The traffic in Delhi was like nothing else I've ever seen. There are traffic regulations but no-one seems to pay much attention to most of them, the exception being that most people do seem to stop at red lights. We did go straight through one at 3:45am on the way to the airport but the road was pretty quiet and the driver beeped the horn loudly in case anything else was coming so that was OK!
In the UK, people generally use their horn as a warning or sign of annoyance if someone else does something dangerous. In India, people generally use their horns when they are about to do something dangerous, are in the process of doing something dangerous, or just want to let other drivers know where they are in case someone else fails to notice them. The effect of all this is that everywhere you go you are constantly surrounded by beeping horns.
Some of the roads in Delhi have "No Horn" signs, but these are universally ignored. Many of the roads also have lane markings which are similarly ignored. People don't generally drive in lanes at all, they simply go wherever there's a gap, so a 2 lane road could have anything from 2 to 5 vehicles squeezed into it from left to right at any point and this constantly varies as the traffic ebbs and flows.
Overtaking maneuvres, particularly out on the country roads, can be pretty dangerous. There are a lot of slow vehicles, e.g. ox carts pulling loads of sugar cane, and it takes a long time to get anywhere so drivers get pretty impatient. Generally vehicles just pull out and hope nothing's coming, or if something is coming they pull out anyway and expect it to slow down or move to one side to make way! It's also fairly common to see vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road. This often happens where there's a central reservation and a driver needs to get somewhere a short distance away and can't easily get across the reservation to the other side. During our drive to Mussoorie, at one point the police decided to close our carriageway one car in front of us. Accordingly they diverted all traffic onto the opposite carriageway but there were no traffic cones like you'd expect in this country and both lanes of the opposite carriageway were still in use! The car in front of us was simply diverted into the second lane on the opposite side, with us following, and the vehicles currently using this lane just had to slow down and get out of our way!
Although all this sounds like (and is!) pretty chaotic, there are some saving graces. The main one is that traffic in India tends to be a lot slower than in the UK so when accidents do happen (which is pretty frequently) they tend to be less serious, although I've no doubt there are still a lot more serious traffic accidents in India than there are over here. Probably about two thirds of the vehicles we saw had obvious bumps and scrapes and a pretty high percentage looked like they'd been in multiple accidents. In the UK, when someone is in a crash they usually get the car fixed up again afterwards on the insurance but in India, no-one seems to bother - apart from maybe trying to straighten out the dent a bit with a hammer! I guess this is probably for financial reasons. Possibly also though, there seems little point in fixing a dent when the chances are you'll be getting more of them before too long anyway! While we were in India, 3 of our team were in an auto-rickshaw which got too close to another car and took off most of it's rear wheel arch facing. The rickshaw driver just kept going - he didn't even bother to stop!
In a strange sort of way, all this chaos is actually fairly chilled - once you get used to it. Since everyone drives like a lunatic anyway, most of the time no-one is particularly surprised or upset about it. In the UK people usually only beep when they're really angry, but in India they do it just to say, "Hi, I'm here - please don't squash me", or "Mind out - I'm about to get in your way". Once you realise this it's all a lot less nerve-wracking - although it's still fairly heavy on the ear drums, for the first few days at least! It's also all very practical. People aren't overly fussy about rules, they just get on with doing what they think they need to do in order to get where they're supposed to be going. In a strange sort of way it all works pretty well - except for the accidents of course!
The other scary and unusual thing about Indian driving is the amount of things and/or people that get crammed into or onto vehicles. We saw bicycles piled high with boxes - more than I would've ever thought it possible for a bicycle to carry. On 2 or 3 occasions I saw bicycles laden with 6 large butane gas cylinders - 2 strapped on each side and 2 on the back. I saw 5 people on one motorcycle - father, mother and 3 children, mother and girls all sitting side saddle. Only father had a crash helmet. Motorbikes often carry passengers - quite often more than one - and usually only the driver has a helmet. Dave saw 2 people on a motorbike carrying a large pane of glass, upright, sandwiched inbetween them! One sudden stop (very common in Delhi!) and there would be no pane of glass anymore and two motorcyclists showered with shards! Again this is all very practically motivated. I need to transport something (or someone) from A to B, so I make use of whatever I have available. If there's a risk involved, too bad - the job has to get done. This seems to reflect quite a lot of the Indian attitude towards life.
