Christmas comes to Parijat

Over 5000 miles from home, but the sense of Christmas was very strong for us this week as we celebrated with the children of Parijat.  The festivities were organised not by us, but by ‘Sarala Birla Gyan Jyoti’ – a social development club run by students from Years 11 & 12 of Guwahati’s best school, located on the north side of the Brahmaputra. The club has had a relationship with Parijat for a couple of years now and its socially responsible teenage members regularly run sessions for their underprivileged counterparts.

This time they brought Christmas to Parijat. This meant forgiving a few word changes in Jingle Bells and difficult pronunciations of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer concentrating instead on enjoying the party. The celebrations themselves were very nice for the children and rather moving for us.

India is unusual, but rather magnificent in the celebration of all the major religions no matter how large the following is. Despite the Hindu majority, national holidays are doled out for Eid and Christmas and everybody seems to revel in joining the party. The mantra of inclusion and acceptance is one the rest of the world would do well to follow.

 

Unsurprisingly, Parijat’s children keenly anticipated the eventual sweets and chocolates within Santa’s bag rather than any long tales of the nativity or other spiritual messages. Being Indian, they also really enjoyed singing and dancing along to the Christmas songs and making sure that we were also strutting our stuff (‘O’come all ye faithful’ was a little difficult to ‘get down to’ admittedly).

The sight of the children enjoying themselves was great to see however the scene was most moving due to the marked difference between the children from Guwahati’s best school and the children of Parijat. The confidence brimmed in those children visiting – their English was superb and they had no problems approaching and politely chatting with us, something none of the children from Parijat had felt comfortable doing. It was easy to see how the future would transpire as a result and although Parijat offers some hope, there is still so much to do.

Less moving, but nonetheless shocking in its obviousness was the physical difference between the children. The build of those children from the prosperous families was so much more solid than that of the children from Parijat. Doubtless, some of this is a result of tribal heritage, but much is still as a result of malnutrition and lack of dietary awareness. The children are not starving by any means, but the difference between rich and poor can easily by measured by the waistline. An investment in a ‘Weight Watchers’ India might be a good long term bet as the country gets richer.

While on the subject of getting richer and this being the season of wishing good will and prosperity, if anybody would like to make a contribution to Parijat however small, then they can do so at:

https://omprakash.org/DonationForm?go=DonationForm&p=26

Please make sure that ‘Parijat Academy’ is selected as the beneficiary in the ‘Apply to’ box. The children would be very appreciative!

Garbhanga

Last Sunday we went to Garbhanga a village on the Assam-Meghalaya border approximately 17kms from the school.

We arrived at Parijat around 9.15am (late as our useless driver never turned up) in order to meet up with Uttam who had organised a 'trekker' for the trip. For the uninformed, a 'trekker' is a Tata Jeep that normally spends its life ploughing up and down the main bypass from the airport to major locations around Guwahati. The objective in these services is not only to get you from one destination to another, but also to try and break the Guinness world record for most people in a four wheel drive vehicle. As uncomfortable as it may sound these vehicles are the Rolls-Royce of the roads here, being a vastly superior alternative to clapped out buses, dusty autos or the heat stroke inducing walk.

It seemed that these jeep contraptions must not work without at least 10 people in them, as Uttam had invited two teachers, a couple local interested people, a reporter from the Calcutta Telegraph and us. The full complement being made up by the compulsory three workers that every public service vehicle in India needs a complement of three workers -

a 'pilot' (their term, not ours) – though given the suspension was knackered we did technically spend much time in the air

 an engineer, trained it appears at the ‘Dan Scott’ school of motor mechanics (he walks around the jeep kicking the tyres and hitting stuff with a wrench)

 and finally a signalman, he actually spent most of his time putting his hand out of the window and waved other vehicles out the way – though I think normally he also collects the 5 or 10 rupee fair when these vehicles make their airport run

And so we were off - onto the jungle road which was quite frankly not a road, but a pitiful dirt and stone track which wound its way around the hills. Ironically rather like an anaconda or python this snake like road crushes the hills and the communities that live upon them as its condition prevents anybody from holding down a regular job in the city or taking up a place at a school. It is a horrible thought, but people die because funds to hard top these roads find their way into government ministers and workers pockets. There is no chance an ambulance could get to the tribes that live in the forest should they need one - nor could emergency services mount an effective response in a natural disaster (an earthquake destroyed much of this area around a hundred years ago). The Assam state government sleeps soundly at night though as with (i) no electricity and (ii) no communications (there is no mobile coverage), they can claim that nobody ever seems to call upon their services.

