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!