there safe and sound. However, I did have the extra excitement of this old gizza who read my palm. I’m sure he was just winding me up as I’m a gullible white boy on the bus. But anyway, I thought why not. He said that I will have lots of different jobs (sounds pretty true), I will have a long and happy life but it is important for me to look after my health, he asked if I was married yet (to which I obviously replied no), apparently I will have some problems to overcome with my future wife.

19th March
You know those moments where you’re so stressed, it’s so noisy, there is so much going on, you just have no control for a moment in time and your mind just goes blank? Well today that happened to me. We had taken about 30 of the young boys into one of the spare rooms. A dark dingy tiled room, with years of dirt build up around the windows and huge rusty lockers at one end that kids enjoy hiding in. A lack of light, the smell of 30 boys, a room that hasn’t been cleaned for a long time and bars over the windows all contributed to a positive learning/playing environment. After a rather violent and chaotic version of the hokey cokey I tried to get the kids into a line at one end of the room to play a game. I really felt I didn’t have the support of the team, especially of the Kanada/Hindi speakers which are the most useful when leading games. The kids were just running all over the place and being so loud, what kids do I guess. For the last 30 minutes the boys were trying to hit a ball out of my hand which was really pissing me off. I’ve never wanted to hit a kid before, and suddenly I could sympathise with the guards and these boys were being so trying. So I threw the ball to the other side of the room, let the kids run riot and that’s when it got too much and my head just went BOOM! I completely zoned out blank.
I’ve spent the last two months saying that the projects here with Peacechild aren’t challenging enough and I’ve felt really babied at every step of the way. Today I suddenly had a realisation that just working at the boys home is the challenge in its own right. One day you can have the best day with a group of beautifully behaved children and the next day (with the same kids) its can be complete mayhem. And you know what, thats what happens when you work with kids, only here in this strange environment it is amplified ten times. While working I find myself constantly pulled between the conventions of youth and education work that I am used to and just letting the kids run around and go a bit crazy. Boys are boys, they have energy to let out whether they are locked away in a room or whether they are at home with their families. I guess its finding that balance between letting them go a bit mad and giving them the constructive and organised play along with individual attention that we are here for (or at least what I feel I’m here for).
Working at the boy’s home feels like one step forward, three steps back constantly. But you just got to keep on chugging; the difficult thing is not loosing energy and motivation.
Every day or so I have a moment where I realise just how sad the boys home is. You’ll see an older boy looking out for one of the younger ones, or a boy thats aged 6 or so crying and you just know that at this time in their lifes they need a family and they need individual attention, its key to any childs development, fact! Its the most cliché thing in the world, but I can’t help the feeling that I want to take some of the kids home. I know I could give them that individual attention they deserve, especially the ones that are there for the long term.
All of this aside, the afternoon was really good fun. We took the older boys out to play cricket and the superintendant let us take out 26 boys which is quite an achievement in its own right. While the majority of boys played cricket I sat with the boys that didn’t want to play and attempted to teach them the colours in English using different coloured bouncy balls and a few games with them. After a few more rounds of these games I took out the plastic spoons I cunningly packed in my pocket earlier and we had an egg and spoon race, only put the spoons in our mouthes! The look of concentration seeing four boys walking towards you with spoons and bright bouncy balls in their mouths is something I wont forget. Even the 16 and 17 year olds were up for a few races.
A day of ups and downs as are most here... just keep chugging..