Garghanga Forest highway

About 10 minutes in, Uttam pointed out the old ammunitions dump that the Indian army kept a little way into the forest - the road up to here used to be hard topped but the whole place blew up 30 years ago and since then the road has been left to fend for itself against the continual onslaughts of annual monsoons followed by immense heat and herds of wild elephants rampaging through the forests.

It took about an hour and half of being slung from side to side of the cramped Tata to get to the first village. En-route we passed through cool, shady jungles and beautiful scenic valleys packed with fertile rice fields that attracted and keep the tribes living here. This is the land also belongs to the Elephant with signs of their presence everywhere - footprints, large piles of dung and wooden watchtowers placed high in the treetops. The locals here have good relations with the animals – elephants are treated with respect and are largely herded harmlessly away from the crop rather than being feared and attacked.

Parijat has setup three small schools in this area and the first is at Garbhanga - which is the largest village in the area, seemingly because it is the closest to the city and therefore, is a trade hub. The school here is placed opposite the government primary school and caters for the children who come out of class 4 at said institution. The closest alternative for these children is back 17km down that tortuous road where we left Guwahati’s highway and joined the jungle track. It’s three to four hours by foot and impassable by vehicle for much of the year (not that the families around here could afford the 4WD needed). So before Parijat, the kids just didn’t go to school after class 4.

Not that the schooling up to class 4 is up to much. Government schools in India are renowned for not doing the job they ought - this school has over 70 children and just one teacher - when they come to Parijat they have go back to the 'ABC's' they should have learnt in class 1. Parijat's class (5, 6 & 7) have about 20 students and one teacher. The building (hmm check the definition of building as this place is missing three of four walls) is a sad looking bamboo wall, tin roof construction. As we drove away the goats, cows and chickens were inspecting the premises for food.

Garbanga's facilities for Class 5 - 7

The next village was Pahamjila. The bamboo walls and tin roof here was much more substantial and we got to meet many of the children and families who came out to receive charity clothes that Uttam had received from supporters. The families here might not have been starving, but life looked tough. Clothes were dirty, sanitation basic and many older residents use rice beer to hide from the depression. India’s 8-9% economic growth and the glitz and glamour of Bollywood are far removed from these communities.

Children who attend Parijat's centre in Pahamjila

Onto the next village and an even better maintained school - this time with a smart log bridge and bamboo constructed steps made by the students under the management of the school's teacher. This school attracts 50 children from the 0 to 3 km around. Here we witnessed how the government is failing these people - there is a small building in the middle of the village entitled school and post office, built in 1998. However, nobody has seen a schoolteacher or postmaster since the day it was built - it is very possible that somebody, somewhere is getting paid for this job that they are  not doing - but the locals, often illiterate have no knowledge of the Freedom of Information acts or other tools to help hem assert their civil rights.

Parijat's centre at Natun (New) Garbhanga

The Government School / Post Office has not seen a teacher in many years

It was time to head home - on the journey back we saw how the locals do their shopping here. They all travel by foot, motorbike or crammed into the back of a pick up to the market 16kms away near the Pahomi school. We may all be complaining about the omnipresence of supermarkets in the west, but a Tesco metro here would go down a storm.

Working Days

Our days volunteering at Parijat consist of:

(a) Guessing when (or if) our driver will turn up - as the Indian economy explodes - everybody is spending money on cars, but nobody wants to drive themselves. And who can blame them when the roads already resemble a funfair bumper car ride and drivers are so relatively inexpensive (for the middle classes anyway). Unfortunately demand is much higher than supply meaning that drivers can earn three times more than teachers and some (not ours) have annoying little habits like drinking a bottle of rice wine at lunchtime to take off the edge.

