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.

24th March - 02 April : including Indiana Ingram and the Temple of the Lost Doom

Heres the latest entry going from oldest and the top going down to new. Including my weeend trip to Hampi.

24th – 26th march
Days at the boys home are filled with an array of games including human pinball, duck duck goose, fire in the mountain, hokey cokey, the list goes on.
One of the days we made clocks with the boys, as a first step to learning to read the time in English. It was a big crazy as there was a lot of glitter and glue involved. We now have a room filled with sparkly clocks which the boys can be proud of as their work. The majority of boys respond well to concentrated work such as arts and crafts and I do believe it’s a good activity to do with them as it gets certain parts of the brain going.
I found it challenging sitting with the two new blind boys while the other boys are playing cricket. Speaking no Hindi and only a few words of Kanada verbal communication was minimal but spending time with them to count using fingers and touch and feel things seemed a good use of time and over the last weeks both boys have become a lot more chatty and confident and I get the feeling they have let their guards down for us.
One of the boys is fully blind, Ramesh, has no eye balls at all, just sealed eye lids. At first I found this very difficult and disturbing but gradually I got used to. The fact that he nearly almost sits alone singing while swaying his ahead is a sure fire sign to me that he was picked up off the street where he has been doing exactly that for many years. Singing is all he knows and it has taken the volunteers a long time and lots of work to get him to speak and show signs of awareness of his surroundings. I’m sure he has some mental disabilities and is on the autistic spectrum, but obviously I am not able to say what and to what extent.
The other boys is partially blind and I have been spending more time with him. After a couple of hours he managed to count to ten using his fingers. I don’t think teaching English is very important for this boy particularly but it was just something to do where we could be together and I could give him some individual attention.
[It is now extremely late and the last couple or paragraphs probably don’t make sense, I may come back to this at a later date]

26th – 29th March A weekend in Hampi
Thursday Night
Fabric, Tranzmission, Sanctuary and the walk out of the millennium stadium is the last time I can re-call seeing so many people in one place. Majestic SRTC but station has to be the new place to add to that list. It felt like the busiest place in the world, people in every direction. Closing your eyes for just a second and you can hear; bus conductors shouting their final destination, Samosa sellers shouting out to a hungry crowd, policemen and security shouting at passersby in Kanada and Hindi, huge busses revving their engines, people chattering and asking eachother where to go, an orchestra of phones going as well as the voice in the back of my head saying “Oh my god how the feck are you going to find the right bus”
After ditching the advice of a guy standing near us we ventured into the sea of coaches and people and managed to find our bus. I asked a million times to check it was the right one and it appeared so. The three other interns were sat down while I was sorting tickets and stuff out. I realised that a man was talking to the girls, asking the usual questions and shaking hands. I could see they were uncomfortable and then his hand shaking turned into face touching and general inappropriateness at which point I told the guy “hoggi” which is hindi for go, very loudly. I ended up shoving this guy, in his fifties, with some force down the isle and out the bus. What a creep!
The journey itself was pretty tough, eight hours all in all. The seats reclined but I had the usual constant adjusting of position as no way of sitting felt comfortable for more than 15 minutes. To top it off we were sitting above the coaches wheels so every time we went over a big bump (this is India, there is a lot) I would be jolted upwards. The journey wasn’t too bad, nothing a couple of ibuprofen couldn’t cure.

Friday
We arrived in hampi and settled into Rocky’s, the hostel we were staying in. After a walk to register at the police station we went for walk to see what was around.
A guided tour around the main temple was, to be honest, extremely boring. The guide was definitely a waste of money and was making crap up, not my idea. At this point I thought this was about to be a very long and borring weekend (I was wrong). The highlight of the tour was a monkey trying to nick my water bottle from my pocket and being “blessed” by an elephant, I thought it rather cruel to train the elephant to stand their and tap tourists on the head all day for a rupee. However the elephant looked as if was smiling…do they always smile?

A little later and the day go even hotter, we decided to go for a bit of walk. The following walk of discovery is described as below:
Indiana Ingram and the Temple of the Lost Doom
Indiana Ingram accompanied by his fellow explorers braved the sweltering heat of the 37°c sun. Through the main thoroughfare out of Hampi Baazar, past the Bull temple, up an endless number of steps, over the top of scorching stone, dodging in-between ancient temples, scaling giant rock formations, around lizards and over rusted barbed wire. They had discovered the lost temple. Indiana Ingram stood and looked from left to right assessing what stood before him; a huge temple stretching to either end of the horizon that lay ahead of him. This was just part of the ruins of the Vijayanagara empire; ancient arches and columns dating back to the 1300’s still standing as a reminder of the destruction of this beautiful city in 1565 by the Muslim sultans. Indiana continued to walk down some steps into the vast main temple area which was as big as a football pitch. A giant walled courtyard with small rooms dotted inside the perimeter where carvings of G-d forms stood from thousands of years ago. This would have once been decorated with flowers and colored pooja powder, accompanied by incense to create a stimulus for every sense. Now these rooms lay empty with a warm and powerful energy beating out of them, an aura of spirituality and holiness.
In the centre of the courtyard was the inner sanctum, as in most Hindu temples. A raised building which Indiana took no hesitation to walk into. Through the first doorway and a few lizards scuttled. The powerful aura of the building struck Indiana as we walked through the second door way. Facing him now was a blank room where the mandap pedestal stood empty and no carvings of G-d forms could be seen. This was not unusual, hundreds of disused temples in Hampi stood in similar states. To the right of the inner sanctum was a pitch black doorway, Indiana ventured down the steps through the darkness, treading carefully with his fellow explorers behind him.
As the sound of steps filled the dark crypt bats started to fly around Indiana’s head. That’s when it dawned on him that the black glossy ceiling was alive and was in the form of hundreds of bats hanging upside down with their veiny wings folded shut. The bats that were previously sleeping had just disturbed.
Venturing further and further in cautiously, the beauty of this undiscovered (by any other tourists in the last few hours) crypt became clear. The nearest wall was a maze of columns and intricate carvings with the familiar lingam carving. The lingham, a phallic icon symbolizing Siva was positioned above a bowl like carving representing the female sexual organ. Shards of light came down from small square gaps in the roof to perfectly illuminate the strange sight of these carvings. With the movement of bats and Indiana’s feet disturbing the sand below dust started to rise creating perfect beams where light shun though and what looked like smoke started to rise from the ground. The more Indiana ventured into the dark room to view this spectacular wall of carvings the more the bats began to fly. The gentle noise of fluttering disturbed the perfect silence, the sensation of the occasional bat catching Indiana’s hair became a comfort to him rather than a source of trepidation or alarm.
Indiana Ingram documented the events with some photos and it became the highlight to his trip.

Dinner at the Mango Tree
Every guide book and anyone who’s been to Hampi says you simply must go the mango tree, so where do you think I chose to eat that night? We arrived at the sign marked Mango Tree and a long path which took us through farm land growing corn and then a huge plantation of Banana trees, which strangely reminded me of home, as our garden is filled with them, one of Dad’s favorites I’m pretty sure.
The restaurant is on multiple levels in the side of the cliff/valley which descends into the Tungabhadra river. Tables are just inches of the ground, and a bamboo matt was provided to sit on. Only one side of the table was for sitting on, so I had a clear view of the stunning landscape. As the sun went down on this incredible rock and temple filled landscape, with greenery, mountains and a river I was in awe of just how stunning the landscape is. I had a curry and plain chapatti served on banana leaves, which I assume were taken from the trees just meters behind me. I finished off the meal with a coffee, the perfect way to finish off a perfect day.
There are no words to describe just how amazing the landscape of Hampi is in every direction you can look.
The night was hot, really hot, spent a lot of time sitting outside on the mezzanine as the room was like a sauna, eventually I dropped off into a deep sleep after a long day and no sleep the previous night.

