Touching the untouchables

So it’s been a little while since last writing, and the reason is I have actually been busy and having a good time. I officially left CARD a few days ago to focus all my time and attention on working with Terry. I felt pretty bad about doing this but after the boss came down for a few days I felt I could no longer work for them under his leadership. We were in the car and he was talking to me about how he was going to change the world, and how he is the only person working on poverty alleviation. He was sounding so full of himself. I was telling him of the work that Terry and others intend to do with the Dalits, and he tells me that when his law degree is finished he’ll submit a paper to the courts telling them how NGOs are discriminating against Dalits, and how it is supposed to be illegal, then only after this will discrimination stop. As if this hasn’t already been done, there are loads of people working for the rights of Dalits and he says that only he can be the one to bring these millions of people into the focus of government and NGOs. Well, what exactly is he doing for these people? Absolutely nothing. Has he even considered the Dalits along the coats line? NO! And also he’s supposed to be all about equality, hew even named the campus of the head office “A place of equality”. What crap! When we had group meetings in the villages, the men and women don’t sit together, that’s their choice, but when holding group meetings he addresses only the men, he hardly looks at the women at all and these are the people we are supposed to be focusing our attention on. I had enough, also the new worker cum translator girl came, but when it came down to it, she didn’t really want to translate for me, and started throwing her weight as round and telling me what to do. She ordered me to go to a village with two of the non-English speaking members of staff, it’s absolutely pointless for me to do this as communication is essential, I’ve been working for 6 weeeks and know this, she’s been working for 3 days and all the new power has gone to her head. I decided I’d leave and packed my bags that same night. I then went off with Terry the next day to visit some of his Dalit villages about 50km south of Chidambaram and begin my new work.

I did feel a little bad about leaving as it was explained to me that CARD has spent a lot for me, but at the end of the day I need to do what’s right for me, I need to learn as much and be involved as much as possible in my time here and CARD were definitely not the organisation that was going to be providing that for me.

So I also left the house, I am still living in Chidambaram, in an apartment with Terry. A friend of mine here, my Singapore born friend has 2 spare apartments under his house, so he’s giving one of them free of charge to Terry and I! He said that he can’t charge us rent seeing as we’re both foreigners helping out his people, he’s extremely generous. We spent yesterday doing house things. The place hasn’t been lived in for years and it was pretty mucky, so we were scrubbing hard at the floors with brushes made from bundles of very thin twigs, and buying things like a worktop gas stove and a mattress. It’s now really comfortable for our needs. We are thinking about painting the place as a way of saying thanks, but that will have to come later as fornow we’remuch too busy! The flat is about 1.5km out of town, but Terry has a motorbike so it’s not a problem. I think because I’ll be working closely with Terry there’s no need for me to get a bike, it’d be too much of a luxury, so I don’t think I’ll bother. I could pick up a second hand bike for about £100 which is really cheap and I love riding, but I don’t like other road users here. Terry has a lot of riding experience so he’s fine. I mean I would avoid cities during the day, mmm...I’m undecided on this right now!

You may have realised that it’s been a long time since I last wrote, well long compared to the length of time between previous blogs / e-mails, and that’s because we’ve so much to do. We have to submit a report to the government in 2 weeks time stating exactly what we’re doing. So what exactly are we doing I hear you ask? We’re working purely with Dalit (poorest of the poor) hamlets and villages to provide them with micro-enterprise opportunities. Previous to the tsunami these people were landless agricultural labourers. Since the tsunami many of the fields they were working in have become so salinated that crops can no longer grow and they are out of a job. Also many Dalits would assist fishermen by launching boats and carrying nets (only a handful of fishermen are back out fishing, 3 months on after tsunami and progress is really really slow). Dalits have extremely low wages and suffer exploitation in most spheres of life. Terry has a business mind and will pitch our development idea as a business plan. It’s a very comprehensive approach he’s taking, so that all holes and queries can be filled. Most NGOs don’t do any market research, but because we’ll be working with NGOs as well as American and European corporations we need to have a top quality business plan. So first we need to do an assessment of the market, what products are selling and at what price, what’s missing and are there and niches? Our approach is for the Dalits themselves to come up with the ideas (fully participatory), we are to be just the facilitaors. We want them to come up with entrepreneurial ideas, we will help them learn how to do this, although they already have many many ideas of their own. If a person comes up with his own ideas and manages it himself he will take much more pride and care of it, it’s much better than us coming in and dictating what the villagers should do. So when we visited a few villages last weekend, we asked questions, and got the people to come up with ideas about what type of business they l like. I use the word business, but it’s a micro business so something like ownership of a couple of chickens would count. It’s preferred that people work on co-operatives, which again, they will organise themselves. It’s a real bottom up approach. We will do feasibility assessments of the ideas and scrap ideas that just won’t work. For now we’re focusing on villages on about 100km of coast line, but as of yet it’s still early days and we haven’t identified all villages, info is still being collected. We will work with other NGOs and after we’ve set up the project will hand it over to a Dalit sensitive NGO to manage.

The Dalit villages are quite different from the fishing villages. For the first time I saw terraced temporary houses. They basically look like big corrugated sheds, that have been divided in to 20 living spaces. There’s loads of them all lined up, all dark brown in colour and with little ventilation. They do have electricity however, although a constant supply is not managed. Water supply is also limited, one village we went to the water is only available for 2 hours every 2 days. It is common to only have about 10litres of water per family available daily for absolutely everything. People living in the Dalit villages have no access to heath care. They also have very little food, and what food they do have is pretty much just rice. Many children are mal-nutritioned and have pot-bellies. Also because of the heat many children developed a kind of skin rash. There are not enough clothes for these kids. These remember are the villages that got left of distribution and even other villagers (like the fishermen) stopped aid from reaching them. Most children have only half an outfit to wear, although you see many naked children as they have absolutely no clothes. For the children who perhaps have one piece of clothing, it is dirty and torn. It’s really very sad to see. They are such warm people. Terry and I went to one village and everywhere we went children would follow us around, each holding onto a finger or trying to get lifted into our shoulders. I let one young girl do my hair and make up, and tried to give her 1 rupee for doing it. She wouldn’t accept it, so I gave her my pen instead.

Anyone who has given me money, this will be spent on Dalit communities. I want to spend some of it on relief as these people need food and clothes now. If anyone is still wanting to donate all money will go to the people. Terry and I are paying our own expenses.