(b) Negotiating the traffic to school - its about 14km from door to door, much of which is spent on the wrong side of the road, running red traffic lights or hurtling down country lanes with cows and children just inches away.

Parijat Dairy

(c) Arriving at school, we bid good morning to the small herd of cows in the shed attached to the school campus, remove Tommy (the stinky, adopted street dog who constantly cleans his nether regions) from the school office and set up our computers

(d) Our working day itself is quite varied:

Often we spend hours basically writing Parijat's strategic plan, interspersed either by a brief research session on the internet, kicking Tommy the street dog out of the office, or by a member of Uttam's family bringing us delicious ginger tea, purees or fantastic locally grown rice, home made pickles and vegetables.

Teacher's Workshop

We will normally receive a guest who has read about Parijat in India Today, on the internet or in a Local
paper:

On our first day it was a local representative of Aide et Action (the French version of Action Aid) who we later went to see in Guwahati and gave us a lot of useful information.

A number of headteachers from (private) schools in the area have dropped by to offer free textbooks and other support.

A group from the Asian Institute of Management dropped by to make a documentary about Uttam and offer him an 'Inspiration' prize in their forthcoming celebration of local social and business innovators

CNN's team dropped in to film the school - one of whom seemed to be some kind of 'fixer' (the type western journalists pick up in foreign climes to help them out). His colleagues assured us that who knows every policeman, celebrity, politician and crook (those last two might be the same thing here) in Assam. He apparently can sort out any problem we have in India's NE (I don't think we want the sort of problem he can fix).

We have also gone to meet people:

One day we went to UNICEF, situated in the UN's  heavily fortified complex next to Guwahati's
passport office. We were a little disappointed to be honest. We only went to ask if we could have a copy of the handbook issued by UNICEF explaining the new 'Right to Education' act. The communications officer who met us only seemed to want to put us off - stating that things change and the booklet (published in June 2010) might be out of date, that the government was doing all it could - she didn't seem to get the point that the 502 children at Parijat proved the government was not doing all it could. It seemed that as soon as she had ascertained that we were not part of larger charity she could not really be bothered with us.It seemed to us that rather than aligning itself with political bodies, UNICEF should be focused on helping organisations at the grassroots level, or sorting out why government schools are not doing their job.

ASEB School

We went to see another school - this time paid for by the Assam State Electricity Board. Here the teachers earn multiples of those that work at Parijat. The school was well run, but like many others here the headteacher assumed that we work for a NGO / charity and that we have buckets of money to hand out - we informed her that even if we did then Parijat would be our first priority. However, we did not leave the school empty handed as one teacher, who on realising that Monali had an equally beautiful and charming (Monali's edit) sister in DC, was keen to give us a marriage proposal for her son! Monali did mention the possibility of being related (same Family names), but the teacher was unfazed!!

We normally end the day by playing our favourite  game of 'Find the Driver' (normally playing cricket, chewing paan or hiding in the children's hostel) and then braving the journey home.

As we finish at 3 or 4 pm - we try and work on our return, but a combination of i/ crappy slow internet, ii/ perpetual relative visiting and iii/ rampant mosquitos makes it quite difficult at times.

Questions for Indians

1. Is the working day disturbed by eating and chatting or the eating and chatting day disturbed by working?

2. How can you arrive at a wedding and possibly recognise your second cousin's wife's brother in laws mother?

3. Is there any chance you could stop that awful hacking noise before you spit - thanks.

4. You do realise that the camera on your mobile phone was not desinged solely to take pictures of the sweaty white man?

5. Please turn around....You don't really know how a dual carriagway works, do you?

Introduction to Parijat Academy

We have been planning to spend some time volunteering for 12 months or more. We knew we wanted to work in India (because of Monali's roots) and had originally thought of working as volunteer teachers in a Himalayan school (on the Nepal / India border). However, as we were waiting for Monali's citizenship to finalise we were stuck in the UK until October and with end of year school exams occurring here in India during early December it would not have been helpful for two bumbling idiots like us trying to teach while the children were revising for their important exams.

