Some success

At last - I have received my some mail from the UK.  Still no sign of any of the parcels posted by my husband from around 26th August but at least my Guardian Weekly has started to arrive.  So far, I've had 2 deliveries, each of 2 papers.  The first delivery last Saturday was for weeks 25/09-01/10 and 9-15/10, today's delivery was for 02-09/10 and 15-22/10.  Not in quite the order that I'd anticipated but I'm very nearly up to date (or I will be when I've read them).  It's been a real pleasure to be able to catch up with a version of my favourite paper.  I'm not convinced I'll ever see my parcels but I can hope.

I have at last had some achievements at work.  My procurement policies and procedures have got past the accountant's eagle eyes with just a few adjustments to the form layouts which didn't take long to do.  At last!  All I have to do now is get the acceptance of our boss, the external accountant and the board.  It's a minor detail but it's given my spirits a huge lift to have achieved this small but significant milestone.  And that's not all.  I have acceptance of the majority of the draft HR manual, there are just a few questions on policies and procedures that had not been thought about before.  Now that's a real achievement, it's the biggest and hardest chunk of work I've done so far, I'm no HR expert.  Hurrah and thanks to my friends who are HR experts and helped me with this!

Every day as I walk to and from the office, people stop to talk to me.  I often see students coming and going from their accommodation and know many of them by sight now.  One of them introduced himself a few days ago and told me he was a student at the Talent College here in Kopaput.  I asked him what he was studying and his response was "talent".  There's another bunch of students I often chat to who, these are student nurses.  They always wave to me from their hostel when I go past, one of them walking along the road with me pointed to one of the waving women and said "that's my Madam".  I really need to learn more Oriya, sometimes things get lost in translation.

The paddy fields that I walk past every day on my way to and from work are being harvested.  It all looks really hard work.  I'm sure they are more able to cope with the heat than I am but it's so labour intensive, no machinery used at all.  When we first arrived in August they were planting it, by hand.  They are now cutting it, by hand.  Gathering it into bundles and carrying across the fields to the road, by hand.  Then lifting it onto carts, by hand.  No doubt it will all be threshed by hand as well.  And I buy it for 20 rupees a kilo in the markets here.  I am constantly amazed at the weights that the women can carry on their heads, huge bundles of still green rice plants complete with seed heads must be pretty heavy (I have seen as many as 12 bricks being carried on one head).  Today I saw a woman walking home from working in the fields carrying her scythe that she'd been using to cut the stems, the curved blade draped over the curve of her head.

The women doing the cutting are just about visible above the seed heads, it looks back-breaking work constantly bending over to cut the stems.

Picking their way back across the field for their lunch break, the field is still flooded and most of them have bare feet.

The stooks of rice stacked along the side of the harvested field, waiting to be taken out to the road.

Bundles of rice waiting to be taken away for threshing.

Karthika

It's Kartik or Karthika masa (month) at the moment, theholiest month for Hindus and devotees worship Lord Shiva to the utmost.  During Karthika masa, women wake up early and have a ceremonial or spiritual bath and perform "Lord Shiva Puja".  Every day, women decorate their house entrances with lighted diyas, devotees believe that performing or observing fast and pujas during the month can bring them salvation after death.  I hear several of my neighbours praying and singing very early in the morning and the smell of incense wafts in through the windows.  My mission over the next few days is to go to the Jagannath Temple here in Koraput to observe the worship and festivities there.  I would love to take some photos as the women are dressed in their best, most beautiful and colourful saris as it is such an auspicious month but will feel a bit conspicuous going there with my camera to stare and 'capture the moment'.  I will need to find a local person happy and willing to escort me there to explain a bit about the rituals.

SPREAD bought 2 new motorbikes recently, needed for one of the projects currently in progress.  There is a Hindu custom to perform a puja on new motor vehicles to bring them luck and make them safe from accidents.  This seems to involve cleaning them then decorating them with flowers and symbols using turmeric and other brightly coloured dyes, performing arati (showing a flame) using burning incense sticks while offering prayers. (Apologies to any readers who understand more about the details and spot my mistakes, I'm still trying to understand the culture and faith).

