I saw the circus today

I didn't go to the circus today,
It came to me.
I was just simply walking along
When it bounced out from behind a tree.

Running along, backwards,
it clapped and jumped
then spun things round on its head

a backward flip
and through a hoop
a routine perfectly played

But this was a circus
that I didn't like
In fact it just felt so wrong

Because this little circus
was really a boy
dancing to a man made song.

Little children of 7 or 8
should never be
forced to perform.

Wearing a Sari

All week the ASHA centre at Trilokpuri Slum has been busy with a church team from London painting the walls inside. It has made the week go so fast! To celebrate the newly painted walls a special event was held on Saturday with Dr Kiran (founder and director of ASHA) as a guest. The children danced, the president of the womens group, the president of the children's group and some of the London team all made speeches. It was a special day for the community and I had been under some peer pressure to dress for the occasion...”you will wear a sari!” the women declared during the week, “I don't have one!” I replied, “you wear sari!” came the response...well, I thought, maybe I should. So I set out this week to get a sari. We went to the INA market, one we enjoy going to because it's not in the guide book and therefore it is mostly full of locals getting on with their day to day business. The sellers here are a little less pushy and it makes for a more pleasant shopping experience! We sat as a seller displayed one sari after another, carefully unfolding beautiful pieces of material in front of us. One power cut and about 20 sari's later I saw one I liked, but alas! It was too expensive “johabada” I said (meaning “too much”) but the price didn't come down enough so we thanked him and moved to the next “shop”. Here we had sari's flung at us, in a rather poor show of sales technique! However, this seller had a sari at a price I was willing to pay. We bartered a little, negotiated the tailoring of the blouse and the deal was done.

I was nervous putting the sari on for the event! It's been a while since I wore one and I just about remembered how to put it on! Being on the road for a year and always eager to spend as little as possible we were traveling to the slum the same way we do each day by metro then by rickshaw, so this sari needed to be on well! I worked at it, with John's help, and was quite pleased with the result....and I didn't even use any pins!!!! Off we went! You know I get stared at all the time here by, well, everyone...you would think perhaps wearing a sari would maybe reduce the stares but no, it actually increased them! I made it to the metro without mishap, phew! But the metro can be mental here, to say you get packed in like sardines would be an understatement! The metro has a few carriages reserved for women only, and although I usually travel with John in the normal carriages this time I wasn't taking the risk. I can tell you, traveling in the ladies only carriage is a different experience altogether! For one, it wasn't crowed, it also was full of chatter and although I was as stared at by the women as I am by the men at least this time a peer took me under her wing for the journey...my friend beckoned me to sit with her after saying “beautiful” as she looked at me in my sari. I initially declined explaining I was wearing said sari without pins and was rather nervous to do anything in it that involved movement at all! “It is better to sit” she said and that was that. It was an interesting chat which began with the usual discussion of the Indian's hot topics: where are you from? Are you married? Do you have any children? and Do you not want any children? (i.e. why on earth do you not already have a few?!). She then proceeded to tell me that everyone was staring at me because they were ashamed, she explained that they all want to be like westerners, with pale skin and western clothes and they see me in Indian clothes and feel ashamed that even I am wearing them and they are not. Anyway the journey left me feeling ok about my sari wearing attempt, I was looking forward to seeing the women's reaction when I arrived at Trilokpuri slum!

