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