A priest from a nearby temple performed the puja on the bikes then came into the office to offer prayers in there as well, scattering turmeric-stained rice over anyone or anything that he found on the way. This is me, post puja with auspicious rice grains sprinkled on my head.  I was a little worried when I found out about the puja as I had already had a couple of pillion rides on one of the bikes the day before the puja.  Fortunately I lived to tell the tale.

This is the liquor store in town where bottles of beer and other noxious substances are furtively wrapped in newspaper and handed out through the small gaps in the bars.  I don't drink much alcohol, maybe a can a week with friends but I feel like some sort of criminal when I go up the steps to the shop and can't help looking round wondering who's watching and stuffing any purchases deep into my backpack out of sight.  Drinking is frowned on by many people - probably with very good reason with the problems that can occur with overindulgence and some very poor people using what little cash they have buying alcohol rather than food or medicine for their family.  As for women buying drinks - I suspect that us westerners are the only women that do it.

Some success at last

I finally managed to get an ATM card to go with my new Indian bank about 10 days ago.  The trouble was (as I found out after several failed attempts to withdraw money) that I had to go to an Andhra Bank ATM for the first use to activate it.  The nearest one to Koraput is in Jeypore, about an hours bus ride away.  No matter, off I went on Saturday afternoon, taking the afternoon off to go and sort it out.  It's a nice ride over the hills and down into Jeypore although the bus is always crowded.  At least I managed to get a seat this time and spent half the journey being chatted up by the conductor, a young man around the same age as my son + a bunch of teenage engineering students, all keen to test out their English and finding my pitiful Oriya attempts very amusing.  I even got the conductors phone number thrust into my hands with the pledge that I can call him any time of the day and night if I need any help.  Now there's an offer.   I managed to find the Andhra Bank without too much hunting and was amazed to find the my card worked fine and issued all the cash requested.  Another tick to go onto my list of things to sort out.

While in Jeypore I decided to do a bit of shopping, the shops there are bigger and better stocked and have things not available in Koraput.  I was really pleased to find a pan shop that had a kettle (or kettlie as he called it).  Up till now I've had to boil my water in an open pan (pans don't seem to have lids here, I use a metal plate across the top as a lid).  I haven't been enjoying my tea since I got here, it just hasn't tasted right but every cup I've made using the kettle has been really nice.  Coincidence or psychological I wonder?  But a second tick on my list of things to do.

Today I went down into Koraput to go to the market for my weekly veg shopping.  On the way I spotted a shop I hadn't seen before selling furniture.  Since I arrived I've been hoping to find something more comfortable to sit on than the ubiquitous plastic chairs.  I have got a cushion and pillow to try to make it slightly more comfortable but it's hardly luxurious and my back's been aching a bit.  I've been looking for cane furniture which I thought would be cheap and looks really nice.  I'd been told that I wouldn't be able to get cane chairs here until the tribal convention in November and had resigned myself to waiting until then.  But hey presto, I found a shop that sold exactly what I've been looking for today and at a very good price.  So I now have a 3 piece suite - all I need now is friends and family to come and make use of it!  So that's another tick on my list.

I was slightly disturbed a couple of days ago when I returned home from work to find that my resident birds nest has moved. Those of you who have been following my blog may remember that I posted a photo of said nest on my Diwali blog.  It's moved about 6 inches to the left and is now on the opposite side of the recess. Has it come to life?  Is it actually some mysterious creature hibernating up there?  It must be about 12 feet up and I can't find anything tall enought to stand on to look at it more closely.  I might not like what I find anyway so maybe it's a good thing.

