May-June email Part Two

Hello again

Nearly 2 weeks since I last wrote to you all and the time just seems to have flown by…  and within that time much has happened…

• Lisa arrived YAY!!!! and has since left. But…it was a fantastic seven days filled with much fun, conversation, relaxation, good food, drink, chocolate and the ever present Indian culture…

• I have been to Pondicherry again.. If you have ever read the Life of Pi by Yann Martel then you would know that Pondicherry is the French province of South India… Its a lovely quirky town about 3 and half hour bus ride from Chennai..with quiet streets lined with old British Colonal and French architecture. It actually reminds me a little of the French quarter in New Orleans. 

• the rains have come…!!!I am not sure if Lisa brought the rain with her from London or that Sunmer monsoon seasons has finally arrived… but it now seems to rain quite heavily every two to three days… and when its not raining its incredibly sticky!!  

• It seems I am attending a wedding next weekend… some how I got invited to the wedding even before I had met the bride, the groom or any of their families… its the indian way… anyone who knows anyone close to the family can invite people….so it seems. (don’t worry have since met the bride and her family who are all from the UK, groom… and one of the bridesmaids is now staying with us at the guest house… ) 

anyway where were we… ohh yes

the bridge course finished….(end of May) and I went straight into helping out at a summer camp for hostel students at Ewarts Womens Christian College.

Most of the girls that attend Ewarts are from poor less privileged backgrounds. This college provides these young women with a chance at a further education in the area of Maths, Nutrition, Microbiology, Computer Science and Commerce. Whilst the standard  of degrees here is nothing like the standard of education in Australia, these courses encourage and hopefully empower these young women to believe that there is more for them in life than getting married very young, or working as road labourers or farm labourers, or in factories… that they have a right to an education and a better future…. and choice – something that their parents and grandparents never had.

And in part they have grasped that concept…. their education is the key to something more. But when you sit and talk with the girls, when you ask them what they are going to do once they have finished their courses… most reply that they will do another course and then possibly another… and then they will get married!… (and what happens after that is up to their husband…).

I had a great time with the girls from the hostel…I am sure I spent the majority of the time playing 20 questions… or more like 100 questions!!! and trying to remember all the girls names… I can’t begin to tell you the how important it was for me to remember their names!!! ( an let me tell you it was no mean feet… but by the end of the week I had all their names down pat !) I was so proud of myself!!! and had ended up learining more tamil along the way…

By the end of the seven days even the shiest of girls attempted a conversation in english… much to the delight of Anne ( the coordinator of the camp program)…

Its been a really interesting experience to get my head around the whole teaching English as a second language thing….as I said in my previous email being able to converse in english for some of these students is the difference between being employable or unemployed later on…

I have the most amazing respect for anyone who is a teacher!!!!

speaking of teaching or English……or just because this was a funny moment for me….

 while i was there at Ewarts I got asked by one of the girls to teach them some words in my language,  a little confused because I had already been teaching her english phrases over the past few days   I continued  to do that but added a couple of aussie slang terms…”Hey, hows it going” and “No worries”

After shaking her head and looking at me slightly perplexed she mentioned that Australian was a lot like English…. It was at that moment I realised that they thought I had been speaking English so that they could understand and that in Australia we speak a whole language… it was a funny moment for all involved.

I keep for getting that apart from a little geography and national symbols such as the Kangaroo and the Opera House not much really is known about Australia here… so why on earth would they know that like in India,  English is out national language.

so you are proably wondering what I have been doing since then…

well…

 Half way though May the guest house was decended upon by the loud and boisterous Pickering family (Sue, Allan, Abbie -14 yrs old and Mollie – 12 yrs old). Sue is in her second year as a candidate for the deaconate in Qld and came to India  for 5 weeks to do her field placement with the CSI Board of womens concerns work on womens issues.  So from 2 we went to 6…. which was fun, at times loud and a little all over the palce when it came to program…

Over those couple of weeks we ended up in some of the more rural and remote areas of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh… areas of India that most tourists would never see. We spent time in rural fishing villages that were descimated by the Tsnami that are slowly rebuilding themeselves; in villages where women are learning new trades such as tailoring so that their families can survive because the cultivation of crops no longer bring in enough to eat…. and everywhere we went people opened their hearts and houses with incredible warmth and generosity….

ohh and I spoke at the CSI Madras Diocese youth gathering….

with the visitors I became the experienced one and i guess knowledgeable…. which was quite interesting experience in itself.  To sit and help others discern and process the experience that is India for the first time..was like looking at India and my own experience of India with a whole new pair of glasses on. An experience that both was great (to know that i had come so far) and at times a little fustrating (that I was being pulled back to the beginning again and again) at the same time.

 And then with the end of the month of May we went from 6 to 8 with the arrival of Sandy Boyce (the used to be Coordinator of the People in Mission Program) – which was really great and Katheryn Curnow ( who has been helping Sandy out with writing applications to Ausaid etc.)..

So through most of the month of June the Guest House was full…. in many ways! Full but fun.

I am now about to start working with the Board of Womens Concern and helping out a bit with the Hostel Board and more English teaching… as to what exactly that all means and where is still being negotiated… but when I know more I will let you know…

 as for the rest of my time, when I am not working I seem to be doing quite a bit of reading…

in fact I have to admit that that has become my one decadence – books. I am building up a great library of Indian writers, as well as all the other new an interesting books that seem to have recently been released

so if you have any recommendations of good books to read… let me know or just send it over

and walking…getting out and discovering  more and more of Chennai

anyway enough from me…

Heads still pretty full but as you can see I am starting to write again…

thanks for all your emails,letters parcels and phone calls, visits…etc…I couldn’t do this without all your love and support…and It really has been lovely to hear how everyone is going and whats been happening in your worlds…

take care of yourselves

will be in touch soon

love sam