Apart from the chaos caused by too much traffic, another consequence is pollution. There is a constant haze around Delhi which doesn't block out the sun but is enough to stop you from getting much of a sun tan - although probably if you stood out in it for a long time without any sun cream on you'd eventually still get burned! This is apparently much better than it used to be. All public transport, including all the auto-rickshaws are now run on CNG - Compressed Natural Gas - which is much less polluting, and cheaper than petrol or diesel. It is lighter than air so disperses quickly, making it safer than conventional fuels in the event of a leak. It's main drawback seems to be that it requires more storage space than conventional fuels. For more details on CNG see here.
By the end of our time in Delhi we'd grown quite used to the noise and the chaos on Delhi roads. On returning home to Burley in Leeds, we were particularly struck by how quiet everything was! In fact it was more quiet than usual since most of the students were away for Easter, but all the same, there was hardly any traffic noise and no horns beeping anywhere! When I got home I lay on my bed for a while, listening to the silence ringing in my ears..
Monday, 31 March 2008
The Journey Home
On Saturday (29th) we were up at 2:45am to meet the others in the YMC lobby at 3:15. Having checked out, we left in the Asha minibus at 3:30 to go to the airport. Our flight was due to take off at 6:55.
We arrived at the airport at 4am and spent about 15 minutes queueing to get in. This was followed by 45 minutes queueing to get our baggage security checked and another 45 minutes queuing to check in our baggage (we'd already checked ourselves in online the day before). We then spent another hour queuing to get through customs. We then got to sit down for about 10 minutes before queuing again to check in at the flight gate and then again (briefly) for another security check on our hand luggage before finally boarding the plane at about 7:15. The take-off was delayed and we finally left Delhi at 9am Indian time. After all this though, everything went smoothly!
It was quite a relief to get back to a UK airport where everything runs relatively smoothly and efficiently (at least most of the time!). Our luggage was already on the carousels by the time we got to them. We said our goodbyes and waited 15 minutes for a Heathrow Express train into London, caught the tube to Kings Cross and 30 minutes later we were on the train back to Leeds.
It was a nice contrast being able to cover the 200 or so miles from London to Leeds in 2 hours and 20 minutes as opposed to the 10 and a half hours it had taken us to cover four fifths of this distance from Delhi to Mussoorie a week previously!
We arrived at the airport at 4am and spent about 15 minutes queueing to get in. This was followed by 45 minutes queueing to get our baggage security checked and another 45 minutes queuing to check in our baggage (we'd already checked ourselves in online the day before). We then spent another hour queuing to get through customs. We then got to sit down for about 10 minutes before queuing again to check in at the flight gate and then again (briefly) for another security check on our hand luggage before finally boarding the plane at about 7:15. The take-off was delayed and we finally left Delhi at 9am Indian time. After all this though, everything went smoothly!
It was quite a relief to get back to a UK airport where everything runs relatively smoothly and efficiently (at least most of the time!). Our luggage was already on the carousels by the time we got to them. We said our goodbyes and waited 15 minutes for a Heathrow Express train into London, caught the tube to Kings Cross and 30 minutes later we were on the train back to Leeds.
It was a nice contrast being able to cover the 200 or so miles from London to Leeds in 2 hours and 20 minutes as opposed to the 10 and a half hours it had taken us to cover four fifths of this distance from Delhi to Mussoorie a week previously!
Inaugaration Day
Well I'm back in the UK now, but will try and finish off this blog for the last couple of days. I also hope to add a few more entries on specific aspects of Indian life that we encountered and maybe to tidy up some of the existing blog entries which I wrote in quite a hurry.