For now Terry and I are the only full timers, we have people who are social lawyers and corporate members who are volunteering on weekends for us. We also hope to involve volunteers from the university. I have a Kenyan friend in town that’s doing a business masters at the uni here. We tried to get him to do a market analysis project for us that he could also use as a uni project, but he has exams at the time we need him. Tomorrow we’re going to a town called Nagapattinam as there is a tsunami coordination centre there and we want to see if other NGOs are working in the villages we want to, as there’s no point to do work that has already been done. And on Sunday there is a meeting in Chennai to discuss what has been done and it will be to try and coordinate NGO’s effort.

Some NGOs have their heart in the right place, but not their head. One NGO gave a village Rs 10,000 (£125) to buy watermelons to sell, without actually providing any means for sales to take place. In India £125 buys a lot of water melons and it is expected most will rot before they can be sold! I mean what’s the point of this!? What we’re doing here is pretty unique. I was very naive of the NGO world before entering the field. I thought because they were people driven they’d be doing the best practice that they could to help the needs of the people. It’s not like this at all. NGOs and managers have their own agendas, they do things just to get funding, people are also too scared and afraid of the challenge to stand up against the system when something is not right. Often work is half-arsed, and will only be done if it will promote the NGO.

It was last night that we heard of the second earthquake. I had just turn bed off my light to go to bed and my mobile rings. It’s a friend from USA who’s working in a different village, she has just heard from her boss. The info I got was that another earthquake in the same place had just happened, and it’s possible another tsunami could be coming in the next hours. I discussed with Terry and made a few more phone calls to spread the word to other tsunami workers who might not know and went upstairs to the house owners place to ask to watch the news. I was holding back the tears and shaking as I explained to him that there’s been another earthquake and tsunami might strike again. If this were to be the case we’d have a lot to do to get people away from the coast. However, it’s something that can’t be rushed. There’s no point for already frightened people to be even more fearful, especially if nothing’s going to happen. We watched the news for about half an hour, and the advise was to contact the local gov to see what their decision of action is to be. However should a tsunami strike it would hit Indonesia first, so we’d at least have that as a warning. We then went to bed after knowing there was nothing we could do, although I really didn’t sleep well last night at all.

I’m so glad that I met Terry. He’s a pretty amazing guy, with so much passion and dedication. He has such a thirst for life and really stands up for what he believes in. He’s also really funny. Even when I wake him up for snoring, which he’s only done once, he cracks a joke. He’s really focused and knows what needs to be done, he likes to have brainstorming sessions to get lots of ideas from people. He can take an initial idea and add to it in ways I would never think of. He knows a lot about good work practices from his past experience at Genentech (possibly spelt wrong) where he worked for many years as a researchers and manager of the resource centre. He’s managed budgets of millions and millions. He’s on part of a 2 year Asia Australia trip and he cycled from Sydney to Bangkok. He was previously working in Cambodia making an assessment of poverty’s environmental impacts and when he returns back to USA, which he’s really not looking forwards to, thanks to Americans, he wants to open up his own NGO consultancy firm. This would enable him to travel and thoroughly go through under performing NGOs to find out how they could improve their practices. This is something he’s done before and has a lot of expertise on this. I’m really very lucky to be working so close to him. I’m for sure going to learn a lot. Terry talks a lot, which is fine as most of what he says is either really interesting or funny. He’s done a hell of a lot with his life and can talk for hours non stop. It’s really good entertainment for me! His down side, and only one that I can find so far is he only has about 3 sets of clothes, and lets them get a little stinky!

E-mails from me or blogs will be reduced and personal e-mails too, so I’m sorry about that, but because I’m not living in town anymore, I have to go with Terry and he doesn’t like to sit for too long in front of a computer, and I don’t want to make him wait.

My in-box is looking a little empty by the way. Somebody must be doing something interesting, and if not why not!

Write to me, and I’ll write again as soon as I can.

Love to you all

Ruth xxx

My new address is

V V Apartment
56241 Manalur
Lalpuram
Main Road
Chidambaram
Tamilnadu
608602
INDIA

Ch ch ch ch changes

So you may have realised that at all times my plans remain pretty fluid! Things have now changed again. Just last week I was pretty pissed off with Tamilnadu, my colleagues and CARD and was planning to get out and work for an international NGO outside of TN, since then I have spent the extended weekend in Chennai. I went to see Krishna, to get out of Chidambaram for the weekend, to see him, and some of the projects he’s working on. I arrived late last Thursday, on Friday we went to visit a few affected tsunami villages – it’s really pretty area here, it doesn’t look like India at all. We’re in a place about 30km south of Chennai central, in a place called Kovalam. It’s got pretty rural scenes, and the main road runs along the coast, so there’s lots of beach and palm trees, and also many tsunami villages in neat rows between the road and the sea. All the temporary tsunami huts here are made of natural materials – woven leaves. They look really cute, but I have no idea how the people actually feel about living in them, well actually, I do for one village, Oxfam provided the huts and the people complained as they were pretty low, and some people were cooking inside, a fire engine was permanently parked next to the village!

Friday night we went into the city where we spent a considerable amount of time in a bookstore. I have a lot of time to read now and am getting through books faster than I buy them. I have now 2 new books – one about the ancient civilisations on the Andaman’s and one about a girl from Togo, Africa, who after her father died was forced to marry a man 20 years her senior, to be his fourth wife and undergo female circumcision. With the help of her sister and mother she goes to Germany, but then wants to go to USA for asylum, she’s just arrived, and has been thrown into a very racist jail. It’s an excellent book, but a horrific story.

Saturday morning we get up pretty early to go to the burns unit of a Chennai government hospital. I meet another English girl and her fit as Mexican boyfriend. We feel a bit useless thou, we’re there to give out new sari’s, longi’s (man’s wrap around in place of trousers), drinks and biscuits. He people in the burns unit had on average 70% of their body really really burned. There was a young boy of about 10 who had an oil lamp explode on him. The patients look in various stages of mummification, wrapped in bandages, some stained with pus and skin. It wasn’t nice to see at all, there were about 25 people, ranging in age from 6 months to about 40 years. Burns leave such mutilation, these people were in agony and here we were, a bunch of foreigners coming onto their wards. After we saw a few people, we didn’t go and see the others. As a white foreigner you automatically gain a kind of celebrity status, and I know for sure if I was in the condition that these people were in, I really wouldn’t appreciate a visit from any one other than friends and family. The reason we were there is that the corporate Krish works for – Xansa have adopted the burns unit, and aim to refurbish the room, tiling the floors, proving new beds, fans, etc

After that we went to see another project Xansa are coordinating, this project involved disabled girls who lived in a hostel, and made pictures from dried rice paddy stalks. It was pretty impressive how they managed to change something used as animal feed into excellent pictures. I bought a few small one, but they mostly made big landscape, God or animal pictures. Inside a rice paddy stalk is a tubular fibre, this is opened out and straightened. They naturally come in about 4 colours. The back is glued and they are stuck onto material covered board, then using a sharp razor blade they shape it to give the desired effect. Very impressive.

