Not another Mosquito

I know this is the cheesiest gap year photo in the world, but little Rackesh is so cute and such a good boy, he sits on my shoulders all day and was so good when he got Measels.
As usual my blog entry goes from old down to newest, just to be anoying.
8th April
Last Wednesday we successfully completed “Mission Bath the Boys” which for one reason or another was a good two months in the making! The decision was made that every Wednesday was going to be bath day. In order to making things happen a lot earlier and with more speed we got up at 6am so we could be at the boys home early, to have the water turned on, towels ready and soap chopped up.
We arrived at 8 (no NGO had ever arrived that early before) only to be told we couldn’t go in as it was so early, after some argument we eventually managed to be let inside. The deputy superintendent told us that the boys had all been washed already (the school boys had but I don’t think all the temporary boys (swagatha boys) had been. He went on to say that ALL the boys we washed at 6:45AM every day. I know this is a complete lie as the boys often stink and you can see how dirty they are. I am sure the reason that the boys were being bathed as we came in was because we made such a big deal about bathing the boys last week and because they knew we were coming early. The surveillance effect of being there was definitely having a good impact on the house fathers and superintendent, its not the ideal way for change to happen, but at the end of the day its still change!
Since bathing some of the boys twice would have been ridiculous, plus the fact we had got there so much earlier, we decided to wash the clothes with the boys and show them how to do it.
So for the day, in the boiling hot 37°c heat, I scrubbed and rinsed filthy dirty and soiled clothes. This in itself wasn’t the stressful part, I found myself getting stressed for two main reasons:
The first is because the boys kept coming back to muck around even after they had washed their clothes. They would interrupt washing with the current batch of boys and get into the death trap water tanks that are there. I should explain that in the courtyard at the boys home, to get water at one end a boy has to climb into the tank and loosen the tap from the inside. Depending on how full the tank is a child could drown in there for sure, which is why it worried me so much every time a boy tried to go up into it.
The second reason that I was really getting stressed out and angry was the lack of support by the rest of the interns and staff. People were sending too many kids at one time to wash their clothes with me. There was no staff member that spoke Kanada/Hindi to help keep the boys in order, and there is only so much I can do to keep 15 boys in order on my own when not speaking the language. This was one of those times you can start to see why the guards resort to violence (I am not justifying it, but you can understand why). I admit when one of the boys were being really trying with me I raised my arm just to scare them so they would stop. Of course the boy did stop but I horrified myself that I was scaring a child with the threat of violence, something I have sworn to myself I would never do. There were many staff members and interns sitting inside with the boys that had already washed their clothes which made the whole process extremely inefficient. We, as leaders of programs and activities, need to look out for each other and communicate and this is just not happening. I really can see just how amazing the tzevet (team) is when working on scheme at FRS, I never realised how much the leaders gelled as a team and supported one another.

I mentioned an inefficient way of operating above and that’s something I see within the organisation here a lot. The longer I am with Peace Child India, the more I have a problem with the concept of paying to work/volunteer. Especially when it is an increasing charge to volunteer and I deem lots of things to be an inefficient way of operating here. Perhaps its just my western views although it has been echoed to me by other interns. The fact that so many people are hired by the NGO and they are only managing to have one project going at the moment seems such a waste of money and the skills of the people involved.
I really see a gap year organisation that pays the salaries of those involved rather than the youth lead sustainable development organisation that I was under the impression that Peace Child is. This is the one thing that really gets me down here and on many occasions I have considered leaving early for these reasons. (I am already leaving a month earlier)
All this said there are still enjoyable parts of the work and I try my best to stop this from ruining my experience. Given my personal motivations for being here, it does have a huge impact on me.


9th April
Paper making was the theme of the day. The idea was that one of the facilitators and I did some experiments to work out the best way of making hand made paper. Next week I am pushing to do a skills workshop with the older boys at the home. The idea is to do something a bit different and exciting, teach them a skill that can generate income in the outside world as well as show the children that we are investing our time and energy into them. I think this important in getting the respect from the older boys.
After buying a few bits and bobs we soon had a very slow but affective production line going. Using old newspapers to turn into attractive blue hand made paper. I still have some more experimenting to do but the paper came out really well and I think its going to be a great question. It was a really enjoyable day working out what we needed and then finding, borrowing and buying the very little supplies needed to make it. Having a result at the end of the day that you could see for your work (the hand made recycled paper) was very rewarding and contrasted most the social work I am doing here where its only over the long term you can see the positive impact of working.

10th April (Bank holiday Friday)
Most important things that happened today:
· I killed a very large cockroach
· I stumbled upon a Marks and Spencer’s, in India!!
· I got shat on by a bird, for the second time in a week!
· I threatened an auto rickshaw I would go to the police about him, and he offered to take me!?!

Spicy Chicken, vegetable Samba, Chilli Gobi (cauliflower) and rice made for tasty lunch as cooked up for Amma (mum in Thamil) Viji. After which we hopped on the bus to international market, one of the markets in Bangalore I haven’t been to yet. This one is made up of lots of small shops rather than stalls. The usual sights and sounds of; billions of people in a small place, shop keepers calling to you, all sorts of smells good and bad, Auto rickshaws and traffic whizzing in every direction as well as the usual busy people going about their busy daily lives.
After we decided to head to the cinema which is something I haven’t done yet, the whole complex was so western it was mad. It felt more modern and western the Brent X does!! It was nice to be in air conditioning for a few hours but the experience just felt very wrong given that only around the corner you have people living on a few rupees and here people are spending thousands on over priced brands.
I know I spend that money in the UK, but if just felt weird.