Wednesday and Thursday, 16-17NOV

Its 7 am and the sun has just finished turning the sky from deep orange to a beautiful shade of blue and now it’s anxiously trying to get into the room. This is one of those moments when you open your eyes and you don’t  know for sure where you are, maybe you’re still on that exotic beach from earler on, or in your bed at home or god forbid you should’ve been at work already and missed your alarm. I’ve opened my eyes slowly, and nothing matched my expectations so I’ve decided to continue my dream. However, as I was about to reach that perfect place, I hear three powerful knocks in the door which send me straight into an upright position. I run towards the door in my sleeping bag reanacting some Japonese game,  I open the door, but the hallway is all empty. Doubtful about actually hearing those knocks, I return happily to my bed. I cuddle up like a cat and zip up my sleeping bag trying to ignore those sunshine rays. BANG BANG BANG! I wake up again and see a sleep Zsofi walking towards the door. The mayor’s wife is chatting away in Kannada, accompanying her chattering with a colourful laughter and picking up some unknown tools from the cupboard to dissapear once again into the kitchen. Well, this was most definetily the end of my siesta, a new day is about to start.

Breakfast is waiting for us in the living room on the table, for a second I thought we forgot to eat our dinner, as breakfast is made of rice, curry and very spicy vegetable sauce. Gathering new forces, we go straight to school where the electrician is already at work mounting the cable rack.

The teachers come in one by one for a morning visit, giving their approval that what we’re doing is very honourable and good. However, I’m decided today not to waste any time and finish setting up the cables and the sockets. A second electrician shows up, but he didn’t  bring any tools, so he’s more of a moral support than actual help. For the first time, we manage to close the door so we could keep all distractions away and get on with our work. As we’ve been especially organised this morning, results came quickly, so that by lunch time we had all sockets into place, as well as the switch and the cable rack. 

Later on children finished classes and the area around the lab became their playground. The children bang on the door and yell to open up as they shake with curiosity, they cover up the window trying to peer in leaving us with no light to work in. There’s nothing you can say to tone them down and the electrician is getting more and more annoyed with their behaviour so he starts chasing them around the yard with a bat. However, after a few laps he just gives up admitting defeat and tries to ignore them.

Thankfully the children disappear for about an hour, giving us enough time to cut up the cables and connect them. However, we continue work later on with our cheering audience which has returned for a second round and we manage to connect all the sockets and we end our day by measuring the network cable and numbering it.

The mayor’s house is right opposite the school, so all the children decide to walk us to the door and wait there for us. Zsofi and I start preparing the network cables in front of the house, and the children one by one move in closer and closer with their black eyes filled with curiosity. Not long after, one of them finally dares to ask us if they could help out.  We tell them that everything we do is for them so they are more than welcomed to join in. We explain what to do and how to do it and with their help in half an hour we’re all done with our work for the day. Fortunately enough, by the time we finish work, the electricity is available in the house. We can start up the netbook and have all the children gather around us as we show them photos of their families and we teach them how to use the laptop to see the globe and identify the countries we come from. In a few minutes the mayor’s living room is crowded with children and family members, all fascinated by what they could see and how they could use the computer.

It’s dinner time so everyone has to make their way back, but they all promise to return the next day. Now it’s time for the older generation to have a go at using the laptop. The mayor’s dad, lead by his grandchildren starts drawing and discovers all the digital maps and photos of India available on the laptop.

As soon as the clock strikes 9 o’clock everything reverts to its usual ritual. The grandfather takes over the remote and gets settled in front of the TV for his daily soap opera fix. With a great smile he zaps between 2 channels watching both of his favourite soap operas at the same time. During this time we finish our dinner and we go back to our room, where I need to start installing software so that once we’re done connecting everything in the lab we can start setting up the computers and clone the operating system. I fall asleep a few times with my head on the unit, so half asleep I decide to redeem my sleeping bag and end the day.

