It’s been a busy week, with a mixture of freelance writing, charity work for Educators’ Trust India and, unexpectedly,  a sidebar trip to Chennai.

Monday saw me spending the day working on the “Volunteer with Us” section of their website,  and hammering out the framework by which ETI can take on around 20 volunteers for the 2011/2012 tourist season.  We also identified 20 children who are in need of monthly sponsors and talked about how that model will work … feel free to email me if you’d like more details.

On Tuesday I went back to the slum with the Morning Light project and spent five hours there, washing the children, handing out samosas and being in charge of Operation Underwear.  Two Swedish supporters,  Jane and Bjorn,  donated a large shopping bag full of assorted pairs of differently sized knickers … so we had a system going whereby we washed the kids,  treated their hair for nits and they then lined up in order to receive a new pair of pants.

(Over which they then re-dressed themselves in their filthy old clothes.)

Jane also provided each child with a Mickey Mouse toothbrush,  so we had an “up and down, side to side, rinse and SPIT” teeth brushing lesson in the open air.

Two children were particularly affectionate this week; brother and sister,  they came running over as soon as they saw me and then attached themselves to me for the duration of my visit,  each one clinging to a hand. Diego translated for me and I learned that the lady with them,  whom I had assumed was their mum,  is in fact their nanni – they are the children of her son and she is raising them,  as their mother died a few years ago.  I was so sad to leave them – lots of hugs all round and they cried when we drove away.  I wonder if I’ll ever see them again?

On Wednesday I spent a long, dusty and above all HOT morning at Anjuna market;  until this trip,  it’s just been the place that I visit to shop and sightsee and take colourful photos,  but this time,  I spent the morning working with Diego on the ETI fund raising stall.  I gave out leaflets,  explained what we do (“we run schools for slum children” – how about that for an elevator pitch?) and took donations of clothes, toiletries, books and money.  Some very clear national divides emerged between the passersby: Indian tourists walked straight on,  Russians stopped to look and then barked “No!” or even,  charmingly, “F*ck off!” if you offered them a leaflet; Americans were friendly, interested but usually backpacking, so had very little money to offer but always managed around 100 rupees (c. £1.40) as a donation,  with an apology that it couldn’t be more; northern Europeans from places such as Germany and Scandinavia didn’t want to chat but always stuffed a generous donation into my collecting box before walking on.

Most of the money came from the British tourists,  who were uniformly friendly, positive, supportive and generous – it gladdened my heart to meet so many lovely people,  who gave so freely of their time and their possessions. I only did four hours there and was knackered at the end of it – and there’s poor Diego,  doing a 12 hour day week in, week out, every Wednesday.  What a star.

Thursday saw a complete gear change for me;  I cobbled together a vaguely “smart” outfit from things in my traveller’s wardrobe plus some borrowed shoes and flew to Chennai on the other side of India for a business meeting-cum-interview.  After three weeks in the universal melting pot of Goa,  it felt strange to be on a plane where I was the only woman aside from the staff and the only westerner – everyone else was a dark skinned business man with a laptop and a bushy moustache.  Upon arrival at Chennai airport, I saw a billboard welcoming the England cricket team and a sign saying “hello Thompson mr”  and was then whisked away to the Sheraton hotel,  courtesy of my hosts.

TV! Hot water! Room service! A vibrating massage chair … what a contrast to the start of my week.

My “Alice down the rabbit hole” feeling continued the next day,  when I managed to have an interview, meet the England cricket team (obtaining some autographs for my taxi driver Satish in the process – he is now “Top Man in Goa”, apparently), chat to the Sky Sports camera team and meet my friend Priya from Bangalore for lunch … before flying back to Goa to head up the ETI team in a pub quiz – which we won!

Yesterday I rested,  before going to a wedding in the evening.  I knew neither bride (Feliciana) or groom (Romeo)  but was invited as a guest through my friend Renee; her landlord is the bride’s uncle (or something). So Satish drove us through the twilight to a huge, open air wedding venue,  where we joined around 500 other people in celebrating their marriage. Fireworks, confetti, party poppers, spray string, fabulous food,  Bollywood dance moves and a free bar …

Today I’m blogging, packing,  saying goodbye to my friends (although quite a few people have already left for home;  this is the Big Exodus weekend) and then heading out to a concert by the ETI children – they’re performing some dance moves – like this – at a local restaurant and we’re hoping to raise a few more donations from it.

