Blog 9 Inspired by Obama

A quick blog before we set off to the playcentre for a day of interviewing people for the posts of teacher and caretaker. Hopefully the word-of-mouth telegraph will have worked and there will be queues of candidates. Yesterday was a mixed one, because the head of RUHSA came by for his weekly visit and so I found myself spending more hours than I would have wished in his company. I had drawn a sketch of Sekar which he saw and then asked ‘Why haven’t you drawn me?’ That question may help to give an indication of the man. Daleep, founder of RUHSA believed that after you had helped the people to empower themselves, after you had left, they would say ‘We did this ourselves’ Dr John believes that there should be photos and commemorative tablets everywhere to let the world know what RUHSA directors have done... So a day of teeth-gritting, but which culminated in us sitting in front of our neighbour’s television watching the inauguration of Obama. So we went to bed with his wonderful words of hope for the future ringing in our ears.

Now back after another mixed day of fortunes, momentarily exhausted by it all and the heat and the bl***y crows, but now fortified by some nasty biscuits. Plus a quick call to Mr Immanuel – as chipper and positive as always – has also perked me. Can we do it? Yes we can, of course! Or Mr Immanuel’s equivalent ‘There will not be any problem!’

We are the first arrivals this morning at the playcentre, although people have been told to come for interview at 10. Oh dear I think, maybe now that everyone has a mobile phone, the old bush telegraph no longer works. Then people do begin to arrive- but all appear to be there to tell us why they should continue to get One Candle Fund grants. We persuade one girl that she might like to apply for the teacher’s job. She turns out to be the sister of Balagi’s friend who was killed in a bike accident two years ago at Pongal. Then her mother comes and I say how sorry I am about her loss. She understands me non-verbally and we end up with arms around each other, both sobbing. Then I manage to get help to talk more to her and discover that a year before her son’s death her daughter died in child-birth. She had four children, two are now dead, a third, her son, was born deaf and does not speak. So the only hope for the family to earn is the daughter whom we have been supporting in college. We have been told that she is now working at BTC as a tailor, to make enough to pay for her correspondence course. The mother and daughter are pitifully, but not surprisingly, very grateful to be told that we will not therefore cut off her grant. This is such a hard country to survive in. A conversation with any group of village women will bring out terrible stories of family tragedies. No wonder Pam became to overwhelmed back in 2004. The One Candle Fund has at least provided some hope in some families, but it would be easy to find it all overwhelming.

At last, just as Wendy and I are beginning to despair that there will be any applications for teaching, we discover that some of the young women are here to be interviewed. With Sekar’s interpreting help we then interview seven women, predominantly young, around twenty, but one or two a little older. We are very encouraged indeed by the standard of their responses and at the end of the interviews tell them that we will be running a six day training next week and the week after, for all seven applicants, at the end of which we will select our teacher. We also talk to a man whose house is very near to the playcentre, who is prepared to act as our night-watchman. Not sure yet how or what we will pay him.

Realise that I haven’t yet written about another idea/ project which is taking shape. Pam has been asked by Carolyn to look for a project which would benefit from a £3,000 donation from the charitable trust associated with BTC. It has been suggested that it might be used to fund a day-centre for elderly people and we have already been to see one such centre, set up in the village of Kilalathur.See photo Blog 8. All of us were very favourably impressed by it. About 30 elderly poor people, who have little or no family support, go five days a week to the centre, where they can read the paper, watch television, do a programme of exercises with the group ‘animator’ and do puzzles and play games. They were very forthcoming indeed when Pam asked what they liked about the centre. Chiefly they like the social contact with friends but it is also a relief to be away from family problems. Since India’s economic revolution many families have been separated, as the children move away for work and the parents chose not to leave their home villages to go with them. At the centre the elderly people also receive a simple meal which is cooked daily by two volunteers from the local SHG. Meals are also sent to two elderly people who are house-bound. It is a fairly cheap project, but very much one that the recipients appreciate, it seems to us.

We have begun to wonder whether we might consider opening such a centre, and using our new playcentre building. There is a separate room which might serve for the elderly, and trainee teachers needing a room away from the children might be able to make do with a simple lean-to. Both children and old people might well benefit from and enjoy the contact. It would also make our money –sums work better, we think... we are really quite excited about this new plan for an integrated project, which could be quite a good and replicable model. Some of us OAPs quite fancy a life out here in old age, though are not entirely sure we’ll manage the sitting crossed-legged on the floor that the elderly here find second nature.