Thursday comes to a great start, as I get a bit more sleep. At 8 o’clock the electrician is already in the house waiting. I take advantage of the situation and skip breakfast, not because I don’t like rice, but I have been consuming about a kilo of rice everyday and I haven’t yet visited the loo. Therefore, I feel its for the best to skip this meal and just have some tea. My decision sends the ‚mom’, the mayor’s wife, into a panick as she’s now worried of me being sick or not enjoying her food anymore. So I wait for her to leave the room for a second, and make a run for it. When Zsofi shows up, we start mounting the network cable leaving very little to do for the afternoon. However, we might have finished our work, but we can’t set up the computers yet as there is still no electricity in the school and all we hear everyday is ‚Tomorrow, you’ll have it tomorrow’.

We meet up again with the teachers and everyone assures us that Tomorrow is the day when electricity will be given to the school. Meanwhile, the carpenter shows up, and he’s travelled all the way from Bangalore. He asses the job and asks for 400 Euros. We try to tell him that all we need are 3 tables, 2 six metres long, and one 3 metres long with no beautiful wooden work, just simple tables. However, he’s adamant that he can’t go any lower than that so we just decide to buy normal computer desks and mount them ourselves. We shake hands, I thank him from coming all the way from Bangalore and wish him success in his future endeavours.

The afternoon goes by quickly, while Zsofi is holding English classes with the children;  I take advantage of this breather to go up on the roof of the house and enjoy the starry sky. I choose a star and then realise it’s a plane, so I cross that one off and choose a tinny little one next to the shooting star.

Tuesday, 15NOV

After no more and no less than 4 hours sleep, we get woken up by powerful kicks in the car window. The driver, all rested, wants to start unloading as fast as posible so he could return to Bangalore. Slightly confused, we start doing te work, and alongside the curious villagers we unload the computers. They all want to be a part of the action and touch the new machines brought to their village, just to convince themselves that they are actually there.

The IT Lab and the computers, since Saturday became the most interesting news around the village and everyone is eager to know more and see what will happen next. Funnily enough, we are just as curious as them as the plans we made at home don’t seem to match the reality of this world.

As soon as we are done unloading, we are invited in and told that due to a family problem they couldn’t find us a host, but the mayor would be more than happy to have us staying in his house. Their hospitality doesn’t end there as we didn’t even get a chance to accept their invitation that a breakfast made of rice, spiced sauces, curry and chilli seemed to materialise on the table. It just seemed that thousands of new aromas delighted and intoxicated my senses in the same time, expecting for even my finger tips to burn from the hotness of the food. Everyone around the table seemed to pay attention to every movement, word and grimace we exchanged, in order to deliberate if the food is to our liking. The simple approval to their question: ‘’Utta, Good?’’ seemed to provoke a general state of happiness and laughter around us. We are most probably the first foreigners to visit this village- lost within plantations and banana cultures, and they seem to truly wish to impress with their hospitality as they were taught to be by their ancestors. The question ‘Utta, Good?’ kept repeating a few times and the news of our positive answer propagated around our curious public starting comments and spreading a feeling of pride to the thought that their simple food is very much enjoyed by foreigners too.  

They are BADELADAKU, the earth, food and customs of this place are an inherint part of them.The Gods overlooking form the modest temple of the village are theirs and they don’t feel like a group of people but they are a community, they are one, and as one they are proud of everything they’ve accomplished and of their history. These moments are so very precious for the village, cause today Badeladaku is not just a forgotten place, ignored by authorities or written off by the big cities, but it’s actually appreciated by two foreigners who enjoy their food, love their little streets filled by happy, energetic children and hard working women who seem to never stop working from break till dawn and they also appreciate the broken skin on the hands of the hard working men who work the land.