Next came a meeting with a man who will have quite a big part in my life for the next few months, and possible beyond. This man is Terry, a guy pushing 40 from San Francisco. He knows Krishna as a couple of months ago he did a bit of volunteer work for AIDIndia. I learnt from Terry that he is running his own project which he hopes to run and organise himself, then pass it on to an NGO of his choosing to continue and manage. Terry is interested in helping the Dalit people. For those of you that don’t know, India has a deep rooted caste system. This is a system that groups people – historically is was that people of the same profession or district belonged to a particular caste (I think), now it’s not as rigid as that, but there is a clear hierarchy with Bramin’s at the top (the thinkers, philosophers and priests) and Dalit’s at the bottom. They were previously known as the Untouchables and throughout history and today are the most discriminated against group in India. These people don’t own land, they don’t own their house and do whatever work they can for other people, including sorting through piles of rubbish trying to find scrps they could sell. They are extremely poor, the poorest of the poor. The government and NGOs and other villages are not actually sensitive to their needs and it has actually happened that aid and relief has actually been blocked from going to them. The government finds ways of not providing anything for them, and most NGOs don’t look hard enough to find the small hamlets of Dalits. So this is where Terry comes in. I’m amazed at the wealth of information this man is. He is extremely bright and very clued up about what needs to be done. He has a business and bio-tech history, mixed with auditing, advise and global NGO work. He knows what needs to be done and wants to start, he already has, he’s got a few people interested, intelligent people with a social conscious. The problem in India is that politics and bureaucracy get in the way of many things, and there will be many barriers to overcome. It is intended to give the Dalit population a chance to work for themselves, to promote small-scale micro-enterprises, teach the people about entrepreneurship and management of money. These people have many ideas about what they would like to do and what is feasible, but they have no opportunity as they are so heavily discriminated against. There’s a lot of work involved in working with the Dalit’s – first they have to be identified, we’re going to be working with Dalit communities from a stretch of about 400km of coast line! We intend to do all the work initially, writing proposals, checking out the market, seeing what would sell and what work the Dalit’s want to do. Terry talks a lot, it’s now Monday and since meeting him on Sunday he’s hardly been silent. He’s so passionate about his ideas and has so many of them, it’s hard not to get swept up by him.

So I’ve decided to stay for longer working for CARD. They provide me with free accommodation, so I’ll hang onto that, and my day is pretty flexible. I think my work will shift with a 70/30 divide in favour of Terry’s work. Terry is very keen to work with volunteers from the university and also approach other NGOs, I can learn so much more from him than I ever could with CARD who are sol closed in their ways of operation. So it’s pretty exciting right now, things are actually going to start to happen, and it’s good to know that the people always forgotten about or shunned will finally be given a bit of a chance.

Yesterday we went o a tourist area about 30km south of Krishna’s, I don’t remember the name, but it was pretty cool really old temples, apparently 2000 years old and caves pick-axed out with carving on the inside. It was proper roasting, we don’t usually spend so long out in the hot sun during the day as temperatures are around 37C and the sun this close to the equator is super strong. The town was really nice thou, (I’ll look up the name and tell you next time), because it attracts tourists, you get tourist shops, selling fabrics from Kashmir, really beautiful materials into clothes, bags, wall hangings etc. I wanted to stay there and shop for myself and others, but being with 2 men, I knew they wouldn’t appreciate it, so will make another visit. Actually this kind of stuff is available all over India, so maybe that’s not necessary. We went to the beach and for my first time here I was able to eat fish and tell the cooks how I wanted it – ie, without chilli powder, it was perfect!

So onto today, there’s a meeting going on now, which I left as was getting a bit bored and felt like my time was being wasted. Terry and Krishna are still there. It’s a public meeting held to discuss various problems and concerns of the affected people regarding NGO’s and government’s response. I thought more would be in English, but so far it’s pretty much all Tamil, and Krish can only translate to one person at a time, so it’s much more important Terry gets it, so I took and auto rickshaw and came to eat and write this.

I’ll go back in about 30 minutes, to see if anything interesting has come up. There are also some Dalit activists there we need to meet, it’s a good chance to start networking, and see if any info has already been collected. But for now, all that’s happening is different village people and invited speakers rant on in very loud Tamil through a very loud microphone, I can’t understand what they’re saying but you can read the emotion in their delivery easily. I wish I knew what they were saying, every word of it, as it’s so important, I can pick out odd words now, but still I don’t actually get the full meaning of what they’re saying. Now I know I’m going to be here longer I will up my efforts to learn Tamil, I needed more motivation in that areas, and I think now I’ve found it!

One last thing to tell you before I go – perhaps Dad this is where the editing for mum begins – I have started to ride a motorbike here. I haven’t ridden in over a year and I’d never driven a clutch bike before (known here as man’s bike, as opposed to a gearless ladies bike). But the bikes here are a really low cc, and if I get a ladies bike the most common ones are only 70cc. For those of you that don’t really know what that means, it means you have very little power, and probably a top speed of about 40 mph (60kmph). I need / want more than that, so last night with Krish on the back I took his bike for a ride. It was cool my U-turns were pretty useless, as I have no confidence in turning at such a sharp angle, sharp turns is something I’m going to need a bit more practice on, but gear changing was fine. Because I know I’ll be hanging around now, it’ll be really nice to have my own transport. I should be able to pick up a second hand bike for about Rs 8000, (£100) and lose less than half when selling it. I drove about 25km into Chennai today. When I rode last night I was pretty much the only vehicle on the road. Today I had lots of other road users to anticipate. I’m going to have to get used to overtaking on whatever side has the most space – I don’t want to be a reckless driver thou, the guys here take way too many risks. It’s all good fun, I don’t do daytime city riding thou as it’s too crazy, but night driving roads are deserted and also between towns and rural places it’s fine. Thing is, I may need to know something of bike maintenance, as the bike I’m sure to get will have a few problems. They ride them here till their very last legs, and I’m looking to get one that’s been around!