Saturday
A walk along river gave another chance to take in beauty of Hampi. It was a hubbub of activity as local men, women and children washed themselves and their clothes. The women beat saris against rocks while men carried them to the hot roofs of ancient temples to dry. It really felt like a communal event and watching these Hindus in stunning bright traditional clothing washing in the river seems so timeless. The view would have been exactly the same eight hundred years ago just the temples and giant steps that line the river would have been that bit more shiny and less eroded.
The river is not far from the Mango tree so a break for an ice cold diet coke and breath taking view was perfect. The relaxed atmosphere of travelers, gap year students and hippies that had worked their way over from Gokana was without doubt a necessity.
After a mooch around the market and a light lunch I went about the task of bartering a price for the moped I had my eye on renting for the day. Money was exchanged and the bike filled up and I was off on my way. I spent the afternoon wizzing down the roads with the view of alien like rock formation and ancient temples flying by. I stopped at many a temple to wonder in, soak up the atmosphere and have a bit of an explore round. I had to stop for many herds of goats and ofcourse Cows wondering down the roads, I enjoyed myself and felt confident riding. But I do think it will be the last time I get on a bike for a long time, it was strangely tiring and I now know how nice it is to have a metal structure around you when on the roads.

Sunday
A seven a clock start seemed stupidly early, although only a few months ago I would already be at the Royal Institution schlepping cables and dealing with clients. Two of the interns and I grabbed an early breakfast for energy as we knew we were going to need it for a last day here. A walk down to the river was pleasant enough, we stood with a couple of other europeoan people trying to attract the attention of the rusty little boat (with alarming amount of water in it) it take us across the river. Once on the other side we hopped in an extortionately expensive auto rickshaw to the base of the hanuman temple. It was an absolute scorcher, as the minutes went by towards mid day I swear you could feel it getting hotter and hotter.
The Hanuman temple and the hill it is built on is suppose to be the birth place of Hanuman, the half man half monkey face of G-d.
I stood at the bottom of the steps and braced myself for the 600 steps that zig-zagged up the mountain in front of me. That’s over six time the circular staircase down at Camden town station! We were up in about 20 minutes which was really surprising, even though I stopped every once in a while to marvel at the view. The closer to the top we got the louder the sound of chanting became over the speaker system from the temple above. At the top I was greeted by an old man, the watchman, who dried my forehead and chest with his scalf. I have never sweated so much in my life, and that’s not an exaggeration! Realising we had approached the temple I put my shirt back on and had to take our shoes off. I danced across the blistering hot ground to try and look at the view but found it just to hot. I took sheltie from the sun and hot floors inside the temple to regain my breath and give my feet a break. Next to the temple you could walk across the rocks to the very top of the mountain. The view was phenomenal, the giant temple I had a tour of the day before looked like a toy in the distance. The 360 landscape of ancient temple, rocks and winding roads went on in every direction and was breath taking. The breeze made it so refreshing and added to the euphoric feeling that comes with experiencing such beauty. I could of stood there forever, an amazing meditation spot I thought to myself, but the sun was only going to get hotter.
After some time taking in the view it was time for our descent and auto back to the river. The view at the top must be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It even competes with the view from the piazza in Perugia Italy where I spent the previous summer, and that’s saying something.
We found an amazing rooftop restaurant/hotel filled with friendly gap year students and more travelers where we spent a good three hours. The ceiling and only structural wall was covered in hangings and material, while the floor had huge mattresses and low tables to sit (or lie) at to escape the sun. I must point out that after spending two months in Bangalore seeing a white person is incredibly strange. I feel Indian and like these gap year students our tourists in my country. The fact they see me the same as I see them did make me feel uncomfortable, I guess I’ve taken to India as home and taken some ownership for my new home Kanartaka state.

A little more shopping and the rather more pleasant bus journey back followed.

31st March
At the boys home I lead some sound games for the second time, after building up a two way beat by splitting the group into two I brought the group together so that they were all repeating my sounds again. Eventually I ran out of made up noises and sounds that we could chant in melody/beat kind of way. So I sang to them “ride da, ride da, rythm” and “ride da, ride da beats” in a Jamaican accent. It was hilarious to see a group of 30 kids singing that back to me, but they were all participating and seemed to be enjoying themselves so I must have done something right!

01 April
Today was bath day at the boys home and it truly was a surreal and tiring day. After two months of putting off, for one reason or another, we had got all the towels and soap along with correct number of males to bath all the boys that we work with at the home. As the schools projects are fineshed (for summer holidays) there are many more peace child staff and facilitators with us at the boys home making todays mission much easier. While the interns and staff got all the boys sat down outside, I cut each of the bars of soap we had bought into two. Bringing my penknife was a good idea for sure!
Line by line all the boys, aged 5 to 18 got bathed. The older boys known as the leaders helped out and were increadible. It really felt like the leaders were the older brothers helping the littler ones. They would rub them up and down lathering the soap so that all you could see was white, the boys looked like walking soap snowmen. Once covered in soap another would chuck jugs of warm water over them. The leaders chucking water were in sought of concrete and tiled bath that filled up with water, from there they could scoop a jug and throw it over another boy. Another leader was giving out towels. All the boys helped eachother out with soaping, drying and washing, it really felt like I was witnessing an increadible group/family dynamic. I hung up the towels to dry and had to push naked boys into the right direction as many seemed to want to wonder off randomly. I also had to scrub a fair few who did not seem to like the idea of soap!
After the lengthy, loud and laborious process of washing nearly one hundred boys we then went about washing all the towels. This involved scrubbing them with clothe washing soap bars then hitting them against big concrete blocks (the Indian way) then rinsing and squeezing off excess water. As you can imagine this took a long time, but the kids helped us and in no time the job was done. We could not leave the towels to dry in the courtyard while we had lunch because the housefathers, guards and boys would be very quick to nick the towels (that’s known from experience) so we took them all outside to the car park to dry.
After lunch we took out about 40 boys to play cricket. I sat at the side today to guard the gap in the fence. I also played with one of the newer boys called Rakesh, we have a good game going where he sits on my shoulders and pretends to ride a motorcycle. He’s been here for a couple of the weeks and is the cutest little boy; squidgy little cheeks, cheeky little smile and tiny little fingers. He must be only about 4 or 5, his older bother is in the home too otherwise he would be put in the baby home. It kills me to think that he is locked up and sleeping with all those boys that are as old as 18. Although, the bigger boys are so good and look out for him and carry him which is so comforting to see. He told me his story (translated by one of the peace child staff) and said that him and his brother ran away from their father when some men came to the house demanding money. After a while of running they hid on trains spending most the time on the roof holding onto pipes or whatever they could, they got discovered in Bangalore (not the town they are from) and were taken to the home.
Got the bus home which wasn’t too busy for a change and I’m just going to chill out and catch up with the last couple of weeks on my blog.

02 April
I can’t believe I only have three weeks left, time has gone by so quickly! Although the process of understanding the projects and myriad of challenges I’ve been faced with has been a long one.
In the morning we took out the younger boys and the afternoon the older boys. It takes a good half an hour to get the boys lined up and checked by the superintendent usually but recently its been getting quicker and quicker. In the morning I played football with the younger boys, I think cricket doesn’t use as much exercise. I carefully placed two rocks for the goals and drew all the relevant lines with my shoe in the sand. However it took some explaining that the opposite team has to throw the ball in if it goes outside the pitch, you cant just keep running with the ball. Either way, they had a lot of exercise and it was good fun. I definitely enjoyed playing but it doesn’t take much skill to tackle a 7 year old, so after a few goals I settled as referee. I also did a few laps of the pitch with little Rakesh on my shoulders, he is so adorable and far to small to be in the boys home! Over the last week he is becoming much more confident and chatty which is excellent. He’s going to need to stand up for himself in the boys home whether he is there for short term or long.
Cricket in the afternoon, I sat guard again and plaid a few games with boys that were waiting to bat. I also spent some time with Oomesh. Oomesh is a really sweet boy, he must be about 14 or so and you can really tell he is feeling the effects of the lack of personal attention and love. Whenever he seems me he latches on and hugs me, at this point years of “Ofsted” and youth-work training flash through my mind. I find it uncomfortable when he hugs me, partly I have all that training in the back of my mind which you just have to forget and go with your human instinct. On the most part its uncomfortable because I really don’t want him to develop to much of an attachment for me as I know I’m going soon. It will be terrible and potential very psychologically harmful for him to let his guard down for somebody and to feel that person has left him. I find it extremely difficult to keep this in mind as my human instinct is to give him the love and attention that he’s been lacking and obviously craving.
I know I’m going to have to leave soon so for my sake too, I don’t want to get too attached to the boys (even though I know I already have).
On a lighter note I enjoyed watching two cockroaches dancing around the seat in front of me on a boiling hot, jam packed bus. The wrest of the interns and staff have gone off to various bars and clubs tonight. I much prefer staying and chilling out, something doesn’t quite seem right about going out to fancy places spending money when your working with money stricken people and areas.

