The First Week

As I write this it is Saturday night meaning India has been my home for a week. Naturally, a fair bit has happened since the last time I wrote. As well as this, the world I live in now is about as different from the Guest House as the Guest House was from home. It is hard to pick out the bits that I think might be of interest but I will try my best to.

Devnar School for the Blind

We arrived at Devnar at around midday on Monday and were formally greeted by the Chairman Founder, Dr Goud, and the Principle, Lily Madam. After this came the introductions with the children. We were swarmed by students asking 'Good Afternoon, Mam' and 'Mam, Mam, Mam, What is your name!?'. While they all seemed thoroughly delighted to meet us, many of them were very eager to know whether we knew 'Anna Madam' or 'Jo Madam' and a number of other old Project Trust volunteers that have come here. It was lovely to see that the volunteers really make an impact on this school, but it also made our stomachs drop a little as the shoes we needed to fill felt immeasurably huge. That night we set about decorating our room with photos from home, fairy lights and nets for the beds. In all honesty this was a really rough night. It was the first night I'd felt homesick since I'd left and suddenly the thought of being away from my home for so long left me with a sunken stomach and choked up throat. I wanted to call a temporary 'time out' and pop home and give my family a massive hug on the sofa in the living room of my home before pulling myself together and carrying on out here, but that's clearly not an option.

My Photo Wall

Luckily, this feeling didn't linger for too long and I am settling in really here really well. It is very different from home but I'm used to the lizards that crawl along the walls (we have named them Penelope- all of them) and I don't even mind that there is no hot water and that the water cuts off so we have to wash out of buckets. The heat isn't too much of a problem at the moment, in fact, if we leave the fan on during the night, we wake up cold in the middle of the night and have to put our hoodies on. There are also no mirrors here which sounds like an odd thing to comment on but it has made me realise how embarrassingly often I looked at my reflection back in England. It's a little odd not to have looked at myself in a week but also fairly liberating as I haven't worried once about what I look like. After a few meals here I started to really enjoy the curries and could even start to differentiate between some of the flavours rather than describing everything as 'spicy'. Saying that, Padma (or new Indian Mum) still cooks us separate little dishes when what the children have is too spicy for us...

Penelope

Luckily, this feeling didn't linger for too long and I am settling in really here really well. It is very different from home but I'm used to the lizards that crawl along the walls (we have named them Penelope- all of them) and I don't even mind that there is no hot water and that the water cuts off so we have to wash out of buckets. The heat isn't too much of a problem at the moment, in fact, if we leave the fan on during the night, we wake up cold in the middle of the night and have to put our hoodies on. There are also no mirrors here which sounds like an odd thing to comment on but it has made me realise how embarrassingly often I looked at my reflection back in England. It's a little odd not to have looked at myself in a week but also fairly liberating as I haven't worried once about what I look like. After a few meals here I started to really enjoy the curries and could even start to differentiate between some of the flavours rather than describing everything as 'spicy'. Saying that, Padma (or new Indian Mum) still cooks us separate little dishes when what the children have is too spicy for us...

My first Bindi

The driving here still never fails to amaze me- be it in a car, bus or tuck tuck! There are a few road markings on some of the major roads but these seem to be ignored in favour of vehicles all picking seemingly random lines of travel as if they are working together to create some kind of elaborate cats-cradle on the road. On a short trip to the ATM today our tuck tuck decided it was okay to drive the wrong way up a dual carriageway sized, busy road for at least 100 metres before turning back off the road and it was wonderfully terrifying. I have also learnt that no matter how small the gap is a tuck tuck or motorbike will fit through it; failure is really not an option.

Tuck tucking!

The staff at Devnar are some of the loveliest people I have ever met. Even though many of them don't speak much English they are always there to give us an encouraging smile as we play with the kids or chuckle at is while we struggle our way through some of the spicier meals. One lady, Haseenah, sat and told us all about how she and some of the other staff spend their time translating textbooks from Telugu to English and then to Braille and then told us more about her life. In that single conversation which covered a few differences between the lives we led taught me so much about the people here that I can't wait to get to know the people here even more over the coming months- it feels like collecting images and memories that will build up to create a beautifully accurate tapestry of what living here is really like.

Trying on Haseenah's Burka

Most importantly, the best thing about this project, without a single doubt, is the children. They never fail to cheer me up! I have even become fond of our 7.15 alarm clock that is a little boy called Abdul who stands outside our door calling 'Elena Mam, Lottie Mam, Chocolate!' (though our patience is really tested when he locks us in with the bolt on the outside just before breakfast). The students are constantly asking questions about who England, my family, friends, village and school which I love answering just to see their excitement at the novelty they see in my life. Details like the fact that the local Arts Centre in my village is called Prema and that translates to 'Love' in Telugu throws them into fits of giggles. The younger ones climb all over us and are overjoyed when we agree to sing Ring-a-Ring-a Roses with them or tickle them while saying 'Cheeky Monkey!' I have spent a lot of time this week simply observing how they go about their daily lives. As I have never spend any time with any blind people in my life I don't really know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't what I discovered. The children here love life, learning and each other. It's beautiful to watch them walk around in pairs or threes with linked arms to guide each other and how they all get out of each others way when they hear a peer shout 'Side!' so they can get somewhere with a clear path. Their disability doesn't seem to hold them back at all with many of them hoping to go to university and become professionals one day. There have also been little inspiring moments such as helping a student called Sana put clear plastic, Braille labels on the squares of a Rubiks Cube. This honestly made me feel like there is nothing these kids can't do which is truly heart warming.

As I write this one year still feels life an awfully long time, but after how encouraging I have found this week I do think that it's going to be a really amazing time out here.