Bye Bye India

Oh it is so sad. Despite the loose motions, dehydration, vomiting, sweating, rashes, insect bites and heat boils India really has been completely amazing. I'm already plotting my next trip back. How could I not, the children are far to brilliantly adorable to not see again.

Although underneath it all I supose I am happy to be coming home, there are so many wonderful people and things here I am going to miss. Despite its many many many flaws I will miss our little apartment, it was a lovely little home. I'll miss its roof and the sunsets, the lane by our house, the friendly man in the internet cafe, the shop thats full of western delights and Mocha Mojo - our air condintioned second home. I'm going to miss Bandra, and Mumbai and ocasionally understanding the hindi people spoken around me. I'll miss the risking my life everytime I get in a rickshaw or cross the street. I'll miss chai at the benches, and chai after school, and chai at the train station, and chai on the street.

I'm really not going to miss rice and Daal. Or the food burning my mouth so much that the blood pounds in my ears.

But mostly I'll miss the people. Josh and Tania for being so supportive, welcoming us into their home and providing such an incredible experience. The teachers at school for being so friendly and helpful. The other volunteers for being generally awesome and brilliant (Hi Amy!). Of course the children for being amazing and giving us so much love and entertainment, they will stay in our hearts for ever.

And I suppose I'll miss Lu and Vikki (who are abandoning me and heading off to South East Asia and Europe). They told me about One! and my experience here would not have been the same without them. They've have been amazing, brilliant, wonderful and fantastical friends and teachers and volunteers and bitching partners and travelling companions. I could not have done this without them. I'm missing them already!

Rash or Bite?

This is one of the many exciting questions you get to ask when living in India. It is one I have been asking on and off for the past week about a strange collection of bumpy red things on my leg. I get bitten a lot, so I asummed they were bites. But everyone else in the house has broken out in heat rashes, which made me think it could be a rash. Well after much puzzling someone finally announced that what ever it was, it was 'infected'. Lovely. And then someone else pointed this out, and another person so I decided perhaps I should toddle off to the doctor and let him decide.

Our local doctor is a funny one. I've been to him before when I had insane stomach cramps. Rather than throughly diagnose you, he pinpoints whats wrong to a rough selection of symptoms and then gives you prescription drugs for all of them. Quite often an array of differet problems are cured by the exact same drug (most recently massive pink horse pills have solved animal bites and colds). Last time he decided I had a stomach infection so I got one set of pills for that. But then he also decided to give me pills for all the other odd symptoms I'd mentioned. So I came away with a prescription for 3 different drugs.

So off I went to discover the secret of the red lumps, it turns out it is neither rash nor bite! Its the mysterious third option.... Heat Boils! Even lovlier. A little departing gift for my body because the sweat and loose motions wasn't enough!

This time I escaped with only 2 prescriptions, I protested against the pain pills. So I have some cream that says get well soon on the packet and some oxymoxycycloquinsilaxisin-thing (big and red and black) for the 'infection'. I have no idea if its working, it mostly makes me feel woozy.

Thank You!!!!!!!

Massive thank you to My Mum and Dad, Nanna, Vikki's parents and Lu's parents for donating money so the kids at Nallasopara and Khar could have Biriyani for their after programme treat, they thoroughly enjoyed it!!!!!!

End of Term

So everything has finished at school: no more classes, no more train rides to Nallasopara and no more children. I feel very sad.

Its been a really busy last few weeks. Straight after exams we went away to the water park, then we had sports day (my team came last, I was very unimpressed) and since then we've been rehearsing songs, plays and dances for the end of term programme. We had one programme in Nallasopara on Friday and the Khar one on Saturday. In between all that we've been desperately trying to finish off all the little jobs and bits and bobs around the office before we leave. Its been pretty frantic. I feels very strange to not have anything to do and to just have to hand all your work over to someone else. I hope it will all work out with the new volunteers. We also got to go on a home visit and see some of the kids in their houses in the slum. It was lovely, we all go offered chai and got to have a chat with the parents and everything. It was a lot like slumdog millionaire, which everyone has probably seen, so I won't go in to details. But it was Amazing.

The End of Term Programme ended up being really fun. We stayed up super late on Thursday night making masks and backdrops for all the performances. Then dragged them all to Nallasopara on the train only for the programme to go quite disasterously. We were quite downhearted. But then the Saturday Khar Programme ended up being awesome so we were very happy in the end. Lu's costumes looked brilliant, Vikki ended up taking on a star role in one of the little kids plays and I managed to get the ADD-tastic Step 3s through 2 verses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". We also re-wrote The Ting Tings 'That not my name" and taught it to the Step 5s. They were awesome. I have a video!

But now its all over and there's nothing left to do but sleep, so I'm going home to do that!

Only a week to go...

... and even more things have broken in our apartment.

13. Another dead laptop has been found during a clear out we had last week
14. One of the volunteers laptop screens
15. The Fridge. It has finally packed up and given in. It smells. Luckily we have no food, I don't know why its smelling.

On a happier note I've bought another new camera charger, so I've been taking billions of pictures. This time I just went straight to Alfa and found my way round like a pro!

A New Arrival

Look how cute this little bundle of happiness is! Her name is Snow White, we call her Snow for short. She found being eaten by rats and was rescued by Tania and then adopted by the two orphans who live at school, Pavarti and Malesh. So the school has a cat now! She spends her days roaming around the office looking adorable and making it very hard to get any work done. She was quite ill when we first took her in and so came and stayed at our house for a couple of days which was brilliant! She wandered around and explored everything and curled up on the big water bottle to have some sleep. She's all skinny and has giant ears and paws, the lady at the pet shop thinks she might have worms which is quite cute really because lots of the kids at school have worms to! She fits in!

