Essay 2!

Wow, thanks for writing back, I opened my e-mail for the first time since last writing and had 60 new messages, ok, so more than half were viruses and scams, but still, it has kept me entertained, and perhaps too distracted from what I’m really supposed to be doing at the internet café now. I’m here to write a project proposal, basically request for funds as we want to employ 2 full time psychological councilors for the villagers.

So I’ve now been in my new home since Tuesday and things have been really good and I’m feeling good about everything.

We (a male member of staff, 53, female 23 and female 26 who’s only going to be here for another week, and the driver, who’ll also be gone in a week) had Tuesday to buy things for our new office cum living quarters and not do too much. Then on Wednesday we went back to one of the temporary villages with the intention of collecting data. We plan to visit every household in 5 villages, villages range from about 50-85 households. I actually have been in charge of our small unit here, kinda by default. We were in the car on the way to the first village and still no one had really discussed what we were going to be doing there. We had thought of some questions to ask, but I felt not enough. I had to tell the people, thru the 26 year old – Devi and her very broken English what to do. They hadn’t considered anything of the format of the questionnaire, or the questions. It’s good for me as I now have a lot of work to do, but Sassy Kalla (the 23 y o)and Subra Monie (the man) have no ideas of their own, and couldn’t think of a single question they thought would be useful to get the info for! We’re collecting data about their situation before the tsunami and what has happened as a result- what they were doing previous to the tsunami, how many died, total loss of assets, whether they’d be interested in any training and classes or any of our income generation schemes etc.

On average the men used to make Rs.200 (about ₤2.50) a day and the women, if they had an income it would be around Rs. 50. This is all they had to feed themselves and their family, but in India that goes a hell of a long way. I went to the market the other day and 1kg of sweet potatoes cost Rs.6 (7.5p)!!! A lot of veg here is the same cost, fruit is a bit more thou!! How bloody cheap!! I can now cook for myself which is good, although we have a one ring kerosene cooker, which if left unattended for more than 5 minutes will go out. Every 5mins you have to rapidly pump the air. It makes lots and lots of black smoke and absolutely stinks!

Thanks to those of you who know how serious I take my food and how eating the same thing day in day out can be kinda dull. Also Oli, yes you’re right, I certainly don’t want to be eating mouldy sand fish! The only cooking appliance we have is that one ring, used for everything, we also have no fridge. My address is rather long-winded, so big thanks – much appreciated:

CARD Tsunami Rehabilitation Programme,Arumuga Navalar, Kudil No. 2, No.63/24 Maalaikatti Street,CHIDAMBARAM, Cuddalure District, Tamilnadu, India.


For the next couple of weeks I have a lot to do as it’s my job to input all the collected data onto a spreadsheet and also to try and write project proposals / request for funds. There’s lots I can think of to request for- like bicycles and literacy classes, but it usually takes about 2 months to actually get any money, so projects can’t be run until then. That’s pretty crap, I mean there’s quite a desperate need now. The villagers are sat around idle, unable to work as they were all fishermen or relied on fish related projects and now all the boats have been trashed. The government has given them 1/20 the cost of a boat, but they have nothing, no savings, few donated possessions no way of making any money. Many are uneducated and unable to do any other job. I don’t go with the staff to the subsequent villages, as I’m no help to them there. But the first one, Chinnur Vikal had so many flies inside the makeshift houses and on some of the people. We were sat on the ground, and being a foreigner attracts a lot of attention, an old women came and sat with us and she must have had 30 flies on her crawling on her Sari! One house we were going to go into, house – 10ft squared shed more like, had a black floor, which I didn’t realize were flies until someone went it, and they all got up. It was deafening! The temporary settlement isn’t much to look at, neat rows of houses, with buckets of water, piles of wood and rubbish in-between. They have squat toilet cubicles and washing areas built, but they don’t know how to use them, and don’t like to. The first person would go into the toilet, but then not use any water, so after the 2nd person has done the same, there’s a horrid sight as you open the door of dried up turd on the clean squats!


So anyway I guess I’ll be going on holiday soon when all the project proposals have been completed and assessments of the villages made. I’m going to take 2weeks and head towards Goa stopping off at other cool places!