I wasn't disappointed with the reaction, it was quite funny, I got a lovely look of realisation and appreciation that I had arrived in a sari which lasted about, well, 3 seconds, before being whisked, no, dragged off to a room by about 4 women and girls where they proceeded to almost completely undo the whole sari and redress me! I'll confess it did look better once they were finished, mind you there were four of them working away at getting me right as well as a fair number of other women giving their contribution or opinion as they wandered in and out for the entertainment! I obviously hadn't taken the wearing a sari thing far enough because after fixing the sari itself some of the girls came and fixed the ankle bracelets I was wearing which they had given me as a gift and then another woman stuck a bindi on my forehead (the red dot worn by Hindu women to traditionally indicate they are married), next I was waved over while one woman pushed bracelets onto my arm and fretted about the fact I wasn't wearing a necklace and a young girl came over and gently pushed a ring onto my finger. Between all of this and the henna designs on both sides of my right arm I was feeling more Indian by the minute...(I'm trying to catch up with John on this achievement as he has already been declared “really Indian now” after a show of eating large amounts of spicy food made by the women in the slum)...after all the fixing and additions the girls were delighted and even declared me to be like their bollywood heroine Katrina Kaif!! Result! In stark contrast, today John went shopping for a shirt and trousers for a special event we are attending on Wednesday. He got a shirt for a mere Rs75 (about a pound..mind you it sounded like he was putting a sheet of paper on himself when he tried it on!), but trousers were harder come by, one sellar simply said “your size no”...John remains trouserless for Wednesdays event, here's hoping he can find something tomorrow!

Dancing with the girls.

Dressed up for the special day!

A community health volunteer describes the contents of the medical box she carries to help treat minor illnesses in her community.

Meeting a first time mum with her 10 day old baby, the babies health record sitting nearby.

Cricket is a very serious matter...some of the boys from our english class pose, could this be the next world cup team for India??

Enjoying good company and fellowship with Tom and Linda...the Scotland/Ireland ASHA connection!

The boys in the english class listen intently to John and his puppet friend Eric!

The girls, usually quite calm, go crazy over a wordsearch!

Pimp my horn!

One of the most distinctive sounds in Delhi is the almost continuous sound of beeping horns. I have spent the last few days trying to determine exactly how one uses their horn in Delhi and to what extent it is considered rude to press one's “excuse me old chap, would you mind moving out of the way” button?

First of all, you can forget about your traffic on the M8/M6/M25/Westlink when trying to comprehend what the traffic is like on a main road. If you can picture a sand timer and all the grains of sand are cars/scooters/buses/trucks/rickshaws/bicycles/cows/people/donkeys and the timer is the road you will be somewhere on the right track. Therefore using ones horn is essential to navigate such a 'hullabaloo' and I think I may have worked out the correct etiquette and is detailed below:

1 short beep = “Hello dear fellow, just letting you know I am here”

1 reasonably long beep = “Do please move out of the way as I am heading towards you and I'm afraid I might kill you if you don't.”

or

“I am turning left/right so please do not attempt to cross this particular road, again I may kill you”

Relentlessly leaning on
the horn with all their = Either “one's horn is broken” or “I'm deaf/blind”
might.

The other strange thing is that there seems to be some strange underground horn 'pimping' scene here. Those of you familiar with the tv show 'Pimp my ride' will understand this but for those who are doing a bit of head scratching just now it basically means people change their horns for a more 'unique' model, similar to the neds/chavs/steeks who put massive wheels and loud exhausts on their battered Citreon saxo's.

The result is that you will be walking along the street and a small battered scooter driven by an elderly gentleman buzzes past and you are treated to an Indian version of the dukes of hazzard. You also have the fading horn which sounds similar to the Doppler effect but is actually just more annoying. And finally you have the gentleman who has used his horn so much that he has in effect worn it out. The result of which is something between a kazoo and a constipated Donald Duck.

And so hear ends my description/translation of the Indian horn culture, something which I think everyone should experience at least once in their lives, even if it is the last.

The Power of Prayer

I was invited to join the ladies prayer meeting in the slum last Friday and I can only describe the experience as an immense privilege which left me full of wonder at God's active movement in the slums...these ladies from the slum community meet each week to worship, pray, share testimony of how God is at work in their lives and read the Bible. As I finished off teaching a girls English class I heard the meeting start up as a drum beat loudly with wonderful rhythmic sound and praise rose up in Hindi. I slipped in once class was finished, taking my shoes off at the door and joining the 15 or so ladies sitting cross legged on the floor. I felt so humbled and full of joy as I listened to their testimonies. These women, most of them from a Hindu background, told stories of how they “pray in Jesus' name” whatever need they have or situation they face. One shared, emotionally, that her daughter was to be engaged, but she was unable to afford to pay for the engagement, she prayed in Jesus' name and within a few days her friends and family had helped to provide all the money she needed, another explained that her son-in-law had gone out one night, got caught up in a fight and hadn't returned home for a few days, the family and especially his wife were obviously concerned, she prayed in Jesus' name that her son-in-law would make contact to let them know he was ok and within 20 minutes of praying he phoned her! Others relayed stories of healing and provision, each time the testimony was the same “i prayed in Jesus' name and my need was met”.

