Today's visit to a community centre

The highlight of my day today was a visit to a community centre - one of the NGO partners of Dream a Dream (DAD) where some of the DAD team run regular creative arts sessions for kids aged 6-12 as part of their life skils learning and development. This is one of about 7 programmes that DAD run with kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. Most of the kids live in extreme poverty - on the streets, in slums or from very poor homes/neighbourhoods. Visited the community centre to experience a creative skills class take place. It was fabulous and inspiring to see such animated young faces. 25 kids in all attended - 4 of them were siblings. Their parents had died and were being brought up by an older brother. He was at work so had they not had the community centre to go to then they would be playing around in the street.

My commute to work takes about 20 minutes by auto rickshaw and costs a mere 20 rupees - about 30p. This morning was pretty intense, understanding more about the challenges that DAD faces - listening and learning and absorbing vast amounts of new information presented in a wide range of Indian dialects - puts my listening skills to the test!!

But they are a great bunch of people at Dream a Dream and have been incredibly welcoming.

Almost mastered the art of eating with my hands - well right hand only - for obvious reasons. But that does test my dexterity as I am left-handed! Rice is a major challenge so I generally eat curry with breaad - roti or naan. Am staying in a hotel with a great vegetarian Indian restaurant and having some great food - but curry for breakfast is a bit of a challenge. Resorting instead to cornflakes and fresh fruit and toast with pretty dodgy jam! Hopefully will find somewhere tonight that serves meat!! Plenty restaurants but I am still orientating myself around the local vicinity of the hotel.

Back to the slum of yesterday, I forgot to mention that it sits next to a river - well an open sewer really that carries an enormous amount of waste and debris from Bangalore that collects on the river banks. Tomorrow if I get time I'll take a pic and you'll see what I mean. But as I said in yesterday's entry, there appears to be general happiness despite the appalling conditions. I saw a women's self-help group in action in the slum. A group of women who meet periodically and pool meagre amounts of money. This money is then loaned out at pretty near zero interest rates to help any one of the women in need. Great stuff.

Ah well, it's been a long day and I'm tired cos my sleep pattern hasn't quite adjusted to the flight and time difference. Am doing this in the office and am the last person here. Fan is going on the ceiling and the flurescent (spelling?) lights are blaring - along with the constant din of the traffic outside and the hooters going full pelt announcing the presence of every single driver. In that chaos I must try to wave down a rickshaw and negotiate my way home.

See you next time on this blog!