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!