Anyway, Snows adoption seems like the perfect time to write about her new owners, Pavarti and Malesh. I had to say goodbye to them yesterday and it broke my heart to leave them. They have been such a big part of our experience at school and are a great example of why I'm so proud to be working for an organisation like One! International.

Pavarti is about 7 and Malesh is about 16, though no one knows for sure. There father was an alcoholic and he died when they were younger. After that they moved to Mumbai with there mother to find work. She was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver a couple of years ago. They were then split up and sent to live with different relatives. They were both poorly looked after and suffered both physical and mental abuse. Pavarti was hurt the most by this and became very withdrawn and would speak to no one but Malesh. Her health deteriated and they ended up living out on the beach by the school. Back in August Pavarti started having trouble breathing. The fishermen that lived nearby brought them to One! International to see if they could help. One! took pavarti to three different hospitals before someone would treat her. Finally a semi-private hospital took her in and had to perform life saving techniques to keep her going. One! found a sponsor to cover the cost of her treatment. The doctor gave her various timelines for how long she would stay alive. Originally a couple of weeks, then maybe up to two years and then decided that she could live well into adulthood or die the next day, they couldn't be sure. No one knows specifically what is wrong with her. She was attatched to an oxygen machine which she had to stay on for up to 18 hours a day. One! got permission for them to live at school and paid to hire an oxygen machine so she could continue her treatment. They have been living at the school ever since.

In this time Pavarti's health has greatly improved, last month she came off the oxygen completely. She attends class and happily interacts with all the students, teachers and volunteers. She's so funny and has a really evil cackle when she laughs, she climbs up everything and once you pick her up she'll cling on to you and never let go. Malesh is a wonderful older brother and is so sweet with her. He was a bit unimpressed when they first got the cat, but is quite proud of how much attention it gets.

They are both so amazing and I think its incredible that without One! Pavarti would not be here today. I hope they continue to flourish and I will miss them terribly.

http://www.one-international.com/

How to buy a battery charger in Mumbai.

Last week the battery charger for my camera stopped working. Its one of those little block ones so you can't just buy new batteries. It meant I wouldn't be able to use my camera for the rest of the trip. It is another, in the long list (see below) of electricals that have died in our apartment. But I refused to live without a camera and so began a very long adventure to fix my charger.

First I didn't believe it had just died. It we perfectly fine the week before. It had to be the fuse. Normally I would just go to dad who would look in a draw and sort everything out. But this is India, so I can't. After much questioning I found a little electrical shack next to the internet place I go to. The scary man there popped out the fuse and tested it, everything was fine. The charger was broken.

If I was in England I would have popped online, bought a new one and carried on with my life. But this is India and the post can take up to a month if at all. So I asked a few questions and found a snazzy airconditioned electrical store that might be able to help me. It was near where we live, so one afternoon after school I popped in to see if they could help. They couldn't. But they did give me the address of the Cannon Master Store or something that could. It was in Santa Cruz (15 minutes away) so I popped in a rickshaw and went there.

The Rickshaw left us at some crossroads where there was no shop called The Cannon Support Centre. After asking a bunch of different security guards I gave up and called the phone number I had. I explained where I was standing and they directed me to them. It turns out all we had to do was go through some guarded gates past a bank and up a fancy elevator to the 6th floor of a building where finally there was a small sign advising us that we were at the Cannon Support Centre. It turned out to be an office where they do something I don't understand. I gave my name to the receptionist and then someone brought us free candy and water, which was all very nice. Except when we finally spoke to someone there was nothing they could do. But they could give us an address of a shop that would sell the battery charger, Alfa. It was big they said. Everyone has heard of it. It was in Vile Parle (15 minutes away) so we popped in a rickshaw and went there.

The first rickshaw we popped in was driven by some idiot who thought we would happily pay him 350 rupees for a 20 rupee trip. We wouldn't, so we had a fight and got out. The second rickshaw was lovely, he dropped us off down a small lane full of vegetable carts, household items spread out on mats on the floor and cramped creepy looking shops lining the road. I was expecting something more PC Worldy. But there, amongst the grubby signs, was a little pink one that said Alfa. Our driver happily pointed it out. And then he pointed out another, next door, and another, accross and the street, and another further down and so on. There was about 7 little Alfa signs dotted all over the street. In a slight daze we got out and looked around. A vegetable seller offered to help. "Cameras?" we asked, "Alfa 3!" he replied pointing down the street. And off we went to find a camera charger. Alfa 3 was down a busy little alleyway. Busy because it hosted the Alfa gift wrapping department: 3 tables full of garish wrapping paper surrounded by people waving their Alfa bags trying to get their things done next. Skeptically we walked in and were suddenly surrounded by ipods and flat screen tvs and cameras. I got to the front of the counter slightly dejectedly pulled out my camera and battery to ask for a charger. The man behind looked at me, then he looked at the man beside him who bent down, had a rumage and pulled out the right camera charger! It was amazing! It had an English plug! He yelled over to someone else who brough out an adapter, tested it for me and I paid. The next thing I knew I was out on the street surrounded by the vegetable sellers again.

So in India all it takes to buy a new camera charger is 3 hours, 3 shops and 4 rickshaw rides. I almost got it gift wrapped!

.... I have since lost the new charger and now my battery is dead all over again with no way to charge it. At least I know where to go and buy a new one.