After breakfast, we start taking our first steps in setting up the IT Lab. Having chosen the place, we start taking measurements. The whole process is followed by ten people who comment on every step and result, starting an absolute chaos in a few minutes where nobody knows anymore who’s measuring what and or what was even decided. As we had no plan of the building to start with, we decided to abandon the Indian way and try and do a drawing of this place, adnotated with the needed measurements. However, that took a turn for the worse when they started measuring in inches and write in centimetres one wall, as for the next to be measured in feet and written in metres. The drawing makes no sense, so one of the teachers sends a student to bring another piece a paper and a crayon. We decide to start again and just keep to inches, and the plan finally starts to shape up. We organise the tables and the chairs, the position of the power sockets and after quickly marking the wall as well, the council decides to change things around so we mark the walls again, managing to complete something that looks more like a Picasso painting from which nobody could understand a thing, but at least it was on everyones liking.

I’m starting to believe that at some point in time an Indian philosopher must have been best friends with a Spanish thinker, otherwise I can’t explain the similar style of working, where after each hour of work we take a tea break, at noon the electrician goes to have his meal and comes back only after a two hour break, in order to finish work at 4.30 so he could catch the sunset and have his dinner. 

We haven’t managed to do much in our first day, as we have only mounted a few metres of cable PVC rack for the electrical installation and installed the fuse box on the wall. Part of this is owed to the fact that we don’t have the necessary equipment as we can only use a manual drill, plyers that are ready for retirement and a hammer that falls apart everytime you try to use it.

We decided to continue this process tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8:00, and the day ends just as it started sharing a meal with the familly, enjoying the spicy sauces under their vigillent eyes and the mother’s continous questioning of ‚Utta, Good?!’ and the repeated answer of ‚Yes, very good’ – which started everytime a wave of giggles and happiness within our audience.

You can see the rest of the photos of this day here  : https://picasaweb.google.com/107210876678783829516/Day2

Monday, 14NOV

Day 1

Right from the beginning we know that it isn’t going to be an easy day, we are trying to organize ourselves on a piece of paper  and pack the clothes from the bed. We say good bye to our hosts and by the first rikshaw we are heading to the computer shop of Raj. Zsofi is getting of a bit earlier to do the last shopping before going to the village. Supermarket, a place that village people can only see in Bollywood movies or hear about from foreigners. 

I arrive at the office with the 4 backpacks where the ever suspicious smile awaits me…I unwillingly associate it with problems…..

I haven’t even sat down when the avalanche starts- they only have 8 of the 12 monitors- he has forgotten to order the power stabilizer and when he is trying to to do so they say the shop is closed on Mondays-they start to negotiate- it is not quite sure whether they are really closed or not- they have decided- they are open until 6- they are going to wait for me- waiting- the rented car has arrived- it’s 4 o’clock and the monitors are still on the way- to kill the time we are going to buy the cables- they don’t have them- they give us an address- the driver doesn’t want to go their due to the rush hours- we are going back to the computer shop- it’s 5 o’clock- the monitors are still on the way- we are going to buy the internet usb stick- tourists cannot buy it- 5 minutes later tourists can buy it but they need a passport photo- they send us to a shop 5 minutes away- we walk 15- we take the least possible 8 photos and wait another 15 min- we go back to the shop buy the stick and return to the computer shop- it’s 6 o’clock- we are starting to load the cars- things don’t fit in it- one minute later they do fit but without any space left- it’s 7 o’clock- we have to fetch the chairs- the driver doesn’t want to go- the car is overloaded- so we are going to buy the cables- the driver snorts- it’s 8 o’clock- we are going to the electronics shop- we load the car a bit more- the driver protests- we turned down the chairs and we are leaving for the village directly- it’s 12 o’clock- the driver stops at a restaurant and asks for out permission for a shot of whiskey- the trucks don’t have lights but at least all the cars go with high beam lights- all we trust is our Karma here- we arrive at 4 am- the people of the village get out of their houses and those who sleep outside get up as well- they wake the mayor up- the foreigners have arrived with the computers- they invite us in to sleep- we don’t want to disturb so we decide to sleep in the car- the driver disturbs and goes in to sleep- we are tired and fall asleep in the car on the computers with our cheeks stuck on the windows.

