Well, I have really gone and done it now. I have left my volunteer placement, outside Pune, having lasted just one week...
Here's a quick catch up..
Leaving Sikkim was hard. Everyone was so lovely and everyone wanted me to stay. Foreigners can only stay for 2 months maximum so I didn't have to make any decisions. I felt very emotional the last few days at school, saying goodbye to the children, knowing that even if I am lucky enough to come back, I won't see them again. Of course, this tapped into deeper grief and I wonder if saying goodbye now is always going to be hard for me?
The school put on a special programme on my last day - lots of performances by the children, every child gave me a scarf (Tibetan style), presents, speeches, then I had to dance with Iccika, a student from class 6 who is an especially gifted dancer and gifted I am not. Anyhow people appreciated my comic turn (it was to English pop music). Then a shared feast with the teachers. Then packing up my lovely little room.
The next day I caught the shared jeep to Siliguri. My big pack and smaller day pack were up on the roof and just before Siliguri the heavens opened and I had my first taste of monsoon. The sriver stopped briefly but not long enough to put a covering over the jeep so I spent the rest of the journey being philosopical about my luggage getting wet. I was totally embarrassed to find that my luggage was on the back seat passengers knees whilst I had a roomy front seat! Then onto the airport and back into the fairly uniform world of flying (but at least everything is familiar and you know what you are supposed to do) - except of course that the plane flew east first into Assam, then turned around and flew west to Delhi! Caught my connecting flight and arrived late at night into Pune.
Adjusting to Pune, a big city with 7 times the population of the whole of Sikkim, wasn't easy but I got into the swing of hailing down auto rickshaws, asking at least 3 people for directions, going into dodgey looking alleyways in seach of internet cafes. I did upgrade into a AC room which was heavenly as Pune was so hot after Sikkim.
Then onto the delights of Sadhana Village - a collection of 3 houses, 30km from Pune. I got a lift there and was welcomed with chai and mango juice and some al Friends (as the residents are called) having breakfast under a tree. Needless to say, it all went down hill from at point on..... I very quickly realised that the place was in crisis. Essentially there aren't enough people involved in running the place, nor are there enough volunteers so day 2 so me making up medecine packs for the following week and dispencing everyone's medecine for that day (with no one to heck my work). Heaven only knows what I was dishing out! SF are a mixture of adults with learning disabilities and adults with some fairly serious mental health issues and with some very disturbing behaviours. As a volunteer you were expected to work from 7am to 9pm when the SF were locked in their rooms. Each house in theory had a house mother but there was one vacancy and the others were not there during the day so from 9 to 6 there were 5 German volunteers, plus me, left in charge. The German volunteers were all much younger than me and had been there for 10 months. Two of them were clearly exhausted and at breaking point. Evidently there used to be a co-worker who had a great way of working with SF but he had left and hadn't been replaced.
So I had a fairly serious conversations straight away about my concerns - staff shortage, level of responsibility of volunteers, not knowing what worked for each SF, regimented regime of locked gates, and SF locked in their rooms each night, lack of meaningful activities, the huge amount of rats everywhere and promised I would stay for a week. I did just that but had to leave as it was all beyond what I could do.
I know that it was the right decision for me to leave and I hope that my leaving has sent a serious message to the organisation.
And so I am now in Pune and sorting out another volunteer placement in Kerala which would also allow me the opportunity to visit a hatha yoga ashram (again with a demanding schedule of yoga, meditation, lectures but at least the gates won't be locked!). And if it doesn't work out I have the chance of working in a small school outside Leh, in Ladakh, in the Himalayas. So quite possibly I am looking to be spending a fair proportion of the rest of my time in India on a train!!
I'm in good spirits and accepting of what fate has thrown at me. I have just finished reading The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh in which he talks of life being a transition - how right on some many different levels.
In the meantime, I'm slowly getting to know bits of Pune. I'm ashamed to say that I did go into a modern shopping mall and my eyes popped out when I saw it was full of Marks and Spencer, Pizza Hut, Body Shop, and all the well known sports brands. Security guards at the entrance who scanned you and checked your luggage - I think more of a measure to keep "poor" people out rather than to stop terrorists. However having said that, the German Bakery, a well known cafe for Indians and backpackers here, was bombed last year.
And interesting, I am starting to meet other white tourists, a British couple who were staying at the same grotty hotel as me (cheap and definately not cheerful). They are working with the British Consultate in Mumbai and had come to Pune for the weekend. He normally works for the Border Agency in the UK but I tried not to hold that against him as they were very friendly! We went out for a meal and got talking to someone who offered us drugs and the opportunity to go to a hill station for the night... even I picked up that it would involve sex! Needless to say I passed on this exciting invite. Fortunately my next encounter with white tourists were two nice dykey looking women from USA and Australia who were doing an intensive yoga course here. Only coffee was shared during this exchange!
I'm off now to look at another hotel as I'm nearly my limit of grotty decor, not very clean bathroom and sleeping in my own sheet sleeping bag - all part of the experience of being here and not there. It still is lovely being here and not being in the UK and not working and running a house....