I go back to Chidambaram tonight and will write again in a few days from there.

My Dad had problems registering to snap fish, he got a message saying he couldn’t as he didn’t have a USA credit card. Has anyone else experienced similar problems, or has it been ok. Can a few of you let me know please. It shouldn’t be a problem though.

So it’s been nice writing to you, I hope you like reading my rants. Tell me your stories from your side of the globe, actually if people could fill me in with news stories and interesting things they know that would be cool to hear. Oh, I have more Bryson, Jacqui, you stop reading here, or it will spoil the book for you!

Much love to you all

Ruth xxx

1) If you stand at the South Pole you stand over 2 miles office, whilst if you stand at the North Pole you stand on just 15 feet of it
2) There’s enough salt in the sea to bury every bit of land on the planet to a depth of about 150metres
3) The blue whale – it’s tongue weighs as much as en elephant, it’s heart the size of car and some of it’s blood vessels are so wide you could swim down them!
4) For every kg of shrimp harvested about 4kg of fish and other marine creatures are destroyed
5) Slime mould- when times are good they exist as one-celled individuals, like amoebas. But when conditions grow tough, they crawl to a central gathering place, and become, almost miraculously, a slug!

Getting the ball rolling

Well things are finally looking up! Well, not totally, but it’s perhaps a start.

I was contacted by a Bangalore NGO who give funding for projects involving technology. I asked about cold storage for fish, they told me to submit a project proposal to them, and they’d consider it. So I’ve now got a lot of thinking to do. You have to plan everything yourself. I know nothing about refrigeration systems, especially those that can be used here or ones suitable for fish! Going to try and get some kind of solar powered thing and electricity here’s a bit dodgy. I don’t think the donor organisation has so much money, so it’s gotta be pretty small scale, but hey, it’s a start anyway, finally one positive feedback!

Another bit of good news, I have a friend, Linda. Well I call her a friend, but I’ve never actually met her! She’s from USA working in a different village a few hours away, I’ve spoken to her and e-mailed her a few times. Anyway, when I called her last night, there was another person there with her, an English guy called Nick who’s representing a Jewish UK based organisation. They have pots of money they are trying to get rid of it to help tsunami affected school children. So I put a proposal in to him to get stuff for the kids of our village. It seems quite likely that the children will be kitted out with new uniforms, shoes or sandals and have a whole bunch of new stationary equipment. I also requested a bicycle for each secondary aged kid (166 in total) and a full time counsellor to work on rotation in the schools. Out of the 363 school going kids in the 4 villages, 64 had lost one or more members of their family. It’s pretty heart breaking when you meet a man who’s lost his wife and all his kids, or a woman who’s lost her husband and baby. I don’t have a clue what to say to people in that kind of situation, they’re really in need of a village counsellor, but counselling here isn’t really the done thing, so there’s a total lack of qualifies people to help.

I’m going to Krishna’s for the weekend, well I leave on Thursday. I’m going to have broadband, so will finally be able to upload some photos. We’re also going on a boat trip, going to visit a burns hospital he volunteers at, and also will go to some of his tsunami villages. It should be a pretty interesting weekend. Also there are other UK people volunteering at the hospital, so I’ll get to talk to them! How exciting, meeting my first other westerners since arrival!

This is just a short note, have got more work to do as can’t do any thins weekend.

Oh, congratulations to my brother who just got a job working for Formula 1 on the Williams BMW team! It's about time he got a proper job!

Hope you’re all good

Ruth x

p.s. I got asked what the other blog is I write for. You can access it at http://desimediabitch.blogspot.com/ I don't write that often for it. It's all tsunami stories, well my section is. The other stuff is pretty random.

Cracked heels make me sick!

MMmm, ok, so my time at the head office didn’t really give me the outcome I was hoping for. I was ready for heated debates and a good explanation, but that didn’t happen in the slightest! I went back to the head office a few days ago pretty angry with the field workers and CARD for being what I perceived to be a poorly run organisation with little communication. However, I got a dismissive response when I raised concerns over what work other NGOs were doing in our villages and also that our field workers don’t seem to have 2 brain cells between them. Well, actually I didn’t mention that I thought that our field staff weren’t up to much, as for one they were sat in the office with us as we discussed and I later found out there are no expectations from them anyway. It was explained to me they are not paid to think, only to do the work requested. It really shows you get what you pay for. The fieldworkers are actually paid less than what the fishermen received prior to the tsunami! The boss told me that we do the thinking and planning and they do the ground work, but there’s a pretty big problem with this, in that I don’t speak Tamil and the boss doesn’t visit us or the villages. Because he has 23 years experience he thinks he knows all there is to know about development, he even made assumptions about the work the other NGOs are doing, and told me it’s not necessary to contact them to find out what they’re doing (which I though necessary so we don’t repeat the same work)! How absurd! How can they know, yes they can make a lucky guess, but they can’t know what schemes the other NGOs are preparing, they didn’t even know that other NGOs are giving boats away for free rather than making people work for them, like he wanted to! An idea he has since dropped.

We have done absolutely no constructive work so far, and I was talking to the bosses about this. They say that other NGOs are prioritising in relief work, we are doing long-term rehabilitation, but need to secure funds to actually run any project. So far all project proposals to donor agencies have either been rejected or we don’t have a response. It’s my job to try and secure funding. I sympathise with CARD and will try and be a bit more patient, I’m used to the speeded up world of the west and have to take things slow, shanty and as they happen.

I was thinking to leave to organisation, go find a better one, one where I can learn more, have more involvement and work with an NGO that doesn’t feel the need to work in isolation. Just quickly – the boss came across a website promoting mangrove forests and saw there was an area of Tamilnadu coastline that needed plantation. It’s good for income generation and can buffer further tsunami’s (should another pone strike). I suggested trying to find out if perhaps someone else already had plans to plant mangroves there, or to contact organisations which already have experience in this so as to ask their advise and expertise. The response!? “Oh, that’s not necessary – why you want to do that? Other NGOs are bad people, we can just do by ourselves!”