Uttam with the children of Parijat

So we looked elsewhere focusing on Assam as i) Monali speaks the lingo and ii) if we worked out of Guwahati then we were assured of a decent place to stay (believe me 'hostel' accommodation provided to most volunteers is pretty basic, especially the bathroom -  lets just say at the grand age of 33/34 I'm not sure how long I can maintain the squat position - now I know why yoga is so popular in India!!).

Thanks to the magic of Google we discovered the Parijat Academy on the www.omprakash.org website.

Omprakash is an organisation which tries to link volunteers to needy organisations and is ideal if you are trying to avoid the normal 'volunteer' experience (or glorified donation) which it involves paying 500 quid and rocking up to a location in the middle of the jungle with a load of other backpackers for a week and building a treehouse or something similar to keep you occupied and out of the way of those people actually doing something constructive.

A new concrete classroom costs around £7k or $11k - about the same as the school's annual running costs!

Parijat Academy was started by a man called Uttam Teron in 2003 as a one classroom, four student school. Indeed the initial classroom (now kitchen) still stands outside one of the more substantial new concrete buildings. He has gradually built up the school's roster to over 500 children (though this being India, many often do not come to school) with 19 teachers (including himself) and 10+ classrooms. He provides free education to the children in the community and tries to address those specific children which the government have failed (i.e. drop outs and children passed through the education system as teachers can not be bothered).  His ultimate goal is to improve the life of the community, concentrating on women and children, by also providing a healthcare centre, a disability centre, adult literacy and vocational programmes.

Uttam is a passionate man, full of ideas and energy, but remarkably humble. His work is regularly recognised regionally, has featured nationally (Uttam was voted one of India's 35 youth icons in India Today magazine http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/113864/Cover%20Story/uttam-teron-right-vision.html) and  now potentially even internationally with the Indian CNN affiliate visiting during the past three days to film his work for the 'Real Heroes' programme (http://www.cnnibnrealheroes.com/) - his award will be presented by the chairman of Reliance Industries March 2011 (Reliance is a huge conglomerate here with like many Indian businesses interests in everything).

In fact one of Uttam's biggest problems (aside from lack of funding) is that he has so much energy and so many good ideas - he finds it difficult to prioritise, what to work on next and as he has had no exposure to techniques used in the modern business world he struggles to convey a structured approach to developing the academy.Until now he has been reliant on individual donations to run the organisation but is constantly under pressure with dwindling resources.

Therefore, we have agreed to help Uttam create a strategic plan for Parijat. We have spent many hours discussing all of the ideas he has, some ideas we have generated and the results of multiple Internet searches for similar organisations, government funding, legal obligations, CSR funding...there are countless resources out there, but with no telephone line we are reliant on one USB 'broadband' (well its broadband until around noon when the rest of the city comes online) connection.

Hopefully we will get the strategic plan finished in good time so that we can spend the remainder of our time here trying to implement some of the ideas. The school is in desperate need of new infrastructure (classrooms and a hostel), a good management structure and some more formalised processes - I think we are going to be doing a lot of this remotely for a few years to come!!

Look how natural we are with kids......

We will try and update a little more regularly now - with some more stories about the organisation, the local community (we travel to a tribal village tomorrow in the jungle!), children's stories, future plans and some of the interesting people we have met!

We will also let you know how you can help if you are interested!!

Back to Work

A little while since we last updated the blog, but we haven’t given up writing yet.

We are now in India having spent a week with Dan’s mum in the UK (eating delicious roast dinners for the last time in 6+ months! Thanks mum) and a weekend courtesy of Craig and Karen in their lovely new home. Thanks so much for the hospitality and chance to prove that boys are always better at Trivial Pursuit than girls and somewhat less thanks for the new WII addiction guys.

