Podcasts and videos

Hi guys,

Click on http://ywn-india-delegation.blogspot.com/

There are two podcasts we recorded as part of the group there now and also a picture movie. Hope you enjoy

Matt
x

10 things in India I will really miss when I’m home

* Curry, 3 meals a day, including Fish Massala in Kayakumari and Old Monk
* Peoples smiles
* Bianca
* Genuine conversation
* Hospitality and friendliness
* The depth of culture and peoples confidence and enjoyment in it.
* Drawing inspiration from JP and his staff
* Feeling my work in valued
* Being with youth workers 24/7
* The hose things they have in some toilets

Pune -City of Angels and Statues

Just had 5 fantastic days in Pune. Every time I have traveled with work I have always come straight home and never really got a chance to relax and enjoy the countries I’ve just been working in. This time I made the effort to do so and go visit Bianca in Pune for 5 days, to relax and enjoy India – work hassle free. (OK, well I did stay in the YMCA, but remained totally incognito!).

What a difference its made – to see a country for its beauty and to enjoy it for a while, rather than just focusing on its problems and issues.

We did everything from simply chatting loads to singing Kareoke, hanging out in a hippy coffee shop, shopping, climbing a very steep hill in the midday sun, wandering around he ruined castle and whiling away time in a book shop and as ever, eating fantastic food.

I remember the last time i was in India and Bianca telling me that i had to return and see more of India, not just its poverty and slums and that i had to come and enjoy it and see its beauty and its smile. Well thanks Bianca, because I’ve certainly done that these last few days…

Tsunami

Tsunami

As we drove along the coast line that just over 2 years ago was devastated by the tsunmai, its hard not to be overwhelmed by its beauty. The sea is a beautiful blues, the palm tress that line the beech green and all along the beach there are wonderfully painted traditional fishing boats. Yet there are clues to the power of what happened here. We cross a river and see the huge concrete bridge that was smashed in two by the power of the wave. The large church, which lost its roof and two walls and all along the coast line the foundations of homes that once were. Its difficult to imagine the power a wave like this. Everyone has stories to tell of that fateful morning. man of courage, many of miraculous escapes. but all filled with horror. In the morning we had seen a home movie taken by a man on top of a statue that sits on the tip of India at Kanykumari. He is 100foot up, so the angle he has gives a real perspective. He films the first few large waves that proceeded the tsunami and you can see how huge they were! People scream, other just stare in awe and then the camera pans out to the coastline and you see this enormous black mark all along the horizon. What strikes you is the colour. It’s a deep black and seems to blacken the whole horizon. Would assume it was only a minute or two away. The film stops there. The man who made it survived. The statue is a little out to sea. But what is horrifying is that the wave came up as high as the statues neck, around 100ft, as it came underneath him. I’ve seen the statue and its impossible to get your head around the sheer size of what was a black wall of water going at 100km an hour.

Even seeing the destruction makes it still unreal.

Yet there is hope and that seems to pevade anything. We visited the new houses and community re-building programmes and there is a defiant air of positiveness. People are rebuilding their lives and in many cases rebuilding much better and secure lives.

Yet underneath the sheen there is still despair. One woman in her new house was clearly distressed and kept talking to us. Our translator wasn’t with us so we tried to talk via sign language and a few words. She had lost her husband and 4 children and despite her new house and new skills in bee-keeping was still clearly and visibly distraught. I felt so useless – what do you say to her – what can you say? I think I mumbled something stupid like ‘I’m so sorry’, but my words hardly touched the sides.

The boys in Tsunami orphanage have a haunted look behind my eyes that I feel will never leave me. We spent some time playing with them and they put on a cultural show for us…but these were haunted haunted boys

I guess you can do everything you can to give people back material possessions – I didn’t, but in some it made the word just seem futile, but then I guess it is at least doing something and so some people, emotionally, there lives will never be rebuilt…

A proposition

Well, there we have it, the first time I have been propositioned seriously by a prostitute! She was genuinely trying to convince me to take s second wife (her!) and was also telling me that she had good prospects with her job!