I mean come on, what’s the point to do something when someone else has already done it and knows all about it. Apparently NGOs here are all in competition, and CARD don’t want to be seen as weak and needing advice from others. But goal 8 from the UN Millennium Development Goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals) says that we should develop global partnerships for development! Also there’s a good university in Chidambaram, I suggest getting some volunteers (Krish assures me students are keen to do this), but again, this idea to the bosses had no credit or value!

I was as I said going to leave, but they put an ad in the English paper, we only got one response, and they’ve hired her. It was only today that I spoke to her for the first time, but she seems better than the other girl. If she can understand basic questions over the phone she’s a whole lot better than the other girl. She starts next Wednesday. This gives me a bit of an obligation to stay as the only reason they employed her was for me! Actually they also employed another girl, I know her name, but can’t remember it right now. She’s also absolutely inexperienced and this is her first job ever!

I still probably will leave after a month or so. I’ll go volunteer in an international organisation that will be better funded, better run and will have people I can actually speak to. I’m going to visit Krish in Chennai (or near there) or a few days either this week or next, and buy some teach yourself Hindi books and CDs. Hindi will be a lot more beneficial to my as Tamilnadu is the only state in India that doesn’t speak it. I was thinking before to go to Sri Lanka, it’s still an option. There’s not much need for planning so I’ll decide later!

OK, so enough about work stuff – how am I? Well I’m, sick, and I’m going to give you information more than I know you probably want to know, but I have something I didn’t think possible. I have green diarrhoea! I’ve been laid up in bed for the last 2 days, yesterday I was feeling fine, but just needed a toilet close by, and the day before I had the most intense headache I’ve ever had coupled with stomach cramps, fever and body ache due to a night of no sleep. Oh, I also threw up, but it was just water and the most nasty tasting stomach acid I’ve ever had the misfortune to taste. Now I feel fine but still despite probably not having more than 500 calories in the past 60 hours trickles of green still come out when I pee. SORRY SORRY SORRY. But I feel if I’m going through this, then you’re coming with me! I went to the doctor 2 days ago who gave me a series of 5 different tablets to take, I didn’t want to go, as I am highly sceptical about local doctors. They just took my blood pressure and told me I’m fine. I’ve had the misfortune of having to visit one before, and they give you so many different tablets to take of worrying sizes and colours. My boss stood over me, so I had to take them, but I’m sure they’re just acting like a bung, stopping whatever’s inside from coming out of either end, instead I imagine it to be growing happily inside me, feeding it off what food I have now begun to eat! If it’s still green in a couple of days I think I’d better get some proper testing!

OK, I’ve finished explaining the gore of my health, I’ll cut in now to tell you more interesting facts I’ve recently learnt from Bill Bryson and his “A Short History of Nearly Everything”:

1) The proportions of the earth in which we are able to inhabit is just 12% of the total land area, that’s 4% of the whole surface if you include the seas
2) A bolt of lightening travels at 435,000km/hour, and can heat the air around it to 28,000 Celsius, which is several time hotter than the surface of the sun. At any one moment 1,800 thunderstorms are in progress around the globe – some 40,000 a day
3) Clouds are not the great reservoirs of water we might think, only 0.035% of the earth’s fresh water is floating above us at any moment
4) The speed of the spin of the Earth depends on where you are standing. It varies from over 1,600km kmph at the equator to 0 at the poles. In London the speed is 998kmph.
5) The White Cliffs of Dover are made up almost entirely of compact tiny deceased marine organisms and a six-inch cube of Dover chalk will contain well over 1000 litres of compressed carbon dioxide
6) Each year the belching of volcanoes and the decay of plants sends about 200 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, nearly 30 times as much as we do with factories and car emissions
OK, I got more, but I’ll save those for next time!

Back to India – I took a night bus from the head office back to Chidambaram last night and it’s an impossibility for me to sleep whilst on them, so I made a quick note those you who’ve never been to India should know about the roads. Oh, before I begin, we hit a motorcyclists who came speeding out of a side road either without looking, or thinking he make it crossing in front of us and out onto the other side of the road without being hit. He was wrong. I don’t know if he was alright. We didn’t stop for long, and everybody run to the windows so I couldn’t actually see any carnage, I presume he was ok, or at the very least living and eventually taken to a hospital.
OK, so what do you already know, I think I’ve mentioned to all of you, or perhaps just some, the use of the horn is in a different way from the UK. Here it is used when overtaking, and this includes overtaking a pedestrian or cyclist who is at the very edge of the road and is really not likely to move to the middle. And it’s used every time, vehicles even have painted on the back “please sound horn”. This is why it’s an idea never to take a hotel near to a road, as there is always, ok, so sometimes you may be fortunate to have as much as a 5 second gap, but there is always a horn to be heard from somewhere. When we had the jeep here, our driver Nadradj would sound his horn periodically on an empty road, probably just because to him the silence felt a little strange. I think because of their excessive horn use, Indians don’t look when walking or driving. They will pull out without looking or cross the road with the assumption that if something is coming, it will blare at them!
Drivers at night drive round with their full beam /main beam on, what ever the name, the one that gives you the blue indicator anyway, the one only supposed to be used when there is no oncoming traffic so as not to cause temporary blindness. Well most out of town roads here have no lighting, and having passing vehicles with their main beams on certainly blinds me as a passenger who tries to look the other way, so God know how the driver feels!
Walking Indians walk at a very slow speed- kind of strolling along the beach pace. It seems they are not really in a hurry. Put them behind the wheel of a car however, and all patience has gone. I think it’s more of a mind set to overtake the vehicle in front as soon as you approach it, regardless of what’s coming the other way and how far away it is. I tend only to overtake when I can see enough in front to know that I can over take and pull back in in time before an on coming vehicle would collide with me. There are no thoughts of that here, and over taking on blind corners seems to be the done thing also! Oh, and they don’t really accelerate too much when overtaking either, so it can take a while, and even if you’re about to have a head on collision as you’re taking so long to overtake, the driver will persevere, almost running the other driver off the road.
I don’t know how it’s done, but road users understand other road users. The people here are fearless,they put all their faith in God and believe accidents will only happen if it’s their time. No one (do I even need to mention this?) ever wears a seat belt and whole families are transported on one motorcycle, babies, shopping and all!

OK, I’m going to have to sign off here. I gotta get to the market so I can buy myself some veggies. I’ll be writing again soon I’m sure.

