And so to bed, only to find...

...it's not made.

Wish someone would invent a bed that made itself. I'd be first in line!

Hmmm... bet I wouldn't be alone, either. Perhaps there's money to be made here?!

I have only one set of sheets so I have to do a 12 hour turn around. Not so easy when humidity is high, I have no modern appliances, and there's a fair risk of rain. I have strung a line under an outside overhang which is reasonably effective at keeping things out of the rain and in the breeze, but it gets no sun and tends to get forgotten. Hence the late-night pain.

Stop procrastinating, Clive!!!


I wonder if I could sleep on the bare mattress...

Busy Doing Nothing

Hiya! Sorry that I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks but there's a very good reason for that - there's nothing to report!

Well, nothing very newsworthy anyway :)
But guess what! I'm gonna tell you anyway!! If you get bored easily, switch off now...

I've started the ball rolling with my India visa application - I've filled in the on-line application form at the VFS agency and I've written a letter offering myself a voluntary position at SISP. That's what you need when applying for an 'Entry' visa - the type now required for volunteering. It's all above board: I'll ask the managers at SISP to approve it and sign it. I've applied for a two-year visa in the hope that I'll get at least a 1 year. There are no refunds - if it gets knocked back to 1 year then I'll lose £60. It's a gamble I'm hoping will work out.

Last Saturday I spent four or five hours wandering around Trivandrum, trying to get inspiration for gifts for friends back home and failing miserably. Sorry you guys - I tried, I failed, I got sore feet. Fancy a keyring from Heathrow?

What else? Oh yes, bloody mosquitoes! I always say (to myself, mostly) that a good day starts with a dead mosquito. I try to get it before it gets me, and one day last week, in the shower, I got five! Yes, good going, but it means there are more about, and don't I just know it?! I've been bitten, and I've scratched my legs till they bleed! I can't help it - I even wake up finding myself scratching away! I'm going to have to cut my nails down to nothing because my legs look red raw and truly 'orrible!

I've been trying to work out where I'll sleep, who I'll see, what I'll do and so on, when I'm back in the UK. That's a work in progress....

Oh, I've finished my third noticeboard and attached it to the wall in boss Paul's office. It's a big one at 5ft x 3ft. He doesn't need one that large but it sort of justifies me having one the same size. Wouldn't want to usurp the boss, now would I?!! Above is a photo of one of the small ones - see how good those mitre joints look at a distance!

Onam Lunch - Friday: Wedding of Vijayalekshmi and Rahakrishnan

The laundry man from up the road has been asking me for months to go to his sister's wedding and so I went! I didn't know either the bride or groom or any of the families but I was made to feel very welcome, and Uday hugged me like a long lost brother!! The sister and her groom were in their forties so it was a little unusual from that respect. I imagine it wasn't an arranged marriage, but if it was a 'love marriage' then it was a little odd because they hardly looked at one another!

I was placed near the front so got a good view of the proceedings and will appear in many of the photos and videos. I guess I was the token white guy - there were no others. I think Uday was pleased to be seen connected with a Gora!

So what about the event itself? Imagine a lot of noise, incense, people, lights, talking, photography and videoing and you'll get the idea! I suppose vows were said but I didn't notice them. However, there was the usual walking around the little temple three times and perhaps, once performed, the deed was as good as done.

I didn't actually have the wedding lunch because I was feeling so bloated after days of eating rice for breakfast, lunch and supper, and all the (rice) Payasam I kept being offered.

The wedding hall had a dining hall attached to it with several rows of long tables and benches. Meals were eaten in three sittings - there were a lot of people! Portions were served by a well-organised squad of helpers, one of whom was my hairdresser!

Onam Lunch - Thursday

I had another Onam invitation - this time to R's house in Kovalam. She's the (almost) 19 y.o. girl who is being sponsored by some friends of mine to continue her mornings-only education at SISP. I think her mother felt she owed me something for setting it up. I arrived at 10 o'clock as invited, uncertain as to whether food would be included. It was! It came after an hour and I noticed that I was the only one to be given the special Onam food.

I looked around. The house was brick with a tiled roof. The bricks were probably baked mud held together with a muddy mortar. There were gaps between some of them. The roof was broken in one part and let the rain in. The building was basically one big room with chest-high walls dividing it into four. There was the kitchen area, the clothes-hanging/drying area, some other section I can't quite recollect, and the living area. In the living area the girl, her mother and her 6y.o. sister ate, watched TV, and slept on the thin mat. Yes, they had a little TV; it occupied the only table they had. There was a shelf with some pictures R wanted me to see but it fell off the wall when she touched it. It was a piece of a wooden crate resting on two sticks which had been poked into gaps in the wall.

R showed me the photos which were of her and a previous sponsor. The sponsor had stopped giving money which R speculates was because some rickshaw drivers had spread gossip about her receiving other support. Even if she had, which I seriously doubt and she says not, you only have to look around to see that they have next to nothing.

The little girl was a delight. Friendly with a big smile just like her mother. They had lived there all their lives and, when we went for a walk afterwards, everyone greeted and welcomed them. This family had some serious hard-luck stories to tell and I guess that the community had closed around them and tried to support them. Good to see.

Onam Lunch - Wednesday

I had a long-standing invitation from a woman at SISP to go for a family lunch on the first day of Onam. I mentioned a while back that she has two young children, the older of whom (6) is in an orphanage the other side of Trivandrum because she can't afford to keep her at home and has no space. She lives in a brick outhouse with the younger one. When the mother goes to work, the little one (4) goes to school. She can afford that, just. The older one gets free education and keep at the Christian orphanage.