On a more serious note, I think I may finally be making some headway at work.  My first objective is to write policies and procedures for the NGO and then to make sure that everyone follows the procedures.  They will love me, introducing formalities and red tape.  To achieve writing said policies I need to be working quite closely with the accountant and other people in the NGO - which is fine, as a volunteer that is what I should be doing to help them to grow their skills.  However, I sometimes think that I'm viewed a bit like an auditor as I have had to look very critically at the way that they work and assess if that's an efficient/transparent/accountable way of working that would stand up to audit.  Noone likes working with auditors (apologies to any of you who are auditors) and none of us likes to feel that our work is being criticised.  It's sometimes felt a bit of an uphill struggle to get the time I need from my local colleagues.  However, I think I'm really making some progress and was really pleased to be able to pass a draft copy of the procurement policy to the accountant for his feedback and next to go willl be HR, an ominously long document as it includes lots of template letters, forms, health and safety, disability policy and a host of things that will probably never need to be used but need to be there.  I think the likelihood of needing to follow a disciplinary or grievance procedure is fairly remote but it needs to be included for completeness.  Then I'll have to return to the really hard stuff, the accounting procedures and the monitoring and evaluation stuff.  I'll get there eventually.  Writing policies and procedures is not the most riveting of pastimes but it's really important stuff.  Many NGOs operate very effectively without any of the formalities that are deemed essential in the corporate environment.  However, that may result in a lack of transparency and accountability that is essential for the donors to be able to have confidence that their sponsorship is being spent effectively and appropriately.  It would be really nice if I could finish the job and see that some of the working practices have improved and the red tape part of my colleagues job is made easier by having a methodical procedure to follow instead of trying to work out what to do every time.  I will live in hope but it's given a huge boost to my morale just to get nods of appreciation when I talked the accountant through my draft.  Let's hope I can continue on the road to success.

Bikes

There are very few cars here in Koraput.  Most people walk to wherever they need to go and there are many motorbikes and bicycles.  I spotted a small boy on a very big pushbike a few days ago and wished I'd had my camera to hand.  He was probably around 7-8 years old and was riding a large, adult sized bike with a crossbar.  His legs were too short for him to be able to sit on the seat and reach the pedals - I reckon his feet would have been suspended about a foot above the pedals.  So how was he riding it?  His left foot was on the left pedal, as you might expect.  His right leg was thrust underneath the crossbar, through the frame to the reach right pedal at a sideways angle.  He was leaning his body out around 45 degrees to the left and had the bike at a similar angle leaning to the right to counterbalance his weight.  He was bombing at full speed down the hills, weaving round the holes, dogs, cows and people then pumping away at the pedals to ride up the hill on the other side of the stream.  Who said you need to make sure your bike is the right size?

A few days later I saw a man on a bike carrying a second full-size bike.  He was slowly pedalling along the same road where I'd seen the boy with the spare bike strapped sideways onto the back of his bike, making his load as wide as the rickshaws also weaving through the road users.  I must learn to carry my camera with me at all times.

Deepavali

Deepavali or Diwali or The Festival of Light or "celebration of the inner light" celebrations have been building up all week.  Many shops close down for a couple of days before the day to have a thorough clean-up and repainting followed by decorating with flowers

Here's Amar's shop (the supplier of toilet tissue) with Amar walking away with a big grin on his face.  Unfortunate spelling mistake in the floral sign but it didn't matter as everyone is just out to enjoy themselves. 

Nearly all the shops put some sort of decoration up, it's a really important day here and seemed to be making everyone happy.

I was also invited to attend the third birthday celebration of the son of a work colleague, held at the Jaganath Temple here in Koraput.  Diwali is a very auspicious day to be able to celebrate a bithday and the kids had a wonderful time racing round the safety of the temple without anyone worrying about motorbikes or rickshaws.  The date of Diwali is decided by the lunar calendar so he won't be able to share his birthday with Diwali again for a while. 
Many people draw Rangoli patterns on the ground outside their homes  to encourage the goddess Lakshmi to enter their homes.  These patterns are common here all the time as they are used to welcome guests into the home and are traditionally drawn using rice grains, sand or chalk but seem to have got bigger and more colourful over the Diwali season, I guess they need to be bright to attract Lakshmi.

Yesterday started with a bang, everyone seems to let off crackers and 'bombs' which went on very noisily all day and only seemed to quieten down around midnight.  I was a little alarmed when I saw the fireworks on sale as they are not controlled like in UK, market stalls have open displays of their wares which seem to be sold to anyone who can pay.  Kids love letting off crackers, making me jump every time.  Many of the rockets don't seem to go up vertically but weave a horizontal path across the sky, sometimes landing worryingly close to our feet.  