I’m not getting as many mails as I used to. Tell me your stories, tell me you’re reading mine, tell me about last night’s documentary, a decent new film, a news story or personal matters, tell me if you’ve made a prat out of yourself, but had a good laugh about it, just tell me something!

Oh quickly one more thing-the room I have at the head office I share with lizards and frogs. I didn’t realise that the frogs actually like to sit inside the toilet where they can’t be seen. So down I go, squatting to pee and a frog jumps up, and I jump up! Fortunately it didn’t touch me, and I didn’t scream at all, although I did manage to get piss on my ankle, which I of course washed straight away!

Until next time - Shalom my friends
Ruth xxx

Looking for cheeni lassi

I just had another pretty good weekend, thanks to a visit from a friend of a friend – a local Tamilnadu guy form Chennai who is working as a volunteer for Aid India and employed full time by a big software corporation to work in Corporate Social Responsibility. He’s coordinating tsunami relief efforts in about 43 villages near to Chennai, they however have not been as affected as the ones down here.

Anyway, it was very nice to have male company for one, and also to have somebody who actually cares about the cause and can give good advice, he’s pretty bright and went to the Indian equivalent of Cambridge and then to Arizona for education. He also has a motorbike, which always makes things good! Anyway I went with him to visit some of our villages and got a massive shock when I arrived. I haven’t been back to some of our villages since I fist arrived in Chidambaram, as the field workers would go for a whole day, asking questions, this is something I can’t really help with, and it’s way to hot just to be hanging around, so I was doing more office based work. One of the questions I had got the field workers to ask is “are any other NGOs working with the village” and if so what are they doing. The response I got is that no other NGOs are working there. Well when I went to one village yesterday there were banners from about 4 different organisations explaining the work they are doing in the village, things that we had proposed to do. The field workers didn’t even think to mention this to me, or even to the boss. Also in one village a Delhi organisation is replacing 90% of the lost boats! How can this not be mentioned when one of our schemes is to give boat manufacturing training so people can build themselves boats to fish again. Who the hell is going to want to endure training when they can get stuff for free! I was really pissed off that I didn’t know what’s been going on in the villages and that the staff haven’t mentioned anything. They don’t actually seem to care about the work or the cause, they are very poorly paid and only accepted the job as when jobs are in as short supply as they are here you can’t be too choosy! They don’t use their brain for thinking too much of the time and don’t do anything intuitive or initiative thinking, they’ll only do the work asked of them, and badly at that!

So I’m taking a 4am bus back to the head office this coming morning, I really need to speak to the boss, find out why he wanted to set up a tsunami unit, when he’s put some sub-standard workers there, doesn’t really visit the area himself, has bad ideas and isn’t aware of the current situation. Through Krishna, the guy that came this weekend, I was able to talk to the villagers, they had never even heard of our organization!! This doesn’t install much of my confidence in CARD and its tsunami efforts. There are so many delays with things that other organisations have been able to provide for the villagers much quicker than we have. It all just seems a bit pointless. I have a feeling they wanted to do something to get the status and kudos of saying they’ve helped tsunami victims, it’s really poorly run. I could do a lot for the organisation, but when I can’t even talk to my colleagues or the villagers it makes things very very difficult.

I will decide over the coming weeks if I should stay or go, I mean I am learning quite a bit, but not as much as if I were employed in a better run organisation. Money you guys have given me hasn’t been spent yet, but one thing I’m going to use it for is the urchasing of bicycles. It’s stupid- kids have to walk 3km to school in 35+ degree heat just because the bus doesn’t run at the right time to take them there. People can’t get around at all as they rely on a very poor bus service as all their bicycles and motorbikes were washed away and damaged by the waves.

I was trying to get drop out kids back into education, by organising evening classes etc – but there seems no desire for this. Fishermen enjoy their fishing lifestyle and kids don’t see the point of education when they know they will follow their fathers footsteps and fish too. The young boys tell me how much more enjoyable fishing is compared to school! I still want to find out though if there are people who want to get an education – and further education, but can’t afford it. Actually I was speaking to one man close to the temporary settlement, he spoke English as he studies botany – but it was useless, as there are no jobs for the majority of the educated people!

So a bit about life here – for me it feels pretty normal, well as normal as can be expected. For the past week I have been living just with Sasi Kala and Subra Monie, although Suibra Monie doesn’t actually live inside the house, as it’s not custom for men and women not in the same family to share the same dwellings. Neither of them speaks much English, but that’s fine, as I have alternative ways to entertain myself. I’ve been reading a book by Bill Bryson – A short history of nearly everything. I bought it with me, as I want to share with you some of the things I have newly discovered:

1) The average distance between the stars you see in the sky is over 30 million million kilometers

2) The moon was created about 4.4bn years ago when an object the size of Mars crashed into earth, which blew out enough material to form the Moon. Within a few weeks this far flung blown out material had reassembled itself into a single clump, and within a year had formed into the spherical rock it still is.

3) Isaac Newton stuck a needle deep into his eyeball just to see what would happen – nothing really did

4) She sells sea-shells on the sea shore: refers to a 12 year old girl called Mary Anning who discovered a fossilized sea monster 17 feet long in 1812 in Lyme Regis, Dorset, S coast of England. For the next 35 years she gathered fossils and sold them to visitors.

I’ll tell you some more next time!

I also actually spend a lot of time on the internet, I write for another blog, more kind of reporting stuff on tsunami villages, and spend a lot of time trying to read news stories. You get so far out of touch here with no TV and only a poor English paper that has 2 sides of brief, selective world news. I still haven’t spent enough time learning Tamil, which I hope is going to improve significantly after Krish sends me a learn Tamil in 30 days book!

I have my daily chats with a Singapore born Tmailnadian who works in the mobile phone shop diagonal to me, he’s pretty cool, does a lot for me, and after requesting it today will let me make ice cubes in his ice cream freezer! Excellent, this has been such good news for me that I can finally have an ice cold drink- oh such luxury!