20 - 23 march

Heres the latest update, going from old at the top going down to newist... peace
20th March
The meeting was short today which mad a welcome change. At the end I asked what the aims and objectives of the two projects were and if they were recorded anywhere in any documents. I mostly wanted to upon up a forum where it could get discussed and have people think about why they were doing what they were doing. I already have my reasons made up, and it appeared that the staff here had not. I got a few excuses for aims and got told the history of the project but nothing concrete. It felt ashame that they had no set aims or policies for the projects, I even felt a bit embarrassed for the organisation. It wasn’t paperwork I wanted to see, just common goals that the permanent staff wanted to see. When a short discussion did break out among the staff members I could quickly tell who had thought about what they were doing and who was just doing what they always did. I’m not judging the organisation, I was just interested and wanted to have a little poke around.

21st March
Its Saturday so nothing too strenuous.

22nd March
I had a successful trip to the market, which I love. I just go to soak up the atmospheare really. I got a few bits and bobs but I mostly enjoy watching the people and the variety of things available. I’ve said it before but its defiantly Bangalore’s answer to Camden

23rd March
It’s late and everyone has gone to bed. I’ve tried to sleep but its just not happening. I’m sitting on my bed with my bright orange mosquito net tightly tucked in around the bed, the familiar and relaxing sound of the fan is whirring above me and I keep itching with the reminder of the bed bugs in the mattress. Changing mattresses is on my to-do list somewhere.
Today felt really “worthwhile” after an unusually long bus drive (around two hours) in the usual heat, I arrived at the boys home accompanied by the other interns and two project facilitators. As we approached the entrance to the building we realised a large bus was parked outside which appeared to be giving dental checkups to the boys that we are working with, some of them really needed it. Of course no prior warning of this was given, but we proceeded into the TV room where about 15 kids of assorted ages were spread around the room. Why those boys were in the room and not with the others waiting for checkups I don’t know, but I felt it was a good opportunity to give the 15 boys some one-on-one attention, one of the key things I think they lack in their day to day lives.
I spent a short while playing simple games with the boys, trying to engage the ones on their own around the room rather than the active ones that I know well towards the centre. Some of the boys around the edge were clearly traumatised or starting to feel the effects of being locked in such a dingy place for extended periods of time. I was distracted by the sound of singing, in Hindi I think. Behind me three of the interns were gathered round one of the boys singing. The boy had no eyes at all, his eyes were always sort of shut or in some way just not there. One of the interns that was a nurse thought they may have been removed surgically or he may have been born with an eye disorder. I very much hope this is the case, but the way he sat there and sang so beautifully was the exact way a boy would do so on the street. You can’t help thinking that somebody may have been responsible for what had happened as a blind boy will always make more begging/singing on the side of the street. His song, though well sung, did have eeriness to it creating a feeling of stillness in the dark and smelly room I was in.
Anyway, I didn’t want to be sucked in by the gathering interns and boys around him, so carried on playing games with a few of the kids. We played clapping games, thumb wars, did party trick acrobatic type things, I taught them a bit of mime and then we all did some excersise and a few other games before leaving. The morning wasn’t the structure we had planned for with the kids we had planned for, but I really think it was time well spent. [there is a huge icky bug on my mosquito net now watching me write this]
After a lunch of spicy peanut rice packed in my double layer steel lunch box, which is the greatest thing in the world, we went back into the boys home to take out the older boys. Today was a bit abnormal due to the dentist checkups so the guards lined up all of the temporary boys inside “the cage” not a good idea as there is now over a hundred of them. During the process of getting the boys we have on our list out of the cage and standing in a line outside the cage, it is normal for the guards to hit or threaten to hit the boys. (there really isn’t much you can do to stop this but try and make the kids orderly before the guards get there) I had handed the cricket bat to one of the boys to hold ready for the game when a guard/housefather took it out of the boys hand and into the cage ready to threaten or hit a boy with. He was not going to hit a kid with Peacechild’s cricket bat, if I had anything to do with it. I was marching towards him when one of the facilitators grabbed it out of his hands. I’m glad she did as if I got in a fight I don’t think he would hesitate at hitting me, but a lady however, he probably would not.
Eventually we managed to split up into teams and have a game of cricket going in the concrete courtyard centred in the home. We used the concrete base of a flood light as a wicket and after the toss of a coin to see who was to go first the game began. The older boys can kind of be left to their own devices so I went and sat on a bench with the boys that didn’t want to play and a few school boys that had wondered over.
One school boy, who’s name I wont even attempt to spell (So I shall call him S ) came over to chat to me. He came to see me every day during his breaks from school. I tried to teach him odd and end of English and we always talked about what he learnt and how is day was. The really fanatastic thing is, in the course of the two months I’ve been here I can defiantly see a huge improvement in his English. Its as if day by day hes getting better. In such a rapidly growing economy which is serving the western world as well as wersterning itself the skill to speak English is one that cannot be overlooked. If I have done one good thing while being here, helping his English and interest in learning the language, is good enough for me. I do occasionally give him a pen or a toffee for his good work. The fact that he’s in school at the boys home means he is going to be there for a long time or until he reaches the end of the system at 18. I wish I could bring him back to England and give him some individual attention, I really think it’s so vital to development.
Earlier this evening I was feeling so emotionally exhausted. You think it would be the boys home, but actually in the last day I have read wrong rooms by Mark Sanderson. The most touching and sad book I have ever read, I felt physically sick it was so sad and caught up in emotion. I’m not a reader at all so was so surprised that I could have such a reaction to a book. I’m moving onto something happier and none-academic (I’ve read enough about drama as a development tool to last me a while).
Well its round 2AM and my eyes are feeling heavy, so best get some shut eye.

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..

Full blog update from Bangalore

I'm sorry I have not update the blog prior to this point, I have been keeping a personal log and did not think people would be intrested in reading it. Apparently they are, please excuse the bad grammer and missing words, I'm always writing in a hurry plus writing is not one of my skills..... (Newest parts are near the bottom of page)

Day One: 22nd and 23rd January
After touching down and working my way through the vast barrage of tiles and glass that is Bangalore airport, I finally got my first glimpse of India. Dark and warm with the smell of exhaust in the air, I was driven on a one hour journey to the peacechild house. I thought the roads in Kenya were scary, here, the rules seems to be accelerate and beep your horn, the bigger your nuts the faster you go! Indicating and lanes are just a distant memory, I would like to see what barnet test centre would have to say abou that..
Once I had got to my new home I was introduced to vijy “who will be my mummy for the next four months”. Already she has moaned at me to take my bag off the table, mopped under my feet and made me cups of tea. I can see I am going to like it here. My room is basic to say the least, it makes hotel Mamba in kisumu seem like the Ritz, but it has a charm too it. Bamboo slats being the only separation between my shared bedroom and the wrest of the world will take some getting used to. The concrete floor and beautiful storage (a load of breeze blocks and pieces of wood) does have a homely feel.
All the interns and peacechild guys here seem a great bunch, name learning is going to be a struggle, but I’m doing well so far. As Friday is a day of planning, we spent most of it in the communal area getting to know each other and preparing for the next week. Before having a small induction talk I enjoyed an awesome lunch of rice, a pepper and potato dish that wasn’t too spicy and a tomato sauce which had a real kick to it, I’m loving the spice, however I imagine the novelty may quickly wear off.
My tiredness did catch up with me so I went downstairs for a good long power nap. Once I had woken up, with the help of a cup of tea from vijy we went on a bit of a walk as some of the girls wanted to buy some bangles. Another amazing meal of japputy, rice and a cabbagy spicey thing mmmmmmm. A couple of us walked down to a local bar for a couple of kingfishers to finish the day off, a perfect end to the day. I’ve heared so much about the projects and I just cant wait to observe and get involved next week.

