Kebepura sports day

It's 1 December - it doesn't really feel like December here, but I am sitting in our Mysore field base planning the Christmas menu for when the venturers return. However I won't be back in Mysore for long as shortly I will be going on a loop visit to see the alpha 1 (community) and alpha 2 (environment) groups and after that I'll be on another loop trip to Kerala to see the trekkers. It will be a lot of travelling but I'm looking forward to going back to Kebepura village to see the new alpha 1 and catch up with the school and villagers.


In the meantime, I still have happy memories and photos from Kebepura which I haven't yet recounted on this blog... On our last day we organised a sports day for the village school which was held in the cricket pitch clearing beyond the elephant fence. The sports day was the idea of venturers Amie and Jayshree so credit really goes to them for making everything happen. Races included running, onion and spoon and a school teachers v PMs wheelbarrow race. Winners were presented with garlands.


We finished off with a mass hokey cokey - there must have been about 70 of us holding hands in a ring and dancing the hokey cokey! It was a wonderful moment.

Building an eco sanitation unit

Ready to start work
(L to R - Amie, Muddu (aka Mr Pink head mason), Chinnu (mason), Richie, Guus, Ayesha)


Step 1 - mixing cement


Step 2 - foundations


Step 3 - floor


Step 4 - walls


Step 5 - fitting toilets, almost done!


Step 6 - painting


The finished article!
(L to R - Ayesha, Lucy, Siva, Guus, Me, Helen, Zoe, Rob, Richie, Gary, Amie, Cara, Jamie, Jayshree)

Kebepura

So I have spent the last 3 weeks in Kebepura, a village of about 80 families on the edge of Bandipur forest about 2 hours from Mysore. Our mission was to build 20 eco-sanitation units (eco-toilets), the previous group having already built 15. Each household contributes some labour, e.g. mixing cement, towards their toilet and we work in groups of 2-3 with local masons.


The villagers of Kebepura were originally nomadic honey and food gatherers from the forest, but since the village was created 20 years ago their livelihood has changed to subsistence farming and from what I can see from the surrounding fields, tobacco, cotton and bananas. We live in the local school which serves about 80 children from Kebepura and the surrounding villages. The venturers sleep in a classroom, whilst us PMs (Antje, Helen, Zoe and I) have a tent in the playground.


Arrival in Kebepura is I think a bit of a shock to all of us, as the accommodation is pretty basic and the shower and toilets, shared with the school children, need a good clean. We are a source of attraction to the children from the moment we arrive - obviously we aren't going to get much privacy here!


However once we have cleaned and settled in to a routine of building, life becomes easier and I realise what a privilege it is to be part of the everyday life of this village which is far from the usual tourist trail.






More posts to follow, but some particular memories stand out...

• Puruti - who gives me flowers for my hair everyday, despite the fact I'm often covered in cement


• Playing skipping with the school girls and learning their dance 'Matanara'


• Relaxing in the forest clearing on the edge of the village, just beyond the elephant fence, where the village boys play cricket


• Walking down to the temple on the edge of the village to watch the sunset with Zoe


• Going on an even longer walk with Antje, getting semi-lost and collecting 3 children, a dog and 2 cows en route.


• Working with the masons, particularly Muddu (aka Mr Pink) and Shivu


• Getting to know our Alpha 1 group, learning to step back and let them get on with it, and everything coming together at the end

Next challenge - Alpha 1, eco-sanitation project

Just found out today that for the next phase I will be working with the Alpha 1 community project, based in Kebepura village. My fellow PMs will be Zoe, Helen and Antje and we will be looking after a group of 11 volunteers building eco-sanitation units (or eco-toilets). Antje and Helen have been with me at fieldbase to date, so it will be the first project for all of us. The prospect of being responsible for 11 young people in a rural Indian village is a bit daunting, but I'm looking forward to it! So anyway I will be offline until around 24 November. I will update this blog when I get back...

Back to Kerala

After about 2 weeks of thunder and torrential storms, the rains stop as suddenly as they started and by the last days of October it's back to hot sunshine again, although it's noticably colder in the mornings and evenings.

The food for phase 2 is pretty much sorted and I'm handing over to Ivan as I will be working on one of the project sites for the next phase. This is a bit unexpected, but I'm looking forward to the challenge and hopefully I'll be back in the comfort of fieldbase for phase 3. I will learn on Tuesday which project I will be on.

Before that I have another trip back to Kerala, with Mark and Vijay, to visit Alpha 3 at the end of their trek and deliver the last food drop. We drive the same route as before via some great place names - Nanjangud (temple town), Chamrajnagar, Satyamangalam, down the hair pin bends into Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore, Pollachi, Udumalaipattai, and up again into the Keralan tea plantations via Marayoor and Munnar where we stay overnight.


The whole drive is about 11 hours. Munnar is a busy, if a bit scruffy, hill station in the middle of the tea plantations. Although it rains in the evening we have time to look around and I replenish my own personal green tea stocks with Munnar green tea and visit the local temple with shrines to Shiva, Ganesh and Muruga, Ganesh's brother and a deity popular in Tamil Nadu according to Vijay (also known as Lord Subramanya in Kerala).

The next day we drive on to Hiberia to collect the empty barrel from the last food drop and then on via more team plantations to meet Alpha 3 at their campsite. The group are in good spirits, (if a little dirty and smelly!), and it is good to see everyone again, particularly PMs Zoe and Jo. They seem to have bonded really well as a group.


We camp overnight with Alpha 3 and the next day travel with them to build bamboo rafts for 2 days of rafting. The rafting looks fun, so I almost wish I was going with them...


After 3 hours of raft building we wave them off down river and travel on to Thrissur where we stay overnight before another day's drive back to Mysore.