The town I’m now settled in is alright, I see a white face almost everyday but the travelers here are 50+, nothing wrong with that, but the only reason to come here is there’s a massive old temple. So basically most travelers would only stay for a day. Also it’s a little hard to break free and talk to them when being chaperoned. Actually I think that’s a changing situation – I was allowed to come to the net place all by myself, even thou it’s 10 minutes away!! I think when they saw all my shopping and realized that actually I could look after myself they lightened up a bit. I think they also knew that I’m just going to do it anyway. Oh, I got locked in my room yesterday by Devi. On purpose by the way. As I’ve said before it’s bloody hot here and I have 2-3cold showers a day (no hot water is available anyway). I usually change into a pair of shorts in the house, and sometimes, only twice so far have been known to wear a bikini top while I let my sweat soak back in. I was in my room, and needed something from the main room, to find that I couldn’t open my door! She locked me in to protect myself from the male staff members seeing me! As if I care! I think it’s also been quite an experience for the staff members to have me and my funny ways here.

I am holding job interviews on Monday 5 5-6 new people to work as translator/ worker. The boss has a professor friend at the uni here, so he asked his students if any of them have sisters or female friends who speak English and are in need of a job. The pay, and remember we’re looking for post master degree students is ₤25 a month! Rent is free, but you have to get your own food.


I’m settling into Indian life again, and it feels like I’ve been here for ages already. I have a few shop keeper friends, and the daughter of the boss is at uni here, but I know no one else yet.

Today was the first time I was out alone as the others had gone to another village. It was great – freedom!. The whole town had a power cut for the whole day so I was unable to work, so went shopping and checking out the town instead. Frazzled my back in the process too! Got lots of cheap shopping – a ragrug cost me 15p and saucepan 60p!

For now I don’t miss westerners, I’m happy with the staff and my books and the hellos and small chats I have with the Chidambaram folk daily. But I do miss humour, entertainment and fun. I don’t really know what I can do for fun here, when it’s a concept alien to most Indians, and I’m in a very average poor Indian town, where not so many people speak English. My Tamil has improved by 100% since last writing, but I usually have to repeat in English what I’ve just said to be fully understood!

OK, being kicked out now,


I love you and miss you all. Sorry no personal e-mails yet. Tomorrow I have the day off so I’m sure I will return.


Bye bye
Ruth xxx


Well, I’m not going just yet, it’s now Monday, I started this on Saturday but got kicked out of the internet place before I could send this. They didn’t actually tell me they had cut the connection, so I lost a couple of other e-mails I was trying to send. Fortunately I do this in Word first as my spelling is crap, and they keyboard here is also so crap that some letters don’t work and the space bar only works sometimes!

Actually now I’m on my laptop in our office / house. I had a bit of a shitty day yesterday. We’ve been trying to get an internet connection for my laptop, and surprisingly the best option is to buy a mobile phone and plug it into that. So we did, only after being able to get a connection Internet Explorer couldn’t open any pages. Very strange. So a local guy came and had a look, apparently he was a computer expert, but I was watching him and he did the most random things, so unrelated to the problem that I really doubted his ability. I asked him not to touch anything anymore, and leave. So I went back to the shop asking if they had a technical support line I could call, there wasn’t one. OK, so I’m going to meet a friend in Bangalore at the weekend, and he’s a bit of a wiz on the old pc, so I told the shop people not to ask that guy to come round to my place again and that I’d take it to my friend in Bangalore.
At 9am yesterday morning there was an unexpected knock on the door, it was that computer guy with another friend, they came straight in and started messing on my laptop. My heart was beating fast and I told him not to do anything as none of my work is backed up. I left him to have a look whilst I had a shower. Then feeling really doubtful I asked them to leave. After they left I started it up and it went to a black screen which said “system could not be found”. Not good. I ran and got them back, the idiot had only started to re-install Windows XP, in my most incorrect way possible which meant that hours of downloaded music and about 100 music CDs I was in the process of changing to MP3 format have been lost. Also photos, which I think I have copies for most in UK, all my uni work gone and all my work of the past week gone. How stupid can one person be. He was supposed to be a computer expert and works in computer repairs and services and he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. I’m partly to blame thou, I should have backed up my work sooner and I should never have let them in the door.

But anyway, what’s done is done, if anyone wants to make me mp3 CDs of anything I’d appreciate that too!