The first week of the Green Education Project

I have tried to make a list of things I have done so far but it does not seem to be working.  Not because I am not capable of making lists but because here every nuance becomes a complete chaos or adventure in a second. For example on the very first day they tried to cheat us by making us pay the fare on a bus that did not even go in the direction of our destination.

Bangalore like India itself is a place where nothing is for sure. It is  a place of contradictions where poverty and richness, traditional and modern things live together in a strange symbiosis without the seemingly necessary balance between them. We are only here for couple of days  to buy the computers, and the necessary things and also we are sorting out the transport to the village. It is not at all easy but we have arranged  a van for Monday at 2pm.

Last Saturday we finally got out of Bangalore and visited the village which is 330km north to the city. We started the journey in the Indian way….almost departing an hour after the “official” timetable. The driver decided to catch up on time by driving in a way which the “bored Europeans” would not call a life insurance. I don’t  understand why it is not clear for them that in case of a head -on crash with a truck both them and the passengers would die on the bus.  Maybe they think about their next lives or they just don’t care at all. Well, it did not take us long to see such a terrible head -on crash between two trucks.

I think in India everything is based on your karma, so we arrived safe and sound at our destination- a town called Kudligi. It is in backward India where people can hardly afford to even have shoes. Not much after getting off the bus all the curious eyes focused on us at the main square of the town. The bus left with leaving dustclouds behind and we were left with the curious gaze of the dark brown eyes of the autorikshaw drivers. Some old people kept stealing furtive glances at us and sent their grandchildren to say “Hello” to the newcomers. The cloud of dust does not but that of the shyness  disappeared soon and we soon found ourselves surrounded by people asking “Which country you are?” and why we were there. Prabu, our contact person from the village explained them our project which resulted in a smile on the enthusiastic  faces of the people around us.

Entering the village was like entering another world I could only read about in tales. The only people with brick houses and cars are the mayor and some of the council members. The narrow streets are full of barefooted children wearing only a small rectangular material around the waist.

 First we went to see the high school building and then the primary school. The first was a small building with only 3 classrooms for its 120 students.  The primary school  is much bigger given the fact that it is the only school for the 500 students of the nearby villages. We saw two empty classrooms thinking that they had prepared it for us- we actually found out later that the students don’t have benches and desk at all, they sit on the floor while they are on the class.

Later we were invited to the mayor’s house where all the important decisions of the village are taken by all the important members  of the community ( and in the presence of the not so much important people, the dozens of children hanging on the terrace handrails to see the newcomers)

They asked me to decide where we want the computer room ( the primary or the secondary school) but I wanted themselves to choose from the 2 options.  I told them my ideas on the advantages and disadvantages of each place ( the secondary school has less space and electricity, the primary school is more spacious but there is no electricity).  At the end they decided on the primary school and the mayor promised to install electricity as soon as possible.

We said good bye until Monday when we will come back with the computers and the necessary material.

So that’s all for this week. I hope  I can show you more photos and tell you more stories soon about the project and our village life.

If you want to take a look at the rest of the photos you can do it with a click here :  Picasa Green Education

Prologue

I woke up today scared that I was dreaming that I arrived in India and I didn't had the manual for teacher ready. With the first beams of light that my eyes recieved I realised that I was at home in my bed. I've whispered, you still have eight more days, it's allright. Eight more days and lot's of things waiting on the to-do list. I find myself panicked but at the same time so entusiath, a mixture of feelings that brings a smile on the face. Are so many things that I would like to tell you about, about the fact that we found a school for the project, about Zsofi, Prabhanjana, Googie and Vinay, all this small things that make me happy, but I will not do it right now, I will leave it for the rest of this blog/dairy. Don't worry I will write to you, to share with you all the good and bad moments, the progress, the smiles that I will see, everything. I've managed to rise 1220EUR from the 2000 that we need for the project, but I know it's allright, more people will join, more people that think just like me that ONLY TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A CHANGE.