Moving, Moving, Moving!

FYI this blog was written Sept. 2 so there has been lots of changes since then!  I will try to write something shortly.   For now, enjoy these stories :)

Lots of adventures the past five days but I’ll keep it relatively short for each one.  

JOURNEY TO SNEHAGRAM

On Thursday evening, Joy, Frank and I accompanied Father Mathew and his brother to check out the Snehagram site.  Snehagram, located about an hour and fifiteen minutes from Sneha Care Home about in the state of Tamil Nadu, will be the site for the vocational training center once children at Sneha Care Home complete their studies around age 12-14.   There will be about 18 Glowing Star students going to the new location in March 2013.  I found that date a little optimistic considering currently its just a 15 acre piece of land with lots of weeds, random tree, and a generator.  But if they work fast, perhaps it will be done by then!  In addition to housing and a school for the children, there will be a rather extensive vegetable and groundnut garden for the children to learn gardening and farming.  Many of the students have expressed interest in going into these fields, so it will be the perfect opportunity to hone those skills.  Father Mathew wants me to dedicate a solid portion of my time to designing, organizing, and carrying out a Glowing Star Transition Program.  I’m still brainstorming ideas but I envision the program to ease the transition process and foster excitement and anticipation among the students for their vocational training. By the end of the program, I hope each student will be emotionally, socially and academically prepared for the next stage in his/her life journey.  The program will include oral and written assignments, transition workshops, weekend trips to Snehagram to help with the irrigation of the land and construction, one-on-one mentoring, and a final “Shooting Star Project.”  In groups of six, students with construct and carry out a large-scale project of their choosing. Students will divide up roles within their groups and will hold each other accountable for their defined responsibilities.  This project will allow students to develop strong work ethics, organizational, managerial, and problem solving skills necessary for life in the real world.  Lots of ideas but I still need to talk to Father Mathew about the feasibility of all of these elements.  More to come in the future!

DAY AT ST. JOHN’S

After leaving Frisbee practice early (7:45 am) to ensure I’d be back for our 9 am departure to St. Johns Hospital, I got back PERFECT timing to find out we now weren’t leaving until 9:30 am.  Typically Father Vince or one of the other staff members takes children needing to go to the Friday HIV clinic at St. Johns, but today, since it was only Anjali- the older sister of one of the girls at Sneha Care Home, they decided we could just take the bus.   This would have been fine, but I was going to stay at the HIV clinic the whole time, not just for Anjali’s appointment and it was out of the question for her to ride on the bus alone I guess.  So one of the other sister’s came along for the ride-  she doesn’t really seem to have a defined job here at Sneha Care Home anyways.  Well what an ordeal this was!  Apparently I was by far the most experienced bus rider of the three of us.  Neither of them knew where we were going and when our crowded 342 bus showed up at the Ambedkar Nagar bus stop, they started to giggle and said “Ohh, that's so crowded.”  I wasn’t persistent enough with them so we ended up having to wait 10 more minutes for the next bus!  I found it a little ironic that, Meghan the white girl from the US who had barely been in Bangalore for 2 weeks was taking these two locals around, but I had no other option.  We made it to St. John’s in good time, but Dr. Chaithra was busy elsewhere.  She ended up not showing up to the HIV clinic until 11 am at which point there was a long line of anxious patients and their families.  Unfortunately this meant not a lot of time to learn about what was going on (she didn’t have time to explain what happened after each patient) but I usually got the gist from perusing their charts and listening to the English words interspersed throughout the Kannada conversation.  Around 1:30 pm (it was supposed to end at 1 pm), I decided to duck out and get some lunch—it had been a long time since my Clif Bar before Frisbee practice!  No luck finding Au Bon Pain, but I found a cute little western coffee shop called Mr. Bean with free wi-fi and delicious looking ice cream treats.   My veggie burger and chocolate brownie ice cream sundae hit the spot, and the Wi Fi was definitely a plus.  I will most definitely be making this a Friday tradition if I keep going to St. John’s on Fridays! 

MOVING ROOMS!

On Friday night, Sister Minni, the sister in charge of Sneha’s psychosocial department and my now ex-neighbor came knocking on my door just as I was getting ready for early morning Frisbee practice.  Apparently there were going to be two new women coming from Northeast India to stay in my room.  Sister Minni asked me—“Do you think they will fit in here with you?”  I looked around at the two humble beds in the room and gave her a confused look.  “I don’t think so,” I replied.  “Well I guess you are going to have to move then” she answered.  I was a little perturbed, but went along with it anyways.  She wanted me move in next door with another nun, but luckily there are plenty of spots available in the “posh” Pastoral Care Conference Center.  So Saturday, after a long morning of Frisbee games and strategy and a delicious brunch of dosa and other things whose names I STILL cannot remember with Fern, Anil, Mihir, and Prasanna, I packed up my sparse belongings and moved over.  With the help of a new volunteer from the UK, Imrun, I only had to make two trips!!  Imrun in Punjab by decent but has only visited India once before this.  He will be helping around Sneha Care Home for the next 10 days before returning to the UK to write his medical school applications.  Anyways…back to the room.  Smaller in size, higher in quality.  My shower doesn’t work well but the water for the bucket baths actually comes out hot!!  I think I’m going to be liking this room more J