I now have internet connection at home. It’s very slow and lasts just for 3 minutes before a message pops up saying that the system has to shut down and restart! No real idea why as Idon’t understand the message, but how annoying! I think my laptop must have real objections about coming to India!

So things with work are ok. The others have been out in the field and doing an alright job, although they have misinterpreted some of my more important questions, and don’t seem to mind or notice that some of the questions they are asking is repeating data we have already collected, I have tried to explain but I know it’s not being understood when I get the answer ‘Yes” to an open ended question or a one or the other type of question. It seems that we will only be working with 4 villages, I’m not too sure on the reason why when on previous project proposals I have mentioned 18 villages we’ll be working in. There are many things I don’t understand due to lack of language.

We are offering boat manufacturing training, but most men don’t want to accept it as they don’t want to learn for themselves how to make a boat, they just want one provided to them. If I was able to speak with them, I’d tell them it’s not possible to get funding for the 300 boats and nets needed for the 4 villages, so they’re going to have to think of something. I tried asking the field workers about this, but all they say is the men are not interested to learn.

I was supposed to be interviewing people tonight for the job of translator / worker, but this has been delayed until Thursday now. Tomorrow Devi goes back to the head office and I’m left with the totally non-English speaking members of staff!

Oh I forgot to say, I made Devi cry!! Not intentionally of course, but the Saturday I was writing the 1st part of this e-mail I was also doing work and reading your replies. I didn’t get back until 10:15pm. Devi was waiting for me at the gate, crying because it was so late and she thought something bad had happened to me!!! 10:15!!! That would be my mum if I got home at 4am when I told her I’d be back by midnite! It took me back to my childhood days. I felt a bit guilty thou and tried to tell her not to worry in the future, I’m fine and can take care of myself. The people here are dead friendly, and they all just want to talk or get your attention – no one wishes me any harm, but my colleagues don’t think the same way!

I wear a lot less than the girls here and I was asking Devi if she was home alone and it was amid summer’s day and a typical 40+ degrees, would she wear less. She said has no experience of this, but she probably wouldn't as shy to see part of her naked self in a small mirror!!!

I have an Indian SIM for those of you which don’t already know. My number is +91 9894546139. It only costs me 4p to text UK!! Cheaper than UK to UK!!

There’s little chance of me losing weight actually – they eat a lot here and not always so healthy. Lots of fried things. Many of the people here are quite fat!!! I can’t believe how much rice some people are able to eat. Like 2 dinner plates full and heaped / rounded for one meal time!!

OK, so I’ll be in touch again when something else happens

Sorry to have gone on again!!

Bye bye

Note to self - Don't leave open biscuits out, after just 2 hours they go soft!

Wunacome!

Big hello to my beautiful friends (and also to the not so beautiful – of which you are few!)

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write, but my assumptions that my work place would have internet access were wrong. Instead we have to drive 15 minutes into the town, and hope that the power supply is on (and doesn’t cut out) before I can use their painfully slow internet.

So things with me here have been up and down. I have good days and days when I question what I’m doing here and whether I made the right decision in coming. I have been here for just over a week, staying in the head office campus of Community Action for Rural Development (CARD). For those of you that don’t know I am working as a Programme Officer for this Indian based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)/charity, I’m working in tsunami affected village rehabilitation. I am the only westerner here, and I think I’m the only westerner in the whole region! The head office is in a place called Pudukkottai, the staff here work with about 300 villages in a 50km radius organising self-help groups to encourage women to generate income and to give education about sanitation and the importance of savings etc.

Since the tsunami CARD have opened a branch office in Chidambaram, a town about 15km from the coast in S.E. India, in the state of Tamilnadu. I thought that the tsunami unit would be already pretty busy, but this is not the case. The head office is a 5 hour drive away from Chidambaram and tomorrow I leave here to stay permanently there, only returning to the head office once or twice a month. At Chidambaram they’ve hired a 3 bed ground floor flat, the living room acts as an office. I’ll be staying there with 2 girls and one man from the organisation, one of them was only employed last week and has no experience of this kind of work. None of my Chidambaram colleagues speak much English so I have asked for a translator as otherwise I will be of absolutely no use. It was actually something only arranged today when I got upset thinking I made a bad choice in coming as I am not able to speak to the villagers or staff. It had previously been a big concern that I am useless to the organisation and am wasting my time as I am not able to join in with planning projects and talking to the villagers about their needs, hopefully it will be ok when they find someone who can be a worker and translator for the organisation.