I’m leaving on a jet plane,  don’t know when I’ll be back again – but I hope it’s soon.

* * * * *

Namaste, as we say in India – it is a lovely greeting from the heart. The greeting has inner significance, let me just explain briefly.  By holding both hands in a prayer position and looking at the eyes of the person you are greeting, this means that with my five senses of perception, five organs of action and with my soul I greet you. It also means that I see God in you and I welcome you with that intention and purpose. This is much better than our western greeting of just saying hello or shaking hands.

Having read Cleo’s article on the work of Educators’ Trust India, I was very impressed. It carried the point home to the reader: that in India, we have a tremendous gap between the poor and the rich, and yet out there we still have noble people who want to make a difference.

Let’s get serious.  My mind boggles to see this extreme poverty, this obvious carelessness and selfishness which is quite apparent when we visit the slums. I have the deep feeling that in the 21^st century, this should not be allowed to exist – the obvious pain, the suffering born of  hunger and illness, no proper human being should allow this to happen. Well, it is happening, what are we doing? This world belongs to us all, not just the Goan, the Indians, the British but to us all, and our teaching from the great books says it all, that there should be no class based, creed based, religious based, colour based discrimination.  As humans, we  should be utterly ashamed of our apparent lack of love and concern for the needs of these poor, displaced people in our society.

At Educators’ Trust India, we are empowering these children through education and trying to give a few of them food and clothing, but this is a drop in the ocean.

Our Morning Light project,  where we provide a mobile health, education, sanitation and nutritional service to slum dwellers  is the best that I have ever undertaken.  I say this with experience – my voluntary missionary work and philanthropy in medical fields have taken me to various parts of the world – but this is the ONLY project in Goa where we are going to the poor, the destitute and displaced people.  These people are so poor, so illiterate, so hungry that they do not have the energy to know how to fight their corner.  India is boasting that they are a world power; I disagree,  as one cannot be rich by means of acquiring  gold or dollars, one gets richness when the hearts and mind and the physical health of all its citizens are fulfilled, without hunger, homelessness, illiteracy  or holding out of the hands for a few rupees.  It makes me not angry, but sad at the thought of such treatment in an open society as ours. Remember,  slavery is now forbidden, but in reality it still exists.

At Morning Light each week, our volunteers, all of whom come from wealthy Western backgrounds, see no difference in colour,  creed or race, they see all as one and the love flows. Everyone is engaged in various tasks – you will see them washing, bathing, shampooing the children hoping to get rid of their suffering due to head lice. These children just do not have the simple itching manifestation of head lice:  they have bleeding, scarring and intense itching – why? It is obvious they have been neglected.  You can also see our volunteers playing, cuddling with joy and affection at the same time as teaching some basics to the children.  I am engaged in treating the illness that comes alone, with the help of our nurse.  We may be doing basic treatments and they do not need somebody like me with extensive experience to deal with minor illnesses, but the point is that we care for them and it is done with unconditional Love.

Remember,  Love heals.

This requires patience, tolerance, fortitude, equanimity and fraternity – these will prove invaluable attributes in our pilgrimage to the souls of the poor and the needy. Remember, we need to be a flower which radiates charm and fragrance, whether it is for a poor child or a rich child.  As with all things good and noble, the project, as a mobile clinic bringing medical relief, feeding and education, empowering and educating the neglected Indians in the squalor of the slums, brings home the lesson that Love and Service are like the two wings of a bird.

Flight is not possible with just one wing alone.

* * * * *

Educators’ Trust India now have a Justgiving page. Please click here to make a donation if you can – even a few pounds or dollars makes a huge difference to both these children’s lives and to the work carried out by Dhiru and his team. Thank you.

Sangeetha, it turns out,  is 28 years old and a married mother of three.  She is very small in stature, probably no taller than 5 foot,  very, very slim – she actually looks malnourished, in terms of her eyes and her cheekbones and her whole demeanour.  She’s also disabled  and she walks with a very pronounced limp. When she moved the folds of her sari to sit down, I saw that she had a withered foot and leg and I later discovered that she’d been born like that.