We travelled to India with Virgin and got the last chance to use my Gold Card to get into the clubhouse. The clubhouse (Virgin’s lounge) is the only possible glam perk in any road warrior’s life. Free massages, a three course a la carte meal, wine, cocktails, plenty of goodies to ‘borrow’ and free hi-speed internet (a luxury when you know that you have months of crappy connections ahead). We arrived approx. 6 hours early to take full advantage! We looked the part too in our ‘functional’ clothing and walking shoes! Not sure the average backpacker starts their journey this way.

Delhi’s new airport met expectations in that the baggage belt constantly kept freezing. Had we not been knackered we could have been amused by the repetitive process of engineer coming over, moving a bag to unstick the belt, walking away, belt shifts two more bags, belt sticks,  wait three minutes for the engineer to notice..... then repeat the process for 199 passenger bags....welcome to India!!

The new terminal in Delhi as very nice. First of all (unless you fly budget) no longer do you have to play the lottery of ‘see if I can convince the airport employee that the internal bus (from international to domestic terminal) really needs to leave now if I want to catch a flight that leaves in the next hour’. Secondly, they seem to have done a fairly decent job of the new terminal with a good food hall, WH Smiths and even an M&S! However, the carpet throughout the terminal appears to have been modelled on a 1980’s British high street Indian restaurant (the type most often frequented at about 11.30pm on a Friday night) – I kept looking around for Del-boy.

Guwahati (capital of Assam) had not changed much in the 10 months since we left (still dusty, dirty, smelly and unfeasible busy). However, we didn’t care as 24 hours without sleep meant we dived under the mosquito net and slept for a good 12 hours.

With Uttam Teron, founder of Parijat Academy

We started our volunteering at Parijat Academy last Thursday (18^th) – more about that in the next blog, but you can visit www.parijatacademy.org if you are curious.

Our social life always gets much busier when we get to India – and it always amazes me how people manage to fit in earning a living when there are people to visit, events to attend, and three or four day marriages to celebrate. All of which are made more time consuming by placing a chaotic road system in between.

Our next blog will be dedicated to our volunteer work at the school – it is a heart warming organisation led by a very enthusiastic and impressive man!

So far we have been to...... the opening of an excellent new home entertainment / music centre (Ace music junction http://aceacoustics.co.in/home.htm) courtesy of Monali’s cousin who is a partner in the business – the local news photographers took as many pictures of the white man as they did of the pianos!


A trip to the Zoo (no this is not a sarcastic reference to the Guwahati town centre) with the entire family and maids! Sadly, the conditions are really not that great for the animals.

Gulliver and the Lilliputs at the Zoo

We have also been to a wedding – another lavish affair with plenty of ghee laced treats to give your heart a kicking. The particular highlight (if a little mean) was watching some other poor couple suffer the four or five hours of greeting and feeding distant relatives, long lost friends and other random people off the street. It seems that we are not the only couple in Guwahati to find this experience somewhat torturous – while the groom gratefully grasped and consumed a bottle of water like a man stumbling through a desert, his bride offered us some sweet supari (traditional Indian offering to freshen the breath) along with an attempt at a smile which rather resembled a painful grimace. Unfortunately for this particular couple-this was only their first reception (this one being for the bride’s family and friends). A second reception was to be held at the groom’s house the following day for his friends and family. Didn’t realise how lightly we managed to escape. Wedding fever is mad over here-looks like we have 4 more weddings to attend before we leave but think we might give them a miss as not sure how many more ‘happy’ couples we can bear to see suffering (not to mention they are a little bit boring). 

Greek Islands

TINOS

Tinos - pretty.......boring

Hello everyone-it's Monali writing for the first time. Dan finally got bored of writing the blog so he
decided it was my turn.To be honest,I was quite enjoying doing nothing!

