Thursday Toil

It's Thursday today. Hence, no village visit. Most people must have gone to Chandna Haat (market) anyway. Bhola has gone too. He sells aluminium utelsils at this market. He'll also do our shopping. He'll be bringing vegetables to last us till Sunday and also bring meat for Bruni and her brood. Two of them are exactly like her. They are both female. The male black one keeps to himself. The two girls do try to kill him whenever they get a chance!

Yesterday's village visit was apparently good. They had gone to Gadda Parom to Shanti's house. The last time they had gone there, the people were in mourning and also drunk. Shanti's uncle had insisted in speaking to the team in English. All he kept saying was "one bottle please". They couldn't figure out if he meant that he had only drunk one bottle or if he wanted them to pay for one bottle of booze.

Yesterday, however, everyone was sober. And even though THE uncle was not, he just said hello and disappeared. Apparently quite a few people from the village gathered and they all had a nice chat about this and that. This is exactly what I want! That the villagers should learn to trust the team and the project and feel free to voice their opinions. The conversation, however, mostly centred around Baburam Hansda from nursery. Apparently, he drinks, smokes, chews tobacco and hangs out with boys twice his age. He also does not listen to his parents and whenever they berate him, he runs away for a few days. The whole village felt that the school should straighten him out. I have my eyes on him. He behaves well in school. Though he tends to sleep in class. Bansi is his class teacher. I wonder why he doesn't take the boy to task or at least tell me so that I could "fix" him. But then how can I say anything to a child whose teacher also sleeps in class! No kidding. I've seen it with my own eyes. Though not recently.

Anyway, I'm glad the visits are paying off. Everyone is getting enthused. That's a good sign. And I'm happy. We had an informal get-together before dinner. It was nice. I continued my pep-talk. It seems to be helping. Or is it? Sharad seems to feel it is making a difference with some people.

Last night there was a party in Roldih Paharia Tola which is further down the road. We could hear music all night. But it was not that bad. Or maybe we are getting used to it. But there were lots of people (drunk mostly) walking up and down our road and so I had a disturbed sleep. It didn't help that Bruni decided to bark at everyone who passed by. At one paoint I wanted to throttle her. She must have realized she was close to getting killed. She shut up and fell asleep. It was dawn already.

We had school as usual today. But today I set the children of class 4 a task. They had to imagine that each one was a huge Peepal or Banyan tree. They had to describe what they saw, did and felt throughout the day from dawn till dusk. I even got them to shut their eyes and meditate on this. Become a tree and then sit down and write the way a tree would write! They have to first write in Hindi. Then they will have to translate it into English. Let's see what they write. They said they've finished writing. I'll check their work tomorrow.

This afternoon, since there's no village visit, we decided to make channels to water the plants and the vegetable patch. We've rigged up a pipe and we are using the natural slope of the land to ensure that water reaches all the trees. Or at least most of them. It works. And so now all one has to do is stand at the handpump and pump. The water will naturally flow to the trees and the vegetable patch. No more carrying buckets of water. We all worked through the afternoon -- including me! The boys are still working while I'm writing this blog.

Once the well is ready, we may even buy a pump. Let's see when the well is ready. The well-diggers came today. But they were working listlessly. Bhola, Nilambar and even Suman had to go and yell at them to work! Thank God they are on a contract. Or else they would have shirked even more! Suman brought me some soil. It was wet and sticky. He feels, water is now within reach. The diggers are pretending it is hard work because they will probably try and negotiate for a higher rate for the next well. We'll see about that when the time comes. They've been very stupid. Now we are wondering if we should get someone else to do the job. Besides, I don't think I will let them start on the next well till I get back from Bangalore in the beginning of May.

Nilambar is getting married. He got engaged a few days ago. He will be going home end of April. Probably before I return. Bhola promised to stay on the project while I'm away. He's also trying to find one more teacher. He did find someone. But apparently someone told him that he would have to "work very hard" at the project and salaries are never paid on time! So he decided not to join. Bhola has found someone else to replace him. Let's see if he too get's scared off!

Well, that's all for today. Are people reading the blog? Yvonne seems to be the only one! At least she bothers to comment. That's why I keep writing. Or else I may have given up long ago!