Summoned by Dr Rita and a happy time with a parachute.

January 13^th

We were hurrying this morning to finish our breakfasts in order to try to get to the Pachaikili centre early, in time to see all the morning activities, when we were summoned with some urgency to see ‘Ma’am’ ie Dr Rita. I felt this was ominous but Brian said I must not be unduly pessimistic. Dr Rita was in the middle of interviewing for promotions but she was obviously very keen to see us. It fairly soon became apparent that she was broaching a tricky subject, albeit with some diplomacy. Did we remember, from last year, she asked, that we must not give special gifts to people when we are here under the auspices of RUHSA? Oh yes, I thought, we remember that lesson from last year! Eventually she asked outright, had we given money to Balaji to start an enterprise for him? What?!! exclaimed Pam with a look of shock/ horror! I think Dr Rita fairly quickly believed our strong denials and our non-verbal language was all demonstrating that this was an outrageous idea.

 A bit more of a talk from Dr Rita about why we have to behave carefully, how jealousies and resentments will arise etc etc, and we were free to go. I did tell Rita that some years ago we tried to give Balaji a small amount of money to thank him for all that he had done to help us, when we were setting up the Pachaikili centre. I had been delegated to offer it to him, privately, and his response to me had been absolute horror and an adamant refusal. I told Rita that his reaction had made me feel dreadful for making the offer, and never since had we even thought of such a thing. So, whoever came tattling to Dr Rita in RUHSA this morning had certainly chosen the wrong person to implicate in the story. As Rita herself said, speaking in a low voice, here the walls have ears and we have to take great care.  Clearly someone in Seetaramanpet passes things on to RUHSA. We spend a lot of time with some of the families and I suppose this causes jealousy and so rumours are started. 

Rani helping the children to eat

 Children washing up their tiffin boxes

So, belatedly to Pachaikili, (Pam only delayed by a puncture) where good things awaited us. The children were singing and reciting before lunch. We watched lunch being eaten and saw how kind and attentive the teachers and ayah are to ensure all the children eat some at least of the food they bring from home. Then the children wash out their own tiffin boxes before putting them back in their bags. This is such a good solution to what seemed a big problem when we came after the school had only been open for a short while. The parents were complaining that the ayah should have cleaned out the boxes and that she was failing to do this properly. We realised that the poor woman just did not have time with all her other duties to wash out twenty tiffin boxes. The children are now so efficient, scraping out any waste and washing the boxes in two buckets, and they obviously enjoy doing this. 

Whilst the children were eating Rani and Padmini pointed out two boys who had made real progress at Pachaikili. One started eighteen months ago and could hardly talk, didn’t walk very steadily and did not feed himself. They said that his parents were both teachers and I think they thought that he had been solely in the care of grandparents. He has come on in leaps and bounds and talks well and confidently now. His parents were going to move him to another school this year but when they found what that was like they decided to keep him on at Pachaikili for a further year. The other boy, similarly, was very behind with his development when he started, as his older brother had also been a year or so before. He has made such good progress that the parents are really delighted and they recently gave the teachers and ayah each a sari to show their gratitude. 

Whilst the children were then sleeping and after the Elderly people had eaten their lunch we brought out the parachute which we had brought out this time and together demonstrated a few of the games you can play with it. Thanks to Jude Brown who researched this for me and bought this one which is exactly the right size for the indoor space. 

 The garden with the sandpit

The teachers then took us outside and we saw how very well the garden at the front of the building has come on, even in the last year since we visited. There are banana trees, papaya trees, a pomegranate, a couple of cova trees, and several other flowering shrubs, such as hibiscus. All of these have been planted and tended by the teachers and ayah.  Together they make up a lovely green and shady area and it means that now the children can play outside. There is a large sandpit in the garden now and the children really love playing in it.

Back inside it was time for the children to wake up. They do exercises together at this time and so we thought it was a good idea to show them the parachute. Former sports teacher Brian led the session and as so often with the children and the teachers here, they grasped the idea of what they needed to do and of working together, extremely quickly. They clearly  absolutely loved it. I think their top favourite game was when we put toy snakes (which used to be made by BTC) on the parachute and they shook them around, to a great deal of squealing and delight.  Definitely a success, and tomorrow we are going to see how the elderly people might also be involved. 

On our way back home we had been asked to go in for ‘one small coffee/ biscuits’ to the house of Santi, whose daughters were the original One Candle Fund recipients, back when Pam and Brian were first interviewing in Seetaramanpet for Pam’s work on the website. Santi’s two younger girls were crying to her because their father had died, leaving Santi with three primary school aged girls, and so the girls were not going to be able to stay on at school. Those girls are now young adults and have all done really well. The youngest has an excellent job in Chennai, after she graduated with a first class degree from Chennai university and the middle one is a nurse who married a year or so ago and has a baby who just turned one year old. The oldest was a BTC tailor for seven years and now works in a unit nearby.  That daughter’s younger son is at Pachaikili.

 When we saw Santi last year she was just about to go to Chennai with her middle daughter and tiny new baby granddaughter so that the family could be together whilst the daughter was on maternity leave. The father of the family Suresh, is another village boy who has done very well educationally and now works in Chennai. Now that the maternity leave is over and Veejaya is back at work, they are again  living with Santi in the village and Suresh visits his family every weekend. Santi is understandably eternally grateful to Pam because of that chance meeting which has changed the destiny of her daughters. She says repeatedly that Pam is her god (not a comfortable idea for Pam) but we also pointed out to her that she must have been a very strong woman to bring up those three girls so well as a widow.