worried about our little world falling apart

Vandaag heb ik besloten om alles even anders te doen.

Ik zit hier in mijn kamer gember koekjes te eten en naar het geluid van de (of is het nou het?) regen te luisteren.

Naast me zit m'n kamergenootje, die uit Kerala in India komt. Ze zit te studeren.
Voor de verandering is ons kamer niet met schreeuwerige koreans gevuld, die meestal de linkerhoek in beslag nemen. Het is nu even lekker rustig.

I've been back from Project Week since Monday evening.
Thus I've unpacked, done my laundry, rebonded and caught up with everyone here and started school again today.

It is most likely a nice idea to describe Project Week and what I got up to, so here goes:

Project Week started last Friday, when most of the groups left campus to catch trains and buses to get to all sorts of places. Our group only left on Saturday morning, giving us a little time to worry about an empty campus (it was rather lonely) and pack our stuff.

The train took twenty-one hours to get to Bangalore, which is in the south, in the state of Karnataka. As they speak mainly Karnada there, I wasn't going to get much chance to practice my Hindi, but I took along my Dutch-Hindi book, just in case.
We travelled in Second Class, which means something else in India than in Europe, but I'm not quite sure what. We were in the non-AC section, which was not as bad as one might imagine. There were two square windows for every group of six bunks, with glass sheets and metal bars to pull down if you wanted to. Across the narrow aisle were two more bunks, and every couple of minutes some man with a very nasal voice would come down this aisle, shouting out the name of whtever he was selling (biscuits/chrisps/dinner/chai/scarves) in an irksome singson-ey tone.

I finally started recording thing in a diary (not sure how long that will last) so here are some extracts that sum up my week:

Saturday 31/10/09

Earlier today the scenery from the train was incredible. There were dry auburn hills and green fields, small clusters of earthern houses and a real sense of calmth. There is an elderly couple opposite usm who were initially sitting cross-legged and reading the newspaper. She was wearing a lilac sari, which looked stunning against the blue window frame and seat and the red metal bars on the window. Monday 02/11/09 Wij zaten op een soort dakterra met een uitzicht op een heleboel pastel-kleurige gebouwen. Het was niet te warm omdat we onder een sort pakoda zateb, met chai en koekjes. De man [die ons een presentatie over APSA aan het geven was] zag er een beetje Sesame-Straat-achtig uit, met een very-oversized pale lilac shirt die in zijn hoogopgetrokken-netjes-gestreken broek zat gepropt...Hij vertelde ons over APSA, en hoe ze eerst altijd de 'baseline' vinden (alle basisinformatie, zoals hoe ver de school is, hoe het sanitair is, of ze water hebben, hoe veel enz) waarna ze een 'actionplan' ontwikkelen samen met de community-in-question... [about the vocational training centre]

There was a printing area, with five Indian guys standing around the equipment. In the adjoining room, seperated only by a partial wall on the right, was six sewing machines. These were white, plastic, modern. To the left was a large grey table with beige cotton that three women were cutting into strips...Straight down the hall was a small classroom, with half of it consisting of desks and girls, the other half of old, foot-controlled sewing machines. They were 3 or 5 months into their year of training, and were already making simple children's frocks.

Up a flight of stairs around the outside of the building was the elctronics department, with cute handdrawn images of the tools and their names on the walls. A handful of boys were sitting in a row behind a transparent wall, fiddling with bits of hardware. Another flight up was the computer training section. 30 pupils sat in plastic chirs, copying the text about CDs from the powerpoint slide being beamed up.

Tuesday : Dream School teaching (APSA's school for the children they rescue from child labour and the like)

Wednesday : ChildLine, viewing presentations given on this to government schools (a children's help line APSA is associated with)
Also: meeting with a government official to talk/learn about the health care and education systems in Karnataka
And: staying over at APSA's Girls' Hostel, where girls from APSA can stay for a while until they find jobs and their feet in the world

Thursday : Constituency work (where we viewed a children's meeting in a migratory slum, about what they thought needed improvement)
And: Fabindia presentation (Fabindia is a chain of stores where 60% of the moeny goes to the artisan, thus allowing traditional methods of craft to be preserved. This wasn't really part of our Project Week)

Friday : Inchara (means birdsong, the art and culture side of APSA)
Monday 09/11/09 In ongeveer vier uur komen we in Pune aan. Ik ben net op de middelste bunkk wakker geworden met een gezwollen oog na rond twaalf uren slaap in Rosie's slaapzak (die ze per ongeluk heeft achtergelaten toen ze donderdag avond met andere tweedjaars verder reisde), met als kussen Lenn en Victor's tailored, expensive suits, omdat Lenn dacht dat er twee creepy guys zijn spullen wouden stelen. We hebben net egg biriyani [boiled eggs, curry sauce and rice with bits in] en lassi [sweet yoghurt drink] binnengewerkt als lunch, en zitting nu allemaal rustig te lezen. Gelukkig is het niet zo warm buiten.

So that was pretty much that. It was interesting to learn about how the NGO functioned, and to try out several of their projects.

Some cute, surprising things I'll leave you with:
I found a whole bunch of Suske en Wiske's in a small secondhand bookshop in Bangalore. It really made my day.
I found HEMA stuff in a basement shop in Pune.
I showered with only cold water and ate with my hands all week.
I got my package today!

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