She speaks limited but reasonably clear English and so we talked freely as long as I spoke slowly.  She must have been born into quite a good family,  as she stayed in education up to the age of 18.  Given that school in Goa is only free until you’re 13,  that indicates, I think, some family resources behind her.  She was married at 18 and has 3 children,  the oldest of whom is 11, a girl; there are also sons of 9 and 5. She came to the attention of Diego and the ETI team when her 5 year old son, Parras (pictured above, in the blue shirt) came to the Leading Light school. She lives in the same village as the school, Canca and her other two children go to another school nearby via bus. As I mentioned before,  education here is “free” – in that the actual schooling is free, but then you have to pay for bus fares, uniforms, meals,  sometimes textbooks and so on.

Sangeetha is the sole wage earner for a family:  herself, her husband and the three children and she works as a cleaner for a local business,  where she earns 500 rupees per month.

That’s about £7.

I can’t even begin to imagine how they can survive on that – by way of a contrast, 500 RS is about the budget I give myself for my nightly evening meal.

Another useful comparison figure is that the “room boy” (Indian for “chamber maid”) at my hotel earns c. 3000 RS (£42) per month plus room and food – which makes it sound like quite a good job in comparison to Sangeetha’s role.

The reason that she is the sole wage earner is due to her husband being paralysed.   That in itself sounds tragic – but I also learned that her husband was a drug dealer and user and contracted HIV through the use of shared, dirty needles.  He subsequently had a paralytic stroke and so he is now at home, all day, paralysed,  whilst Sangeetha is forced to do what she can to earn a living.   She managed to get Parras into the ETI school and Sangeetha then approached Diego, the charity’s founder  and asked if there was any work for her at the school.  She pointed out that she’s smart,  she’s educated,  she went to school until she was 18,  she can speak some English and she’s a very fast learner.  And she promised that she would work very hard,  she would do anything at all that they needed her to do,  as long as they could pay her more than 500 RS per month – and would it also be possible for her other children to transfer from their schools and join this school?

Diego, who has a heart as big as the world,  asked us if we could chat to Sangeetha – which was where I came in.  So,  just sitting down with her,  this was what I heard – and we tried to find a way that was both possible and dignified for her to come and work here. She’s now paid 1000 RS per month and has started work as a “Classroom Assistant”;  she helps in the kitchen,  tidies the classroom,  helps to organise the children when we take them to the beach and so on.  One of the things that she told me was that she’s never been to the beach or seen the sea!  She was born and has grown up maybe 10 miles inland from this beautiful coastline and yet neither she nor her children have ever been there – so imagine what it’s going to be like when we take her family to the beach for the first time next week.

So that’s what’s in Sangeetha’s future;  what I think is particularly encouraging about her story is that it shows how the charity are starting to work with people from within the Goan community as well as with those who travel here from elsewhere.   One of the things that’s a constant in charity work here is the fact that some Goans are suspicious of and tend to have a dislike of NGOs who work with migrant communities.  They can think of the migrants that “… these problems are of their own making – if they stayed in their home state, they wouldn’t bring themselves and their problems into our beautiful state of Goa”.

But what we’re seeing now is that the charity has an infrastructure to support those people within Goa who also live in poverty.  Diego will never turn away a child in need,  especially if that child has parents who want their child to be educated. He’s not going to check where they’re from – he just sees a child in need and wants to help.

So, I think the fact that there will be “local” children in the schools may make a difference to the way in which the more affluent Goans start to perceive the charity.  Let’s hope so.