Friday (28th) was "Inaugaration Day" - this consisted of a ceremony in the slum, celebrating the completion of all our work on the resource centre! There was a lot more to it than we were expecting. A large tent was erected at the entrance to the slum and one of the Delhi government ministers was invited to witness the occasion. Paula (our team leader) was declared "guest of honour", and we were all seated on a platform inside the tent and draped with garlands of flowers as we had been on the day of our arrival. Various speeches were given and some of the children performed song and dance routines. We were extremely impressed by the quality of these performances - especially an Indian dance routine performed by Nitika and Puja - 2 of the girls we'd got to know in the slum. Paula gave a speech and we were asked to perform a song which we'd prepared for earlier. We'd been asked to do something non-religious for this occasion, hadn't really had any time to practice and had struggled to think of anything we were all familiar with. Apparently the previous team to have visited, in a similar predicament, had done "The Wheels on the Bus" and it had gone down fine! Accordingly we decided to do "If You're Happy and You Know it"! After the quality of some of the other performances though, we felt a bit silly performing this, but no-one seemed to mind too much although there were a few strange looks I think!
After this we went back into the resource centre and spent a long time saying goodbye to the children and taking photos. It was all very emotional with at least one of our team ending up in tears. The kids kept asking us if we were going to come back and getting replies like, "maybe" and "you never know"! It would be great to go back at some point - maybe I will - but India is a long way away and an expensive place to get to and there other things I would like to do with my life and my days off work in future!
Later in the afternoon we tried to go shopping - I say "tried" because getting to where you want to go in India, especially if you're a tourist and it involves shopping, seems to be no mean feat! We ended up at 2 emporiums we didn't really want to go to and didn't buy very much although I did get a rural Indian scene, hand-painted on black cloth which I was quite pleased with. I'll save the rest of the details of our shopping trip for another blog entry on this subject!
Friday (28th) was "Inaugaration Day" - this consisted of a ceremony in the slum, celebrating the completion of all our work on the resource centre! There was a lot more to it than we were expecting. A large tent was erected at the entrance to the slum and one of the Delhi government ministers was invited to witness the occasion. Paula (our team leader) was declared "guest of honour", and we were all seated on a platform inside the tent and draped with garlands of flowers as we had been on the day of our arrival. Various speeches were given and some of the children performed song and dance routines. We were extremely impressed by the quality of these performances - especially an Indian dance routine performed by Nitika and Puja - 2 of the girls we'd got to know in the slum. Paula gave a speech and we were asked to perform a song which we'd prepared for earlier. We'd been asked to do something non-religious for this occasion, hadn't really had any time to practice and had struggled to think of anything we were all familiar with. Apparently the previous team to have visited, in a similar predicament, had done "The Wheels on the Bus" and it had gone down fine! Accordingly we decided to do "If You're Happy and You Know it"! After the quality of some of the other performances though, we felt a bit silly performing this, but no-one seemed to mind too much although there were a few strange looks I think!
After this we went back into the resource centre and spent a long time saying goodbye to the children and taking photos. It was all very emotional with at least one of our team ending up in tears. The kids kept asking us if we were going to come back and getting replies like, "maybe" and "you never know"! It would be great to go back at some point - maybe I will - but India is a long way away and an expensive place to get to and there other things I would like to do with my life and my days off work in future!
Later in the afternoon we tried to go shopping - I say "tried" because getting to where you want to go in India, especially if you're a tourist and it involves shopping, seems to be no mean feat! We ended up at 2 emporiums we didn't really want to go to and didn't buy very much although I did get a rural Indian scene, hand-painted on black cloth which I was quite pleased with. I'll save the rest of the details of our shopping trip for another blog entry on this subject!
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Catching up
Haven't been able to get to a computer for nearly a week now due to lack of time and lack of free computers at the YMCA.
Have to try and catch up very quickly as we have a team meeting in 25 mins and then I'm for an early bed. Had a very long day yesterday and we're catching a plane home in the early hours of Saturday morning so not much time for sleep tomorrow night.
Mussoorie was great, plus we saw a lot of Indian life on the 10 and a half hour bus journey there! Very busy roads, mostly single carriageway and full of ox carts carrying sugar cane to the refineries, plus all sorts of other things. Hence a very slow journey full of lots of hairy overtaking manoeuvres as is the norm in India! Mussoorie itself is in the foothills of the Himalayas with some beautiful views, plus we visited a large waterfall with a cable car ride to the bottom, which is a very busy Indian tourist attraction. We were the only white people there and several Indians asked to have their photos taken with us!
On Monday we were back in Anna Nagar slum again, doing some more painting work on the resource centre. The murals we've been asked to paint are coming along great - we've all discovered hidden artistic talents which we didn't realise we had!