Most houses had lamps and candles lit up in the windows, on doorsteps, in gateways and rowed up along the walls around the roof.  It looked wonderful in the evening.  Some people use decorative electric lights like the Christmas lights at home but more common are the small clay pots filled with oil with diyas (cotton wicks) inserted.  These are incredibly cheap, one of my colleagues got some for me at the grand total of 5 rupees for 15 pots.  I then had the problem of working out which shop to go to to buy oil, deciding the easiest way of describing what I wanted was to take a pot with me to point at while asking for oil.  I achieved success with buying castor oil (served in a flimsy plastic bag) and got very messy trying to make up my lamps, getting oil everywhere in the process.  I managed to get some going but my attempts looked a bit pathetic compared to all my neighbours but I thought the house still looked good.

Some of my work colleagues arrived at home mid-morning to perform a Hindu house-warming ceremony and banish the evil spirits from the house.  Prasant drew auspicious patterns on the wall with Turmeric, said prayers, split a coconut open, lit incense and scatter turmeric stained rice, leaves and water around the house and walls to make it safe.  It felt a real honour and I hope that means that the leaks won't return at the next monsoon.  For the house cleansing to work I had to leave the coconut water on the floor and the rice scattered.  The only problem was that rice and broken coconut shell are not great under bare feet!

So that just leaves my birds nest to sort out.  It was built in July but I don't think it was ever occupied.  I'm not sure whether to leave it as a decoration or try to remove it as it looks a bit like a really bad wig sat on a high shelf.  It will probably stay, I've got quite fond of it really and maybe the birds will return sometime to raise a family.

Builders

The builders seem to have abandoned work on my house for now.  Possibly forever, I don't know.  They worked every day up to Dussera and one of them turned up every morning for a couple of weeks to flood the roof from the water tank up there to stop the new surface from drying too quickly and cracking but there's been no other work done.  There are still half-built pillars on the roof that were supposed to protect the steel rods left exposed and there is one big wall that needs to be protected with rendering to stop it leaking in heavy rain. That's not a problem at the moment but it will become a problem again next monsoon.  I've been told they are having trouble getting access to that wall because the neighbour doesn't want them on his land.  Short of abseiling down from the roof the only way to access it would be from scaffolding in next doors garden. 

In the meantime I still have builders rubble left on the roof and steps and don't feel much inclined to clear up until I'm sure they've finished.  I'm actually quite relieved not to see them on scaffolding outside the house, it tends to look pretty precarious here.  I walked past some newly erected scaffolding on my way home to lunch today, it is thick bamboo poles shoved into the ground for the uprights with slightly narrower (round) bamboo poles balanced across at intervals of around 5-6 cm for the platforms.  No safety barriers and nothing to catch things dropped from a height.  There was a builder nonchalently chucking mortar at the brick wall to build up a coat of rendering, most of it dropping straight off again down to the ground.  I went past as quickly as possible,

There is a plot of land on the other side of my house that is now home to another group of builders.  I have often seen the land-owner walking around this plot early in the morning and peering through my windows to have a chat with me.  He came along while I was eating my lunch today to have a quick look at what was going on and as usual he wanted to know what I was eating and what I was reading.  I'm not sure he understood my answer but I try to remain polite, it feels to me like an intrusion of privacy but I think to the locals it is a gesture of friendship and concern that we are eating enough.  There does not seem to be a sense of personal space here, maybe it's a reflection on the starvation, poverty and cramped living conditions common here. 

I also now have builders peering in to see what's going on in my humble abode.  One started waving his mobile phone at me and like an idiot I thought he was trying to gesture that he wanted me to take his photo with his mobile.  After a confused and confusing exchange of Pidgin English I realised he wanted to charge it.   There are very few electrical sockets in this house, I guess most people here have very few gadgets and don't need the same number that we expect in Europe.  One socket per room, all situated at shoulder-level next to the light switch, a good way of cutting down the electrical wiring requirements.  It took me a while to work out where I could plug in my charger where he would be able to reach his phone from outside as of course I had to get back to work.  We achieved it by putting it on a windowsill where he could reach it by climbing up onto the newly built wall, complete with wet mortar. 