I arrived here on Saturday evening,  just in time to join the Educators’ Trust India team at a fund raising event at a local restaurant.  Some of the volunteers had taught the children a dance routine,  so they came into the restaurant and performed,  whilst we passed around the hat, sold raffle tickets and ran an auction,  with prizes such as a trip to the local monkey sanctuary or dinner for two at the restaurant.  In a moment of madness,  I bid for the chance to push Ian,  the on-site project manager into the swimming pool … he’s a big guy and it was extremely satisfying to shove him in for the price of c. £70 …

All in all,  we raised nearly £350,  which is enough to buy one of the key items on the charity’s wish list: a mobile water filter,  which they can take around to the various rural slums and use to provide fresh, clean water for the children and their families.  Drinking filthy water from polluted ponds and streams has had some truly horrific health consequences (a little girl I visited in the Panjim hospital last November has, I learned yesterday,  died of kidney failure due to bad water), so it’s great that the tourists’ generosity has led to the acquisition of something so tangible.

Later today, I’m going over to the Leading Light school in order to do some work on the website and to hand over my huge bag of gifts and donations from the UK.  Here’s some of what I brought – all in all, I arrived with 46 kgs of luggage,  of which about half  is for the charity. Again,  I’m grateful for the generosity of my friends and family back home: my mother has set up a monthly standing order for the charity and also gave me some money to buy the #1 item on the “we need it NOW” wish list – head lice lotion.  Another friend donated her Boots Advantage card points,  which I used to buy lots of bottles of hand sanitiser and Liz did loads of printing for me – small gestures but very much appreciated and they will make a world of difference to the children.  

While I’m here,  I want to interview some Goan women for Mother India and to spend some time at the Mother and Baby home and at the HIV clinic – my friends Jim and Moe have arranged for me to interview Sister Jessie,  the nun who runs it.

My taxi driver Satish has kindly invited me to his sister’s wedding next weekend,  so my dance card is filling up – and I will also make a flying visit to Palolem in south Goa (stick “Palolem beach Goa” into Google images and you’ll see why)  in order to catch up with my backpacking friend Natasha.

More next time,  when I can get online again …

My interviews for Mother India have gone really well so far – there’s a small update about them over at the book site if you’re interested. And tomorrow I head to Goa to do some more interviews, scope out the book’s opening chapters and see my friends at Educators’ Trust India. They’re having a fund raiser at a local restaurant in the evening, featuring some of the children performing and dancing, which should be fun.

I’m often asked – “why India?” and it’s a great question.  Here’s what I love about India:

… the people, the vibrancy, the history, the culture, the blend of old and new, the colonial and the rural, the scenery, the food.

I find difficult … the poverty, the contrast between the wealth and the poverty, certain elements of Indian behaviour (for example, they hate breaking bad news so will often lie instead …), the fact that I am dish of the day for the mosquito population, the intermittent internet access, the fact that my BlackBerry never ever works in Bangalore – the so-called Silicon Hub of India … etc.

This trip is going to be different, though.  This time, I’m working on a book – not my Great Goan Novel, but a new idea;  one about which I’m really excited.  When I was first made redundant at the end of 2009,  a lot of people asked me if I was going to write a book,  or suggested that I should.  I was offered the chance to ghost-write for a contact,  and to collaborate with someone else on their book – but,  in both cases,  I felt quite strongly that,  if I was going to work that hard on a book,  I wanted my name in a nice big font on the cover.  I also felt that one needs to have a Big Idea in order to write a book and,  at that point,  I just didn’t have my Big Idea.

But,  now I do.  The Big Idea has landed. I’m writing a book about women in India,  twenty-first century women in their many guises and the current working title is Mother India. I’ve set up a new blog site which I’ll be updating with details of the project and of the women I meet and interview,  so feel free to take a look and/or sign up for regular updates.   If you’re a film buff,  the title of Mother India may sound faintly familiar – and I reference what and why this is over at the book site itself.

I’ve already organised my first three interviews for later this week in Mumbai and have been really encouraged by the positivity with which my requests for interviews have been revceived,  and how welcoming everyone has been towards my Big Idea;  one woman commented that:

“I’m also thanking you on behalf of all Indian women for taking up a topic such as this, which is not known or understood in totality to the western world. Your project sounds wonderful and I’d be more than happy to help in any way.”

So – goodbye London, namaste Mumbai.

This lovely photo also features on the official Christmas card,  which you can view here.

(If you want to hear them as well,  check out this YouTube clip of the children carol singing in Goa last week; I can promise you it’s “Jingle Bells” like you’ve never heard it before!)