So we left Athens after a few days to head off to Tinos  (a very tiny Greek Island). We had initially picked
this Island for the exact reason of it being small, and we thought we could hang out on the beach, grill fish,
read our books and do absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas.....welcome
to the Island of gail force winds, rain and near freezing temperatures. We were picked up by a lovely Greek
lady named Nikoleta who took us to her guest house (Nikoleta's Rooms) and showed us a very nice room with a very disgusting bathroom. Now I am sure every woman will agree with me-it does not matter where you sleep, but a clean bathroom is essential. Luckily while another room was available, it did not seem to come with any heating. So i spent the first night sleeping with about 5 layers of clothes. This is crazy-I thought Greece was warm!!!!!!

Enjoying the Greek warmth!

We awoke the nex morning feeling more positive and decided to take a walk, only to find myself literally swept off my feet when I stepped out (unfortunately it was not Dan, but the wind that was responsible). The next few days were pretty uneventful as we tried not to go out at all due to the cold and got very, very, very bored. There are only so many books that one can read and we eventually tried sleeping for long periods of time just to get through the days (and to think some of you were jealous).

The only interesting information regarding Tinos is the fact that it houses one of the most famous icons in Greece in the Church of Panagia. The icon was found in 1822 and there are mass pilgramages from all over Greece to come to this Church. The church is situated at the top of hill and there is a rubber strip down the side or the road so that worshippers can crawl up to the church on their knees. Dan and I took the heathen approach and simply walked up to the church only to find out that no-one is actually allowed to see this supposed icon- instead you have to pray to some golden doors in the knowledge that the icon sits safely behind them. Call us cynics but we were really left wondering how special this major attraction is considering the following: it was found around 100 yrs ago; no-one will actually state the age of the icon; it appears to draw alot of tourist business that the island would otherwise not have and it was found on a remote Greek Island fairly far removed from where JC used to hang out.

Crawling on hands and knees to the Icon

Oh, one other interesting fact on Greece which I never knew about-you can not flush toilet paper in the toilet  but have to put it in a bin near the toilet as Greek plumbing is notoroiously bad. Going to the bathroom was not my favourite Greek experience as a result.

We almost ran onto the ferry for Naxos 5 days later. It is safe to say we will never return to this Island!!

NAXOS

The first thing you see arriving in Naxos is magnificent  (the ancient temple of Apollo, not the idiot in the foreground)

Naxos was a breath of fresh air after our Tinos experience and definitely somewhere we would come back to. This was mainly due to our accommodation which really made the whole experience. We stayed at the Pension Sofi which was an inexpensive guest house rated #1 by Tripadvisor. We soon found out why. It is a family establishment run by a man by Panos and in all our travels, it has been the best place we have EVER stayed. It wasn't that it was luxurious (although it was extremely clean), it was the fact that Panos treated us as guests of the family. There was no restaurant but there was a small kitchen / reception and every morning one of the family would insist on feeding us fruits and making us greek coffee. In fact, Theodoros (one of
the family), showed me how to make his special Greek Coffee.

Starbucks, Greece

Panos would try and feed us wine and olives and salads every day. When I innocently voiced that I liked the oranges sold in Naxos, we were bundled into their car and they took us to their private orchard some distance away so that we could pick as many oranges and figs as we liked. This was then followed by a trip to visit the pigs and sheep (who aren't looking forward to Christmas and Easter feasts). It was better service than a 5 star hotel and I look forward to returning. They even gave us a goodbye gift (a fridge magnet) which was really touching.

Pigging out at the orchard

As far as wondering around Naxos itself, we headed to the mountains for day and visited a 'Kitron' distillery which is a local drink distilled from the leaves of the Kitron plant. Being out of season there was not much else going on out in the countryside so we settled on walking around and relaxing in the main town for the rest of the time. Naxos itself is a very nice town with and old labyrinth style set of streets built into castle walls as well as the usual sea front full of cafes and tavernas. Of course our main hobby was eating and we found great Mexican food (via Brazil) and chicken gyros.

We also spent much of the week planning our trip and now finally have our round the world trip tickets in hand!!! We are currently sitting on the boat taking the 5 hour trip back to Athens. We then fly back to the UK where I will proceed with getting my Indian visa and then off to start our volunteering in India.