life, by me

Tuesday, September 03, 2013 | Posted by Hazel

We basically hit the ground running this phase completing all the following in the last 3 weeks: a health camp, a vet camp, the Mense House construction, building a wall around the Kindergarten, constructing some washing stones and lots of health awareness.  It has been really busy, and feels as though it went really quickly as well.

So, the Mense House - we finished it!  It was hard work and took longer than we expected but the whole team worked really hard to get it completed on time ready for the women in the village to use.

Building the walls

The local ladies watching us work (a regular occurrence)

Outside complete!

Plastering the outside

Ta da!

In the last couple of weeks the weather really picked up, with torrential rain and wind an almost distant memory.  We all spent a lot more time with the villagers and I now feel as though I know some of them really well.

We were given a small budget to use within the village and reach another need.  We decided to use this money to buy the materials to build a wall around the kindergarten to stop children from running in to the cars.  This was again another big project but we managed to get it done and the volunteers painted educational murals along the side of it, it looked really good and the staff at the kindergarten were all really pleased with it!

Our accidental blue wall which we grew to love

Leaving our mark in the village on the new wall

Some educational painting on the wall

The song we taught the children to encourage them to brush their teeth everyday with toothpaste

Painting health awareness about washing your hands on the children's toilet

We spent the rest of the money on constructing some washing stones for the people in the village to wash their clothes on, digging a kitchen garden by the kindergarten, painting murals on the children's toilet and training some of the ladies in the village to knit scarves so they could earn some additional income for the upkeep of the new Mense House.

We were in the village in Independence Day, awkwardly celebrating the day India became Independent from the British, although it wasn't awkward at all and they held an event to celebrate just because we were in the village, complete with dancing and flag themed outfits.

Independence Day celebrations

In our last week all the local people invited us round for dinner to say thanks for the work we had done within their village during our stay.  One meal in particular stands out - I ate so much I felt physically ill afterwards, just around the time they dressed me in their traditional clothing and got me to practice their traditional Kota dance in the street.


The amazing feast we had in our last week - consisting of rice, egg, fish, potatoes, carrots, fruit and other stuff

All tucking in

Trying on the Kota dress

Learning some new moves

Rocking the outfit

On our last night in the village, the local people all threw us an amazing surprise party.  They had been planning a function for a few weeks for us but then the day before sadly someone died in the village, and due to their culture, they are not allowed to have any celebrations for 3 days.  The ladies in the village were so sad about not being able to have the leaving party for us they spoke to the village leader who agreed they could do something small scale in the evening.  This 'small scale' event included dressing us all in traditional Kota dress, rigging up some speakers and lights and doing some dancing for us, followed by speeches and then making us dance for them.  It was great fun and an amazing end to our time in the village.

Charlie 5 looking the cleanest we did all project in our Kota clothing

We only left the village 3 days ago, but already it all seems a bit surreal.  The volunteers arrived back in the UK on Sunday evening and we have a few more days here before we fly home at the weekend. 

A rock that sounds like a bell when you hit it

The local chai shop man preparing my final chai in the village

I snuck in to the Mense House on the last night to check out the new loo like a local lady...

Goodbye Charlie 5!

 

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Sunday, August 11, 2013 | Posted by Hazel

So we're back at field base again for a couple of days before we head out to our village again for the third and final phase of the project.

 

My summary of phase 2 (the last 3 weeks) would be wet, windy, busy and tiring...but also very productive.  Our construction has started, and so far it has been hard work, but pretty rewarding when we look at what we have done.  The masons only arrived this week, so we have done the majority of the work ourselves, with a bit of help from the villagers, when it's not raining of course - the locals are definitely fair weather labourers!

Getting ready to pick up the poo from outside the Mense House before we start demolishing it

Saving all the existing materials to use again on the new Mense House

Smashing down the walls and moving all the rubble for future use

 

Levelling the land ready for the new build

Digging the foundations

The masons arrived and we have now started to lay stones and cement the foundations of the new house!