I have started to learn Tamil, but it is an incredibly hard language. They have 247 letters in the alphabet! I’m crap at languages at the best of times, so far learning Tamil has been pretty slow for me, but I’ll preserve with it!

So I’ve been to Chidambaram already with the MD’s wife, who’s the Programme Director, and a few other members of staff. We are to work with 13 affected villages which combined have a population of about 8500. We went last week for a couple of days and went to about 7 villages. They have been relocated into temporary shelters, away from the coast, provided to them by the Indian Government or other NGOs. They stay together as villages in rows of hut houses made either from corrugated metal, sheets of tar or woven palm leaves. The majority of the villagers were once fishermen but now their boats are broken, they have no nets and they’re too afraid to go back in the water. The main work that we are hoping to do with them is to train the men in the skill of boat manufacturing and plant acres of different types of trees along the coast line to act as a buffers should another tsunami strike. They plan to plant about 136,000 trees, it’s a pretty good defense system, so long as another tsunami doesn’t come in the next few years! Actually you’re not allowed to live within 1km of the coast, but the people here certainly don’t want to anyway. They don’t even like being there anymore, seeing and being reminded every waking hour of the tragedy that struck their village.

We visited the relocated villagers in the temporary places to tell them that we’ll be working with them to get their lives back on track. Since the tsunami they have been idle, unable to work. The government has given each family Rs.5000 which is the equivalent to £62.50 (US$90), and some rice and lentils. The government is also planning on building new permanent houses for those who lost theirs. Many families have been left homeless and without any possessions as their houses were made from woven palm leaves, which stood no chance against the waves. All that remains of them now are piles of broken leaf sheets and branches mixed with small bits of rubbish and small cloth items. It’s hard to imagine the devastated places I’ve visited as busy trading places when they lie so barren and empty of people. I’ve taken photos but think the internet connection is too slow to be able to attach them. I’ll try from Chidambaram, maybe I can find a faster internet café.

The response of the affected villagers is quite different, some even don’t want to accept second hand sari’s, despite the fact they only have one or two, when most Indians own 50. Some have been very demanding and expect a lot, like a new house, a new boat and net and all new possessions. Well unfortunately that’s just not possible. CARD tries to help people help themselves. For example one of the things they are most involved with is micro credit. It’s basically a small loan to people who can’t get one from the bank. They lend small amounts to groups to start enterprises. This is what we’ll be doing with the tsunami villagers, as they can’t fish now, so they need to do something else, like petty sales or animal rearing.

Rehabilitation projects are slow though. We are only now writing project proposals and submitting them to organisations for funding. It’ll take a month before the money actually comes in, then a couple of weeks preparation. And the guys who are learning boat manufacturing will have to train for 4 months before they will have a useable finished project, and that’s just the first batch of trainees. Most projects have a 2-year time frame on them. Nothing happens at much speed here.

For those of you who donated money, a big thanks. It has not yet been decided exactly what the money will be spent on, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be used for the smaller projects we hope to run, like buying books, stationary and uniforms for children who cannot go to school as they are not able to buy the needed provisions. It will also be spent on hygiene and sanitation education. I’m actually a little surprised at their lack of awareness of the importance of washing hands or food, or that if you leave a fish out in the sun on the sand, it really shouldn’t be eaten 3 days later, especially when the sand hasn’t even been washed off or the maggots removed! Also they don’t use toilets as they don’t feel the need, doing it out in the open for them is better as there is nothing to clean and it doesn’t smell, they don’t consider the environmental or hygienic impacts of this. Even thou in some of the temporary shelters toilets have also been constructed, still more than one month on, they have not been used. We need to educate them into the correct ways to use them and the importance of doing so. Health education will also be taught, as diarrhoea is common, so usually they take their kids and sick to the temples and pay large sums of money for prayers to be said to get the demons out. We’ll try to educate about the importance of not drinking dirty water, hygiene and when it’s necessary to go to the doctor, and remove the stigma from doing this. Other things your money is being spent on is funding so people can learn new skills like basket weaving. Discussions are also going to be held about managing your accounts and you money. Nets too need to be bought as they people aren’t interested in weaving them themselves as it takes too long. They’re pretty costly as they are so huge, and different types are needed for the catch of different fish.