I'm a little worried about the effect that the new house will have on mine.  One wall has no windows at all (the side with the neighbourly dispute) and the other side looks out onto the plot.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the walls of the new house will end up about a metre from my windows and block out most of the light and give me a charming view.  It also means that I won't get woken up by a cow poking her nose, chewing her cud and snorting through my window in the early hours of the morning, which may be a good thing.

Home luxuries

Here in Koraput we live a very simple life.  Entertainment opportunities are limited, to the best of my knowledge there is not even a cinema in the town - unusual in India where film is very popular.  But it is very small, despite being the administrative centre for the surrounding Koraput district.  The availability of different foods is also limited.  It's unusual to transport food far (which is surely better for the planet?) and much of the fruit and veg sold in the market is grown locally and carried into town on the heads of the producers and sellers.  It's a good time of year for harvest at the moment and there's a pretty good range of vegetables on the stalls, most of which looks wonderfully fresh..  I'm not so sure how good the variety will be as the seasons change.  I am told that the range was very limited before the monsoon started, I suspect that that's when I'll really start craving favourite foods from home.  At the moment, except for the occasional desire for something savoury like cheese, there's enough range of flavours in the local foods to keep me happy.

So what did my husband do after a meal with out good friends A and K at our home village last Saturday?  Go to great lengths to describe the foods and wine.  A is a great cook and also makes interesting wines.  Some are pretty lethal and consumption shiuld be limited to small quantities but my favourite is her champagne which is pretty  low alcohol while it's young.  It seems that blackberry champagne was on supply on Saturday.  As for the pudding, it's just not fair.  There was a rice pudding that I endeavoured to eat with my fingers from a leaf plate still covered with curry, dahl and rice a couple of days ago which was an interesting experience, especially for my companions who were amused at my struggles.  My other sweet intake has been minimal, limited to a fruit salad I made, some pancakes made by Carol on our first night here and a 'party cake' supplied by 'the best shop in Koraput'.  Jon took great delight in describing the pudding - a long loaf made of chocolate about 5mm thick, then inside that it's been filled with frozen yoghurt flavoured with Tia Maria and crushed choclocate covered coffee beans, and every 2cm there is a layer of flaked chocolate, then another layer of frozen yoghurt.   About 3 chocolate layes in all.  Can someone snd one of these out to Koraput please?

Phew!

I'm shattered.  I've just finished my 8th consective day of work.  This shouldn't be a really big deal, lots of people have to work many days without a break and probably for much longer hours than me.  My excuse is that everything is more tiring for me here as it is still unfamiliar and I struggle with communications.  Or maybe it's just old age setting in and getting to me?

Today was the third day of the team meeting.  I can't imagine trying to organise a 3 day team meeting at anywhere I have worked in the UK but it's really worked here.  Many of the team live in remote places and it takes so long to get here that meetings need to be spread ove several days to make the most out of getting everyone together in the same place at the same time.  During the meeting each project team does a review of progress since the last meeting, plans for the next quarter, everyone gives feedback and reviews of any training received, hears about any plans for activities and initiatives plus a load of other things.  I had to do a presentation of the workshop on local fundraising that I attended in Delhi in September.  I was expecting it to take around a couple of hours but it ended up taking over 4 hours.  This was partly down to the fact that there was translation of what I said into Oriya and some other languages during the presentation itself but the activities that I'd set the team triggered lots of discussion and seemed to get people really thinking about the problem.

We could learn alot about running meetings from these people.  What I really liked about the meeting was how everyone seemed to keep motivated and noone fell asleep except for the break after lunch when it's common for people to just lie down on the floor and have a nap.  How civilised.  I didn't manage to work out the trigger (possibly because I don't understand most of what is said) but every now and again, when people start to flag, someone just starts singing and everyone joins in and clapping in rhythm.  The songs are usually led by a soloist or a small group with the rest joining in for what I assume is some sort of chorus or response.  I must try to find out what the songs are about, they are tribal songs and I'm sure they have significant meaning.  They are lovely to listen to.  When it's time to reconvene after an activity session or a break, the people waiting start a rhythmic clapping that gradually gets faster and faster until eventually everyone returns to the room.  And our cricket bats have had some use over the last few days!