All in all, the 12 girls and 2 boys on our team have done a great job, battling against the elements to get to this stage.  We now have 2 masons who have come to stay in the village for the duration of the build and are leading us each day to get the house built.  Luckily the rain has also started to ease off a bit which is making it easier, although the heat is now a new challenge!

 

During the last couple of weeks we have also been to visit the Tribal Research Centre in Ooty, a nearby town.  It was really good to learn some more about the Kota tribe and we were also given some books about the tribe and saw photos of some of our friends in the village which was a little surreal. It was a weird feeling to be reading about the Kota tribe from people who had studied them and to know that we are currently living and making friends with them.  It was also strange to think that I now see them as people, where as reading about them in the museum they seem like distant people who are studied.  Either way it made me feel privileged to have this current opportunity to be working with them!

 

Last week we held an eye camp for the local villages.  Despite the horrendous weather on the day we had a really good turn out of 100 people, 7 of whom had cataract operations, so we are all pleased with the success of the day.

Cataract patients waiting for their operations

We also held a sports day for the local children where over 50 children came and played a variety of games which they all seemed to enjoy!

This phase we have also organised home stays.  All the volunteers have spent a night in a local's home and learnt some more about their culture.  This week I spent the night at the Postmans home with his family.  We had dinner with them, learnt about some of their festivals and then in the morning they taught me how to make mint chutney, which we had with idly (rice powder flat things) for breakfast! It was really good and another example of how welcoming and friendly the people in Kokkal are.

The Postman and his family outside his home

Amrutha (one of the volunteers) and I enjoying our meal at our home stay

We hit our 'storming' stage this phase within the group - living 24/7 started to take it's toll on some of the volunteers, but nothing that we haven't now overcome. You have to be multi-skilled to manage all these strong willed volunteers!

We've all managed to stay relatively healthy although there has been a few cases of D and a few less of V, plus a concussion and a fractured finger.  All in all, everyone is still alive and well.  My sympathetic side and patience has definitely been improving/tested.

 

Things I have learnt...although not everyone in India uses a Mense House, having a celebration when a girl first comes on her period is quite a common thing.  When trying to work out why children within the village are malnourished and so small I found out that new born babies are given rich tea biscuits and milk as their only food for the first year of their life - I'm no nutritionist, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as a healthy diet.  I'm learning lots about the culture here and am really interested in the different role women have.  My last 'did you know' for you...it is illegal to find out the sex of your baby in India when you are pregnant, because it is common practice for girl first borns to be aborted due to having to pay a dowry when they get married and families being unable to afford it.

Tomorrow we head back to the village for our final 3 weeks! I really hope that we get the Mense House finished before we leave, I am sure we will now we have the masons help and hopefully some village help if the weather stays dry for long enough! We have health and vet camps to run and a few other projects within the village. still to complete, as well as our regular clubs and meetings.  It's going to be busy and I am sure it is also going to go fast with so much to do!

Some more pictures from the last couple of weeks...

Monkeys at a Temple we visited - they stole one of the volunteers' drink and crisps!

Our day trip out to a Temple and the Palace in Mysore

Teaching the kids to wash their hands with soap!

A 'Tippy Tap' we built for the kindergarten so the children can wash their hands after they have been to the toilet and before they eat their lunch

We started a toothbrush club to encourage the local children to brush their teeth

One of the villagers giving me a rendition of a traditional Kota song on a traditional instrument he had made

Local tea farmers hard at work

 

 

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Saturday, July 20, 2013 | Posted by Hazel

Let me catch up with the last couple of weeks.  Firstly, the volunteers arrived.  My group, India Charlie 5, was formed.  They are all great people, and enthusiastic about our project!  We have 8 x UK volunteers and 4 x Indian - consisting of 10 girls and 2 boys; the lucky things.  We spent 4 days at field base training them on all the things we had learnt over the previous couple of weeks.  The team leaders got split in to 2 teams, as there are too many volunteers to run all the projects at once.   I'm in the first team, so it was a bit sad to say goodbye to the second team until the day before we fly in September when we will meet again...