I am involved also in finding out information about fish processing. That is what to do with the fish after catch in order to preserve it. Such as drying, smoking etc. Also about fish hygiene, how so stop it from spoiling so quickly. Unfortunately because it’s so hot, they don’t have ice and there are no fridges / freezers or vans with fridges, things spoil pretty quickly. Before the tsunami they would sell fresh fish, often fish that is rotten, with fish processing it gives a much needed added value.

A point about the weather, it’s 35+ and bright and sunny everyday. I have a few vest tops but am not allowed to wear them. I’ve managed a few hours of topless sunbathing on the roof of my room, but you can only stay out for a couple of hours before you melt! We’re on the lead up to summer now, it’ll get much hotter and much more humid, and there’ll be loads more mosquitoes. Already I have about 30 bites on my body! India is ultra conservative and shoulders, midriffs, chest and legs must be covered. There is a huge segregation between men and women, even between men and women of the same organisation. They keep their distances from each other and I have been asked to do the same. It is extremely hard to be smothered and protected in the way that I am. I am not even allowed to go to the shop at the end of the road by myself, or walk round town alone. I am also not allowed to speak to men who don’t work for the organisation, and only about work matters to those who do!! It is seen as highly immoral for mixing with those of the opposite sex. Indians care too much about what other people think. Also they’re pretty sheltered and still unmarried girls of 28 can’t even say the work sex without sniggering. I don’t know how long I can go without male company, but I don’t wish to offend my employers. There’s a very caring family feel to the organisation. There’s only a handful of men, and loads of girls in their 20s and then the MD and his wife who are mid 40s.

There isn’t much for entertainment here, the girls here seem content with watching Indian love songs taken from films on the TV. There are some ultra cheesy dance moves and very dodgy haircuts. The big hair, moustache look is very much favoured! I spend a lot of time reading, as there isn’t so much else to do for entertainment. Only one of the girls in the organisation speaks good English. The others know a few words, but their written English is better than spoken as they use it at university. I heard that the level of English in the south is better than in the north, as most Indians (from all states bar Tamilnadu) speak Hindi, either as a first or second language, but in Tamilnadu they speak Tamil first and English second. But judging them on the standards of the northern Indians, their English isn’t great. It’s comparable to my German, in the way that it’s a language I learnt for 5 years, and had a 2 year refresher course at uni, but still can’t get very far past asking for directions to the station.

I go to bed here at between 9:30pm and 11:00pm. 9:30pm is considered to be pretty late, if the girls are in my room and we’re talking when it reaches 9:30pm, they always remark on how late it is, then they leave! I can’t believe 11pm seems late to me now! If I had more to do then I’d be staying up later, but then I have to wake up at 8am to start work for 8:30am. These hours of sleep and awake are pretty new to me, but it fits with my new lifestyle. At least I’m not expected to adopt the local waking time of 5:30am!


So I hope that you’ll write back to me, even if life seems boring and mundane. I have limited communication here and a very different sense of humour to my new friends. So please I need your stories, you guys keep me going when things seem tough. For the first time in my life I’ve experienced homesickness. Not home as in my parents home, more like old lifestyle, England, friend sickness. 2 years ago I didn’t think it was possible to miss England but I had a pretty good time between coming back from my last trip and going away on this one there’s actually many people and things I miss.

So I’ll stop now, and let you get back to work, or the TV or whatever you were doing. I’ll write again when I can.


I miss you all, and really mean it. Oh, sorry, I am going but I have to just tell you one more thing. The food here is nice for the first 2 days, but when it’s exactly the same everyday it loses it’s appeal. Also you have the same meal for breakfast and dinner, lunch is the main meal. Breakfast and dinner is some kind of bread / flour based thing dipped in a watery spicy curry sauce. Lunch is a mountain of rice with a watery curry sauce and some cold vegetables chopped very small. We eat with our right hand and often off palm leaves. I asked if they mind eating pretty much the same thing day in and day out, and they don’t mind, they like it, but I guess it’s all about what you’re used to. By the way if anyone is tempted to send me light weight food parcels, packets of sauces (the add water/milk kind), pasta, noodles, chocolate, sweets, etc you couldn’t underestimate just how much it would be appreciated!!

With much love
Ruth or Roose as I am known here!