Educators’ Trust India have just sent me this photo – isn’t it wonderful?

It shows the ETI team distributing the children’s flip-flops which (fellow volunteer) Natasha and I bought a few days before I left Goa.  We went to the local (non-touristy) market and,  with the help of our lovely taxi driver Satish,  negotiated a good price for 20 pairs of sturdy, rigid soled flip-flops in assorted sizes,  from ages 3 to 12.

They worked out at around £1 per pair;  we could have paid less,  but we wanted to get the better quality flip-flops so that they stood up to the wear and tear of life in the rural slum and on the beach.

So here are the children trying on the flip-flops for size – don’t their parents look proud and happy? The mums are looking on and smiling,  the dads are helping to fit the shoes to the feet.

And here’s a group shot of all the kids with,  for some of them,  their first ever pair of shoes.

I just love seeing how much difference a tiny amount of money can make to these children’s lives.  While I was away,  my very wonderful friend Liz saw my Facebook updates about ETI and e-banked me £20,  simply saying: “spend it how you see fit.”

That £20 bought milk for the children and mums in the field for a month.

£10 will buy 10 pairs of children’s flip-flops and help to protect the feet of girls like Jyoti.

£10 also enables the teachers and children at one of the charity’s schools to have rice for their lunch for a month.

£5 will buy apples and bananas for 30 children.

Small potatoes for us – big impact for these kids.

I’m gradually building a fabulous collection of photos featuring Educators’ Trust India and their work and I’ll post a link to my online album once I get it set up.

I’ve had a lot of emails and texts over the last few weeks,  asking for more details of what I’ve been doing in Goa with the good folk from the charity Educators’ Trust India (ETI).  The short answer about their work can be found via this link to my freelance writing site at Collaborative Lines,  where I share some of the copy that I’ve written for the charity’s soon to be launched website.

And here’s the long answer … part one of my report on the wonderful work done by this tiny yet passionate charity.

If you’ve ever been to Goa,  or perhaps to any beach resort in Asia,  you will probably have been approached by beggars and/or beach sellers – usually women and children (I’ve blogged about it before).  They sell all manner of things (here’s a list which I made last year) and are extremely persistent in getting you to buy their jewellery, sarongs, peanuts and pedicures.  What had never ever occurred to me was where these people actually … lived. I knew that in many cases they travelled to Goa each autumn for the start of the tourist season in October and that they arrived there from other Indian states such as Karnataka. But where do they live when in Goa?

It was only when I met the ETI team and they invited me to join them on one of their regular visits to a slum settlement that I really started to give thought as to housing.  Take a look at my photo – it shows an idyllic rural scene, doesn’t it?  This field,  a currently dry rice paddy,  is located about 1.5 miles inland from the popular tourist resort of Calangute.  But,  as the camera pans back a bit,  you can see a woman doing laundry in a muddy stream.  Zoom back a bit more and you can see that the field is actually full of shacks made from blue plastic; basically, tents,  improvised with plastic and using tree trunks as supports. 

This field is home to around 100 adults and children ( a figure which will increase as the season progresses) from the eastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh,  who travel by train (it takes three days) each October to work and beg in the Goan beach resorts.  I have visited urban slums before but have never seen anything like this; this field is where you live when you have nothing other than what you can carry or wear.   There’s no electricity.  No running water.  Certainly no sanitation.  No way of cooking other than in a pot over an open fire.

(Some of the Goans complain about this influx of economic migrants and say that,  well,  it serves them right that they live like this – perhaps they should stay put in their home states? To which my reply is – I think it’s safe to assume that they’re not leaving comfortable and luxurious home behind in order to travel across the sub-continent and then camp in this field;  this is an act of the impoverished and desperate …)

The first thing that hit me when we arrived at the field was the smell.  Without labouring the point, when the weather is 30-something Celsius and you’ve got humans, cows, dogs, chickens and pigs all using the great outdoors as their al-fresco bathroom … yeah.  The field does have a fresh water spring and the residents use that for drinking water and the muddy stream on the other side of the field for bathing, laundry and everything else.  However,  this obviously doesn’t work all the time and dirty water does get into the kids,  as we witnessed with the poor child who I visited in the hospital in Panjim a few weeks ago.  She is now suffering from severe kidney failure,  brought about by drinking unclean water.  ETI are paying for her treatment,  visiting her every day and giving her parents money for food so that they can stay with her in the hospital.