We have just spent a few hours with a collective of sex workers whom they YMCA work with here in Kanyakumari. They are trained in contraception and HIV and in the assertiveness required to insist that their clients use condoms. As a result, none of them are positive, they pass on the safe sex message to their clients and they support each other against abusive pimps ad clients.

As it happened, I missed most of the discussions as I had to do some practical organising – This can often get frustrating in my role, one of the down sides of leading the group I guess, sometimes you miss out on some of the experiences you are working for other people to have….But I have to say this time (apart from today) I’ve really done everything with everyone. Much of that has been down to how brill the group have been It’s a great group of people…and fab mix too. I’ve been so impressed by how everyone has supported each other through it. I’ve written lots about how inspired I’ve been by the staff here in India and maybe neglected to say the same about our group– I guess that’s why they’ve been able to so easily make friends with the staff here and genuinely and meaningfully engage with their work. They’ve taken a real leap of faith here, opening themselves up emotionally to pretty full on things, yet at the same time not feeling pity or sadness, or responding with traditional ‘western guilt’ – they have engaged positively and are constructively, using and channelling the inspiration to make themselves better practitioners in their own contexts. Also, just fun and easy to get on with too – but I guess when you put 8 youth workers together thats what you are going to get!!

Women women everywhere….

The womens self help groups that we spent time with were inspiring in the extreme. I’ve never met such a fun, cheeky, determined group of women. Firstly it was a privilege to be allowed to join them in the first place, as men are usually not allowed at all. I joined their circle on the ground and immediately they wanted to talk to me and tell me about their lives, in particular who they have changed.

Many had sad stories about the tsunami, but they didn’t dwell on these. Instead they proudly showed me there savings book and talked to me about their new skills. They were making sea shell ornament, which they sell in the tourist markets on Kanyakumari. They are about to start learning tailoring, so they can branch out into saree making.

Yet it was there personal lives they were so ken to share with me and Iva. They all told how they had had arranged marriages, and without the help and support of the group they would not even be allowed out of there house

I cheekily asked which one of them had the most attractive husband, and was shocked at the distain with which they immediately said that all their husbands were awful to them. Our translator told us they then all began recalling stories of alcoholism and abuse.

They said how jealous they were that we had ‘love’ marriages in the UK. They all wished they could have had a ‘love’ marriage, and the older ones told stories of murder in abuse in such cases. They would try and bring their daughter up to look for these, but also said that it was their boys who actually needed to be re-educated, yet they said they had least control over them.

What was so interesting was that it provoked genuine debate amongst the group. In particular the older women, who were clearly in disagreement with the ‘radical’ views of their younger friends. But then one, who seemed the oldest, said that actually, she was really just jealous of the younger ones, as they had a chance to live a fuller life.

They have used such simple straight forward ways to empower these women. They have simply entrusted them with a small aunt of money and given them the skills to save and invest them. They are then trained in skills to be able to sell products and educated in basic social issues. Finally, and most importantly, they have created a safe and protected space and environment for them, where once a week they can meet, talk and discuss there problems, but more importantly, support and encourage each other.

As with most people I’ve met here, I will always remember these women and hope to be able to draw from their courage and inspiration.

Finally, what summed it up the afternoon was a man who came careering down the alley way where we sat on his flashy motorbike. He reached the women, and assuming that they would all stand up and move out of his way, stayed on his bike revving his engine. The women simply ignored him. The guy soon realised this, and was made to get off his bike, park it, and carefully squeeze past them on foot, having to continue the rest of the journey on foot. I caught on one of the older women’s eye at that point, and she flashed me a very cheeky and wry smile!

Matt

Thanks for the comments guys

Cheers for the comments, hope you had fun skiing bruv.