On Tuesday afternoon, we did some songs and games with some of the children from the slum. I think they were all from the Bal Mandal - the children's group which looks after lane hygiene and various other community concerns. I had to teach 20 - 30 children - far more than I was expecting - how to make an Origami flapping bird! Amazingly, with some considerable help most of them got there and were pretty pleased with their creations. The down side though, is that the birds wear out fairly quickly after a lot of use - the paper tears and the wings stop flapping so there were a few disappointed children. Unfortunately I didn't have time to teach them well enough so they would remember how to do it again. :(
On Wednesday we visited the Taj Mahal, which was awesome. We also went to the Red Fort which is also in Agra, just across the river from the Taj Mahal. We left Delhi at 7am and got home again at midnight after a 5 hour bus drive in each direction.
Today we were back in the slum again, finishing off our creations and tidying up a bit. We also went for another walk around the slum and were invited into some more houses and asked to pray for a couple of the women we met. In the afternoon we did some more songs and games with the kids and I did a very short talk for the children about the message of Easter. They weren't sure what day Easter was (it was last Sunday, the day after the Hindu festival of Holi), but apart from that they seemed to know the Easter story about as well as I did! I asked them what happened to a Hindu after they died, expecting them to talk about reincarnation, but the first answer was that they burned the body, then got rid of the ashes, then had a 7 day mourning period (or something - I can't remember all the details), and eventually we got to, "and then we go to heaven" - which wasn't the typical Hindu answer I was expecting!
We've seen a lot of desparate poverty over the last few days and the worst of it certainly hasn't been in Anna Nagar. Anna Nagar consists of cramped ramshackle dwellings, it smells, there are lots of flies, but it has drainage, a clean water supply and electricity, and the people have access to basic medical care and education. Elsewhere we've seen people living on rubbish heaps, picking through rubbish, sleeping on streets, begging and doing anything they can to extract money from richer Indians or from tourists. We've been advised that it's generally best not to give money to beggars as many of them are professionals and involved in or victims of organised crime and if you give to one you will likely get mobbed by many more. None of us have felt entirely comfortable with this I don't think but we've also all felt overwhelmed by the need and not known how best to respond to it so we've tended to shut it out rather than to try and engage except with the people we're specifically here to help. I'm still not sure whether this is the best policy but it certainly seems like the easiest one at the moment...
Have to try and catch up very quickly as we have a team meeting in 25 mins and then I'm for an early bed. Had a very long day yesterday and we're catching a plane home in the early hours of Saturday morning so not much time for sleep tomorrow night.
Mussoorie was great, plus we saw a lot of Indian life on the 10 and a half hour bus journey there! Very busy roads, mostly single carriageway and full of ox carts carrying sugar cane to the refineries, plus all sorts of other things. Hence a very slow journey full of lots of hairy overtaking manoeuvres as is the norm in India! Mussoorie itself is in the foothills of the Himalayas with some beautiful views, plus we visited a large waterfall with a cable car ride to the bottom, which is a very busy Indian tourist attraction. We were the only white people there and several Indians asked to have their photos taken with us!
On Monday we were back in Anna Nagar slum again, doing some more painting work on the resource centre. The murals we've been asked to paint are coming along great - we've all discovered hidden artistic talents which we didn't realise we had!
On Tuesday afternoon, we did some songs and games with some of the children from the slum. I think they were all from the Bal Mandal - the children's group which looks after lane hygiene and various other community concerns. I had to teach 20 - 30 children - far more than I was expecting - how to make an Origami flapping bird! Amazingly, with some considerable help most of them got there and were pretty pleased with their creations. The down side though, is that the birds wear out fairly quickly after a lot of use - the paper tears and the wings stop flapping so there were a few disappointed children. Unfortunately I didn't have time to teach them well enough so they would remember how to do it again. :(
On Wednesday we visited the Taj Mahal, which was awesome. We also went to the Red Fort which is also in Agra, just across the river from the Taj Mahal. We left Delhi at 7am and got home again at midnight after a 5 hour bus drive in each direction.
