Preema works with street children in the YMCA

3 weeks already!!!

pchande — Fri, 6 Feb 2009 19:50:00 GMT

Hi all

Sorry i havent updated you all in some time. Coming back after work gets tiring and you just want to rest before heading out in the evening. So work has been fun this week. I bought the kids at the shelter some goodies! 2 cricket bats, balls, play dough, colouring pencils and paint books. For the really young ones i got them some puzzles to pass their time with. I took a couple of the older boys with me to town so that i could get this all at a decent price- despite speaking whatever hindi i have picked up here the local shop owners will still know you are a foreigner and rip you right off! It was great fun seeing the boys play cricket- i even managed to hit a few 6's here and there ;-)!!! Its amazing that its the small things that keep these kids so happy here. Whenever i ask them if there is anything that they would like me to buy for them- they only want games or sports equipment. If you were to ask a kid from london- you'd here an ipod or nintendo!

For the first time i actually enjoyed having a chat with the older boys that are in their 20's. Most of them are married by 23 and have children that also come to the shelter. It is angering that they all feel the need to keep having more and more kids when they are so poor and live the way they do. I have so many questions to ask them but the language is a big barrier here as they all speak tamil or kannada. I got speaking to a young boy that had slit his whole arm because he fell for a girl that didnt love him back. A lot of the kids you see in the shelter have experienced some horrible unimaginable things in their lives. You just need to see their body and you can figure it out. I was bathing one of the older boys and saw that he had blade marks all over his back and chest. I asked one of the boys what had happened to him and he said that jesus had done it to him. So sad to see how some of the young kids are mentally troubled and what they do. Everyday you see new faces, some that come in stoned or drunk and want to see the volunteers and others that just come in for company and to have some food. The kids are good fun to be around and surprisingly the young girls that are in the shelter are a lot more aggressive than the boys. They generally bully and go around hitting the other kids and their younger siblings that they bring with them. There are 2 notorious girls in my shelter that use any opportunity to wack the little toddlers and when they are scoulded they pull a face and run off. Patience is something you def learn out here!

Apart from the work i have been doing- i have been out here and there with my family and friends. Went to stay at Aparnas house at the weekend and went out for karishmas husbands bday at a lovely bar and then had a bbq the next day. Lots of food and booze to keep us going till the early hours of the morning! Yesterday went for a bollywood night at the leela palace hotel- such a beautiful place! Had such a blast with these guys- wish they lived in london! Unfortunately the clubs close at 11.30 so we have to continue the party at home! Havent done any shopping here yet- shock i know!!! Will wait to hit the stores in bombay!

I havent been well today and it seems i have caught a cold. Nose is running and throat is very sore. The late nights and change of weather is prob the cause. Been taking natural herbal remedies so hopefully i will be back to normal in the next few days. Am going to a sangeet tonight with karishma and co. Her friend is getting married this weekend so looking forward to that.

Hope you enjoyed the pics and now you can all put faces to the names!

Hope you are all well!

p.s i have extended my trip and will be back on the 15th march!! Sorry! xx

Modelling Pictures

pchande — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:24:00 GMT

Hi there- have quickly popped into a net cafe and thought id send you some pics from the latest asiana magazine that was out a couple of days ago. I know im due to update my journal with a whole lot of pics but they take absolutely ages to upload from these comps.

The last few days of work have been tiring as I have been doing full shifts. It can get too much when you have children jumping all over you with so much energy at 10 in the morning through till the end of the day!!! I did end up giving all the young kids a bath- they loved it! They knew that if they all showered they would be treated to some chocolates so they all got their kit off in seconds! Once showered i put talcom powder all over them which they loved the smell of. SOme of the babies even tried to eat it. I managed to get some teaching done during the day which i was quite surprised about because the kids just like playing most of the time and have a short attention span. We did animals, parts of the body and fruits and then they all started drawing and colouring. SOme kids are willing to learn but the rest just muck around and distract the clever ones which can get frustrating. The older ones i really dont bother with at the moment especially after a little incident yday. WE play a memory game just before lunch where kids pick up 2 picture cards and if they match they get a chocolate and if they dont they put them down. I gave all the kids that won some chocolates and then felt it would only be fair to give the others some aswell. Stupidly i had a whole bunch in my hand and tried to hand them out. Lesson 1 learnt- Always make them sit down and then give them food/drink otherwise they are like rats around you!!! Anyway an older kid that already got given a chocoate came up to ask for another one. I told him he had already had a few and these were for the others. Being a hero he decides to pull a blade out of his pocket and jokingly threaten me to give him one. I looked at him in disgust and just told him to walk away. He and everyone else knew i was hacked off and for the rest of the day i completely ignored him and didnt even serve him a drink! It probably wasnt meant in a serious way as kids always carry around these kind of items- probably just to show how macho they are but i wasnt having any of it. I didnt see him at the shelter today but im sure his mut will appear soon! lol

Apart from my work- i have been out most evenings with friends or family. A couple of my housemates have completed their projects and are off to other countries so we went out for leaving drinks the other day. its annoying that everything closes at 11.30 here but we just carry on the party at our place!