I was impacted by the simplicity of these womens faith, yet how confident they were in the name of Jesus, each one had been touched by Him. It made me think of how I unnecessarily complicate my faith a lot and how little I allow myself to rely fully on God. These women look to Jesus for all their needs, and they don't have materialistic safety nets like we often do in the west, if you understand what I mean? They have real faith, they understand, in a way we rarely allow ourselves to, that God alone can provide for all their needs. Praying specifically “in Jesus' name” took on new significance too that day, in a culture full of spirituality, full of names of gods and karma and fate, a culture full of worship and prayer to anything and everything the name of Jesus is what is making the difference in these womens lives. These women know that of all the names you can call on, Jesus is the only one that can “move mountains”.

The hardest part of the meeting for me was when the women read from the Bible. They read from Proverbs 22: “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold...Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the maker of them all.”...heads nod...”The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”, “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor” (verses 1, 2, 7, 9). Reading what the Bible says about the poor is very different when you are reading it along with people who are poor. And do you know what? It is among the poor that I see the most biblical faith, these poor share their food with the poor, they share the little wealth hey have too and their time, they are a family, they are what believers have been called to be. I was asked to share a message from the Bible and pray for the women at the end, I honestly felt so unworthy to do so. These womens faith was uncomplicated and it was real, I have a lot to learn from them and I can't wait till next Friday when we will meet again to pray...

Education and English

Where do we start? there is so much we want to say, more than we can say in one entry but we'll make a start....it's been a full week now since we began our english teaching with ASHA and it's been a steep learning curve. Teaching english doesn't come naturally to either of us but as the week has progressed we have gained confidence and hopefully our teaching is improving! The most difficult part of teaching has been working out what level the children are at. We have found that some of the children have very little english, others are very skillled at reading and writing english but struggle to understand spoken english and lack confidence in speaking in english. The children have shown us some of their school text books which are in english and we have been shocked at the high level of english in these books contain and feel that while they can “read” the text there is perhaps little understanding of the meaning.

We are teaching four classes a day, each lasting one hour...although the timing, like the attendance, start and finish time and whether the class actually takes place at all, are all subject to change at any given second! It can be quite funny really, every class has a slightly different make up of children in it and can range from 4 – 20 children!! The children are keen, eager to jot down whatever is on the board into their jotters and although we don't give homework, some have spontaneously done some extra work between one class and the next, bringing it to us for “marking”. We have a red smiley face teachers stamp which they all love to have stamped on their completed work and it is just so lovely to see their beaming faces as you say “well done” and stamp and big smile on their page. We do wonder if these children get much encouragement or praise at school.

ASHA has placed a real focus on supporting young people in the slums in their education over these last few years and the results are amazing. For the first time ever, young people from the slums of Delhi are accessing further and higher education, many of them now attending university. We met Pinki, a young girl in the slums about to sit her “year 12” exams, the exams that determine who will be able to apply for university, i guess the equivilent of our A-Levels or Highers. These exams are in english which puts children in the slums, who attend state funded hindi medium schools, at a severe disadvantage to those children fortunate enough to be educated in private english medium schools. ASHA provide books to help the children study, organise extra english classes (like ours) and provide mock exams to help the children be well prepared and give them the best chance they can have. We have been impressed as we arrive at the centre each day to find year 12 students sitting on the floor in the centre studying hard. Pinki told us she has “high hopes” of doing well in her exams and wants to go to university to study political science...keep her and her studies in your prayers, she sits her exam on the 3rd of March!