Not heard stuff out here about BB, but Naomi told me all about it – sounds shocking(but not too suprising, these programmes have a tendancy to reveal our latent racism) -she is a massive massive star out here – lets hope she wins

Dad, i’ll let you know about that date when i’m back

cheers

x

Kanyakumari

Hi,

Just a quick one – we don;t really have internet access down here (well, one small cafe with 3 very very slow computers, but i’ll try and be quick and still blog when i can.

Had such an intresting two days – seen a fantastic women empowerment group, visited the newly built villages and even found time on the way down here for 2 hours swimming in the sea!

I’ll try and blog again soon

Matt

The day at ‘Welcome Break’

So, I thought I’d write al little about what I did in my two days working on the truckers programme this week in Nagpur.

As I said it was such a privilege to spend time with this team, doing what is considered very radical and taboo work. One of the main place HIV is transmitted in India is through the truck routes. Truck drivers, mainly young men, spend months on the road travelling this vast country. Along the highways are what are called Naka’s. They are basically halting places, where truckers pull up for the night to sleep, or take a short rest in the day. There is a petrol pump and lots of small shacks and stalls selling food and tea and offering places ‘out back’ to sleep. Large communities of prostitutes have developed also at these Naka’s. Many are in rural areas, where deep poverty exists and for local women, it provides a reasonable livelihood, and for theses lonely men will also provide the demand!

I know I moan about our motorway services stations, but from now on I will greet ‘Welcome Break’ and Moto with open arms – even a Travelodge seems a good deal now! These are very basic, very dirty, very intense places to be. There is high levels of alcoholism amongst the drivers and the large group of ‘cleaners’ who make their living cleaning the truckers cabs when they stop. Many drivers sexually abuse the cleaners too and some also offer sexual services too.

Basically, its not a nice place to be, as soon as you arrive. Without being flippant, it feels like an Indian ‘Mos Eisley’. The sound, the smell and the rumbling motorway right in the middle (which incidentally we naturally crossed on foot every time we needed to cross it!!!)

These ‘communities’ are considered to be the root cause in the growing HIV pandemic in India. HIV and other STIs are transmitted and shared amongst he sex workers, drivers, cleaners and stall holders and many then travel back home to their own communities and pass it on to their wives (one of the staff here who we’ve got to know is HIV positive and she contracted it in this way). Yet the levels of ignorance and so high, this happens in many cases out of ignorance and not out of any kind of intent.

So the project basically has a small office behind one of the tea shops. As we walked up on our first day you can see a group of sex workers on the roof above, coyly peering down as we arrived. We made our way through the packed and stinking stall selling tea and offering long distance phone calls, and out the back we found the small office and me the mot fantastic people.

We then set about in a small team just going out and meeting people and talking to them. They have spent the last year doing this. Since they started they have trained many of the stall holders to be ‘peer’ educators and condom distributors. Many of the sex workers too and the cleaners. They have been taught to talk to people about HIV and STIs and if needed to give them condoms and demonstrate the correct way of putting it on. When we meet one of them, he proudly produces his plastic knob!

They are also taught to identify if people have symptoms and if so, they take them to the projects doctor (Who is there for 3 hours a day voluntarily) for treatment and advice. Many of these men have STIs and are not aware of the symptoms, so travel up and down the country passing it on to someone at every stop. There is also a large box of free condoms at the registering point ( a place where all the truckers must go to register there vehicle to leave it for the night). Therefore every trucker who stays there has to walk pass a big YMAC condom box (and hopefully take a few). I am impressed at how visible it is, yet discreet enough for embarrassed men to subtly take a few without their mates knowing!

So we spent the day doing everything! Teaching condom use, diagnosing STI’s, getting on a few trucks to chat to drivers and the we went to have tea with Nila, one of the prostitutes (Here they use the term commercial sex workers – they argue that the term ‘prostitute’ has a negative connotations and that these women are forced into their profession to escape poverty and abuse).

