Spring cleaning at Pachaikili

January 19^th and 20^th

 

We have had a busy couple of days mostly in the Pachaikili Centre, as we wanted to look at all the play materials to see what needed to be repaired, what thrown out, and what needed to re-stocked. When we went in yesterday we found that Sekar was there, with a young girl student from a Business Management course in Vellore. Sekar had her observing and recording all that Rani (who is care-taker for the elderly) did during the morning, as some sort of task management exercise (sorry, not my area of expertise, can’t be more specific!)

Playing with a new basket ball hoop

I was able to give the teachers the photo book which I made last March of our day at the park, last January. Unfortunately it had never arrived at Padmini’s address so I had another one made and sent to Ruth’s address in England and she had brought it out with her. The teachers and then the children were all absolutely delighted with the book and I’m hoping it will become a favourite for them to browse.

Beautiful Pongal pot and sugar cane decoration on the floor of the centre

Children enjoying the book of their outing and calling out 'Tata' to grandad Andy as he arrived to see them

Just after this a rather loud woman appeared and the children were lined up to see her. She turned out to be the local balwadi teacher and she comes at this time each year (Jan 17^th is the official date) to see all the children in the village and to give them their anti-polio drops. Once done, she marks their small finger nail with an indelible marker pen! Some children had been absent and missed their Vitamin A drops on September 9^th, so she caught up with them. 

 

In the afternoon after a lunch which  they had to stretch to feed us, because Padmini had never received my text saying that we would be coming to the centre that day, Sekar returned with Joseph on his pillion, and we were able to have a meeting in the small room whilst the children and teachers used the larger room. As always Sekar was reassuring about tasks that needed still to be done and with which he would give us a hand, e.g ordering toys and a camera ( to be used to record children’s progress);  making sure that a hand rail is fitted for access to the centre for the elderly;  trying to do something about Rani, who doesn’t  really do much to occupy the elderly, but instead is always helping with cooking and getting them to help also. He is going to talk to Rakesh about organising a training day for all the caretakers for the elderly and I asked if he could tell Rakesh about the success of the parachute and about the possibilities of art actitivities. 

Elders lending a hand with the children in the sandpit

We asked for clarification about how the account for the centre is managed. The women from the SHG put in a request to RUHSA for what is needed for the following month, according to how many working days in that month. The money goes into their account in the bank and they withdraw it weekly. The three Pachaikili paid staff ie two teachers and ayah had at last yesterday received their Christmas annual bonus of one month’s salary. This is a good month late, due to inefficient systems in RUHSA. Immediately of course the other staff members ie the care-taker for elderly, Rani, and the two SHG women who cook for the elderly, knew about these bonuses (which we had negotiated during our last visit in Jan 2015, after the difficult business of the sari gifting problem). Rani was asking us straight away why they should not get a bonus. This is a difficult matter because Rani is employed under exactly the same terms as the other care-takers for the elderly and the SHG women volunteers similarly. All that they earn is their daily payment for doing the cooking, but Joseph pointed out that they also have to budget for the food and that in recent years the cost of food has rocketed. Nonetheless the women in our group have never lowered the standard of food on offer and our elders receive egg twice a week and chicken once a week, which is much more than at the other centres and therefore probably means that our women are subsidising the meals out of their own daily payment. How we would love to give them something as a thank you, if not a proper bonus, but we know after last year’s problems with thank-you gifts that we just cannot do this. 

Today, 20^th Jan we arrived early at the centre as the task of investigating materials and equipment had barely been started yesterday and I was anxious to get it done asap. The team were brilliant and we got every cupboard sorted and cleaned out by lunch time. I think that in this culture people do not have pristine homes, but tend to live with a level of dust and of disorder, because they don’t have much space and they are usually quite crowded in their homes. Thus, although I know our teachers are very careful with the play materials, the cupboards were in quite a muddle and certainly needed the spring (Pongal) clean which we gave them this morning. When I said to Pam that I think I need to talk to them on Saturday at the training day about setting aside a regular time to tidy and clean equipment, Pam suggested that perhaps the elderly might help with this. 

Rani was working on her own today- or with only Boona to help- because Padmini has had to go to hospital because her father has been taken ill with a fever and very low blood pressure. When it came to doing her small group (who were using the modelling clay we brought over) she just set the other group, whom Padmini would have been supervising, to play in the sandpit. As I walked by I realised that they had no toys to play with in the sand, so I gave them all rakes and spades and cups and then started to fetch them water in a jug from the kitchen, so that they could make the sand wetter. It was hilarious because one little girl then wanted more, so asked me for ‘ kunjum tannee, Ayah’ ie a small amount of water Ayah!’ Since I was performing an ayah’s role, I must be called ayah! Yesterday we had all been called ‘Partee’ and ‘Tata’ as we arrived, ie Granny and Grandad! Then as I was supposed still to be involved in the big clean-up going on next door, I asked two of the elderly women if they would play with the children and they came happily to sit in the sand with them and one took over fetching the water. Ooh I thought, if I was here for a few weeks more I could get these elders involved daily doing different things with the children and of course both age groups would love it. 

 One of the elderly women pouring water for the children in the sandpit

Meanwhile Balaji had appeared to see us because he has to leave tonight to go to Chennai for a month’s working. He is very sad that he won’t see us again now before we leave and Pam set him to helping us to try to stop him from being upset. We had realised we needed more plastic trays for the toys and Balaji offered to take Pam on his motorbike to buy them and some new items for water play such as jugs, funnels and sieves. We are probably (definitely) breaking RUHSA rules doing this, but I decided that since RUHSA rules can mean that things just don’t get done (e.g new wheels for the wooden vehicles, asked for last Jan, still not obtained!) we were going to go ahead and be damned. Well, hopefully not... Off went Pam, delighted, as many decades ago she was a biker girl! She returned an hour later triumphant with all that we needed and having had a few adventures along the way (of course!) She had had ‘two small coffees’ at one person’s shop and at other places been given free diaries (one of which featured a full colour page of Donald Trump!!) She said they was precious little chance of her expedition being kept quiet since the whole of KVK must now know where she’d been and what she’d bought- of course!

Weighing and measuring the elderly!

Just after lunch someone arrived – from RUHSA I presume- with some weighing scales and Rani (teacher) proceeded to weigh each of the elderly people and then to measure their height. These checks are done six monthly she told me. Mind you Andy stood against the  mark which is supposed to indicate on the wall where 6ft is, and he was several inches below it, so I fear the measurements are fairly approximate. 

We left after a hard morning of work but a very satisfying one and the play centre now feels much better organised already. On the way home we called in to say our farewells to Balaji and to wish him well for his work in Chennai and for when the baby is born in May. I have given him strict instructions about informing us immediately the baby arrives and bless him, he checked what time would be ok to phone me, ie when it would not be the middle of the night in France.