Living in India

This week so far i have had a few ups and downs and i think that's just part of settling in to a new place, new job and culture. I have spent alot of my time in my new pad, this is because i am at present quite reliant on my director at work. Being away from the town and my work setting has its draw backs until i get used to the transport shuttles. This is difficult because i don't know the language that well yet to get where i want to go. My flat is fully equipped now having spent double what my budget entailed, i had a water filter fitted yesterday so i can now save on the bottled water funds. Getting used to boiling the water after the filter and bottling it myself. I also have to boil my milk this is because alot of the time its unpasteurised or you just don't know. So far I'm having three cold showers a day as no hot water, got to say this is not too bad in the climate but the morning one is a bit of a shock to the system. Its a bit like running into the surf on a cold day. I have bought an immersion rod to heat water in a bucket to hand wash my clothes, when the days get cooler i think i will be having warm bucket washes. I am still anticipating the arrival of the curtains i am having made as waking up at 6am is killing me with so many windows and so much light.

I'm top left, balcony in middle windows either side - Asha Deep Apartments

Work so far has been a bit sporadic due to lots of religious festivals in between, so far i have been placed 3 days at a school for special education and 2 days in an outpatient clinic in town. I have been given a nice office space with an overhead fan. At the school they have a pre-school class, autism specialist class, school aged and a vocational class. All the children are also given a 1:1 trainee special educator who works with them a couple of hours a day with individual goals. I have so far been observing and asking questions to get an idea of what they would like me to do. I believe that my role will be to input into the special educators trainee programme with theory lessons and practical interventions with the children. I think then the plan is to establish some kind of handbook that they can work from when i am gone, and all this will have to be evaluated. The difficulties with this so far is the language barriers, not all the teachers are confident in speaking English and the trainees currently would struggle with an English spoken lecture. The challenges i am facing are really to get to grips with the Hindi Language as soon as possible to make this placement work. I am currently a bit unclear on what is expected of me at the outpatient clinic. There is a physio on site who i think i will be working with most of the time. But i think more here they are requiring me to work as a therapist. Working with the relationships between children and their parents, the stigma associated with the disability and functional problems that are effecting their everyday lives. Again the trouble is i don't speak Hindi and these are quite sensitive issues, here i may have to go much slower and i certainly need more time observing. Really I'm starting to realise its going to take a couple of months to settle in before i make any head way.

Treatment office



The Office at School







Outpatient Centre

This week has felt a very long one, although i have made some definite progress in settling in. I have met with a VSO colleague who lives a couple of hours away and have established that we both want to see some of India while we are here. We are organising our first trip in May to Betla national park to go on an elephant safari and spot tigers cant wait. I also plan to visit Nepal in October to visit another volunteer and am considering travelling overland so may stop off in Varanasi or Darjeeling for this trip, October in India and Nepal is festival time so lots of leave from work. Yesterday i was also introduced to an English teacher in my apartment complex who has agreed to spend some time teaching me Hindi starting this weekend. Her and her husband have been very nice and have offered to help me with settling in to Ranchi. They have links with the Ranchi club in town which has cinema complex, holds cultural and food festival events, sports complex and outdoor swimming pool i am hoping they can get me an honorary membership. There is also a bar and they both drink as they are what they would call cosmopolitan Indians.

Special educator trainees getting their final projects bound and showing me how to get home.

I picked up my residency permit this week so am officially Indian now, have to go and extend my visa in may and do this all again as embassy only gave me a six month visa but the police station i registered at think it will be fine. Getting a bank account my next biggest hurdle their is alot of red tape and bureaucracy but all this helps if your being introduced by someone respected in the community, it also means bribes are less likely. I also now have unlimited Internet, its not as fast as England, but is working fine. My next blog i will try to show you some pictures of the school and work i am doing. I may have also improved my social life and am considering getting a motorbike for ease of transport.