This weekend i am staying at aparnas place. We will go shopping and tonight are heading to a few bars and clubs. Tomorrow there is barbeque at their place for karishmas hubbies bday.Im looking forward to staying in a nice comfortable place! Other than that everything is all good here. Cant believe that its nearly 2 weeks that i have been here- only 2 more weeks to go and this project will be over! So far,so good!

Anyway will update u again soon. Will try and upload some other pics soon!

Lots of love

xxx

Long weekend!

pchande — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:40:00 GMT

Hello there!

So its my second week here now and things are really good out here. I really dont miss london at the moment- there is so much more to do here, im always meeting people and am out all day and you cant complain when the weather is so nice and hot! At the same time - i do think of you all and miss you!

Last weekend was a long weekend here so i decided to take off to mysore for the day with Vishal. The journey took over 2 1/2 hours because of the traffic.We went to see the palaces and took a guided tour. Mysore is a beautiful place and has a lot of character. Went for lunch to a stunning hotel called metropole and had a lovely lunch buffet outside. I have been stuffing my face with so much food- everyone just wants to feed me and take me for lunches, coffees and deserts!! Its tempting to get carried away and try everything but im still weary where i eat meat. I have started drinking filtered water now in homes and in some resteraunts. Sometimes its all in the mind! Touch wood i havent got ill yet. Here and there my stomach has made some funny noises and has felt uncomfortable but it hasnt lasted for more than a couple of hours.

Aparna (cousin) is back from bombay now and we went for lunch at the leela palace hotel yday. What a hotel- its amazing! The selection of food is crazy!! Karishma (cousin) is back today so we will be picking her from the airport and will probably just all get together and eat/drink like they love to do here!! Everyone is just so warm here and they really know how to look after their guests. Just hope we can do the same for them!

It was a nice surprise to see my picture in the bangalore times paper yday morning! It was taken on the night i went for the club launch. They put my pic in the paper alongside some other industry people and described me as "bringing colour to the party in my floral dress" haha. Will upload that picture on here in a couple of days.

Right there isnt much more to update at the moment. Im back at work tomorrow and am looking forward to having some fun with the kids. Yday was a public holiday here and today i didnt go to work as they took the kids on an overnight trip yesterday.

Figo (dog) is jumping all over me and wants to play so will catch up again soon. Hope you are all well- thanks for all your messages!!

Lots of love

Working life part 2

pchande — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:57:00 GMT

So as i was saying apart from my charity work, I have been lucky enough to go to VIP parties with my house mates as a few of the boys work for a music magazine. Yday we went for a club launch where we had our VIP area and free drinks all night. Crowd was good- mix of models and music industry people. Today I went to an open air music event which I also had a vip pass to so was in the first row. Met and took pics with one of my fav music artists- Karsh Kale.

Apart from that every other day my cousin Vishal has been taking me to some new bar or another so i cant complain!

Anyway thats all for now

Lots of love!

Working life

pchande — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:56:00 GMT

Hello everyone, im glad to see that most of you have been reading my journal so its not a complete waste of time!

So, its nearly a week here and i can say that i have really settled into bangalore and the way things work here. My work started this week and i have been taken on a motorbike everyday with a project co-ordinator so that i can learn the routes to the different centres. Its great fun going on the bike- minus the pollution going directly into my face!!!

Work has def been an eye opener and its so sad to see how bad things are for the poor kids out here. MOst of the kids that i work with are from 1 yrs old to 14. The babies and toddlers get very attached and just want to be held and to sit on your lap. Infact all the kids want to compete for your affection. It was over whelming when i first went into the centre. The kids were picked up literally from the streets and bought into the shelter so they can have food and play with others. They are all so dirty, have all sorts of illnesses- the common one being a fever and scabies.You cant hel but want to hug them even after seeing them in such a bad way. The older boys- aged betweem 16-19 just come in for the food most of the time. Most of them are kids that are involved in gangs and are dug abusers. You can see tip ex on their hands which is what they snort to get high. I havent found myself to be able to get chatting to them much yet because it can be quite intimidating when there are a bunch of boys oogling and speaking in their own language about you and you have no idea what they are saying- not like id want to know either!!! In time i will become more tolerant and it wont get to mebut at the moment i just enjoy being around the kids. Im starting to form bonds with some of them and every day they make me promise them that i will come back the next day. They are so cheerful despite being so poor, living it so rough and some having no parents. All they really want is love. One of the boys in the centre, around 10, touched my heart yday. He offered me his lunch and to buy me a pani puri with the last coin he had in his pocket and whilst playing a game offered me his chocolate that he won. It brings a tear to your eye that someone could have such a big heart like that when they are the ones that are starving.

