School camps

At this particular moment it’s Thursday June 18^th and for our idea the evening starts. But in India it’s still during working hours. Like Mark and Geert wrote earlier: the working hours differ from the ones we’re used to.

Last Monday evening we arrived in Hyderabad by plane. In the evening it was still round 30 degrees Celsius. That was already a lot warmer compared to Bangalore. We already knew that Hyderabad was a big city, but we didn’t know that getting from the airport to our hotel would take two hours, just to cross a city (population is more than 7 million) from south to north. Also here the traffic is unbelievable. Traffic all over, all kinds of vehicles and they all are using their horn instead of their lights. Can you imagine the noise?

After our first breakfast (plain white toast and cereals are the only things we dared to eat at the beginning of the day) we went by car to the MV Foundation head office. There we had a great welcome by Naren, Arvind and Mahender. They told us about their vision, their ideas, their history and also about the goals they want to achieve by using the Child Monitoring Systems. What we didn’t know is that they planned a program for us.

In the afternoon Lieke, Gerrit and Vincent were accompanied by Aron, an American Student who is working at MV Foundation, by a fellowship of an American NGO. So we went into the car and the driver drove us to a Residual Bridge Camp (RBC) for girls. That’s a school that’s not actually funded by Logica, but the visit was meant to give us an idea. The RBC is meant to give kids, that had never attend school before, a quick update on their knowledge and skills, so they can fit in a normal class at a normal school with kids of their own age. It’s hard to describe what we’ve seen there. We’ve seen poverty, but we’ve also seen happiness. We spoke to some of the teachers and also they presented us a cup of chai.

The girls attend class in a room without desks, without chairs and without a lot of other things. The same room is also used to sleep in. They sleep on the ground; no bed, no pillow. They also have a small suitcase. In that small suitcase they keep their personal belongings like clothes and things for personal hygiene.

When we were there they also had dinner: warm peas. When they want to play there’s a place in the middle of the buildings. The floor exists of sand and stones. No things like ‘wipkip’, ‘zandbak’ or ‘schommel’. On the other hand: all these girls are happy with all the things they have. Especially a visit from some white skinned Europeans / Americans made their day a very special one. All of them want to be photographed. First they were very shy, but at the end it was hard to reach the car. We also went into a classroom full of kids. Open eyes, curious looks, and a lot of giggling. They sang a song and they had a chance to ask us things and vice versa.

After this amazing day of ‘work’ we went to Arvind’s house. His sisters made dinner for us and we also drank ‘Chai’ (Indian tea with cream and a lot of sugar). The family showed us a great hospitality. After our stomach stuffing dinner we went back to our hotel and drank a beer with our new American friend.

The next morning Lieke was picked up at the hotel to visit some Logica RBC’s. At the moment of writing we cannot give any details on that, because visiting those camps take almost a day to get there by car. So Gerrit and Vincent will see her tonight again. Gerrit and Vincent met Aron at their hotel the same morning.

We first went in to the country side of Hyderabad to visit a public school for girls in a village named Ervaguda. Again it’s hard to describe what the village looks like. A lot of trash and garbage next to the road. Buildings that aren’t finish. No hard road: only sand. But also here the school is not much better and also not much worse than the school we visited a day earlier. We had a meeting with the teachers in that school. We’ve been talking about how they’re monitoring a child right now and how they make sure that MV Foundation gets the right information. It’s great to see that they’re doing it very good, but it’s tough to see with which materials they have to work with. We also had the chance to visit a class with girls. We were standing in line in front of the classroom. They were told who we are, what we do and they were asked “Are these guys from your country?” and “What do want to be when you’re grown up?”, “What do want to ask these men?”. Some kids also presented to us some songs and rhymes. After that we had to sing a song as well. Also in this place the girls were very shy at first, but after that it was as if they were glued to us. For this place in the middle of nowhere it’s very good to see that these girls are studying for their future in a very poor environment.

Once we were in the care we headed to Shankarpally, where one of the mandal (something like a ‘gemeente’) offices is located. At that place we had a meeting with several people working on a daily basis full time at that office. They are working behind some pretty nice computers, but they also work behind computers that we won’t even find at our second hand shops. These men and women are doing a great job. They do it full time with a good spirit and a lot of devotion. During our meeting Gerrit and I found out that they’re not very into our IT-business. It’s hard for them to understand any of our business. Especially when you start talking with terms as ‘filters’ and ‘checkbox’. So we had to take our time and use examples to clarify things with the mandal officers.

Since it was already late for lunch Arvind thought it would be a good idea to go out for lunch. So we went to another RBC almost in the middle of nowhere in a village named Aloor.

MV Foundation Camp, Aloor weergeven op een grotere kaart

This RBC is also for girls. Here we had a great meal with rice, Indian curry, sambal, chapati and some drink that was similar to Greek Yoghurt. Here the environment for the girls was the worst so far. Very hot, almost no trees, since a few months there’s a shower facility (throwing rain water in a bucket over your head). They cook on a brick made place with wood on fire. For us it’s something we only remember from our grandparents stories. Between all those lovely girls there was a young woman with a special story. Her name is Karen, 19 years old and during holiday breaks she’s a volunteer in this camp. When she was a lot younger she was also one of the girls in Aloor’s RBC. Before that she was bonded to domestic work. After a lot of years she started studying and she graduated. She also speaks fluent English.

After this exhausting but great day we went back to Hyderabad. We had some Naan and Paneer Mutter Masala. With that meal we went to bed, because the next day our first whole day at the MV Foundation office would start.

More about that next time.