Today we were back in the slum again, finishing off our creations and tidying up a bit. We also went for another walk around the slum and were invited into some more houses and asked to pray for a couple of the women we met. In the afternoon we did some more songs and games with the kids and I did a very short talk for the children about the message of Easter. They weren't sure what day Easter was (it was last Sunday, the day after the Hindu festival of Holi), but apart from that they seemed to know the Easter story about as well as I did! I asked them what happened to a Hindu after they died, expecting them to talk about reincarnation, but the first answer was that they burned the body, then got rid of the ashes, then had a 7 day mourning period (or something - I can't remember all the details), and eventually we got to, "and then we go to heaven" - which wasn't the typical Hindu answer I was expecting!
We've seen a lot of desparate poverty over the last few days and the worst of it certainly hasn't been in Anna Nagar. Anna Nagar consists of cramped ramshackle dwellings, it smells, there are lots of flies, but it has drainage, a clean water supply and electricity, and the people have access to basic medical care and education. Elsewhere we've seen people living on rubbish heaps, picking through rubbish, sleeping on streets, begging and doing anything they can to extract money from richer Indians or from tourists. We've been advised that it's generally best not to give money to beggars as many of them are professionals and involved in or victims of organised crime and if you give to one you will likely get mobbed by many more. None of us have felt entirely comfortable with this I don't think but we've also all felt overwhelmed by the need and not known how best to respond to it so we've tended to shut it out rather than to try and engage except with the people we're specifically here to help. I'm still not sure whether this is the best policy but it certainly seems like the easiest one at the moment...
Friday, 21 March 2008
Going to Mussoorie
Yesterday (Thursday), half our team were struck down with diarrhoea and/or sickness and were unable to visit the slum. By the end of the day everyone was affected apart from Dave and Duncan. Dave's been hit today so Duncan's the only one to have survived! I was a lot better yesterday having taken some antibiotics provided by Asha.
The plan today was to set off at 7am to Mussoorie for a weekend break. This is about 290 km away or anywhere between 6 and 12 hours drive depending on conditions. We're expecting the roads to be busy because as well as being Easter, this weekend is also Holi - an important Hindu festival. At 6:15am though, we got a knock on our door from Paula (our team leader) to say she'd decided to cancel the trip as there didn't seem to be enough people well enough to travel. However, after breakfast and having gathered the troops we discovered that most people were making a fairly good recovery. As it currently stands, 10 of us will be heading off in about 20 minutes time. The other 4 (Dave, Paula, Liz and Hazel) will spend the weekend in Delhi, trying to keep out of the way of the Holi festivities!
Yesterday we went back into the slum and spent the morning doing some more painting. We've painted the walls of 3 of the rooms in the resource centre - a fairly basic but functional building used for a variety of purposes, e.g. as a meeting place for the women's and children's groups. On Wednesday, those who made it to the slum made a start on the murals we've been asked to create. In the room I'm working on we have a space theme. Yesterday I painted a giant multi-coloured space rocket which seems to have gone down very well with the children and the rest of the team!
In the afternoon we joined in an Asha prayer meeting. These are organised by Asha for anyone in the slum who wants to join in. There were maybe about 50 of us altogether including us and the women and children. To start with, Felix (our guide) strummed away on the guitar for a bit while the women and children were arriving. Jono (one of our team) banged away on a double ended bongo-thing which had appeared from somewhere. Then one of the girls got hold of the bongo and it suddenly came to life! The women and children worshipped God for a while in Hindi and we joined in as best we could, mostly by clapping! Then one by one, some of the women gave testimonies of the things God had done in their lives which mostly consisted of answered prayers in response to illnesses. Afterwards we discovered that most of those who come to the prayer meetings are not actually "Christians" - but they believe in Jesus and worship him alongside their Hindu gods. Asha is not directly involved in preaching the gospel to these women but Asha does have relationships with various missionaries who visit the slums from time to time in a more explicitly evangelistic capacity. We couldn't deny the work that God is doing in these women's lives, but it does seem a shame that at this time most of them are still hanging onto their Hindu gods.
The plan today was to set off at 7am to Mussoorie for a weekend break. This is about 290 km away or anywhere between 6 and 12 hours drive depending on conditions. We're expecting the roads to be busy because as well as being Easter, this weekend is also Holi - an important Hindu festival. At 6:15am though, we got a knock on our door from Paula (our team leader) to say she'd decided to cancel the trip as there didn't seem to be enough people well enough to travel. However, after breakfast and having gathered the troops we discovered that most people were making a fairly good recovery. As it currently stands, 10 of us will be heading off in about 20 minutes time. The other 4 (Dave, Paula, Liz and Hazel) will spend the weekend in Delhi, trying to keep out of the way of the Holi festivities!
