Blog 19 First day of teacher training and an auspicious day for enrolling your child in the Pachaikili playcentre

Wendy, Pam and I cycle the country route to the playcentre, which means running the gauntlet of snarly dogs rather than dicing with lunatic lorry drivers. En route we lose Pam when she is set upon by Mr Coconuts, our local water diviner, who presses some sugar cane upon her. We arrive to find three of our teachers waiting on the steps but no Sekar so no key. After a short while he turns up on his motorbike, apologising for lateness. We tell him we fully expected him to be tired after the last few hectic days and he explains that actually the plaque engravers were working til late because there was a power cut in Vellore, so they couldn’t start our job until 6 o’clock, so he didn’t get home til after 11 at night. Our bet is Mrs Sekar is less than ecstatic about visiting English folk who purloin her husband for long hours and days during their stay!

We gain access to the school but alas our new plastic chairs have not yet been delivered, so our young friend Balaji has to be sent for to round some up from various homes in Sitaramanpet. All in all, we make a late start at 10, but by then we have 5 of our 7 candidates for the teaching post and a couple of mums with their children. It seems that, today being Friday and therefore temple day, it is considered an auspicious day to bring their children to be enrolled. What is more those same mums saw the playcentre yesterday and thought it looked very inviting, so I guess they have thought that the best plan would be to lose no time in enrolling their children. We learn at this point that some of our toys – large cars and buses- have been lifted by some of yesterday’s children, who refused to be parted from them when they were dragged home! Efforts will have to be made to track them down.

We begin the day with some getting-to-know-you activities and all of the women seem immediately very open to talking about themselves and their ideas. After half an hour or so the 6^th candidate turns up –she has had to see her employer to get permission for time off. We spend the rest of the morning in a variety of activities and then at lunch time we have a delicious meal prepared by Nagadevi- the Self Help Group leader, and by Balaji’s mother. Andy and Brian are clever enough to arrive just in time for this. The community of Sitaramanpet seem to be ever willing to help us in any way possible. In the afternoon Balaji presents Pam with a letter for us all in which he expresses very simply but eloquently his gratitude and that of the people of his village, for the help which they have been given with their education ( from the One Candle Fund) which has enabled them to strive towards their dreams. They are grateful that their village was chosen ( actually precisely because there was such evident need there) and that now we have the school there too. He writes also of thanks to Carolyn of BTC, for the weaving work which they have given to their SHG, which has already made a visible difference to their lives. They know already of the chill wind of recession which is global, but being felt particularly harshly in the UK, and we fear for their futures.

In the afternoon session I ask the teaching candidates to play with the water, clay and sand. They do this in two groups and the group who go first to the water area are soon enjoying themselves very noisily. They and the floor soon become very wet! In the clay area they are much quieter, but none the less involved in their play and in the creation of numerous different objects and animals. One of the women guesses my elephant is a tortoise....As soon as they begin to play in the sand they begin what is obviously a traditional hide and seek game. One of the groups becomes very involved working together to create a huge fort – like the one at Vellore, and they cannot be torn away from it to come back to our group discussion!

The women all agree that the play sessions have been very enjoyable, that they have liked their chance to return to childhood and to forget all adult concerns. One of them says that she will understand her son’s pleasure in his play so much better now. All in all it has been a happy and productive day and I will look forward to our next session on Monday.