Day two: 24th January
5:30am, I think, I was far to tired to reach down to find my watch. But after a reasonable sleep I was awaken by the deep thick smell of smoke with the orchestra of sounds featuring an array of dogs barking, chickens cockadoodle-do-ing, lorries going passed, people sweeping, the sound of someone throwing up, children screaming and a the strangely beautiful sound of singing which i think was coming from the local temple. All this is lovely, but i just wanted to sleep! Anyway its about 8am now and im looking forward to another day.
Later on we went to commercial street to do a spot of shopping. I saw “we”, it was the girls shopping while James, one of the other interns, and I got schlepped around in the shvitzing heat. Transport to and from the shopping area was interesting. The buses were very cheap, here the women sit at the front of the bus and the men stand at the back. If a women gets on the bus a man is expected to give up his seat. This brought up some interesting debate later in the day between the guys and girls. I guess I think its a good thing, but just strange to get used to seeing. If in London i got up for a women under the age of 60, most women would think I am being rude as I’m making them out to be old. Anyway after a bus journey with then went on an “Auto” (tuk tuk) which took as half way around the Bangalore as he didn’t understand where we wanted to go, eventually we arrived at the shops, if you think oxford street is crazy you have no Idea. By the time we got back from Commercial Street I was absolutely exhausted. The other interns and I sat around till late getting to know eachother and having overly deep conversations, which I did enjoy. And of course I finished the night off with a cold kingfisher beer.

Day three, 25th January 2009
This day could be the greatest day of our life’s..... said take that on my mp3 player at 7am this morning. I managed to sleep through the barrage of noise this morning and treated myself to 10 mins of crap music in bed, I think its because I miss my capital FM wake up I always get from my radio alarm clock at home. As its Sunday today there is no work to do, and tomorrow is a national bank holiday, so I’m going to have to wait till Tuesday to start the projects, I can’t wait...I’m getting a bit bored of just mooching about (I’m feeling a bit like a tourist). Although there are none round here!
After spending a good few hours reading, a couple of us headed down for lunch at a local resteraunt. I had the most amazing meal of japati and lots of different vegy curries and dishes in mini pots, also there was a spicy soup, amazing cauliflower which was also had a nice kick to it. After a good afternoon nap we then went into town for some wicked munch, and drinks, which went on into the night even back at the house.

26th January 2009
Sleep, shit, ipod, Food, more food, wrote this, sleep....eat later...india night (isn’t every night in india, india night?)

27th & 28th January 2009
I was unsure what to expect at the boys home, I’ve been unsure what to expect of anything new on this trip. I keep finding myself comparing Bangalore to Kisumu, which I should stop doing as they are entirely different places and cotenants, but for me they are both my only experience of working with youth and development outside London. At my first morning the interns said that we were going to do some active games and excerise with the boys as they don’t have much of an opportunity to do that a lot of the time, defiantly not in a structured way anyway. Within about 5 minutes I found myself playing dulled down (due to the language gap) games that I would play on scheme at FRS. After about 15/20 mins of running around the room playing various games I had temporarily run out of ideas and had about 15 boys (lots had run into the courtyard) and 4 interns standing and looking at me. I was obviously out of things to do, and if I was at FRS one of the leaders would have jumped with a new game but that is one of the differences working with people you don’t know or just don’t have experience of having a bit list of games storred in the back of your head. I managed to divert the situation (me looking like a lemon with 20 people staring at me) by teaching them the cha-cha slide and Macarena. Considering I have been doing that dance twice a weekend for as long as I can remember its no suprise it popped into my head. However, this time there was no music, no microphone, no DJ setup and defiantly wasn’t 200 smartly dressed jews following my every move.
The next day at the home was less organised, however the other interns and Veena (who runs the boys home projects) seemed happy that just playing with the boys and giving them some positive attention is enough, and I think I agree. In the afternoon I played football with the boys for a good hour and half in the heat. I think that must be one of the few times in my life that ive played football without a P.E. teacher shouting in my ear. In fact, I was pretty good....although I was playing against kids as young 6 or 7. The time flew by and I really enjoyed it, its great how football transcends language and age, you can just play together.
I should explain a little more about the boys home. There are long term boys and short term boys. The long term boys go to school during the day and we don’t work with them, it’s the short term ones we deal with. The boys are there for a variety of reasons, I think mostly because they are found on the street or have been sent to work at too young an age. People in Bangalore can call a number and report children and they will be picked up and taken there. If a parent/guardian wants to bring their child home they have to go through a court and social workers are involved at all stages making sure that the child is going to a steady and safe home. I have heared talk of some unfair rulings but have to be optimistic and have faith that the rulings were with the best intentions of the child in mind. Some of the boys may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up being picked up, more like the remand home I visited in Kenya. To give an idea of what it looks like you can imagine a prison, but the rooms are decorated and not too dingy in comparison to the home i visited in kisumu. The boys do get beaten by the guard if they misbehave, the trouble is boys being boys do piss around and have a joke so they end up being hit sometimes. Its the toughest thing to watch and brings up a whole load of emotions, that I just don’t have the energy to put down right now.


29th January 2009
We spent a day looking round a number of schools and observed a lesson being taught at the end of the tour round. I was surprised at the aesthetics of the schools. You could see the amount of work and effort previous groups from peacechild had put into painting the walls, they had amazing pictures, flags, A-Z and times tables. All in incredibly vibrant colours which makes a welcome change to the beige walls with a blue stripe painted round a waist level. (which seems to be in every school and building here)

30th January 2009
Fridays are always planning days, so we had our usual meeting in the morning where Saskia, James and I planned the lessons for the next week which were going to be for eight different schools. The project is called Healthy Body Healthy mind and we wrote the first topic which was hygiene and cleanliness.
After an afternoon spent lounging about in the chill out area me and james went for a couple of kingfishers in a local hotel. Its not exactly the hippie saving the world thing to do, but I think a nice surrounding and escape from exhaust and noise is pretty welcome and good for the soul!

31st january 2009
Camden Market is nothing compared to city market Bangalore! There was so many people compact into such a tight space. On the outside James and I walked round the fruit and veg stalls before venturing into the dark basement which is the flower market. Complete escape from the sun, it was cool and the smell of flowers overwhelming. I thought the colours and atmostpheare were incredible; piles and piles of flowers, women sewing them into long chains for decoration for the home and temples and the constant bustle of people buying and selling. Upstairs in the flower market was the hardware stalls. I could of spent all day looking through drill bits, tools, different materials and types of powertool. It puts B&Q to shame, Dom would love it (we do have frequent trips to B&Q to buy crap we just don’t need but think it cool!)
After schlepping round in the hot sun the 1 and half hour journey home was refreshing... keeping in mind your stuck at the back of the bus between a million people most of which are also hot and sweaty.

1 febuary
Sunday was a trip to the farm, owned by Bern’s family. It’s about a half an hour drive out from the peacechild house, feels like you’ve arrived into another country. So peacefull and quiet with nature everywhere. I’m not even going to attempt to describle it, partly becuse it wont do it justice, partly coz its hot and I cant be arsed. Hopefully I’ll have some photos to remember it by!

2nd febuary
Today was the first day teaching in schools. We visited two schools ,one near to the peacechild house, that we walked to, the other a 25 minute walk away. This school is the smallest and has the least students, no more than abut 40 between all the classes. It was difficult to see any structure and organisation in the school, but i think we arrived at a bad time. It is the least decorated and has old dirty yellow walls. I think renovating the school could be a good project and use of some of the money raised at the mixed veg party. However, I have heard rumour of the school closing as it doesn’t have enough pupils, so I will have to research into that and see.
I am perfectly confident in getting up infront of a class and acting a bit of a fool and helping to present the structure. But, I realised that I just cant write on the board which is a real weakness. Partly because it knocks my confidence but also I feel its difficult to contribute and felt myself hide towards the back of the class with my camera after I had the chance to do bits of the lesson that didn’t require writing.