Yesterday we went back into the slum and spent the morning doing some more painting. We've painted the walls of 3 of the rooms in the resource centre - a fairly basic but functional building used for a variety of purposes, e.g. as a meeting place for the women's and children's groups. On Wednesday, those who made it to the slum made a start on the murals we've been asked to create. In the room I'm working on we have a space theme. Yesterday I painted a giant multi-coloured space rocket which seems to have gone down very well with the children and the rest of the team!
In the afternoon we joined in an Asha prayer meeting. These are organised by Asha for anyone in the slum who wants to join in. There were maybe about 50 of us altogether including us and the women and children. To start with, Felix (our guide) strummed away on the guitar for a bit while the women and children were arriving. Jono (one of our team) banged away on a double ended bongo-thing which had appeared from somewhere. Then one of the girls got hold of the bongo and it suddenly came to life! The women and children worshipped God for a while in Hindi and we joined in as best we could, mostly by clapping! Then one by one, some of the women gave testimonies of the things God had done in their lives which mostly consisted of answered prayers in response to illnesses. Afterwards we discovered that most of those who come to the prayer meetings are not actually "Christians" - but they believe in Jesus and worship him alongside their Hindu gods. Asha is not directly involved in preaching the gospel to these women but Asha does have relationships with various missionaries who visit the slums from time to time in a more explicitly evangelistic capacity. We couldn't deny the work that God is doing in these women's lives, but it does seem a shame that at this time most of them are still hanging onto their Hindu gods.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Delhi Belly!
Today I have the runs so am resting up and taking it easy for the day! It's given me a chance to catch up on my blog from yesterday. Emma's also not feeling too great - she seems to have a bit of a chest infection - and is up in our room trying to sleep it off.
I seem to be spending a lot of time on the internet. Fortunately it's only 10 rupees (about 12 pence) for 15 minutes! I think I'll be changing my google password when I get home though - I don't think these PCs are very secure!
I'd like to write more about our experiences but I've covered most of the important stuff so far I think and have been on the PC for nearly an hour now so I think I'll just leave it there and write another update (if I can fit one in) tomorrow.
I seem to be spending a lot of time on the internet. Fortunately it's only 10 rupees (about 12 pence) for 15 minutes! I think I'll be changing my google password when I get home though - I don't think these PCs are very secure!
I'd like to write more about our experiences but I've covered most of the important stuff so far I think and have been on the PC for nearly an hour now so I think I'll just leave it there and write another update (if I can fit one in) tomorrow.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Anna Nagar
Today we were taken to Anna Nagar slum - where we will be working - and introduced to some of the people.
Asha have been working in Anna Nagar for a number of years and as a result conditions have improved significantly. The first thing I noticed (others also commented on this) when we entered the slum was that it felt very peaceful.
[By comparison, the slum we walked through briefly the day before had been manic. There just seemed to be people everywhere and we were followed by swarms of children who all wanted their pictures taken. It had all been very overwhelming although very friendly, but I did discover afterwards I'd been the butt of a few "jokes" - the children like to shake your hand but some will offer the left hand to see if they can catch out an ignorant westerner - the left hand is considered dirty for reasons I won't go into but you can probably work it out!]
By contrast however, the slum we went to today seemed very peaceful. Still lots of people and they still showed an interest in us and were very friendly but most of them were happy to carry on going about their business. They made us feel very welcome without making us feel overwhelmed.
