A bit of a reality check

Since I started planning to come to India I've know that I would be working with street kids. Since I got to India I've been constantly confronted with the poverty and the shanty houses and shacks the cover any available space. You can't escape any of it. We live in a pretty well to do area and all the allyways around our building are full of little corrugated iron and blue plastic structures, the street that we drive along to get to school is lined with them and no railway line is without its little hut communities dotted along it. But yesterday it really hit me, and it was kind of a shock. What I never realised that most of our kids are street kids not slum kids, and theres actually a massive difference between to two. When people live in a slum theres a communitym support, electrcity and security. You have to pay to live there. But on the street you're subjected to anything and everything. Theres no protection for your home or whatever few belongings you have. Its so easy to forget where the children come from and what they go home to. In the school they're all just regular children who need a hug when they cry and who you shout at when they're being annoying.

I've mentioned our maid before, stroppy but lovely. Shes 16 and always very well put together. Her mum works at the school and all of her siblings (she has 8) go to the school. I know the whole family quite well. Her older sister is pregnant and managed to find me a blanket and a pillow when I had a bit of an 'episode' at school the other week! Anyway, yesterday we went out to the open yard where we do exercise, but it was really hot so one of the teachers suggested we go down to the sea where there's more shade. As we wandered down, our maid's little sister pointed out her house. Its the one in the photo above. 11 people live there. 11. I was just comletely blown away, I still am. I saw slumdog millionaire, I wasn't expecting much, but I was expecting 4 walls, something resembling a door. But this is just props for a roof. I have no idea how they survive here. I have an apartment, that occasionally has running water, a bed, fans, a closet to keep my clothes in and I look and feel like crap 90% of the time I'm here, and the other 10% only happens half an hour after each shower. They all sleep outside, theres room for about 4/5 people tops under the roof. How do they cope during the monsoon? I don't really know what else to say. Seeing her house is the first time I've come close to tears since I got here.