3rd feb
Today was another day in schools followed by a protest which was organised by peacechild. The protest was on the corner of MG road and was against the oppression of women. In Bangalore it is illeagel for women to be in Bars and a couple of days before 14 girls were beaten up and one killed by one of the politicians cronies who is particularly conservative. He also went on to say there would be more attacks if people are out and about celebrating valentines day, publicly showing affection for each other.

4th February
This morning I woke up late so didn’t get the chance to grab a shower....sometimes you do think “whats the point” when you know your going to be sweating on the back of a bus with a billion men. Anyway, after packing my lunch of spicey rice and pepper chicken (mmmm) we walked down to the bus stop to go to todays school, which I cant even attempt to say let alone spell. Having not enjoyed my time at the last few schools as much as I think i could/should have, I organised it today so that I did a lot of the talking and Saskia (one of the other interns) did the writing on the board. Which made such a difference as I loved the lesson and just being at the school.
As we walked up to the gates of the school the kids were running about and I could just feel a good vibe about the school, also the kids had no uniform so the kids were a sea of bright and vibrant colours and appeared as individuals, rather than blur of navy blue you see in most schools. Its probably my bias as I’m a st.chris-tafarian, but the kids seemed so much more lively and engaged at this school. The lesson went really well, Saskia and I tied our best to minimse the chalk and talk parts of the lesson and make the creatve/acting sections last as long as possible. When I got the children to repeat what was written on the board I felt like I was being plastered to the wall with sound, they were so loud and there was only thirty of them. So I mimed being blown over by the sound, much to the kids delight. The acting section of lesson is always my favourite and I love the fact that its the one part of the lesson that completely breaks any language barrier. Its a long way from Stanislavski and Larben, and it may not be changing there lifes like all the applied theatre books im reading seems to make out, but its good fun and a break from the chalk and talk they seem to be used to.
Its schvitsing today and just had nice long shower, it wasn’t hot, but who cares it was surprisingly refreshing. I had to be quiet as one of the new interns was sleeping downstairs, I’ll be interested to meet her when she wakes up. It will be funny if its another Londoner that will make five or us in the house. Just going to chill and backtrack keeping a log of what I have been up to, as this is the first time I’ve written in like a week.

5th February
This was the last day at schools this week as Friday is for meetings. Two new interns that arrived came with me. So I lead the lesson and they helped too, as well as being my scribes on the board (it was like having my very own Carol Vordamen). I really enjoyed myself and felt like I was really contributing as well as playing to my skills and good points with the support of the other new interns (Sophie and Lili).

6th February
Planning day, review the last week.

7th February
Anotther trip to City market and my first proper coffee (none-instant) for weeks. Spent the evening all together playing ring of fire and chilling out in the peacechild house.

8th February
Planned the wrest of the lessons for the next week as well as preparing resources. I also wrote this and caught up on the last week and a bit of this log. Hence the reason lots of days are really short and half arsed attempts at keeping a log of what ive been up to.

9th February
Mmmmm toast and tea, perfect after a day at school. Today was the first of the food and drink lessons which we taught at two schools. The lesson worked really well and I think they did actually learn something, where as the last lesson did seem like they aleady knew what we were teaching. We assigned each of the kids with a card with a food and then got the kids to make themselves in lines of food groups. As if it was planned, the four groups all in lines created a pyramid shape. This demonstrated the food pyramid, after listing all the foods we could think off under 4 headings we created balanced meals colouring and drawing. For the water side of the lesson we talked about what clean water is and where it comes from. We taught 10 green bottles/8 cups of water to all the kids and sang the song while they each drank a cup of water to demonstrate a song. This lesson had hardly any chalk and talk which made me enjoy the lesson much more, and I think a good break for the kids. Dinner was good today, Viji upped the bar on the spicy scale, noodles and veg with tomato salad! Now my plan is to chill out and maybe get some ice cream. (I did end up getting ice cream and it was friggin awesome!)

10th February
Today was a wicked day, such a blinder! I was set to go teach at the schools today, but as some of the new interns were going aswell I decided to switch to the boys home. After lining the boys up in the cadged area outside the TV room, which is where they are locked in all day. We managed (somehow!) to walk them slowly and sensibly in a line to the door of our room in the home. This is a complete first and makes a change to the usual fighting and running around. Inside the room we sat them down and spend an hour and half making masks using coloured card, sequins, glue and colouring pencils. They were like a complete different bunch of kids. They are usually causing complete chaoss but it seems when you give them all a task they can concentrate on, they are beautifully quiet and absorbed in the activity. We repeated the activity in the afternoon with the older boys. After the afternoon session I spent some time running about the courtyard and playing football, I know the boys will be locked up for hours so helping them get rid of energy has to be a good thing.
Three boys really stood out for me today and made me feel quite emotional by the end of the day. The first was inside doing the mask activity and he wanted to check with me every time he went to stick on another cequin or draw another design. It felt partly like he was afraid of making a mistake and partly that he just hasn’t had the opportunity for structured creativity like we take for granted in our childhoods at home and school. The other boy that stood out for me had all his fingers missing on one hand, one boy told me it was because his father caught him stealing and cut them off, it doesn’t sound that far out a story but I’m not sure, he may of just been born like that. Either way, seeing him get on and decorate his mask and do the very fiddly job of putting glue stick on the back of a sequin was a real inspiration and I loved sitting with him and helping him, even just watching him. The third boy, has only been in the home for a few days and says he is leaving on the 24th. He had perfect English and was so well behaved and such an affectionate and chatty kid. It broke my heart that he was stuck in the home, probably for no good reason.

11th February
Boys home during the day. Veena and I went for steak!!!! It was incredible, apparently this resteraunt used to be the only place in Bangalore where you can eat beef. Hence, the name “the only place”.

12th February
As Veena and I walked up the road leading to the boys home, I heared a familiar voice shouting from the car “get off the road!”. To my right is Flick!! After meeting her friend Sonya and having a quick chat it was straight to the boys home. I showed flick and sonya around the home. It was really intresting to hear flicks points of view and also to be with someone who has the comparisons of experience in kisumu. Flick seemed very interested and asked lots of questions (I think she was secretely testing my knowledge of the projects as well as just being interested, seeing how into it I am). As this took a while it meant we missed the lining up of the boys in “the cage”. The cage is a sectioned off part of the home outside the TV room and dorms which means the boys cant get to the courtyard. The lining up of boys, to decide who comes out with us, is never a pleasent sight. It usually involves being mobbed by kids, and even when the line up nicely the guards always seem to hit the kids with belts, sticks or bits of rubber. As well as the guards hitting the boys, a few older boys called “leaders/helpers” are allowed to hit and order the other boys. These helpers have been given nice clothes instead of the uniform, usually a denim jacket and jeans.
So back to the order of the day, in both the afternoon and the morning we did art with the kids, drawing our families. I was reminded of what many of how incredible flick is during both sessions. Even with the language gap she manages to get all the boys silent and listening in seconds (which usually takes ages!). Also watching her talking to the boys and teaching the ABC was awesome. ....

13th Febuary
We had a meeting with everyone, which took ages as we had another intern. Afterwards we ventured to the swimming pool around the corner which was so refreshing and seemed so isolated from the exhaust and constant hubbub of Bangalore.