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, she was so friendly and surprised that I was happy to have tea with her, she said to my colleague that she thought that as a westerner I’d shun her. She is kept in a supply of condoms by the project and having been taught by them, she now insists hers clients use them, trying to educate them too on the dangers of HIV and STIs. In effect, she was part of the problem, and thanks to YMCA, she has become part of the solution. Now that is real empowerment.

We also met a young man who was chatting with the doctor about this possible STI symptoms. We went into a truck cab and chatted to another trucker. He knew al about HIV as his best friend had contracted it. Yet he still did not know how to use a condom and also told us he’d never spoken to him since he found out, shunning him as ‘dirty’ SO we spent some time talking with him about the reality of life for positive people in India and how he should care for his friend, not shun him. He said he would try. Kalpana, the woman on our team, chatted to a group of 5 young men, to of whom became abusive when she took out the dildo and began to show them how to use it. I flinched at first, but then marvelled at how she continued to talk to them, brought them round, and most stayed around to learn and practise themselves. We met a man who at first said he was a virgin. On closer discussion he began saying he had all the signs of ghonorea. After a bit more talking he admitted to sleeping with both men ad sex workers. He was taken off and given drugs. He will cured in a month and now knows how to use a condom, promising to use the free ones he took away (despite at first saying he didn’t need them as he never had sex!)
The other encounter worth noting was with Sacheen, a stall holder. He sells cigarettes and sweets and now talks to his customers about HIV and distributes condoms. He proudly showed me his detailed book listing everytie he’d done this. He makes just enough money to buy food to keep him alive and sleeps in the filthy mud behind his stall. Yet despite this he wants to make a difference and freely gives his time. He was very proud of this and said he now feels his life means something.

This is the frontline. The most extreme ‘outreach’ work I have ever seen. Sameer, Kalpana, the Doc and the team are the bravest and most effective workers and it was an honour to be allowed into their life. I will always hold theses very special people in my heart.

(That was just day one! I’ll write about day two when I can – flying off down south soon)

Conversation

Hi,

Sorry I’ve not updated this was, but just to sat its been awesome that last 2 days shadowing on the projects. A genuine privilege in fact. True frontline outreach work making a genuine difference. I can now also put a concom on in my sleep!!

I’ve written lots in my journal. so it’ll write some of that up for this blog – its been a mountain processing it all! We fly off tonight for Kanyakuari (via mumbai) so i’ll use the time on the plane to write you all some stuff

You can read all about our experiences at http://www.ywn-india-delegation.blogspot.com/

Also, below i a post i did for it today about some of the practise

——————————–

The art of conversation

At the truckers project what struck me the most was the staff’s skills in ‘conversation’. When we train to be youth workers we read books and books on what makes for a good conversation and how conversation must be at the heart of our work…yet here I saw the art of conversation practised. The work that goes on at the Highway 7 project with Truckers, cleaners and stall holders is outreach work at the extreme. They usually talk to over 100 people a day, giving condom demonstrations, discussing HIV, STIs and distributing condoms.

The way they were able to approach people, put them at ease and gain their confidence so quickly, so that within about one minute they were happy talking about their sexual history, whether they use sex workers and then practise putting a condom on a plastic penis! We were all amazed at how quickly they were able to turn a puzzled look that said “Why are you to coming to talk to me” to beginning a condom demonstration in what seemed an impossible short space of time.

Some men we talked to opened up to them for the first time that they had ‘embarrassing’ symptoms of STIs and had never be brave enough to tell people. Several people whilst I was there were diagnosed. One man, who it turned out had Ghonerea for over a year, opened up, telling us that he used sex workers whilst away. He had no idea about condoms, so had probably been passing it on to everyone he had sex with and almost certainly onto his wife back home. Within 10 minutes of talk to the team, they were then able to begin treatment and he can go away with a bag of condoms and the skills and confidence to use them and stop passing it on up the highway.

They cover in 10 minutes what would take 3 or 4 sessions in the UK, and this was 100% down to them being to put people at ease and discuss taboo subjects with them freely in a non-judgemental and constructive way.