The feedback after one of my fundraising exercises.  Can anyone translate for me?  And don't tell me it says media highlights, comit(t)ment and limited time manpower and resource.  Please!

One of my tennis balls being lobbed around to wake people up and get them to talk about what they felt about the workshop

A photo taken a few weeks ago at an the disability orientation workshop during the more usual singing and clapping used to recharge everyone during the day

And at last, more than 7 weeks after arriving in Koraput my housemate has managed to move into her own home.  She had been getting understandably frustrated by all the delays and was really pleased when her apartment was finally vacated last Friday and the place was given a good clean-up on Saturday ready for her to move in.  We had been trying to work out how best to organise carrying all her gear the few hundred metres up the road from my house but of course this was team meeting weekend.  Before 7:30 on Sunday morning a bunch of around half a dozen of the team turned up and made quick work of carrying everything up to her house.  If they'd come much earlier they would have had to carry the bed complete with her still sleeping in it!  It's really good news for her as her husband is due to arrive in Koraput in a few weeks time and she now has a bit of time to get the place sorted out so that it's a real home for him to move into.  Hurrah!

Saturday sports

Saturday is a working day for most of us working in NGOs here in India.  This weekend there is a team meeting, a quarterly gathering of the SPREAD field-workers to discuss project progress, plans, training they've received etc plus the opportunity for everyone to get together.  This is easier said than done when many of them live and work in very remote locations so it's good for them to meet up every few months in Koraput.  These meetings are very different to anything I have experienced in the UK.  When over 40 people have to gather in a small office I wondered how we'd all fit in but there was not problem as everyone just sits on the floor.  There are periodic breaks when everyone starts singing traditional tribal songs and clapping.  I can do the clapping bit but the rest is beyond me at the moment.  We could learn something from this meeting style in the UK, everyone is much more relaxed and wanting to join in and actually look forward to coming to meetings.  I've been in and out of the meeting, most of which is conducted in Oriya and some of the tribal languages but couldn't resist taking a few photos during breaks. 

My lunch, served on a jungle-leaf plate.  The ultimate in sustainable living and a darn sight easier than washing up in cold water

The lure of cricket doesn't go away.  This is a combination of project coordinators, accountants, the NGO director and a bunch of local kids










One of the other things I bought in the sports shop in Bhubaneswar on my way to Koraput was a ring which proved a hit on the office-roof.

Snakes and things

We had a bit of excitement in the office today when someone came running inside to tell us there was a snake outside.  Always up for an excuse for a diversion we all hurried out to see a fairly large snake of somewhere between 1.5 and 2 metres slithering around outside the office, trying to find someplace to hide.  It stuck it's head into a small drainage hole leading out of the office to try to get out of our way and the general concensus being that we would rather keep it out of the office one of the men took hold of a long stick and wedged it into the gap to stop the snake getting in any further.  We then had the problem of large snake half in and half out of the office.  Of course it had gone into the most inaccessible part of the building, a store-room that's rammed full of all the things that one day might be useful, along with a few musa (Oriya for mouse).  Maybe the snake was after the mice?  Unfortunately as many snakes round here are poisonous the safest solution was taken and the snake is no more.

I've heard that there's interesting wildlife like bears and tigers in Orissa but there is very little groundcover around here, most of the treecover long since having disappeared so the population is prety low.  However, Mike told us that there was a brown bear spotted wandering around near his NGO office yesterday, just a few kilometres from my office.  When I told one of my colleagues about this he told me that there had been one hanging around just outside the SPREAD office door last summer.  Why do I never have my camera to hand when I need it?  However, Margaret had hers with her so here they are:

I don't know why I'm smiling, it was a sad ending for the snake.  My human companion is Ajaya, one of the accountants

I got up this morning and went onto the roof to retrieve last night's washing and found a creature in residence on my dupatta.  It's rather lovely but fortunately flew off when I was trying to work out what to do with it

And on my way to the office a few days ago I was intrigued to see a lorry loaded with lumps of granite (the material used to build the foundations) turning into a field with a vacant building plot on it, followed by a group of women dressed in their best silk saris with flowers in their hair walking (barefoot of course) behind it.  What was that all about?  Some sort of ceremony to bless the new building plot?  I'm told that all new houses are blessed before people can live in them so maybe it's something along those lines?