14th January
Valentines day isn’t really a huge deal here, well it wasn’t until one of the politicians here (the same one we were protesting against at the march) said that if he saw any body out on valentines day holding hands or showing public signs of affection he’ll send his men out. Now, given that last time 14 young women were badly beaten up and one other died later in hospital, some people are staying in and some are out in protest. We, however, left for the farm at 11am for a valentines/birthday celebration. Manju (one of the peacechild guys) drove us in the Bollero, which I absolutely love. It may be a fuel guzzling hunk of metal and defiantly doesn’t win the green award but its wicked! On the way to the farm we stopped off at the offliscence to stock up for party, I decided to splash out and bought a case of beer to share with everyone, kingfisher ofcourse!
Most the afternoon was spent eating, sleeping or chilling on the roof in the sun. At about 6 we started drinking and played a game of ring of fire (card and drinking game) which is one of the favourites in the peace child house. We have to argue on the rules as the yanks play a different way. At about 10:30 Bernadette arrived so we dug into a unbelievable feast: rice, vegitable samba, gobi, chicken beriyani and my favourite which was big chunks of tender beef that was soooo spicy, all of this cooked by viji, I’ll have to make sure I get some recipes before I leave. After eating and giving my mouth time to recover from the hot food we danced for a good hour on ipod speakers. We had a mix of Indian music and English, when grease came on it felt really bizarre to be dancing to that song all the way out in Bangalore in a farm in the middle of a field. Usually I have Dom to my left, a couple of dancers infront of me and 150 jews waving there hands at me and more equipment than you could shake a stick at all infront of me. After dancing, i dashed into the kitchen a few minutes before midnight clutching my two parcels and my cards. I Counted down to midnight at which point everyone started singing happy birthday and then another birthday song which I hadn’t hearred before. Bern brought a cake over with Amaidhi holding a torch that I mimed blowing out. After cutting the cake Bern gave me a kiss on each cheek and shoved a piece of the cake into my mouth with her hands. This was quite strange, but i guess maybe a tradition, either way I felt welcomed into the family and really greatfull that I was surrounded by so many awesome people on this day. I opened my cards and parcels to find what seemed a never ending number of gifts including and banner and party poppers (which were draped over me in seconds). Twiglets and Digestive biscuits were defiantly a welcome reminder of home and I got a new T-shirt with Woodstock on, defiantly the ultimate hippy accessory to have on this trip. Good work mum!!
I can assure you that a lot of alcohol was consumed and spent a good couple more hours chilling with all the family and interns (all of which were female so a lot of high pitch shouting could be heard). Eventually Veena, Dimple and I were the only ones left chatting and at around 3am I decided it was time for bed. I did have some company in bed.....no not that....I had the pleasure of a lizard right next to where my head was, which is fine while it’s still but did wake up to it scuttling around which is slightly alarming. (memories of knocking on Roz’s door in Kisumu at for 1 in the morning because of the lizard above my bed came to mind, I hope I’ve got a bit more hardy and used to travelling since then.)

15th February (my birthday)
Seems like so long ago, haven’t writtern in this for a couple of days. Spent most the day chilling out at home. We spend a lot of time in the common area. It has a tv with a big coffee table and loads of chairs round it, a dining table with some chairs and a kitchen. We generally all sit around a lot there. It feels a bit like being on big brother or some reality show, all these young people together in house that may not necessaryily be friends out of the house, all doing tasks and spending lots of time together. The other side to it is that its like being back at st.chris. We all work together as a community and.... hold on I’m rambling again woops back to the order of the day.
Later on Viji, a couple of the girls and myself all went to my favourite restearunt round the corner and I had my usual north Indian mini meal which comes with chapatti, rice, loads of vegi curry, soup and finished off with ice cream. Although, the best part of the meal is the chilli gobi manchuri which is deep fried cauliflower with chilli sauce and whole chillies, it blows your mouth off and is sooooo good. In future I’m going to share that banquet with somebody else. It is such a lot of food and I felt so stuffed afterwards it was uncomfortable. As we have no internet on weekends in the office I went to the I-way on the way back from eating and sat down to read my birthday facebook messages. I got tonnes and tonnes which was so nice to read and know that everyone was thinking of me. Mum and Dad both sent really nice e-mails (thankyou both) which made me a bit teary eyed. People think I’m weird enough around here being white, and wearing baggy jeans and bright colours, seeing me with a couple of tears run down my face must of been the cherry on the cake!

16th February
We took the boys out to the field from the home today, managed to get a good number of kids too. 16 in the morning and 26 older once in the afternoon, the superintendent must of been in a good mood. At the moment we have to have Manju there to take the boys out (one of the guys that works with peacechild, but he has other stuff to do) so I’m trying to get on the Super’s good side so that I can be there without manju and take the boys out. Played cricket and football, but spent most the time garding the sewer so that the boys don’t try and escape. I felt more of a guard than a social worker some of the time, but me doing that enables us to take the kids out so its all for a good cause in the end.

17th February
Today I was at the schools again teaching exercise and relaxation. I worked with James, which I really enjoy as he’s such a nice guy. The problem is he tends to just do the whole lesson himself and not include others. I personally don’t mind as I know I’ll be teaching the lesson a million times that week. But the Rosh/Madrich (youth leader) part of me wants to get the other girls involved and also wants to stand back so James can get a good experience from the lesson. For the first time in my life I think the million leadership courses I’ve been on and lead are really coming in useful. However, I think it stands out that a lot of people haven’t had similar experience which I find really tough. I don’t have the support of the other interns and a lot of them aren’t very intuitive when it comes to working with young people. I’m thinking I may go through some of the leadership stuff and do a bit of a training/fun session for everyone.

18th February
Wednesdays are my favourite days to teach at the schools as its none uniform day. I think the kids look so vibrant and individual in thier own clothes and the kids at Wednesdays school are such a pleasure to teach. They did the meditation exercises really well in the morning, we had complete silence. We all sat crossed legged with our back straight and started off by breathing deeply counting breaths. Aftter a while of that I guided them through tensing and relaxing every part of their body. We did some more breathing and then slowly stood up, once standing I lead them in an exercise to feel and visualise a ball in there hands. Jon hart used to do that exercise with me during math when I was in his class, I imagine he was as bored with it as I was. That’s defiantly something I’ve taken from Jon and used on this trip; taking breaks and being active during lessons. I make sure every lesson has an active part, usually some stretching and jumping up and shaking. I’m starting to think I have ADHD he he he, but if im still in a classroom for to long I go nuts, and I’m meant to be the teacher!

19th February
I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent this morning so really wasn’t up for a massive bus journey so I went to the boys home, which worked out really well as I had a great day and saw Flick and Sonya. We took the boys out to play cricket in the morning, I’m getting much better at fielding but have not ventured as far as batting yet. My football skills however are defiantly improving, I can tackle the 15 year old boys and actually have some control of the ball which is pretty good considering I’ve played football about five times before (Mr Coles can shove that where the sun don’t shine – Nazzi P.E. teacher from primary school).
Anyway, back to the day, in the afternoon we went into the TV room to bring the older boys for their turn to go out and play in the field. They all ran out into the cage as usual and we proceeded to write down their names and carefully lead the line of boys out of the cage and outside the superintendents office. But, he wasn’t there and the lazy house fathers wouldn’t take responsibility for signing out the boys, so after 10 minutes of waiting we let the boys play in the courtyard. After I helped the boys get their game of cricket going, which took such a long time, I went inside and did some writing and drawing with a few individual boys. I really think spending time with one of the kids individually is the best thing when there is the opportunity. When we grow up we get one on one attention from parents, teachers, brothers and sisters and the boys get none of this which I think is really important for development. I know I can’t spend time with all of them individually in one day, but it’s a case of the boy and starfish (look up the story if you don’t know it!). I sat with one of the school boys and worked together on the phonetic alphabet. All the boys no the ABC, some can write it, but hardly any actually know the phonetic sounds of the letters meaning they cannot bridge the gap of being able to spell words. It felt like a real achievement by the end of our time together that he could spell cat and dog. I taught it in such a way that the boy (his name I can’t pronounce let alone spell, so I call him monkey boy) makes the bridge between phonetic sound and spelling himself, letting him make the discovery himself is great and I think gives him a sense of achievement. Monkey boy remembers my name (so i feel bad for not remembering his) and always comes up and chats in limited English. He’s really bright and chatty and always well behaved with a smile on his face. It kills me knowing that when he gets back from school (he’s bloomin’ lucky that hes at school, most the boys are not) he is just locked in the TV room and doesn’t have the childhood full of family, fun and protection we all deserve. I just wish I could pack him in my suitcase and take him home, it breaks my heart! I started to feel quite emotional nearing the end of our session, knowing I wouldn’t see him for almost a week. I couldn’t help picturing him at st.chris having the time of his life. I wish I could send them all there, it was the best experience of my life and those kids deserve so much more.
In the evening (which is now) I’m catching up on writing my log, i haven’t writtern the last week so I’m skipping back and forth filling stuff in. The power is out so im sitting with the emergency light on being eaten by mosquitos typing this using my laptops battery. I’m going to take a break now to listen to my ipod, put on some insect repellent and treat myself to a diet coke. (They were on special offer at the supermarket so I bought a big box, I’m such a jew!! I think I get that from mum)

