Day 7 - 09/01/20
Dear Friends,
This is just a short update as yesterday was fairly quiet. However, we did visit the CST station which I believe was initially called Victoria Station and you can see the British style shining through. However, we all still thought it was incredible but we made a swift exit after a train pulled up and what we thought was about a million people suddenly pouring out of it towards us. Today's moments have been some of my favourite so far. We have been doing case studies on OSCAR children and I went with Tom and Tom (convenient for name learning) to visit the homes of both of theirs. Their community was beside the wall of the hospital and was far quieter than Ambedkar Nagar. In every home we have visited they are so generous and never let us go empty handed because they believe a God will visit their house when we enter?! This was no different in the community, where they offered us water, Sprite and Cake (because it was one if the boys birthday), which I tried but neither Toms did. Afterwards, we had planned on meeting 4 boys from the OSCAR tour: Siteram, Umesh, Vishnu and Manas. The only free location was the toy centre in the Ambedkar Nagar slum and we had a great time recording them all answering questions on their visit to the UK given to us by Brighton and Malvern College. One interesting thing Siteram said to us was that he never used to hug his mum, and seeing how affection was different in the UK (can't say that applies to all families), he changed how he was towards his family which I found quite touching. Afterwards we followed Siteram through the narrow lanes of the slum across to the other side to his home next to a little general store. We went up a little ladder to a little room on the third tier. We just chatted about Siteram's life and he translated as we asked his father and mother questions and his sister brought us Chai tea which was the best yet! I loved meeting his family who are quite unique in supporting their son to continue playing football and stay in education. It was still sad to see that his parents views differed when it came to his sister who had followed the traditional way of dropping out of school early, in this case about 14. His two elder brothers had left education because they didn't feel like they would get a decent job regardless of their qualifications. One of his brothers works on a ship from Goa and won't be back till December so they have postponed his sister's wedding until then and their father even invited us to come which was touching. In the evening we met up with Govind, a coach, who took us for some more chai and then a little night tour past the Gate of India and up to Marine drive. It was a lovely end to the best day yet. Just realised this has turned into a long rather than short update.. kind of the way with me I drag stories out - apologies!
bye for now,
Phoebe
This is just a short update as yesterday was fairly quiet. However, we did visit the CST station which I believe was initially called Victoria Station and you can see the British style shining through. However, we all still thought it was incredible but we made a swift exit after a train pulled up and what we thought was about a million people suddenly pouring out of it towards us. Today's moments have been some of my favourite so far. We have been doing case studies on OSCAR children and I went with Tom and Tom (convenient for name learning) to visit the homes of both of theirs. Their community was beside the wall of the hospital and was far quieter than Ambedkar Nagar. In every home we have visited they are so generous and never let us go empty handed because they believe a God will visit their house when we enter?! This was no different in the community, where they offered us water, Sprite and Cake (because it was one if the boys birthday), which I tried but neither Toms did. Afterwards, we had planned on meeting 4 boys from the OSCAR tour: Siteram, Umesh, Vishnu and Manas. The only free location was the toy centre in the Ambedkar Nagar slum and we had a great time recording them all answering questions on their visit to the UK given to us by Brighton and Malvern College. One interesting thing Siteram said to us was that he never used to hug his mum, and seeing how affection was different in the UK (can't say that applies to all families), he changed how he was towards his family which I found quite touching. Afterwards we followed Siteram through the narrow lanes of the slum across to the other side to his home next to a little general store. We went up a little ladder to a little room on the third tier. We just chatted about Siteram's life and he translated as we asked his father and mother questions and his sister brought us Chai tea which was the best yet! I loved meeting his family who are quite unique in supporting their son to continue playing football and stay in education. It was still sad to see that his parents views differed when it came to his sister who had followed the traditional way of dropping out of school early, in this case about 14. His two elder brothers had left education because they didn't feel like they would get a decent job regardless of their qualifications. One of his brothers works on a ship from Goa and won't be back till December so they have postponed his sister's wedding until then and their father even invited us to come which was touching. In the evening we met up with Govind, a coach, who took us for some more chai and then a little night tour past the Gate of India and up to Marine drive. It was a lovely end to the best day yet. Just realised this has turned into a long rather than short update.. kind of the way with me I drag stories out - apologies!
bye for now,
Phoebe
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