Indian bureaucracy at its finest!

Well, we had an unexpected trip to the Foreign Residents Registration Office, or FRRO today due to our visa stamp requesting us to do so. We were advised by our friends at ASHA that we were best just to go and ask at the FRRO as they couldn't determine anything from the website. They also advised us that we should be there by 7:30am at the latest as they opened at about 9:30. We were a little puzzled by this but we duly arrived to find approximately 100+ people already there, all the seats taken and two bits of paper held down by a couple of stones, one for afghan nationals and one for all other foreigners. We were not sure exactly what to do but we spotted someone who looked liked they knew what we are doing and asked him. He explained that it involved approximately 3 queue's, 3 forms (one in triplicate) one of which we did not have and a whole lot of patience as this was his 5th attempt at obtaining his visa.

Obviously we were a pillar of confidence after this so we duly waited in 'line' with everyone else as what seemed the entire non-Indian, non-afghan population within Delhi pushed in front of us. Of course this is India so we expected a very strict and organised ledger along with smart allocation numbers at the end of this queue........no. What we found was a man with what can only be described as a school jotter copying our passport numbers into it next to our names (in order of the list we initially signed) and another man tearing a bit of paper off with our names and an allocation number written in biro. “Welcome to India” has never meant so much as it did in that moment.

To cut a long story short it turned out we didn't require to go to the FRRO office in the end. The lovely gentleman behind the desk explained it was when we re-entered India we would have to make a visit to the FRRO. I tell you this, I've never appreciated Glasgow City Council and their remarkable efficiency so much than on this day.

What did impact us most on the day though was the sight of around 250+ Afghan nationals, men, women and children all desperate to get their forms handed over and seen. People were being pushed around, thrown out of one queue and into another and it could have turned nasty very quickly. Thankfully it didn't, however for Louise it did bring to mind the novels 'the kite runner' and 'a thousand splendid suns', both set in Afghanistan, and she wondered what these peoples journey's had entailed...

Our first day with ASHA.

It was quite a shock this morning when we woke up and I (John) remembered that we would be heading over to the ASHA office, or maybe it was the realisation that it was 7 in the morning. What was more of a shock was that I had brought a Valentines all the way from the UK to give to Louise and unfortunately I was left empty handed (Awwwwww). Louise has very good reason not to bring one because I am very poor at giving cards at the appropriate occasions so there was no reason why I should make the effort this time, other than the fact that I did......

Anyway, as previously mentioned we spent our first day with ASHA today which started with a short meeting in their office and then we were driven, with the usual rush of adrenalin, out to the resource center where we shall be doing our English teaching. We were welcomed with a garland of flowers round our necks and petals thrown over our heads which I think should be standard welcome procedures for us (take note parents and friends). It was very humbling though as we both felt very inadequate in terms of what we are bringing to them, yet they treated us with such warmth and generosity. We spent the rest of the time there meeting some of the children and the members of the health care team. We heard some very inspiring stories which really do give you hope, which is actually what ASHA means in Hindi. One particular story is of a lady called By-yan, a Muslim lady who did not leave her home before ASHA came along. She is now the leader of the womens group and not only leaves the home but communicates to the government if a water pump is broken or certain conditions are not being met on behalf of other women.

One thing that struck me as we where shown round some of the people's homes in the slums was that even in some of the worst conditions these people were beautiful. They were happy and rejoiced in the birth of a healthy child and welcomed us into their homes. There is a lot we can learn from these people, and we hope to over the next month.

P.S. Here is a we photo of us with our flower garlands, brings out my eyes doesn't it??

Trains and Touts

Up early this morning to go to church...we found a church by searching online which was just 10 mins walk from where we are saying and went there. It was good to be able to meet with other believers and worship God :o) The service started 30 minutes after the start time stated on the website, so for a wee change we were early!! Now if only Findlay had the same delay i would have been ok! The church were very welcoming and we enjoyed singing songs in English and listening in Hindi! I'm pretty sure the pair of us stick out like a sore thumb most places we go here but we certainly weren't going to slip in and out of church without anyone noticing!...they had all visitors stand up and share their name and where they are from! We met a lovely Japanese man who we had a lovely chat with!