SUNDAY FUNDAY

After 10:30 am mass with the children and Father Mathew, the new volunteer Imrun and I ventured over to Forum mall for a little taste of the Western World.  And what a treat we had!!  Tuscan-style thin-crust pizzas from Pizza Hut (quite pricey and not that big, but the quality was TOP NOTCH compared to other pizza you would get here) followed by Swirls Ice cream was the perfect escape from the bit monotonous rice and sambar get everyday at Sneha Care Home.  And then to make our afternoon complete we watched “The Campaign” starring Will Ferrell and the guy from “The Hangover.”  Pretty crude humor (a la “Superbad” and “The Hangover”) but it was CERTAINTLY better than nothing!!  Tickets cost Rs 270 (a little more than $5) which isn’t bad at all, but Wednesdays tickets are only Rs 100!!  The next time an interesting English movie comes out here, I know what I will be doing for a mid-week treat!

  

JOURNEY TO SUMANAHILLI

Frisbee connections for the win, yet again!! Clif, creator of Spin Doctors and frisbee phenom on the original Learning to Fly, was kind enough to introduce me to his uncle, Father George, who is the director of Sumanahilli, an HIV and Leprosy Rehabilitation and Training Center.  Father George said their campus was quite a distance from Sneha Care Home, but I was willing to make the trek to at least see the activities going on there.  So Tuesday morning, I got the bus directions from one of the staff at Snehadaan and started my “journey.”  Journey is probably an understatement given the volume of traffic on weekday mornings.  2 ½ hours, 2 bus rides, and a shockingly low Rs 27 later, I arrived at Sumanahilli around 11 am.   Father George would be out until 12 noon but one of the sisters let me sit in on a tour group from a Master of Social Work program for a University in Chennai.  This pack of students (mainly guys straight out of either the 70s or a Bollywood film…cannot tell you I’ve experienced either) were quite the characters, trying to woo me and take pictures of me without me noticing.  At least its better than the blatant staring at the bus stops going to Frisbee!  The campus itself was enormous!  So many buildings and beautiful greenery (not quite as nice as Snehadaan campus, but its hard to compete!)   The sister spoke about the different services and activities the organization runs and then the rehabilitation doctor explained what leprosy is.   The Indian government claims it to be eradicated, but they still get thousands of cases a year in every state (Tamil Nadu is one of the worst effected in India).   Leprosy is a bacterial disease that affects both the sensory and nervous systems.  It is infectious 20% of the time through “close intimate contact” but when it is just nervous, it is not infectious.   Patients symptoms include skin patches where they have lost sensation, deformities and ulcers (particularly in their hands and wrists).  Leprosy patients tend to suffer from the same social stigmatization as HIV patients, which is why they started this center in the first.  They have healthcare services, housing, rehabilitation and education services, and vocational training for patients including garment making, candle-making, and leather work. Sumanahilli also has a school for children of people afflicted with HIV, leprosy, or severe disabilities. I really enjoyed our tour of the facilities and seeing how an organization different from Sneha Care Home runs.  Father George treated me to a delicious lunch of eggplant sambar, veggies, rice, yogurt sauce, and mini-bananas.  Not too much different, but a change nonetheless from Sneha’s menu!!  My trek back to Sneha Care Home was equally long (2 ½ hours) and laborious, but I made it back to Sneha Care Home alive and well at 6 pm on the dot.  I certainly won’t be able to do that every day or even every week, but I want to find out a way to help the organization out in some way!

Upcoming Activities:

- Spin Doctors Trekking Trip, Sept 14-16

- The News Concert (Prasanna’s band), date TBD

- Shweta comes to Bangalore, Sept 18-23

- Chennai Heat Ultimate Tournament, Oct 12-14

Measuring the grounds for Snehagram.  Very scientific...

 Garden ready for cultivation by the incoming students!

Mr. Beans- my new favorite WI-FI hotspot and ice cream sundae haven near St. John's

Dancing with the kids during the August Birthday celebration night.

Candle Making Shop at Sumanahilli Leprosy and HIV Center

 Imrun, Joy, and some of the kids during Teacher's Appreciation Day

Tuscany-style Pizza Hut Pizzas.  Kind of a rip-off for the size, but quite delicious :)

Out to dinner with the other volunteers for some North Indian cuisine

Teachers/Staff on Teacher Appreciation Day.  Just made it back sweaty and dirty after frisbee practice in Austin Town, Central Bangalore!!