20th February
Fridays are mostly meetings, but as some of the girls were at a wedding the meeting started late allowing me to spend some time chatting to flick. After the meeting I spent a lot of the day having convocations inside my own head about what I wanted to get out of this trip etc. My feeling at the moment is that I’ve had a good month, the projects are good.... But i think I need something more, I’m not sure if I have created some over the top view of Kenya in my head or not. But I know if i was in Kenya there would be tonnes of projects and I would be working from crack of daw till the evening. Also knowing the remand home in Kenya has nobody visiting and the one here as peace child people visiting every day makes me start to think which is more worthwhile. In India the big projects in schools (that aren’t happening at the moment) are re-decorating classrooms where as in Kenya its more along the lines of building water harvesting systems, toilets even new class facilities. I do remember their being a certain buzz from working in Kisumu. I think I’m just going to have to see how I go and think about my options.

21 February
Chilled out

22nd February
Went out in the evening to le rock and guzzlors, these are two bars that play rock music. Outside guzzlors I saw two English looking guys and as I walked down the stairs they cought eyes with my and waved. Turned out they are both Londoners and are Eton boys. Not quite my social scene at home but still felt great to chat to someone from home who goes out to the some of the same places.

23rd February
Caught up writing this log, had some wicked spicy tomato sauce and rice. My favourite, it literally sets your mouth on fire! (day off for bank holliday)

24 february
(Its march now and I’m going back to write this) I really enjoyed using drama as part of the lesson when teaching in schools today. [After this entry is my notes and thoughts on the drama exercises] Today didn’t feel like an amazing do-good day. But lots of really cool little things built up to make it so enjoyable. So the drama went really well at the first school, we arrived at the second school (after a half an hour walk in the boiling hot sun) to find that it was closed today, due to the Holliday yesterday. While a few of the girls sat to wrest I took my mini football (that mum and dad sent for my birthday!) out of my bag and started a game of footie with the kids gathering around, I recognised most of them from the class we teach at the school we’re standing outside. Occaisionally the game would be interrupted due to the ball falling into the sewer, or a motorbike coming down the road and I think even a cow came over to see what was going on. One of the schools boys produced a key to the front gate, he must of ran to a teachers house. So I decided to play a few games with a circle or kids I managed to gather together, rather than waste the time we have. I managed to teach a game we play on summer scheme at FRS called Commando Piccolo, its very simple and just involves a set of commands and actions. The awesome thing is, I managed to teach the game without speaking the same language. It was great to be able to play with the kids and not have somebody translating, also the thought of all the times I played the game when i was young and when I was a youth leader at FRS really made the game special. We played a few more games, some successful, some not and headed back a couple of hours later. On the way back I spotted some dry leaves on fire, in an area which was covered with dry leaves and dead plants. You could see the area behind the line of fire was black and in front dry plants and leaves may as well be fuel. So I managed to stomp out the fire, which felt like my good deed for the day. It may only have been small but in that heat fires can spread so fast. It drives me crazy how careless some people are about where they throw matches and cigarettes, even worse the amount of piles of burning rubbish I walk past everyday. I cant be bothered to rant on about it now, but I’m sure I have done or will do soon anyway.
Drama Notes on lesson:
24th February 2009, Bangalore University school, India, 12 students aged 7-8
I have been working at the schools teaching a project titled Healthy Body, Healthy Mind and the lesson plan for this week used the subtopic environment. I planned in part of the lesson to do a few little scenes with the children under the headings: Repair, Reduce and Recycle. The idea is that the children made a short scene that included a situation where someone was doing one of the “Re” words that are key to helping the environment. I split the children into groups of 4 and explained what the activity was. I use my whole body when speaking here in India to try and cross the language barrier, often it works, often I look like a crazy man waving frantically at the kids. Prabhu, the schools facilitator, translated my instruction and the children were sent to talk and rehearse.
Straight away it came to my attention that the girls group were excited by the activity and all discussing what they were going to do. Sometimes they spoke over each other but most the time it appeared that the group of girls were taking in terns to talk and were showing signs on interest in the activity. The two groups of boys, however, were another story. The first group did seem to be discussing what they were going to do, but they were all talking over each other and occasionally conversation turned into play fight and messing around. No matter what country you are in, boys will always be boys! The second group of boys showed no interest in the activity at all, they spent more time climbing on each other and pulling faces at me (I took pride in pulling scary faces back, maybe not the most constructive thing to do but it was clear they had no interest in what was happening). After trying to coax this group of boys into working it was explained to me that these children were “challenged and special”. In most classes there will be one or two children which a teacher will describe as this. I find this frustrating as I always feel I need to label the child with ADHD or being on the aspergers spectrum, also the un politically correctness makes me feel slightly uncomfortable as well as being quite amusing. Even if I did know what the child had surely I should not act any differently towards them and just include them in the class in the same way.
Over the next few minutes, no more than about 8, I observed the three groups and it became clear how advanced the girls were in co-operation, team work and enthusiasm. It never appeared to me that the first group of boys had come up with any ideas as none of them showed any signs of rehearsing physicality but I found myself pleasantly proved wrong later on.
Time to perform the pieces, and I decided that the girls should go first as I thought they would give the best example to the class and be enjoyable to watch. The dialogue was in Kanada the local language to this region (Karnataka, Bangalore), but their actions and the fact the topic was so simple made the short scene easy to understand. The girls had the topic reuse assigned to their group and based their scene on the use and of water. The girls went into a nearby classroom and produced two big pots that are used for water to use as props. One of the girls mimed tripping over and spilling the water, while the other holding the pot carried hers without losing a drop. The other two girls told off the one which had dropped the water and the scene was over. There was quite a lot of dialogue so the scene took a few minutes. I noticed that, after one reminder, the girls had a good awareness of where their audience was. Each of the girls looked like there were really in the scene and had fully got into character, which was fantastic to watch. I find when an actor is completely into what they are doing it is a joy to watch independent of their acting ability or the plot, and this was no exception.
Something struck me in the first boys group performance which was on the theme of repairing. I noticed when the boys were in the off stage area (an alcove next to the blackboard) they mimed picking up items even when they were out of view of their audience. The scene was about two people on a motorbike who get a puncture, rather than throwing the tire out they took it to be repaired at the puncture shop. The moment that interested me was when the puncture repair man in the scene went to get the pump. The boy walked out of site, put his hands around an imaginary pump and picked it up and walked on stage with it. He must have been visualising it in his head as he had a near perfect mime, both hands were gripping the same shape and they were in line with each other, they stayed in that position as he moved into sight of the audience/class. I found this astounding to see what would be regarded on any stage or rehearsal space a near perfect mime, demonstrating the power of imagination within that boy.
The second group of boys, which I could tell and assumed had not planned their scene came up to the performance area by the blackboard without hesitation and proceeded to start their scene. They all giggled and laughed the whole way through and within about 10 seconds I realised they were imitating exactly the class before. I’m pretty sure they were taking the mick out of the first class. (The jokes on them as I don’t think they got anything positive from the activity). However their imitation was fantastic and showed great attention to detail. This group were constantly disturbing the class and being noisy during the other boys performance this is why it interested me. I think one boy was actually watching the other boys group so he lead the imitation.
In conclusion, I’m not sure how effective the activity was for enforcing the project. I’m also not sure where on the spectrum of educational theatre this drama fitted into. But I did see some of those children completely in character and could tell they had escaped the classroom for a brief time. It must be daunting for the children to get up in front of the whole class and 3 volunteers (white, which is a novelty enough) as well as two teachers and senior teacher who came to watch. The children were In character and in the scene and the above factors did not phase the majority of children. The girls were obviously at a higher level and it was a great example of their maturity compared to the boys. It was not the girls acting that impressed me it was how they worked as a group, letting each other speak and being sensitive to what their fellow students were doing around them. Even the second boys group that copied the first impressed me. The group must of paid enough attention to detail in watching and listening to the other group, allowing them to imitate very closely to the original. This reminded me of a rehearsal I once had in drama at college where after the whole class had improvised conversations down a phone the teacher asked us all to go through the exact plot of our classmates conversation. Thus testing our listening skills and ultimately how well we were working as a company.
Watching and facilitating this tiny bit of drama gave me so much pleasure, I knew I had to document my experiences to look back to. It really warmed me to see the children’s enjoyment of the activity. The group skills and ability to get into character at a school were resources and teaching are limited was so impressive. I will make sure that I do more drama activities with the children at the school as I truly believe in the importance and usefulness of drama for both children and adults. I’m not quite sure that I understand the huge umbrella category that is applied drama. But I’m going to be brave and say given the informal space, relevance of the theme to the children and the enjoyment of the process by some students, that this was indeed an example of applied drama.