I also spend some of my time eating. I have been eating out a lot after not wanting to eat another one of Sasi’s mountain of rice meals. She’s from a village near Pudukkottai (where the head office is) and after speaking to Krish, village people don’t actually have a lot of knowledge of proper diet. They think all you need is lots and lots of rice, and that vegetables aren’t really important. So this is the type of meals she makes. I just can’t tolerate it anymore, I could ask her and buy myself lots of veggies, but changing someone’s mind set isn’t easy, and when you’re used to eating a few strands of cabbage a day, to eat what I want will seem very strange. When I cooked veggie stuff in London I would eat 2 peppers, a carrot, half an aubergine, a whole onion, a turnip and half a swede in just one meal time! The food in restaurants here is really unhealthy too. Dinner is usually a masala dosa, basically a fried pancake thing made with rice flour with a handful of curried veg and potato inside, dipped into different sauces made from lentils or curry water, or other fried things dippedinto the same sauces. There is a steamed rice dumpling thing (idly) but it’s my least favourite option. Actually the dinners here are pretty good, well, it may be the same thing everyday, but at least it’s tasty! I’m actually pretty worried about what I have – or haven’t more to the point – been eating. I have received my first food parcel from Eddie- the contents of my food cupboard in London, so after I get back from the head office I will try again cooking for myself. I don’t remember if I told you ofmy failed attempt to make pancakes – I was only using a child size fork to mix the ingredients together, which as you can imagine formed a lumpy porridge kind of mix, so I sieved it and tried to fry the what looked like batter mix. Only there wasn’t enough flour in my mix,and it was a burnt sloppy mess .Also very hard when you’re cooking on an iron plate which becomes really really hot, that burns anything before the top side has a chance to cook!Actually I really need to tighten my belt. I have no idea how I have been spending so much money - especially seeing as dinner for myself (with 2 7ups) costs about 35p!!

OK, so over the next few weeks I have to decide if I should stick it put at this organisation or if I should go, Krish knows a lot of people and is going to see if there’s another organisation I can work for. I don’t really care to work for tsunami people as actually they are very well served by the government and (other) NGOs, maybe it would be better for me to learn Hindi, then I can work anywhere in India. I’ll see after speaking to my boss this weekend.

So anyway, I’m doing fine – I’m happy that I’m in India, even if I have frazzled my self twice in one week! You’d think I’d learn after burning myself the first time, but I did it again today, and just when the red changed to brown from before. It’s a VERY effective way of tanning, but I’m sure not altogether too safe!

OK, well I’m going stop rambling here, I have to prepare myself for my 6hr ordeal on the 4am local bus to Pudukkottai. Those of you who’ve travel I’m sure will sympathise with me, as you too probably have similar experiences of buses with no suspension, wooden seats, very cramped conditions, local music at max volume and distorted coming out of every speaker and a re-enhanced horn to be super loud and with a speeded up siren sound used when passing every vehicle or person on the road! Oh such joy!

If anyone needs anything from India – well ok, probably not needs, but wants, let me know and I’ll do my best to find it. I bought a 6 piece wooden massage set from Pondicherry a few days ago for Rs. 130 (₤1.60). I’m thinking about making some money selling things on e-bay to try and get more money for myself. In England that massage set, and especially at Christmas time, would sell for about ₤15! I of course have to check out postage costs.

OK, going now. Hope you’re all well – who ever put the comment I love you Ruth and think of you naked every night, in very bad spelling – I know you’re not one of my foreign friends as none of them have spelling quite as bad as that. I think I have my suspicions who you are, but I’m going to choose to ignore it!

So bye, au revoir, adios, alf wiedersehn, Arrivederci
Catch you all online soon!

Oh, ok, not going just yet got a few more things to mention – the flat opposite ours has a old women maid with only 2 teeth! I tried to ask her where I should put my rubbish, she took it off me and gestured that she would dispose of it. I then left the house a bit later to see my rubbish all over the road out front, she just lobbed it on the road, it was in a plastic bag, which then got ripped apart by the many dogs, goats and cows outside out house. Fortunately 2 days later it all seems to be gone. Goats are pretty good rubbish disposals! They’ll even old posters off the wall!

Some older Indian (and perhaps in other countries too) men have a rather unfortunate ear hair. Not the usual white man ear tufts coming out the hole, but hair that grows to more than an inch long coming vertically down the length of their ear. It sticks out horizontally. Very strange indeed, but they don’t seem to mind.

Oh, I had a list of things I’d written down to tell you all, but I’ve forgotten it so it’ll have to wait until next time!

Bye – love you all

Face like a beetroot!

Man it’s so hot here! I frazzled myself yesterday when we went to a couple of villages to find out numbers of women who would be interested in learning how to make things out of cane. The idea is to try and get people, women especially less dependent on fish. Well, that does seem like a good idea seeing as no one’s got a boat and can’t fish anyway! All the government has promised them is between Rs.10000 (₤125) and Rs. 15000 (₤187.50), that amount will barely cover the cost of a net! Oh, it seems so unfair that what the villagers receive is dependant on how loud they shout. One village was actually promised to have all boats and nets replaced by the government, but because the labourers of the village complained, noon e got anything. You see, the labourers were only labourers as they couldn’t afford boats and nets in the first place. It was suggested that they share boats, but this wasn’t going to happen as the men didn’t want the hindrance of having to work under someone! How stupid – no one ended up with anything!! When the Indian government offers you something you take it, and you take it quick before it’s withdrawn!!

The budget here in India came out a few days ago and Rs. 102.16 bn (US$234 ml) has been promised to tsunami victims. I know what’s going to happen thou, it’s what usually happens in such cases, the government makes it ridiculously hard through extreme bureaucracy for the people most needy to actually get their hands on that money. It seems like a lot, and when you consider how many people have been affected here (sorry tries to search for exact figure, no time now, will fill in later!).

So things with me have been ok. I visited a town about 60km away called Pondicherry as there was nothing really else, well of importance anyway, for me to do. Pondi’s a nice French style town that surprisingly although bigger than Chidambaram is so much quieter. There are actually signs that say no horns!! This is pretty novel in India, where for example in Chidambaram you constantly can hear a horn, or perhaps if you’re lucky there may be as much as a 3 second silence! There wasn’t so much to do there, but it filled my time as all I had was a day. It’s on the coast, so you’d have thought they make use of their coastline, but there’s nothing there. Most people visiting come to “The Mother’s” ashram. I’d tell you a bit about her, but I have no clue, she’s some kind of spiritual guru. Because of this many people come there and to nearby Auroville – a natural loving commune, so there’s a supermarket!! The only thing that was any good to me was drinks thou, and drink powder, but still it can’t be too enjoyed as cold water is hard to get, and ice just isn’t heard of!