After the 2-days we had spent shadowing them, we had a workshop with the staff where we discussed their work. I was determined to learn how they are so good at this. If I could only become 30% the conversationalists they are! We waited on tender hooks, like were about to receive the holy grail of youth work!….They all said that it was done simply by being natural and honest. Naresh explained his techniques. He said you cannot be direct and had to straight away try and develop a friendly atmosphere. He was aim was to be in their confidence. He would always start with a general discussion. ‘How they are’ where they are from’ what goods they are carrying etc. He would then get into the personal stuff by asking if they were married. If so, he’d ask that it must be very lonely being away from home for months on end and asking how they cope with that. He said this usually allowed him to then ask about their sexual activities and if they visited the local sex workers. From then on in, he was in, and would then go to talk about STIs HIV, use of condoms etc.

It was a pleasure to see them in action and I hope I can take a little bit of it home and become a better conversationalist – just 10% as good as these guys would be fantastic!

Sleep and ‘escaping’ with Harsh

Just a quick one, we all seem to have had a good nights sleep last night, which was in some way surprising, considering how buzzed everyone was after yesterday, but then again, the few tastes of ‘Old Monk’ may have helped!.

Escaped and spent a few hours last night with Bianca’s husband and his family (shes still working in Pune). It was so so nice to meet Harsh and his family were lovely (as ever embarrassing me by giving me some amazing gifts – i always feel so ‘English’ as we just have nothing of interest to give other people!). We had a nice chat and i got to see around his surgery and their lovely house. Hoping to try and meet up with B’s parents too over the next fews days. Its so amazing seeing where she grew up and lived (and will do again soon), though a little sad, as its a shame shes not here with me to show around herself….

As bad as this may sound, it was really nice to get an hour or two out of the ‘YMCA bubble’ and talk about things with other people and no just talk YMCA politics, condoms, gay sex and CD4 counts. Off shadowing again now…

Thanks for the comments

Thanks for the comments guys, make it worth it to read them..so keep them up. I’ll try and figure out getting some piccies up soon

I’ll past on your thanks to Stu..he was up til 4am doing it!

Stu (up north), sadly, no captains this time, but we’re back again for a night on the 13th, and there is one place on my destination list

"Process" THIS!

Thursday

I had a reality check about 3.10pm today. I sat in the heat and looked to my left. A prostitute, who I had just met and had a cup of tea with, was playing with a new born puppy, getting it to play with a small monkey who was chained to the next tree. To my left was a young women who was putting a condom expertly onto a large plastic cock, watched intriguingly by two young men, all of whom had never used one before. To my right, an older man, who had earlier told me he has never had sex in his whole life, was sitting with a doctor who has just diagnosed ghonnerea. He was being told that his chronic ghonerea needed to be treated. Meanwhile, in her shack, the prostitutes husband slept. He works nights and sleeps days. That way he is kept hidden from her second profession. He thinks she just selling snacks and tea from their shack.

I was privileged enough to be spending the day shadowing workers on the ‘Surakshit Samaj’, a YMCA project that works with the trucker drivers, cleaners, stall holders and sex workers and the local community at the Indian version of a Moto service station, educating people and peer educators about HIV, condom use and STIs and empowering them to become the solution. I was spending the day with the most extraordinary, brave and inspiring people I have met.

I’ll blog more on the day later….

‘The Longest Night’

So last night was so so long. Just couldn’t sleep and spent the whole night in a mix of anxiety, trying not to get into a full blown panic attack. I did watch two episodes of the West Wing, which did help in calming me. My mind would just NOT shut off – every time I’d almost drop off, I’d be up with start and a deep inhale of breath…not much fun. Its amazing how alone you can feel so so quickly when everyone is asleep, its 4am and you just can’t sleep.

