So we left from the office with the group of children in 4 auto-rickshaws to reach the bus station. After an little hour waiting we climbed into a bus ... 12 hours in a bus, windows open, music as loud as possible to cover the enormous noise of the engine behind which I was sitting. (Just imagine that you are driving on the highway at a speed of 100 km/hour in the second gear to get an idea of the noise !)
Except that ... we were driving no more than 50 km/hour on a staved road with no shock absorbers ... ;-))
Well, anyway ! we arrived safely (probably thanks to Ganesh whose picture was hanging above the drived's head !) on the top of the mountain around 9AM.
After a few hours rest, we held the traditional inauguration of the camp with candles and songs. We were staying in an international Youth Hostel, a bit outside the city.
Waiting for the train ...
When we entered the place, the delicate smell of burning wood came to us ... A fireplace ? no, it was the water boiler in which the water for the bath was warmed up (almost ...) every morning. (What is called a "bath" there is a one-square meter room outside the building with a bucket of water).
During the week, we did lots of visits with the children who were in the mountain for the first time of their life. Eventhough we asked them to take all the warm clothes and a pair of walking shoes they had or to borrow them from family or relatives, almost none of them was properly equiped for the camp. First because this is not stuff they need in Pondicherry and that they couldn't afford purchasing them, but also because they didn't quite realize what it meant to walk in the mountain and how it was to be cold.
So we started the camp by purchasing a few warm clothes for those who were chilled. Almost all of them were wearing chappals (slippers) so we didn't really do many long walks, but other activities like visiting the tea factories and tea fields, doing some sightseeing from the Ooty train (known as being the oldest train in the world), walking in the protected area to see wild animals (we indeed saw wild buffalos from very close but we missed the tiger ...damned !), going to the second highest mountain-chain in India (after the Everest) that you reach through a crowded footpath, and visiting some tribal villages (one of the oldest tribe in India). Actually, I noticed that most of the place we visit or people we meet here are always described as being the highest, the oldest or the best of something ... ;-)
In the Tea field
Arrival at the train station ...
Our group in a tribal village near Ooty
Regarding the communication with the children, I assumed as they were older that they would speak english rather well. Well, they don't. Some of them can understand a little bit what we say, but most of them do know only a few words. Anna, who has been living here for 2 years and had weekly tamil lessons, can speak quite a few tamil words which was often very valuable for the communication, but the understanding of the tamil language is extremely difficult. So what is left is the body language, and with creativity we can say a lot with it !
After 1 day or 2 of distance, we enjoyed seeing how the girls were getting closer to us: once I went to the city with a girl to find an eye doctor, and on the way I managed to sprain (a bit) my second ankle ... When we were back in the girls dormatory, she said a few words to her roommates and they all jumped on me to see how my foot was doing and gave me a foot massage to relief the pain. That was so sweet !
Rajkala, the director of Sharana, preferred not to tell us about the background of each child before the camp to avoid us having a priori, which is a good approach. We just know that most of them were working from their early age and are living in a difficult familial environment (orphan, alcoholic father, etc ...)
It is so amazing to see how wise and respectful they are, despite the environment they've been growing up in. I can't avoid making a comparaison with occidental children coming from equivalent environment, I imagine how difficult it would be to deal with them. What seems to make the difference is that they are raised in villages where there is nothing to envy from the neighbours which are also poor, and also because they are raised in a way where you just accept your condition, whatever it is.
Today Kaladevi the office assistant gave me a call: "Mad'm, please come down, some children from the Ooty camp want to see you !". They did find a book all together to thank me for the nice week we had together at the camp. That is very touching !