Bats

I managed to pick up a cold virus last week and have spent a few days feeling very sorry for myself and using up far too much of my precious toilet tissue on my disgustingly runny nose.  Which you really needed to know.  But I'm feeling mostly better now, just a bit bunged up.  It's years since I last caught a cold, I blame the change in climate and environment for succumbing.

Among the things that I brought with me to Koraput was a cricket bat and a couple of tennis balls.  We had played a game of cricket in the Lodi Gardens in Delhi on our last day of In Country Training.  This was the first time I had ever played cricket in my life and I don't have any talent for ball-sports but we had great fun and lots of passing Indians joined in the game.  This made me think that a bat and a couple of balls might be a good ice-breaker in Koraput. 

On my spare day in Bhubaneswar between those long train journeys I found a sports shop and bought a bat and tennis balls which I decided were safer, cheaper and lighter than the real thing.  I began to regret the addition to my luggage while I was lugging things on and off the train, whacking people's shins with the bat strapped to the side of my rucksack but it was worth it.  They have proven to be very popular at the office, after sitting idle in a corner by my desk for the first couple of weeks with every visitor picking up the bat to examine it they have at last come into use.  Every evening for the last week or so I've got to around 5:00pm and started thinking it's nearly time to go home when someone has poked their head round the door to say "Madam, cricket".  I end up getting very embarrassed by my lack of skill at even managing to hit the ball let alone score runs but it's good fun.  It gets harder every minute as the light levels drop, the ball getting almost invisible as it's covered in the red dirt and blending in with the colour of the ground.  However, I have managed to catch someone out once.  It will probably be the last time it ever happens. 

As the light fades the bats come out of their roost and start flying over.  There are small bats darting around and hopefully catching some of those pesky mosquitoes, similar to the bigger species I sometimes see at home in UK but there are also enormous ones with a wing-span of around 2 foot.  I have no idea what species they are but they could get pretty scarey if they got too close, their bodies are around the same size as a medium size cat.  One of these days I might be able to get a photograph of them but of course my camers is never to hand at the right time.  What any photo attempt would look like is another matter with a combination of a high-flying moving object and very low light conditions combined with no tripod - if I ever manage to try they will probably be just one big blur.  I've been told that they roost in a large tree next to the police station so maybe I should try to capture them there.

On my way home today I was accosted by a gentleman that I'd been introduced to last week at my next-door neighbours house.  I had been in a hurry to get home as I needed the toilet (something I try to avoid using at the office, I am still not used to squat toilets and hate going into ones outside my own house with bare feet).  But my newly found friend asked me to come with him to his house and I feel so safe in Koraput that I had no hesitation in accepting.  Off we went down a red dirt road that I hadn't ventured down before to find his house and was introduced to his wife and daughter who brought me a glass of warm water, a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea.  Very nice but I got more and more uncomfortable and had to make my excuses as soon as it was polite to to so. 

Then on the way past another house that doubles up as a bakery the lady of the house spotted me and asked me in.  This was another family that I had met last week, she had insisted that I take a couple of pretty red and gold bangles the last time I visited and she would have been very offended if I'd refused to come inside.  All the women here seem to wear lots of bangles, even those doing heavy lifting and building work.  It's especially surprising when you realise that most of them are made of glass and are pretty fragile.  They are part of everyday women's clothing and it's seen as strange not to wear them.  I'm told that red ones signify marriage.  I never normally wear anything like this and it feels quite odd to have a couple of rings of glass on my wrist, my hand is so big compared to Indian womens' hands that there is no hope of ever getting them off again save by breaking them.  So of course another cup of tea was in order.  It's lovely to be made to feel so welcome and to start to get to know some of the local people but I was desparate by the time I finally managed to get home!