Anyway apart from working, i have been going out alot too. Aparna's (cousin)salon is so close to my place so i have already had a few treatments there after work. Last night there was a bar launch party (invite only) that i went to with my house mates. Had a really good night there.

i will be back- money runnign out

Hello!!

pchande — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:13:00 GMT

hi im in bangalore now and its my second day now- already feels like i have been here a week! sorry for the small letters- the keyboard in this internet cafe has a few buttons jammed! haha- thats india for you - everywhere is a jam!

So,my flight was really comfortable and went pretty fast. Food was amazing- i had mutter paneer, naan, kheer, chaat salad for dinner and uttapa, idli sambar for breakfast. Slept quite well for most of my journey after watching batman begins. I tried to blag an upgrade in the swanky club area of the plane but apparently the cabin crew couldnt do anything and i should have spoken to the guys at check in- hmmmmmmmmm

Anyway, got to bangalore and was greeted by the driver who took me to my accomodation. As soon as i stepped out of the airport- the air smelt different- polluted but surprisingly not smelly like i expected. SO much noise around you, everyone staring, cows grazing on crap around you!The drive was an hour to my accomodation- i found myself gasping every few seconds and stressing out as the people here drive so crazily so i decided it might just be better if i just closed my eyes and rest till i get to my guest house.

When i got to my house, I was greeted by my landlady- a nice plump warm lady who showed me to my room. Its bigish, very basic, 3 beds with bedding on them, bare walls and an en suite toilet and bathroom. Its clean but far from luxury. At this point, it actually sunk that im in india and doing this all by myself for 4 weeks! Before i could actually unpack or start to even think whether i was going to survive this or not- my other housemates came into my room to welcome me. There are 2 other women that are in my room with me- both are in their 50's and there are 5 boys in the other rooms all that range between 23-34. They were all so welcoming and friendly that in no time we were all laughing and chatting away and i felt that i had been there longer. Later in the evening we all went to see one of the boys (james) perform at the british library. He does part time acting lessons after he has done his charity shift work in the day. For dinner, we went to a really nice south indian rest called coconut grove in the centre of bangalore where all the bars and resteraunts are. We ate loads and drank loads and the bill was around 5 pounds each! Everything is just so cheap here- its great!

Today i had my orientation tour along with the other volunteers. They took us on a tour around the town and we went to the co-ordinators house where she gave us more info and took us to a great upmarket resteraunt for a buffet lunch. Later we went onto mg road, commercial road and roamed the streets. People flock to us and hope to get money - i gave a really cute boy some money that was playing bollywood songs on his flute for me! he was adorable and kept sweeping his hair like shah rukh khan. lol. Later the boys insisted they take us to what they now call their local pub! Never again! There were 5 of us girls there and the rest of the place was full of local men. I had about 5-7 men coming up to the table taking pictures of me from their phones- some asking and some not bothering and after they would then run of with their phones showing their friends and laughing. my friends found it hilarious and it was funny but it did get a bit overwhelming after a while so we told them to stop. YOu just learn to accept the people for the way they are here. The main thing is that they are polite and well mannered and are nice people.

Tonight im having an early night and have turned out a night out in town. these guys like to go to nice places which is good so at least i dont have to just rely on family.

Tomorrow i will start work at the first ymca for older boys at 10, and finish at 1. After lunch i will go back at 3.30 to another ymca for young children and work for a further hour and then head home at 4.30. Im really looking forward to starting my work and getting into a routine!

Right my time is nearly up so i will be in touch soon. sorry for the grammar and spelling. i have to right in a rush!

hope you are all well- i do miss you! dont worry about me here. im good, being looked after well and feel like i have more or less settled now!

Lots of love,

Preema

xxx

Gallery: My pictures!

pchande — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:13:00 GMT

Test

pchande — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:09:00 GMT

Hello! Its Tuesday 13th January and im just checking whether this message will appear in my blog. Only 4 more days to go!!!