I nearly get lucky at Diwali and The Vengboys come to town

On the morning of Diwali I woke at 6am with the sounds of the jungle and a tap at my door.  I thought I’d got lucky and was just about to reach for The Barry White ablum when I saw a monkey's arm come round the door.  At least he’d knocked.  The monkies here are pests.  I’ve worked with monkies before and they can be fun but here they come in gangs breaking into huts and steal food, even going so far as to take the tiles of the roof and abseiling each other in like a scene from Mission Impossible.  Lucky for me I was in and my banana stock was saved for the day.  

Diwali is The Hindu Festival of light, celebrating the end of the harvest with a mission to banish evil by lighting lots of candles and offering of gifts and prayers to the goddess Lakshmi.  Although, quite religious, the most visible parts of the festival are decorating everything and I mean ‘everything’ in tinsel and throwing firecrackers at anything that moves.  Based on the amount I had thrown at me, I am pure evil!  We headed down to the local village (pop 150) to celebrate and after visiting several houses to make Pooja (gifts for Lakshmi, the most common one being a plate of cow manure - they love their cows here) we were blasted with the one big speaker in the village playing Western Dance music.  Gangnam Style cracked through the speaker and all the local mud faced children cracked a smile and jumped up and down doing the Gangnam.  The Koreans have A LOT to answer for!  As I haven’t danced in a while I felt obliged to jump in the middle of about 30 kids.  Here is the output.  It might not be pretty but it was hilarious and resulted in one of the local drunks challenging me to a dance off which means I’m now pretty much barred from the village.  I’ll see if we can dig out that video for next time!

So to explain my first project.  KSV is a school which provides education, accommodation, food and healthcare free of charge to +200 underprivileged children in rural southern India.  The project's being going strong for 10 years but with costs increasing and their income sources decreasing they need help.  I'm here to work with their fundraising team to setup a framework for them to work with local Corporates and be self sufficient for the next 3-5 years.  Not an easy task and not quite as boring as it sounds (although when I'm sat in an office at 8pm with a headtorch on I'm not no sure).  At the moment it's school holiday and the place is quiet, new volunteers turned up earlier this week so I'm no longer swo wonsome and don't have to survive with my Hinglish.  200 kids should turn up tomorrow and here's a few faces from the school before it gets crazy.  Right now it's just like camping in the jungle but as of tomorrow I've a feeling it will be more like a zoo :)

Here's just a few important people at the School - The Cook Camla.....as of tomorrow feeding 200 children 3 times/day!

Some of the local kids dropping by before school starts

I'm sure they'll be lots of cute kids here tomorrow but Suprita joined us for yoga this morning by the lake and deserved a photo

Some locals pulling a HAPPY face for Diwali 

I'll be travelling to Bangalore in a few weeks to start introducing the project to corporates and attend a musical concert being played by the school orchestra.  One of my meetings is at 7.15am and I have a 15 second pitch into 50 CXOs.  I looked in the mirror yesterday and as I resembled a cross between Stig of the Dump and Robinson Crusoe decided a trip to the barber was needed.  I remember an experience at a Barber in Peru when I didn't speak Spanish and my only point of reference was a New Kids on the Block poster.  I was hoping my first India experience would be better.  I was wrong.  Never ever get a shave at an Indian Barber when there is cricket on the TV.  To top it off my barber had hiccups and despite repeatedly asking him not to trim my tash (I wanted to grow it so I could wax it up into an Indian curly), he chopped right into it.  Lucky for me it wasn't too brutal.  I know another volunteer who went in looking like ZZ Top and came out looking like Freddie Mercury.  The Indians LOVE their tashes.  Here is a salute to Movember back home..........