I love the Ig nobel awards

They make me giggle every year.  Ten awards are made each year for achievements that make people laugh then make them think in categories loosely modelled on the Nobel prizes.  They started in 1991 for discoveries that "cannot or should not be reproduced".  Link from my favourite and sadly missed newspaper below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/oct/02/ig-noble-awards-britons-top

Kumar Purnima

Back to work on Thursday after a nice long break.  On my way home from work I was passing a nearby house that also doubles up as a bakery when one of the occupants came out and beckoned my inside.  She wanted me to meet her daughters and tiny new grandson, all of 10 days old.  She spoke very little English but Kalyani, the 20 year-old daughter struck up a conversation and translated for us.  They insisted I had a cha with them and gave me  bisuits while they asked me about myself, my family, why I'm here in India etc.  The usual questions, including what salary I get.  They seemed a bit flummoxed when I told them that there is no salary, just a small allowance to buy food although I suspect that the VSO allowance, although far from generous is far more than many people here can earn.  A common question here is whether I cook and do I cook Indian food.  This time I was asked who cooked at home in the UK.  They found it hard to believe that Jon does most of the cooking in our house and I used to go out to work full time while he looked after the house and me round his part-time job.  In this part of rural India it's a concept that they find hard to get their heads round.  I had to stop myself bursting out with a feminist tirade when Kalyani said it is every woman's duty to have babies.  I tried to tell her that many women in Europe and America decide they don't want to have children and prefer to work but I'm not convinced she grasped what I tried to explain.


Friday was the anniversary of Gandhi's birthday, a national holiday in India but my NGO worked Friday and took Saturday holiday instead to celebrate Kumar Purnima festival.  'Kumar' or 'Kartikeya', the handsome son of Shiva was born on this day.  Kumar also became the God of war. Tradition says young girls always wish for a handsome husband and they propitiate Kumar who was most handsome among the Gods.  But there is no ritual for the God, instead the sun and the moon are worshipped.  In the early morning the girls and women make food-offerings to the sun and I could hear singing and chanting going on all round the town.  They observe fasting for the day. In the evening when the moon rises they again make food offerings and take it after the rituals are over.


My offering for the day was to invite Ali and Mike round for supper and a few beers.  The first challenge was to work out what to make for supper.  I walked into town in the morning with Mike to do some shopping but my menu planning being non-existant I didn't work out what I was going to make until later in the day at which point I just had to make do with what was in the house.  Tomatoes are good at the moment, plentiful and cheap at just 10 rupees a kilo so it had to be something with tomatoes and the paneer I bought.  We ended up with a very nice gazpacho made by Margaret followed by a sort of pinto bean and tomato dish with onion, garlic and ginger to perk it up (my version of baked beans) with paneer chilli.  It seemed to go down well with all of us and copious amounts of beer were consumed during the evening while we put the world to rights and talked about some of the things that we have experienced here in India. 



I started the day by opening the door to find a calf lying down in the front yard, having made it's way round the gap in the wall at the side of the house.  When he eventually decided to get up he couldn't work out how to find the gap again so just waitied patiently at the gate until I opened it so that he could go wandering off up the street, leaving a nice offering of his own just inside the gate.  A little later I went out to find 3 dogs curled up on the paved area enjoying the sun.  I love dogs but am very wary of them here in India as the majority of them are feral, some fit and healthy but many in very poor condition with mange, malnutrition, injuries but worst of all, rabies is endemic here.  Even those of us who have had the vaccination would need quick treatment and more jabs to protect us if  we get bitten.  The dogs too left their own offering.  Lovely.


There's a tiny dairy shop in Koraput that sells paneer and dahi (yogurt) very cheaply.  The dahi is kept inside a big stainless steel vat that he dips a ladle into and pours into a flimsy plastic bag and ties up with string that I somehow have to get home without it splitting and spilling all over everything else.  The next trick is to open the bag without dahi spurting out all over the place.  That's something I haven't yet worked out how to achieve. It's a good thing that it's cheap, I always seem to end up with a puddle of it on the worktop or down my front.