We’d been to visit all of Nagpurs YMCAs projects (which I can bog about later) and seen and taken in so much. As bad as this sounds, I was pretty relieved to wake up the next morning and find out that that the whole group had experiences exactly the same thing…it wasn’t just me

In the past when I have been away I’ve been too god at just closing down the emotional response to what I see. I am working. I have a job to do so can’t afford to ‘feel’. I am also not the most confident emotional person believe it or not, and deep down probably fear having to deal with the emotions these visits bring up, I’m sure that also why I have problems Sharing things when I am home. I’ve worked much of this through (and part of the reason I’ve set this blog up) this time, I am going to engage, as fully as I can and take it all in.

So I did, and wow was it good, but wow was I crap….so I think my brain just felt totally bombarded it was as if it was saying ‘you’ve kept me safe on your other trips, and now you’ve gone to the other extreme!..bastard!’ Bit to much stuff to deal with and process it think, so it was going to bloody well make sure I stayed up until I did!!

We also led a reflection session for the group before we went to bed. In order to do this right, you have to listen and engage in the emotions they bring up and can’t really share your own feelings, so by the time we finished, not only id I have all these new emotions I’d brought up myself, but had those of the other 7 people to try and digest too,

We didn’t finish til midnight, so I didn’t spent time doing any personally reflection, or writing for this blog or anything for ‘myself’

Still, I got through the night…and I reckon I can take some comfort and emotional confidence from that. I didn’t have a panic attack or freak out, I phoned Naomi for some support which helped no end and then just lay there and let my mind do its crazy thing… and I got through what the whole group found to be ‘the longest night’

Nagpur

Survived the train and am now in Nagpur, our home for the next 4 days.

As ever , the welcome was just overwhelming. It was very cold and 2 o’clock in the morning, yet JP (The boss here) and some staff came to meet us , with flower garlands and smiling faces. Kind of humbling.

We spent the first day just waling around town, meeting staff who’ll be working with us and getting used to being in India again. I won;t bore you with all we saw walking around, but Nagpur just blows your senses. I kept thinking of that Feeder song, ‘Pushing the senses’ as it literally does..colours, smells, sun, noise, smiles

Looking back on the day, it was so great to be here, i feel so relaxed walking around the town. Its seem so chaotic, but when you scratch the surface, i think it actually a very chilled and relaxed place, as people have to be to survived. If you get all stressed and anxious here, you wouldn’t last a day…so despite its veneer of chaos, people are very relaxed and in no rush and have so much time to just stop and talk.

I guess in the past i have always struggled with seeming to be an outsider. Especially when i was younger (In Zimbabwe and Gaza), it seemed to be the pinnacle of being away if you could fit in entirely and people thought you were just a local. It’d try desperately to blend in..but that naturally brings with it its disappointments, as its just not possible…

I guess i realized that whatever you do, you will alway stand out and you will never truly fit in..but as long as you know that ..and make as much effort as you can to fit in..then that great. I’ve been really trying to learn more and more Hindi and just relax being here. Its amazing how just being able to speak a few words seems to please people so much, the fact that you’ve made the effort to take on part of their culture and part of them

The group arrive today..so the work really begins, so better stop blogging and start doing some work

Listen to our podcast from the train!….

Listen to our podcast from the train!….

The journey was class. What struck me most was the fact that everyone in our carriage wanted to talk. I am I awe of people so warm and friendly that they take it upon themselves to look after us and make us feel welcome. In a few hours you feel like long lost friends, but I guess that’s not hard when within about 2 minute of meeting you they are asking about why you’ve not had children yet and getting straight into political chat, writing to know our views on nye on everything. I mean, you just can’t begin to imagine a similar reception in the UK

Fireworks in Mumbai

Driving into Mumbai from the airport was as mental as I remember. Despite it being 1 oclock on a Sunday morning, the place still just hits you…its just so so busy. people everywhere and the insane poverty id there for you to see, right in your face. Most streets are lined with people just sleeping on them, or usually in the large gutter and flood drains next to them.