We were welcomed into the resource centre and once again draped with marigold garlands! This time we met the Mahila Mandal (the women's group - we were told there were 2 in this slum) and also the Bal Mandal - the children's group who also have responsibility in the slum for maintaining standards of cleanliness and looking out for the needs of other slum dwellers. The Mahila Mandal and the Bal Mandal are organised on a democratic system, with an elected president, secretary and treasurer and have various responsibilities. The Mahila Mandal seems to be mostly made up of Lane Volunteers - each volunteer is responsible for her lane in the slum, which usually consists of about 25 dwellings, which as far as I can tell generally equates to about 150 people. The Mahila Mandal also includes a Community Health Volunteer, who is trained and provided with free basic medical supplies by Asha. She is allowed to charge 2 rupees per patient - about 2.4 pence - which she is allowed to keep for herself as a salary. This is capped at 125 rupees - or about one pound fifty - but I'm not sure over what time period. The Bal Mandal have similar responsibilities to the women, e.g. looking after lanes, making sure standards of cleanliness are maintained and looking out for anyone in the community who is particularly struggling to take care of themselves. We will hopefully learn a bit more about their activities in the next few days. The children go to a government school in the mornings then come back to the slum and carry out their duties as well as receiving some supplementary education from Asha as they are only able to go the poorest and least well equipped schools.
One of the most powerful impressions so far has been how happy everyone seems to be! Although still living in squalor by normal western standards, their situation has improved drastically through the work of Asha. More importantly though, these people have developed a sense of self esteem that they didn't have before and have learnt to live and work together in very tight-knit community! There was such a strong sense of love and compassion between all the women and children we met. They all seemed to look out for each other and seemed very pleased to see us. They all seemed extremely positive and proud of their achievements and I didn't see any bickering between any of the children.
After we'd been introduced, we set to work painting 3 of the rooms we will be working on. None of us are trained decorators but we did the best we could and several of the children were allowed to join in which they seemed to enjoy! Juni, a 13 year old lad (although he looks younger), took it on himself to try and teach some of us Hindi. He had enough English to make himself pretty well understood and would repeat a phrase to us in English and in Hindi and get us to repeat it back to him. I was rubbish! I could remember a phrase for a couple of minutes and then it would just disappear out of my head! I had nothing else to relate it to and I couldn't see it written down - to me it was just a collection of sounds and I found it extroardinarily difficult to hang on to! The heat and still being quite tired also probably didn't help!
After lunch we split into 2 groups - one group stayed to do some activities with the children and the other group - my group - was given a tour of a small part of the slum, during which some of the Mahila Mandal invited us into their houses. Anna Nagar is unusual in that with the help of Asha the residents have been successful in gaining land rights for themselves, which means that unlike in many of the slums, they can't be kicked off the land at a moment's notice. Because of this they've been able to build more permanent dwellings for themselves, using brick and plaster, mostly rooved with a mixture of corrugated iron and plastic. The layout of the slum is very ad hoc - the "lanes" twist and turn all over the place and it's not obvious where one starts and another ends. The lanes are very narrow and the rooves low. There are low-hanging (insulated - at least the ones I noticed) electricity cables everywhere. It's not an easy place for a tall clumsy person such as myself to negotiate! The "houses" tend to be basically square or rectangular, but are also pretty ad-hoc. The first house we visited - and this is fairly typical, had one bed in it and maybe enough floor space for 2 or 3 more. 6 people lived there! - a woman, her husband and 4 children including 2 late teenage daughters. High birth rate is a big problem in most of the slums in Delhi, but Asha have found that when people are given access to proper medical facilities, and as their circumstances and their self esteem improves, the birth rate tends to fall quite sharply. In Anna Nagar now, most new families stop at 2 or 3 children at most.
The women take very good care of their houses - everywhere we visited was very clean and tidy. When you're living in such a small space you have to organise it well to make the most of it! Everyone was very welcoming and enthusiastically told us their stories about their role in the slum and the difference that Asha has made to them and to the community. It felt like such a privilege to be there - in a place that is so poor economically and yet seems so rich in terms of human warmth and compassion!
Asha have been working in Anna Nagar for a number of years and as a result conditions have improved significantly. The first thing I noticed (others also commented on this) when we entered the slum was that it felt very peaceful.
[By comparison, the slum we walked through briefly the day before had been manic. There just seemed to be people everywhere and we were followed by swarms of children who all wanted their pictures taken. It had all been very overwhelming although very friendly, but I did discover afterwards I'd been the butt of a few "jokes" - the children like to shake your hand but some will offer the left hand to see if they can catch out an ignorant westerner - the left hand is considered dirty for reasons I won't go into but you can probably work it out!]