Since tomorrow we start with ASHA we took the chance today to go to the red fort in Delhi, visited a few bazaars and went to the train station to have a look around.

Delhi really is an assault on the senses and it can be quite tiring to keep going! Noise, dirt, dust, smells, colour, traffic, pollution, horns, cows, dogs, touts. It is a place whee you really can't let your guard down and unfortunately you need to spend much of your time feeling suspicious. At the train station today our attempt to get into the station was interrupted forcefully one about 4 occasions by touts telling us we couldn't get in without a ticket or that we needed to get a rickshaw back into town to get our tickets at a particular tourist office...total scamsters of course! But they are so forceful and firm that you have to really battle to get away from them! Unfortunately the only people who try to “help” are other touts who will quickly pick up where the last one left...while the general public and tourist police stand by and watch.

People approach you to hassle you so much we have quickly moved to “ignore” mode, this usually is successful until it backfired a little today when we ignored someone approaching us and shouting “hey” repeatedly for quite some time before realising it was our brother from Japan we had met at church earlier! oops!!! We did quite a bit of apologising that time!

We have been using the metro a good bit since arriving and this has been a great (predictable) way of getting around the place...its very busy! Certainly being used well anyway!

We have enjoyed finding places to eat and so far we have not been victims of sickness. We've eaten in a couple of places near the accommodation and in connaught place where we had south indian food yum yum!

The florescent strip your parents made you wear when you were cycling

Did your parents make you wear one? Mine did, you know how they made you, for your safety, wear a big yellow strip across your body and you just felt so embarrassed? Well, I tell you now Delhi is somewhere I would choose to wear it! At least crossing the roads at night I would. John says he would drive in Delhi but he says one of two things would happen, either you would loose your life or you would take quite a few years off it! (think we'll stick to being driven/being pedestrians).

Managed to buy two salwar kameez outfits today which I need to wear when in the slums, actually im really looking forward to getting them on! They just fit the bill for this place – cool and give good cover :o)

We are in Delhi!

We had a smooth journey to Delhi from London. We arrived in Delhi to an airport quite different from the one of my memories 10 years ago...since then, due largely to the commonwealth games, the airport has been greatly developed! ASHA sent a driver to take us from the airport to our accommodation, which was such a blessing! They struggled to find the place so i'm not so sure how we would have managed without them!

I think God will be working miracles everyday we are here if we continue to go on or near roads at all and actually survive! The driving is as crazy as it is reputed to be, the stories you have heard people tell are not exaggerated! We saw people drive down the wrong way on a major road, cars reverse from a big junction back onto a busy major road, about four pedestrians have near death experiences, a few accidents and wonderfully ridiculous lane crossing and lane ignoring behaviour in general.

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Our accommodation is grand, despite it's name, “Cottage Yes Please”, which leaves one unsure of what to expect. It's fairly clean (in relative Indian terms) and although the honk of horns has been constant since we arrived it's not really that annoying, more like a constant sound you might get used to and not even notice after a few days :o) We're not far from a metro station and near lots of little general shops...and, rather importantly we are right opposite a decent place to eat where tonight we dined for a mere £3.50 total bill – cheers!

The first leg....

Well we're waiting in Belfast city airport now ready for our first flight, after what can only be described as a tremendously thorough search of most of our bags going through security! I had to explain "we're going to teach English" to one person who was quite amused that the contents of johns carry on bag were puppets, feathers, glue sticks and stickers!!!! :-)

"He is the rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just" Deuteronomy 32:4

And we're off!!!!

Yes here we are, about to head off on our huge adventure.  It's all rather exciting if not a little daunting but we have to keep reminding ourselves there is a reason it's a once in a lifetime experience and it isn't supposed to feel normal :o).

We hope this blog will keep you all updated and we wont be strangers on our return