I remember saying before how cheap everything is and how I’m struggling to spend my money, well I found that to be a total lie as I took my final Rs.500 note from my stash which I had changed at the airport. In 25 days I’d managed to spend ₤145!! God only knows how as I don’t have much to show for it!! I’m going to have to pull the belt in or else looks like I might be home before the end of the year!

This weekend may prove to be very helpful not only to myself but the organisation. I’m going to be visited by a friend of a friend – a guy called Khrishna. Khrishna works for Aid India, based in Chennai (Madras). After talking to him on the phone CARD and their tsunami relief efforts seem so pathetic! He speaks good English so will be able to ask the villagers questions I really want to know the answers too and can provide much needed help and advice! It’s been nearly a week now that I have been living and working with 2 people that speak no more than 10 English words, and that’s 10 between them by the way! It’s been ok as I’ve immersed myself in a rather good Bill Byrson book, but it’s become a bit tedious! I think actually they talk about me, which is hardly surprising, like when I came back from Pondicherry with bags of shopping, I’d spent more than what they receive for a months salary on things they probably thought were pretty useless or extravagant. A months rent is only ₤25 by the way.

OK, getting kicked out now, better post this before they cut the connection without telling me, as like before!

Will write again Monday.

How do you like the blog!?

Stale

Greeting my friends and welcome a big welcome (for most of you) to blogs.
(I hope that it isn't too much of a confusion for you, if you prefer I can e-mail you instead!)

Please leve comments, I like ones that make me laugh!!

OK, before I get started, I should have said before, that if anyone is sending me something from UK, it will be much cheaper for you to send it to my old house mate, Eddie, who can then get it to me for free. It's also a much shorter address.

Eddie Fuller, 42 Hetley Road, London, W12 8BB

Thank you thank you thank you! Stuff needed is lightweight packets of whatevers you can just add water or milk to. Things that can be cooked on the hob only, and that don't require refrideration!


So to tell you the truth not much has happened since I last wrote. I had a fantastic weekend seeing an old friend I met travelling last time in India. In England you'd never consider taking an 8hr bus ride to go somewhere for one night, but in India these things are done without too much thought! It was, and Soum was worth it anyway. Bangalore is where I went to, India's high-tech capital and home to many western luxuaries. I drank beer and ate in Subway in a/c buildings, it was heaven! We also got out of Bangalore on Soum's bike to go to a fort type of thing on a hill. It was cool to see the view for miles and miles, very flat land there, apart from the mountain we were on of course. It's such a nice feeling cruising on the back of a bike with the wind in your hair and one of your best friends sat right in front of you. It's a shame Soum's now moved to Mumbai, which from me is a 27 hr bus ride away, this stretches a bit for a weekend visit!

So work here has gone a bit stale. There's not a great deal to do. We're waiting to get the responses from different donor organisations we've requested funds from. I'm still asking people for more stuff, but doubt we'll get anything. I've been contacting European consulates in India on the advice of my boss but doubt i'll even get a response.

We're now only going to be working in 4 villages - Channa Vaikal, Pilumedu, Mulukku Thurai and MGR Thittu as a kind of test. These are some of the worst affected villages and no other NGOs are doing any work with them, apart from perhaps building a new house, or in some cases the government has said they will do that.

So just to let you know the situation in our 4 villages - it's 433 families, 1705 individuals and they've suffered 208 deaths. All of these people used to live in houses made from woven coconut tree leaves, which have now all been flattened, and all families used to fish or work in fiahing related industries.


I don't really agree with some of the projects we intend to run thou. One scheme we've requested lots of funding for is training 180 men in boat manufacturing. The idea is to train men in groups of 20, in 5 subgroups over a 2 year period. Training will take 4 months, and by the end of this time each group of 4 men will have their own boat so they can fish again. One man is to stay behind and make more boats thou. Well, since going to the villages and asking if they'd actually be interested in this only 138 have said yes. Most see it as a waste of time as 4 months is a really long training time, and people not in the first group will have to wait a really long time.

Unfortunately I'm not working with the most knowledgable, intelligent, initiatived people so information that I tried to collect from the families isn't all that helpful. many of the families have rejected all our schemes of income generation, and I tried, to no avail, to get information on how the villagers intend to make money again when they have lost everything.

We are in the process of getting a new worker, which I said last time I hjad 5 or 6 girls to interview, well, I only interviewed one. One was married and therefore couldn't live with us, 3 didn't want to do any field work (only office work), and the one who did show us couldn't understand a single question I asked her, also wasn't too keen on field work and had to ask her parents permission if she could live with us, and partake in field work. She was 29. We never heard back from her, thank God. We are in the process of putting an ad in the English paper to try and get a new translator / worker, but I'm a little doubtful. The salary they originally were offering was Rs. 2000 per month, this is £25, oh, and they are looking for someone who has finished at least a bachalors degree, but hopefully masters too. They have since decided to up the salary, but I don't know how much by.

I've had no work to do for the past 2 days and am thinking about going off again. I mean at least I can keep myself entertained by doing variuos things, Sasi Kala, the 23 year old girl who's working with me spends her days sat in a chair staring at the wall or sleeping. It seems really pointless to wake up at 5:30am when you have nothing to do. I tried to ask her why she does it, but she didn't understand.

Oh, Sasi had her first pasta experience yesterday and she was not impressed. After receiving some herbs from my Mum and buying tomato puree in Bangalore I was able to finally cook something. Ok, so it was pretty tasteles, very untomotoy and mushy, but hardly inedible, but Sasi thought so. Kinda funny how taste develops, they have some absolutely rank food here which the locals enjoy! I think maybe it was because it wasn't spicy that she didn't like my pasta. ALL food here is hot, and to me all tastres the same. I asked the girls before if they've ever tasted non-spicy food, they haven't and I don't think they'll like any of it. Actually, they do have a variation of spicy food, and that's sweet food, and boy is it sweet. They add cup fulls of sugar to sweet stuff so it's so sickly you can only have half a bit. And I'm a sweet adict, stuff in UK people find sickly sweet I can so far out eat most people I know, so here, a grain for most people would be enough!

Alright, I'm off now. I've been e-mailing and surfing for hours, time to go. Hope you don't mind the blog format, just thought it might be easier!

Please continue to e-mail me back though. I love hearing from you.

Love as always
Ruth xxx