Alas, I have returned from my 10 week venture volunteering with Raleigh ICS in India and would you believe it, it was a bloody tough challenge!
To save on time and boredom, here’s a brief lowdown..
I was in team India Kilo 11 with my fellow UK volunteers Melissa, Abi, Sadhbh, James and Eilish, we were accompanied by our fantastic in-country volunteers Krish, Manju, Radish and Priyanka and headed up by our team leaders Jess and Chaithra.
We were living in a rural Adivasi community in Coorg, Karnataka called Sajjalli Hadi. This small but beautiful village is situated alongside a huge expanse of water, nicknamed ‘the backwater’. Waking up to this every morning was not only breathtaking but also incredibly relaxing. Our village is made up of approximately 110 residents, living in 25 households. Many of these houses are stick, tarpaulin and mud built and seem durable enough to last most weather.
The villagers belong to the Jenu Kuruba tribe, a sector of the Adivasi people known for honey collecting and living within a sustainable means off the surrounding forest. We met and fell in love with many of the characters in our village. The man responsible for our entire experience was Vasanthana, a gentle man with a heart of gold who came running at any scream of “VASANTHANA!” to help in any way he could. He fast became our older brother and our best friend in the village. To return home now and not have such a personality able to attend to your every need is a definite readjustment.
Our objective in Sajjalli has been to input information, education and infrastructure relating to a water and sanitation hygiene (WASH) project. We delivered many peer education sessions to eager members of the community alongside various awareness raising activities, including the running of a well-being day (with a nurse present) and a dental camp (with trainee dentists). We also pushed ourselves to the limits(!!) to build 10 toilets for 10 separate families and a 5000l water tank in 5 days – although this cannot overshadow the main aim being educational input.
With a key objective of the programme being effective integration and intercultural communication, we also ran art classes, language exchange sessions and various community events to ensure the villagers and us both reached a content level of comfort, as well as swapping cultures and practises.
We saw and experience a lot in our time in Sajjalli Hadi, so here’s a list of bullet pointed things that’d take too long to explain (but do leave a comment if you want to know more):
- Government construction affecting our WASH aims and secondary projects. This continued throughout our visit and seemed somewhat intentional at times, although there is no guarantee of this.
- Volunteers joining us and leaving us – Eilish sadly left early after an accident on a trip to a nearby natural springs, Abhi joined on day 2 and left of day 5 through rule-breaking, Ganesh joined in phase 2 and left at phase review 19 days later (again, due to rule-breaking) and Krish temporarily left due to family issues.
- Continual illness and injury, including Eilish getting concussion and Melissa fracturing her elbow/injuring her knee.
- The medics at fieldbase both leaving quite suddenly, and two groups of (approx) 40 volunteers each being left without immediate medical advice/action.
- Various community based events, including a sports day, the Hindu festivals of Shivarathri and Yugadi, International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day to name a few..
- A man with poor mental health concerning the volunteers, particularly after he was heard walking around our accommodation chanting “I’ll kill you”. On one occasion, this led to Abi and Sadhbh, to my surprise, joining me in the toilet. That was fun.
- Through our non-governmental organisation CORD, we have hopefully ensured the future education of many children in our village. CORD are running a survey of the local area next month (May 2014) and through this, should hopefully determine which children are in need of schooling and how to help them access it.
- CORD weren’t always on top form, however, and with being a new NGO working with Raleigh ICS, initially struggled to deliver adequate training or support. Fortunately, this slowly improved. Showing us a video called America, America didn’t aid our view on them though..
- Nature’s full force: witnessing snakes, scorpions in our accommodation, spider infestation in our toilet, wasp nest forming in our long drop, whirlwinds popping up every now and then (particularly during a visit from India Kilo 12), weird fish/frog/tadpole mutant things washing up along the shore of the backwater, sky-high bamboo burning by the villagers and the incredible experience of fireflies gracing the treetops around us.
- Visits from nearby Kilo 12 and an accidental overnight stay from Yankee 8.
- Two weeks solid work at the beginning of the project on participatory rural appraisal (PRA), which gave us an insight into the villagers needs, wants and awareness.
- The celebration of Radish and Jess’ birthdays and the bringing in of mine and Chaithra’s shared birthday on the final night in the village, each involving cake fights, an array of food and plenty of dancing.
This is simply the tip of the iceberg of my experience in Sajjalli Hadi. Leaving my new family in this rural part of the world was not only incredibly emotional but also a nerve-wracking experience, with no guarantee when we’ll return and if it’ll be the same when we do. However, I cannot wait to head back one day alongside other teammates and revisit the brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers I have gained in such a short but welcoming space of time.
As part of my Action At Home, I have also set up a website, showcasing various stories from individuals in our village. Check it out: http://communityvibes.co.uk
If you want to learn more about ICS or are interested in applying, visit http://www.volunteerics.org
Tomorrow evening I fly to Bangkok to start my South East Asia adventure. I cannot wait to revisit friends, reconnect with some of the folk I met in India (who happen to be travelling the same time as me) and make new connections with new travelling comrades!
Keep following this blog to find out where I am and what I’m doing..
B