How can you ever begin to reconcile that…how should you feel? Angry, sad, pity, anger, western guilt? or at the end of the day, is it of any relevance at all how we feel? I can never in a million years being to affect these peoples lives for the positive….I mean the night before we flew we’d just had a wine tasting evening, drinking expensive wine and having a great time, and as ever i’d not got my head around the fact i was flying to India the next day…yet what a stark contrast…I guess thinking about that. it was just guilt I felt…

Having said all that, it was reassuring strange going to stay the night at the Mumbai YMCA. I was there for 3 weeks last year, where I was involved in running conference for 600 young people. I’d got to know the place pretty well actually and made some now great friends. so memories are around every corner, it seems every corridor or stair well holds the ghost of a happy memory.

All the staff where the same, happy and smiling as ever (the receptionist even thought my shaved head was a better look!). I felt comforting, like going to stay with old friends, and I think helped me to begin to adjust to being in India again. We breakfasted with Jacob, one of the bosses there..a great guy, so kind, so soft. He had us in hysterics though as the first thing he said after a welcome hug was “man, you have put on some weight…like me (hugging his portly gut)…looks good though” !! They certainly say it how it is…

What sums Mumbai up was that after checking into our room, at about 2.30am, suddenly loads of fireworks went off over the road, seemingly for no reason…they were so beautiful, making much noise and colour, yet we couldn’t see anyone watching them or any reason why, yet the world just carried on as if nothing had happened. Quite a good metaphor for me sometimes, I guess I often feel like that when I go away with work. I am often bursting with excitement about the work and the visit, but the world back home just carries on…..

‘Deep Impact’ all over again

So just arrived in Mumbai, the plane was a great laugh in the end (though I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy flying properly) It started badly, as ever I got the shitty end of the stick and me and Stu got the middle seats in the central 4 and the women in front of me had the only broken chair which went back much further than any other!! We did try and flirt with the hostess and try and get an upgrade, but as you’d expect a sympathetic pandering ‘sorry sir’ was it! So it was little bit cramped!

Still as ever I indulged in my in-flight G&Ts and got rather emotional. (Don’t know what it is about flying that gets me emotional? I remember flying to Barbados with Muffle years ago and me and him being emotional wrecks as we watched “Deep Impact’’) Started out well, watched ‘The Departed’ which not only killed almost 3 hours, but was also pretty awesome. It then went a wee bit down hill – After 3 G&Ts we watched Romeo and Juliet, followed by Love actually, which was a bit too much to cope with in the end . The guy sitting next to me must have thought I was a right weirdo sobbing into my cold red wine…

ps Bruv, i have changed the settings now so anyone can comment, so you don’t have to hide behind your wifes name!

Last day in the office

Well, off tomorrow to India. Me and Stuart are leading a group of 6 youth workers, so as usual spent my last day in the office running around – one of these days I’ll plan in advance!

Flying out tomorrow morning and think i have everything? I have to say i am really excited about this visit. It’ll be so fascinating to see how the youth workers take to it all and what they can learn form the trip. we are spending 5 days in Nagpur, sharing good practise and learning form the HIV and AIDS work the YMCA does there. Then we head off south (via Mumbai) to do the same, but at out post-tsunami community rebuilding programmes. read about it on the blog they are doing. its at http://ywn-india-delegation.blogspot.com/ (I’ll try and see if i can set a feed up form it to my blog)

I think it’ll be very heavy and emotional, and i guess I’m a bit worried that as I’m leading the group, I’ll have to stay ’strong’ for the group and don;t really process stuff that goes on in my head, but i am going to try my best….and hopefully being able to write my feeling down as we go along will help.

It can be wired when one of us from the office goes away. It happens so often and i think we almost take it for granted…people are working so hard at their own jobs and have their own trips planned, so going don’t usually rarely raises much of fuss…which is quite nice actually. Its like :see you in 3 weeks, off to India”….”OK cool, have fun”