When they went to collect the older girl a week ago they found she had two-week-old burns on her chest and under her arm. The staff said it was from spilt tea but I saw it when she visited SISP and it looked very odd - like a long black wavy line with a deep, raw wound. Apparently the little girl has since revealed that this was caused by a hot fire iron used by one of the staff to punish her for wetting the bed. Jesus! I, as a non-expert, would say that that version is more consistent with the appearance of the scarring. The police were called, they're treating it seriously, and it's been on TV and in newspapers! The mother said the orphanage had been sealed off and the culprit had gone on the run - not sure if I should believe that or not. The orphanage still maintains it was hot tea...

Anyway, the little girl was very happy to be at home. She was even happier to receive a colouring book, wax crayons and a couple of bangles. She spent 3 - 4 hours solid colouring in!

After this there is no question of her going back. The current hope is that she is now old enough to go to SISP, so she can travel to and from with her mother. The two girls and their mother will have to squeeze into the outhouse at nights. It's not big enough to swing a cat.

Meanwhile we had lunch. It was very nice and I was told they hadn't had a party since the old man died, though I wasn't aware we were having a party. Then the woman's bossier brother said "You will give me trousers. With double zip-off legs. Yes, and a white T-shirt with a pocket". I thought I'd misunderstood so I said "Oh yes? They're expensive! Where will you get them from?" "You will give me them!" "For Christmas present." "Get when you go to UK." "When can I have them?". That kind of knocked me aback and I muttered something about trying but no promises. It seemed so out of place and unexpected yet the others just ignored it as if it was nothing. I've checked a little about Onam and read that the family head distributes clothes to his family during Onam. I wonder if that's it. Or just the common practice of fleecing the gullible Westerner. Anyway, it pissed me off.

Later a couple of local politicians came and talked about the little girl's burns for the next hour, in Malayalam of course. They weren't going to shut up in a hurry so I took my leave. The brother tried to do a deal with a rickshaw driver but I snubbed him by walking home, a distance he was too fat to consider. I much prefer the other brother who, I think, has mental health problems. He was much more straight. And skinny!

Onam - Prelude

It's the start of the Onam festival time here in Kerala. Onam is like a harvest festival, celebrated by all religions and castes. Well, sort of... some folk think it's a bit uncivilized or unrefined or heathen. That's why I like it! Because it has little to do with religion! Story has it that ancient King Mahabali is visiting his people and they need to put on a display to impress him and show that they are doing OK, hence the 'onapookkalam' flower arrangements which appear everywhere.

I wrote an article about SISP's Onam celebrations. It has quite a few pictures and a couple of videos.

Most schools in the area have at least the whole of this week off but we just have Wednesday to Friday. Something to do with balancing the number of days holiday throughout the year. A significant number of kids didn't turn up at school anyway, because their mates were at home so why shouldn't they be?! The  Headteacher was also absent, and he was the driving force for today's organised events. They still went ahead, though perhaps not in a very organised manner. The competition to make the prettiest Pookkalam took 4 hours instead of two, teachers joined in when they shouldn't with the middle groups, while the youngest and oldest groups had no guidance at all!

In the afternoon we were all meant to go to the playground about 5km away but Paul decreed (probably rightly) that, because numbers were down and because of the problems of two loadings of the school bus, we'd play games on SISP's backyard. This we did, but it was somewhat cramped and chaotic. The children all had fun anyway.

It's difficult, in a Blog, to know what dirty linen should be aired in public. While the audience is small and known there's no problem but if it's open and public then you're more reticent to say things in case you cause offence or tarnish a reputation etc. I guess, even if I make this blog public, it does little harm to mention that seven boys turned up at SISP's Independence Day celebration on 15th August slightly tipsy and smelling of alcohol. At 9:30 am! They were consequently suspended after a telling-off and told that Paul (founder and managing director) would review the situation when he returned from Belgium - and that was today. It was no surprise for me to learn that the boys would all be allowed back next week. No surprise firstly because Paul is compassionate (a soft-touch by his own admission), and secondly because we are trying to give these boys an education - a chance in life. This comes in an atmosphere of a general problem with discipline and knuckling down to lessons with the two oldest classes - the boys just like to lark about. They are fine individually, it's just when they get together. I don't think suspension on it's own does the trick. It will send the right messages, sure, but only briefly. When they think about it, who wouldn't mind a two-week holiday with no consequences?! It needs to be backed up with more - expulsion is going too far, but perhaps the withdrawal of privileges. Trouble is, it's difficult to see what privileges they have - and perhaps that's more the question.

Does this all sound familiar to Western ears?!

And you have to remember that corporal punishment doesn't work - they have enough of that at home.

Something I've long thought is that giving them skills training (and the threat of withdrawing it) might work. Some kids seem keen enough to do it and certainly would benefit. We've talked about it long enough at SISP but failed to do anything. Really, their failure is our failure.

Tapioca Growth

This is a photo of the same tapioca that was planted a little over two months ago. I guess it's nearly a metre high now - which is quite fast growth for a woody-stemmed plant. But it's not as rapid as banana plants whose growth is phenomenal! In the last couple of months they seem to have grown from 2 metres to 6 metres! The little plantation I pass on my walk down to the beach has turned into a forest!