The girls (and the men!)

The girls:

We have 12 girls in the boarding house now as most of them have gone back to family for the rest of the summer holidays. One girl called Divya is 19 and has been working in Bangalore looking after the orphans there. When doing exercise we were surprised by her lack of motivation (and her ability to suck the motivation from the younger members of the group!) and she has a tendency to tantrum when she doesn’t get her own way when painting. I spoke with Sister Mary as I was interested to find out her history to see if some of this could be explained. It turns out that her Dad is an alcoholic and her Mum struggled with this to the point that she suffered with mental illness. One day her Mum was overwhelmed by the drinking and murdered her son in front of her three daughters (one of whom wasDivya)!!! This is quite common in India apparently!

There are also 2 sisters here called Ashwini and Shalini. They are both very beautiful and their English is very good. Shalini wants to be an engineer when she’s older. For a long while we believed that Amulya was also their sister as she spent a lot of time in their care, however, it now turns out that Sister asked Ashwini to look after Amulya when she is at the boarding house - she does a great job too! Amulya is an interesting little girl – she is aged 5/6 but she is very under-developed physically and could easily pass for 3/4. She was also very quiet when we arrived and generally talked through her 'sisters' rather than directly to us. We thought this was because she didn’t understand or speak English. In the past week she has decided that she’s ready to speak now and she has a brilliant grasp of the English language (and a very cute voice too!). The nuns are amazed as she’s talking a lot more to them too! She loves to paint and yesterday morning she was also asking for exercise even though it was Sunday and they don’t exercise on Sundays due to Mass. 

Nandini and Shuthi appear to be cousins. They are both very affectionate and if one of them spots me coming down the stairs from my room you can guarantee that she’ll be clinging to my arm within seconds! Neither of them have any parents and, from what I can gather, Nandini (who’s about 4 years older) looked after Shuthi after she arrived at boarding which created a really special bond. Nandini would like to be an elderly care nurse and will train as a nurse next year when she’s 18. I spoke with Nandini about marriage and she informed me that the Sisters will arrange a marriage for her once she has finished her studies.Shuthi’s English isn’t brilliant but she is a wonderful artist. She drew the Lion on The Wiz mural and it’s perfect!

Mamatha would like to be a dancer when she’s olderand I actually think she might be able to do it! She has lovely rhythm and she is very good at watching Bollywood movies and copying the routines. Mamatha did a Henna tattoo on my feet yesterday and it actually looks quite good. She told me that she’s been to Mysore 10 times as a chaperone with other volunteers who have wanted to visit the city.

Ramia and Maheshwari are sisters. Maheshwari has just gone home for the summer but the family can’t afford to have both children back so Ramia will go next year (she also went last year). Maheshwari’s dress that she was wearing yesterday has a broken zip so she spent the whole day being undone! I assume that this is a hand-me-down dress from Ramia that hasn’t lasted over the years. If I can find a zip in Hassan then I will attempt to fix it for her. The other day Maheshwari and Molly were talking about the fish curry that the girls would be eating for dinner. Maheshwari’s response when asked what she thought of fish was “I come vomit” – priceless!

Shaini doesn’t have any parents but she does have one alcoholic brother. She will go to visit him tomorrow for a couple of weeks. She is very excited! Shaini painted the sky in The Wiz mural and it was wonderful to see the level of concentration and commitment to detail. She would like to a singer/ dancer when she’s older.

Sahana(14) has just got a place in a school in Hassan for which she had to take an entrance exam (her English is very good). She will live in a hostel a little bit away and she will cycle in each day. She is excited and scared in equal measure. 4 other girls from the village will go with her but they will live on campus. Sahana has a tendency to get moody for no good reason – I will find out from Sister Mary what her background is so that I can further understand this.

Margaret is the last girl to mention. Before he passed away her father was an alcoholic and Sister Mary has told me that Margaret often voiced strong negative feelings about him. Margaret can be wonderfully helpful (if she’s around she won’t let me carry anything and won’t let me empty my own rubbish bin into the heap in the back!) but she’s also one of our biggest challenges. She is very loud (and has a brilliant grasp of the English language which means we can’t tune her out!!!) and has a tendency to tantrum if one of the other girls has upset her. She seems to have more disputes with the girls than anyone else and has needed a lot of attention recently. However, she is learning that she must raise her hand before speaking in English class (the Jumping Jack punishment that Molly introduced has helped with this!) and that shouting and deliberately messing up isn’t always the best way to get our attention. Margaret has particularly bad teeth which are yellow and underdeveloped. I am aware that Paul is talking about getting a dentist sorted for the girls so hopefully they can do something with Margaret’s teeth.

Trip into Hassan:

I went into Hassan two days ago to pick up my emails as we don’t have internet access at the boarding house due to an electrical storm. This meant a 50 minute journey on a bumpy bus. When walking through Hassan I was punched in the arm by a man (I think I had offended him just by being me?!) and the staring continued at the same level as in Mysore. On the way back we (Sahana and I) needed to get off the bus at Alur and get into a car to travel the last 30 minutes to Josephnagar. Sahana and I sat opposite each other and a young man (18 ish) sat next to Sahana. This man felt it appropriate to start rubbing my leg with his leg. I said “no” to him which he obviously thought meant “please continue but now start rubbing my leg with your hand too”. I firmly said “no” to him again and looked out of the window to avoid any eye contact with him. When I looked back into the carriage after a minute or so I was horrified to see that he had moved his hand onto Sahana’s leg! I promptly lent forward, picked up his hand from her leg and put it in the same position on his own leg. He recoiled in shame at this point as, I assume, most women wouldn’t do that to him, especially not in a crowded car! It astounds me that this is acceptable in India. I have said before that it’s not pleasant for me to experience unwanted attention but when it’s directed at a child this is completely unacceptable. Sahana was sent as a chaperone (to show me how to get to Hassan etc) which I felt was unnecessary to start with but it was Sister Mary’s way of showing me good hospitality. Now I feel, as nice as the gesture is, it’s a massive hindrance as not only do I need to keep myself safe (which is difficult in this county!) but I also have to keep a child safe. Next time I will go with Molly or go on my own.

On a completely separate note, I'm in love.... with MANGOES! It's mango season here at the moment and they are wonderful! At dinner time and rush through my rice just to get to the mango eating part of the meal! YUMMY!