By contrast however, the slum we went to today seemed very peaceful. Still lots of people and they still showed an interest in us and were very friendly but most of them were happy to carry on going about their business. They made us feel very welcome without making us feel overwhelmed.
We were welcomed into the resource centre and once again draped with marigold garlands! This time we met the Mahila Mandal (the women's group - we were told there were 2 in this slum) and also the Bal Mandal - the children's group who also have responsibility in the slum for maintaining standards of cleanliness and looking out for the needs of other slum dwellers. The Mahila Mandal and the Bal Mandal are organised on a democratic system, with an elected president, secretary and treasurer and have various responsibilities. The Mahila Mandal seems to be mostly made up of Lane Volunteers - each volunteer is responsible for her lane in the slum, which usually consists of about 25 dwellings, which as far as I can tell generally equates to about 150 people. The Mahila Mandal also includes a Community Health Volunteer, who is trained and provided with free basic medical supplies by Asha. She is allowed to charge 2 rupees per patient - about 2.4 pence - which she is allowed to keep for herself as a salary. This is capped at 125 rupees - or about one pound fifty - but I'm not sure over what time period. The Bal Mandal have similar responsibilities to the women, e.g. looking after lanes, making sure standards of cleanliness are maintained and looking out for anyone in the community who is particularly struggling to take care of themselves. We will hopefully learn a bit more about their activities in the next few days. The children go to a government school in the mornings then come back to the slum and carry out their duties as well as receiving some supplementary education from Asha as they are only able to go the poorest and least well equipped schools.
One of the most powerful impressions so far has been how happy everyone seems to be! Although still living in squalor by normal western standards, their situation has improved drastically through the work of Asha. More importantly though, these people have developed a sense of self esteem that they didn't have before and have learnt to live and work together in very tight-knit community! There was such a strong sense of love and compassion between all the women and children we met. They all seemed to look out for each other and seemed very pleased to see us. They all seemed extremely positive and proud of their achievements and I didn't see any bickering between any of the children.
After we'd been introduced, we set to work painting 3 of the rooms we will be working on. None of us are trained decorators but we did the best we could and several of the children were allowed to join in which they seemed to enjoy! Juni, a 13 year old lad (although he looks younger), took it on himself to try and teach some of us Hindi. He had enough English to make himself pretty well understood and would repeat a phrase to us in English and in Hindi and get us to repeat it back to him. I was rubbish! I could remember a phrase for a couple of minutes and then it would just disappear out of my head! I had nothing else to relate it to and I couldn't see it written down - to me it was just a collection of sounds and I found it extroardinarily difficult to hang on to! The heat and still being quite tired also probably didn't help!
After lunch we split into 2 groups - one group stayed to do some activities with the children and the other group - my group - was given a tour of a small part of the slum, during which some of the Mahila Mandal invited us into their houses. Anna Nagar is unusual in that with the help of Asha the residents have been successful in gaining land rights for themselves, which means that unlike in many of the slums, they can't be kicked off the land at a moment's notice. Because of this they've been able to build more permanent dwellings for themselves, using brick and plaster, mostly rooved with a mixture of corrugated iron and plastic. The layout of the slum is very ad hoc - the "lanes" twist and turn all over the place and it's not obvious where one starts and another ends. The lanes are very narrow and the rooves low. There are low-hanging (insulated - at least the ones I noticed) electricity cables everywhere. It's not an easy place for a tall clumsy person such as myself to negotiate! The "houses" tend to be basically square or rectangular, but are also pretty ad-hoc. The first house we visited - and this is fairly typical, had one bed in it and maybe enough floor space for 2 or 3 more. 6 people lived there! - a woman, her husband and 4 children including 2 late teenage daughters. High birth rate is a big problem in most of the slums in Delhi, but Asha have found that when people are given access to proper medical facilities, and as their circumstances and their self esteem improves, the birth rate tends to fall quite sharply. In Anna Nagar now, most new families stop at 2 or 3 children at most.
The women take very good care of their houses - everywhere we visited was very clean and tidy. When you're living in such a small space you have to organise it well to make the most of it! Everyone was very welcoming and enthusiastically told us their stories about their role in the slum and the difference that Asha has made to them and to the community. It felt like such a privilege to be there - in a place that is so poor economically and yet seems so rich in terms of human warmth and compassion!
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