 

Anyway, India Charlie 5...here we are, all packed and ready to head to our village, a mere 5 hour road trip across some windy roads and up some steep tracks to reach Kokkal.

 

 

Upon reaching our village midday the following day, we were met with a sea of people dressed in white.  As we approached them they started banging their drums and leading us up in to the village.  They then sat us down on plastic chairs and performed a welcome ceremony for us.  It was really quite amazing and hard to explain what it was like.

 

 

One of our first tasks in the village was to build ourselves a long drop.  This took a little longer than we had anticipated but luckily everyone managed to cross the legs for the duration, so no accidents were had - other than me accidentally kneeling in some actual human diarrhea (a villagers, not one of the volunteers).  Oh yeah, that was a good moment.  This is long drop #1 - we are now on our #3...the more improved and larger model.

In Kokkal, the women start to wear their traditional dress when they reach the age of 20.  They also start to do their hair in a traditional style at the same time.  In  the first week we spent a lot of time visiting the locals and getting to know them, drinking chai with them and performing for them at their will.  My dancing skills (or lack of pride) have come in handy for such situations.  One of the ladies demonstrated the hair style for me too...

Our village is in a beautiful location.  In between the rain and wind we have managed to take some time to explore the area.  A few of the locals took us on a trek one morning up to a viewpoint.  Along the way we saw wild monkeys and met a herd of buffalo who almost trampled us.

The first phase of the project so far has been mainly based around getting to know the village and the villagers, finding out about the history of Kokkal and conducting some Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) to find out what the greatest needs in the village are and what we can do whilst we are here to help.  We have found out lots of information and already started teaching English for 10 - 14 year olds in the local school and planned some sports clubs and a toothbrush club to start when we return back to the village in a couple of days.  The building part of the project will also begin soon.  This week we had an architect visit to come and draw up plans for the new building and we should get a copy of the completed plan this week so we can start ordering materials and getting ready for the demolition of the existing building.

Generally all has been well in Charlie 5, but we have had a few medical incidents, one of which involved me spending a night in a local hospital with a volunteer.  Drinking water is not my biggest skill, but here I am trying my best to be a good example as we have had at least 4 volunteers ill and puking from dehydration - we can't all be blessed with such hardy bodies as mine.

One of the other exciting events from our village has been a wedding.  Last weekend a girl in our village got married to a man from one of the other Kota tribes in our village and our team was invited.  It was a really hot day and was interesting to see the rituals and traditions they follow in their wedding ceremonies.  The first 'tradition' we noticed was that the house that the bride was from hooked up a massive speaker 24 hours before the wedding ceremony and blasted out Indian music at top volume across the village the whole day/night before the event.

The Bride and Groom

Some of the local kids dancing to the music at the wedding, on the roof

We are now back at field base for a couple of days before we head back to the village on Monday.  Yesterday we had the day off in Mysore and the next couple of days there is some training for the volunteers.

During the second phase, as well as starting the construction of the Mense House, we will also be setting up some more activities for the children in the village, holding a general health camp, an eye camp and a vet camp and hopefully organising some home stays for the volunteers.  It's all very busy, but a 'good' busy.  The weather is generally raining and windy, interspersed with the odd hot day sent to dehydrate the volunteers.

Here are a few pictures from the last 3 weeks...

This is where we are staying, the girls upstairs and the kitchen and boys room is downstairs.  We shower in the blue tarpaulin area and wash our clothes and hair in the stream behind the building.

 

Chillis drying in the sun

Remya enjoying the wedding meal

It's tradition to draw black spots on small children's faces.  The local people believe that is bad luck for people to say their children are beautiful, so they draw spots on them so they are not.

The stream where we wash our hair

 

Local women doing their washing in the stream

Learning how to make chappattis with the local women

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