This next photo shows the rather clever use of sari fabric as improvised baby slings; each harness contains a six month old baby.  They are twins,  born to a 15 year old girl,  who leaves them in the care of the older women while she works on the beach,  undertaking manicures and pedicures (in reality,  a nail shape and paint,  for which she charges c. £2).  She told me all this in really excellent English,  which she has learned from tourists – and yet she can neither read nor write.

So,  what do the ETI team do to help these field dwellers?  Well,  firstly,  they set up an impromptu school a few times a week,  where the children sit down and have a very basic “lesson” with picture books,  crayons and paper.  They are taught to write their names in English and to count to 10,  to say please and thank you.   This is the most basic of educational approaches but,  for some children,  the simple discipline of learning to sit quietly,  to not fight or play but to listen,  is in itself a learning opportunity.  These are kids who would otherwise be working on a beach,  selling peanuts or doing a little dance to the beat of a drum and then asking for money,  so in some respects,  just having them available to sit down and mess about with paper and crayons feels like an achievement.  The ETI team also work hard to get the parents involved;  they arrived with a basic medical kit and will treat,  where possible,  small injuries – usually foot related,  like Jyoti from last month’s blog entry – but only with permission from the parents.  This photo shows Jacob,  one of ETI’s wonderful volunteers,  showing a few of the men how to write their names – the team really encourages participation and involvement from anyone,  not just the kids.

At the end of each hour long lesson, ETI hand out fresh fruit to the children;  I paid for this one week and for £7 we bought enough fruit for each child at the settlement to get an apple and a banana each.  Diego,  the charity’s Goan founder, insists that each child washes their hands prior to receiving the fruit and so we saw a line set up whereby the children queued up to wash their hands and then queued again to receive the fruit – all administered by the mums.

The gender divide is so marked at this settlement.  It’s really not overstating the case to suggest that the women work (on the beach,  at the camp – cooking,  washing, sweeping up,  taking care of the children) and the men drink and gamble.  The local Goan hooch is a spirit called feni, made from distilled cashew nuts,  and a 60 ml shot of it costs about 10p.  When we arrived at the camp at 9.30am,  there were men lying on the ground in a drunken stupor,  or lurching around, shouting and fighting with each other.  And they absolutely reeked of booze;  the smell oozed from every pore.  Diego told me that many of the men are addicted to feni and that any money earned by the women and children goes straight into the coffers of the local bars or is gambled away in complicated card games played between a group of the men in one corner of the field.

One of the charity’s key aims is to get the children out of the cycle of working,  not being educated, and thus marrying young (the average woman at the camp is aged 25 and usually has five children by this stage; I certainly observed that the amount of alcohol consumed by the men in no way seemed to either impede sexual performance or affect fertility …).  It seemed clear that the responsibility for bringing money into the family coffers lies very much with the women and children,  and that’s why getting the buy-in from the mums is so vital to the success of this project;  if we can persuade the women to allow their children to stop working and to instead attend one of the ETI’s two local schools,  then there is hope for the next generation,  who will be both educated and have ambitions for a life of more than selling peanuts and t-shirts on Baga beach.

Last week,  I had this conversation with Jyoti’s mum, Seevarna;  I asked her if she would allow Jyoti to go to one of the schools and she replied that she would love to,  but that because her husband was a brandy drinking alcoholic,  they needed income from both Seevarna and her two daughters in order to buy enough money to live – and so Jyoti could not be spared from her duties at the beach.

These women lead hard, hard lives; yes,  education is the answer in many cases,  but I do now see how tough it must be to decide that when your 11 year old daughter can perhaps earn £1 or so per day for the family coffers – and if that £1 makes the difference between being hungry (or getting a black eye from your husband when you return home with insufficient money for his brandy …) – that allowing her to stop work and go to school may not be an option.

In a future post,  I’ll write about the two schools run by Educators’ Trust India and how they benefit the children who have broken out of the child labour trap.