I'll update with news once I have some!
love
bee
Here's a quick catch up..
Leaving Sikkim was hard. Everyone was so lovely and everyone wanted me to stay. Foreigners can only stay for 2 months maximum so I didn't have to make any decisions. I felt very emotional the last few days at school, saying goodbye to the children, knowing that even if I am lucky enough to come back, I won't see them again. Of course, this tapped into deeper grief and I wonder if saying goodbye now is always going to be hard for me?
The school put on a special programme on my last day - lots of performances by the children, every child gave me a scarf (Tibetan style), presents, speeches, then I had to dance with Iccika, a student from class 6 who is an especially gifted dancer and gifted I am not. Anyhow people appreciated my comic turn (it was to English pop music). Then a shared feast with the teachers. Then packing up my lovely little room.
The next day I caught the shared jeep to Siliguri. My big pack and smaller day pack were up on the roof and just before Siliguri the heavens opened and I had my first taste of monsoon. The sriver stopped briefly but not long enough to put a covering over the jeep so I spent the rest of the journey being philosopical about my luggage getting wet. I was totally embarrassed to find that my luggage was on the back seat passengers knees whilst I had a roomy front seat! Then onto the airport and back into the fairly uniform world of flying (but at least everything is familiar and you know what you are supposed to do) - except of course that the plane flew east first into Assam, then turned around and flew west to Delhi! Caught my connecting flight and arrived late at night into Pune.
Adjusting to Pune, a big city with 7 times the population of the whole of Sikkim, wasn't easy but I got into the swing of hailing down auto rickshaws, asking at least 3 people for directions, going into dodgey looking alleyways in seach of internet cafes. I did upgrade into a AC room which was heavenly as Pune was so hot after Sikkim.
Then onto the delights of Sadhana Village - a collection of 3 houses, 30km from Pune. I got a lift there and was welcomed with chai and mango juice and some al Friends (as the residents are called) having breakfast under a tree. Needless to say, it all went down hill from at point on..... I very quickly realised that the place was in crisis. Essentially there aren't enough people involved in running the place, nor are there enough volunteers so day 2 so me making up medecine packs for the following week and dispencing everyone's medecine for that day (with no one to heck my work). Heaven only knows what I was dishing out! SF are a mixture of adults with learning disabilities and adults with some fairly serious mental health issues and with some very disturbing behaviours. As a volunteer you were expected to work from 7am to 9pm when the SF were locked in their rooms. Each house in theory had a house mother but there was one vacancy and the others were not there during the day so from 9 to 6 there were 5 German volunteers, plus me, left in charge. The German volunteers were all much younger than me and had been there for 10 months. Two of them were clearly exhausted and at breaking point. Evidently there used to be a co-worker who had a great way of working with SF but he had left and hadn't been replaced.
So I had a fairly serious conversations straight away about my concerns - staff shortage, level of responsibility of volunteers, not knowing what worked for each SF, regimented regime of locked gates, and SF locked in their rooms each night, lack of meaningful activities, the huge amount of rats everywhere and promised I would stay for a week. I did just that but had to leave as it was all beyond what I could do.
I know that it was the right decision for me to leave and I hope that my leaving has sent a serious message to the organisation.
And so I am now in Pune and sorting out another volunteer placement in Kerala which would also allow me the opportunity to visit a hatha yoga ashram (again with a demanding schedule of yoga, meditation, lectures but at least the gates won't be locked!). And if it doesn't work out I have the chance of working in a small school outside Leh, in Ladakh, in the Himalayas. So quite possibly I am looking to be spending a fair proportion of the rest of my time in India on a train!!
I'm in good spirits and accepting of what fate has thrown at me. I have just finished reading The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh in which he talks of life being a transition - how right on some many different levels.
In the meantime, I'm slowly getting to know bits of Pune. I'm ashamed to say that I did go into a modern shopping mall and my eyes popped out when I saw it was full of Marks and Spencer, Pizza Hut, Body Shop, and all the well known sports brands. Security guards at the entrance who scanned you and checked your luggage - I think more of a measure to keep "poor" people out rather than to stop terrorists. However having said that, the German Bakery, a well known cafe for Indians and backpackers here, was bombed last year.
And interesting, I am starting to meet other white tourists, a British couple who were staying at the same grotty hotel as me (cheap and definately not cheerful). They are working with the British Consultate in Mumbai and had come to Pune for the weekend. He normally works for the Border Agency in the UK but I tried not to hold that against him as they were very friendly! We went out for a meal and got talking to someone who offered us drugs and the opportunity to go to a hill station for the night... even I picked up that it would involve sex! Needless to say I passed on this exciting invite. Fortunately my next encounter with white tourists were two nice dykey looking women from USA and Australia who were doing an intensive yoga course here. Only coffee was shared during this exchange!
I'm off now to look at another hotel as I'm nearly my limit of grotty decor, not very clean bathroom and sleeping in my own sheet sleeping bag - all part of the experience of being here and not there. It still is lovely being here and not being in the UK and not working and running a house....
I'll update with news once I have some!
love
bee
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