5 – 9th March
Gokarna: A weekend in paradise
Thursday evening was the start of the long journey to Gokarana (just south of Goa, still in Kanartaka state) I had heared the journey was 14 hours, but luckily only ended up being 11 hours. The mode of transport chosen was a sleeper bus, which was surprisingly good and after 11 hours of bumps, shakes and a few sudden stops we were back in daylight and getting out of a coach hit by the humidity of Gokarana.
Day one at the beach, and it was beautiful. Okay it wasn’t white water and blue seas...inf act it was kind of better, really fine sand and warm water. The beach disappeared into a forest of palm/cocoanut trees with huts made of woven leaves. Around the beach huts it felt like a mini jungle with a web of walkways cleared connecting the huts. The beach was fairly empty and scattered with cows wondering across the sand, dogs running about in packs and a good number of tattooed people with dreadlocks and hippie pants wondering from beach to beach. At intervals across the sand as far as the eye can see are little restaurant/bar/shacks each with a good menu of freshly made food and drinks. I found most places sold king fisher beer and if you ask nicely they would sell you a bottle of old monk rum under the counter.
Veena and I spent one day on kudle beach but the wrest of it we spent on Om beach where our hut was. The weekend was pure relaxation and indulgence. Waking up, eating. Going for a swim, reading on the beach, eating. Going for another swim, reading some more, eating and going for a drink. This cycle repeated itself a few times every day and was fantastic. I got a good chunk of my book (The Applied Theatre Reader) read over the weekend, however, it felt a bit of a juxtaposition reading about the courts of post-Rwanda genocide while lying on a beautiful beach with no worries in the world.
On the Saturday I was walking through the shack next to where our hut was and I hear my name shouted. Sitting behind me is Alice and Meg from St.chris! They had been travelling for 5 months, and out of all the days, all the countries, towns, beaches and even shacks, they managed to be chilling at the same one as us. Coincidence or synchronicity, either way who would of thought!
Overall it was a great weekend (I did catch a bit too much sun, developed a head cold and had 30 bites on my feet from bed bugs, but a small price to pay for paradise for the weekend). I was completely shattered by the time we had to leave, so getting on the sleeper bus was an exciting prospect.

10th March
Today is holi (a hinu festival of colours) so we did not have any work, the group went to the farm (the most beautiful place india!) and we chilled out and had dinner there. Viji enjoyed pouncing up behind me and covering my face in green powder as part of the celebrations. (wasn’t funny when I couldn’t get any water out of the taps when I wanted to wash my face!)

11th March
Today was the best day at the boys home by far, in all the time I’ve been here. The feedback from the other interns backed up this, also seeing the enjoyment and participation of almost every child in the room was an incredible sight.

So we arrived at the boys home and had a quick 2 minute meeting, I asked if one of the girls would lead the game Commando Piccollo that I have been using at the schools for the previous week. We then agreed that a song like the hokey kokey would be a good start to the session and I asked if I could lead some games after that.
Meeting over so we all walked into the home and proceeded to the cage (barred area outside the TV room) to bring the kids out into our room. Instead of the usual unorganised lining up and choosing of boys, with the inevitable fights, tears and beatings by the guards, today was different. Veena prepared a list of the boys we were going to take that she knew were reasonably cooperative. Both Veena (and Dimple) have an increadible knowledge of the boys, knowing their names, where they are from, how well behaved they are and the languages they speak, its so impressive!
Within minutes the list of boys were lined up by the gate out of the cage and walked through to the other side, the line did break and all 25 screaming boys ran into our room for the start of the lesson. That was it, I did not want to let a moment go by without structure or I know chaoss would soon come into play. I shouted that I wanted everyone in a circle and started grabbing the hands of the boys nearest me. All the other interns along with veena (co-ordinator) Amai (big boss) and Flick & Sonia grabbed the nearest few kids so that in under a minute we had a circle and relative quiet, amazing! (this does not happen often in the boys home)
“You put your left arm in, your left arm out....” That’s the hokey kokey for those that don’t know, which went really well and the boys (and secretly I) loved the bit where you all run into the middle. All of us sang as loud as we could and the boys joined in with the words they knew and all the actions, it was such a great atmosphear I just wish I could of taken a photo. You will have to create the mental image yourself. The next thng we did was “commando piccolo” which is a simple action and command game that I always loved playing with the kids at Finchley Refrom on summer camps and club etc. The best thing about the game is after a couple of rounds you can hand over to one of the kids to lead the game. I strongly believe allowing a child to take a turn leading and speak up infront of their peers is such a good life experience helping with confidence aswel as leadership skills. I can defiantly look back at my experiences and know that performances, leadership and giving presentations all have been a big part of helping me to have the confidence to be doing what I am right now. We played another varation game with Amai lead which was in Hindi or Kanada (both languages sound similar to me) After a few more rounds of that it was my turn, the half an hour I had asked for in today’s session.
I explained that I would clap something and they were to clap back, my actions while I spoke being the key point of communication as only a couple have even the most basic of English. First I clapped basic rhythms, after some laughs and bad attempts the group got very good at imitating what I was doing. I then moved from clapping to also making sounds on my knees and clicking. Such an excersise is good as it requires concentration, rhythm and coordination, all things that we can do with practising, especially if you are cooped up or bored for a lot of the day like the boys we are working with. Now came the fun part, I started to sing gobble-de-goop words with actions which they sung back. “A-tikki-tikki-tumba” “a-waaaay-eeee-oooo” I really enjoyed myself and the fact that with the constant replay of my action together we were creating a beat and music in its own right, with NO resources! Looking round the circle at the boys smiling and singing and joining in was brilliant, it was the first time I saw some children participating fully in an organised activity in a month and a half.
I don’t want to blow my own trumpet about how good it was, in fact I cant. It comes down to experiences working on scheme, with Roz helping in music class at millfields school and being fortunate enough to have some amazing music classes over the years. After creating some wicked sounds and rhythms using reptilian we split the circle up into groups, each group made a different sound and kept theirs going so we had a complex set of rhythms, of course groups came out of time and went back in. I really enjoyed it and want to work on it more so that we have some cool cross rhythms or maybe start some syncopated rhythms.
The morning continued we played a couple of games up until lunch. I really felt that I proved myself to the Amai and Veena showing what I can do if somebody gives me the space to take on some responsibility. That’s the thing here, I feel completely babied a lot of the time and there just isn’t project and activities that I can take on. I guess its a bit of a nice break from working really hard, a holiday between running Rendezvous and working at the Royal Instiution before the real work starts In Kisumu come May.

12th march
Spent the day at the boys home, playing cricket and a few games with the younger ones. In the evening I went to Berns house for dinner with Flick and Sonya which was nice but very brief as we arrived so late, then went on to Hypnos for drinks.
In the evening once back at the office one of the interns told me their experiences of being in the first tower on 9/11. It was such an incredible and emotional story, I have enjoyed getting to know her more and more over the last few weeks, but feel hearing her experience has helped to understand her and her personality/approach to life.
13th march
Meeting and writing log, last time seeing Flick and Sonya as they are flying home the next day. Flight tickets booked for homeward journey.