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Today and yesterday there was some fighting between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Kotra, a town down the road from Hunar Ghar. I don’t know what it was about, but three people were murdered. The brother of one of our teachers (Ajit) lives there so he is understandable quite worried as he can’t get his brother on the phone.
When things like this happen it is a bit of a reminder of what can lie just below the surface and how far India has to go in achieving any kind of substantial harmony among its many peoples.

We’ll it’s here at last, the long sought-after land allotment letter from the government saying that we can build Hunar Ghar! Up until today it has all been smoke and mirrors, but now we have permission to submit blueprints to the local government, who will the approve the construction of Hunar Ghar, and then it will all materialise into bricks and mortar (well, stones and mud actually). This must happen within two months of the letter otherwise it will be withdrawn. Problem is, it seems to me, that the land allotment letter is dated the 11th of February 2009, which means we’ve only got about two weeks to get it all done. I was only shown the letter yesterday. I’ll call Sharmaji in the morning and get things clarified.

The conditions of the letter:

1. We will pay Rs 10,800 for the land (about £180).
2. The land is ours for 99 years.
3. We cannot change the purpose of the land.
4. If we don’t get everything sorted in 2 months, the allotment is null and void.
5. We must submit blueprints to the local government to seek approval for the commencement of construction of a school on said land.
6. We won’t sell the land, change its use or take a mortgage out on it.
7. If we don’t do these things, the central government will withdraw its offer.

The purpose of the land, as stated in the letter, is to build a school to provide education to children that are not currently going to a government school and are engaged in work. Since work covers things like grazing goats and working in the fields every one of our kids easily qualifies, which is good!

To communicate with people properly you’ve got to speak their langauge, and I don’t just mean words. Once you have words you need to attribute meaning, but to really communicate with people language and meaning isn’t enough, you’ve got to talk in the ideas of their culture, history and society. For example, some traditional communities in Africa which live in forest areas have almost identical methods of dealing with Ebola outbreaks as Western medical experts would recommend. The local people put it all down to witch-craft and spirits, the foreigners to infection rates and microscopic particles. The stories are different but the outcome the same. In the same way the foreign people will put no faith in the local stories of spirits being involved, so the local people are adverse to foreign medical stories.

One story that everyone in Bakhel believes is in Hanuman, the monkey god. There is a Hanuman temple in our village that is thought to be 1000 years old. We talk a lot about community involvement etc, but these are all foreign abstract ideas in our village. Sharmaji has given me a copy of Hanuman Chaalisa – Hanuman Forty – a 40 line poem dedicated to the god. He suggests that if I learn this poem by heart and recite it once a day at the temple, a big change will come in the community in how they regard me and Hunar Ghar. It may be that Hunar Ghar will turn into a more religeous place in thir mind, a place perhaps where helping it would bring auspicious luck from the gods. That is how they would see the development and positive changes that would result from engaging with it, we’d call it community-led development. So the stories are different but the outcomes are the same, and the change comes about from listening to the stories of the local people and speaking in their language, rather than telling them this is how it should be done in our own, foreign, stories.

I did a few interviews for the Hunar Ghar manager yesterday. The day turned into a long kerfuffle, but I managed to get things done in the end.

The interviews we called for 12pm. First there was Ranjit who called me to say he’d be late, arriving at 1pm, then a text a short while later revising to 4pm. He was on a bus from Delhi so I didn’t hold it against him, the trip is 10 hours plus and any array of delays can occur in that time (it turned out, however, that he got the bus time wrong). I did hold it against Preeti though when she arrived late. The interviews were to be held in Jhadol, RBKS’s head office and she only lives an hour and a half from there which is nothing in Indian time. (I’ve done that, round trip, just to get a juice and check my emails before.)

At 12:05 I decided that I would not meet with Preeti. It took a while (years, actually) for me to learn the value of getting things done promptly and on time (as my mother will attest!). But I did, and I want whoever works with us to think and act the same in that respect. The long and the short of it is that I called her telling her to head home, but she was already on the bus so she would have to come to Jhadol anyway to get a bus back. I did a bit more work with Sharmaji and went to the bus stand. Preeti turned up at RBKS Jhadol looking for me, and hearing that I was going for a bus she came there and caught up with me, so we did an interview on the bus back to Udaipur. Her answers were good, but a bit text book. 5 points. Spoken clearly. Waiting for the next question. I found no opportunity just to chat with her. All this kind of NGO stuff takes itself so seriously in India that it stifles warmness between people. OK, so I’d only just met the girl but she looked almost embarrassed when I asked what she loved doing, what she was really passionate about.

As the  bus was just arriving in Udaipur, a call from Sharmaji. Ranjit had arrived at Jhadol. I’d asked him to call me when he arrived in Udaipur as he was running so late and I had more work there. So Ranjit had to get on a jeep back to Udaipur and meet me there. He then got confused about where to meet me in Udaipur. 

Ranjit was a really nice guy. Well organised, well prepared, well spoke, he had a nice character and we had a good chat. He made a bit of a boob when I asked him what informal educate is. His answer that it is a school not registered with the government wasn’t quite what I was looking for! Basically whoever we get is going to be limited in their knowledge of informal education, because chances are by the sheer force of numbers of university grads hanging around looking for money and a job, any job. You should see how many CVs I got which said under the heading ‘Objective’, ‘To serve the organisation and fulfill all their requirements,’ or similar. If we wanted a brain dead slave we’d just call Mary Shelley.

So Ranjit was good, but I think he’s priced himself out of the market. Earlier in the day at Jhadol Shrmaji put me in touch with a chap called Suhendra Singh which he thinks may be good for us. Again, no informal education experience but he’s been repeatedly calling Sharmaji for a job with him, so there is good intent to be working in this kind of place doing education kind of things, and on the phone he sounds like a smart guy, so he’ll be visiting Hunar Ghar next week for an on the job interview.

I also met a girl called Meenu, a friend of a friend, who is interested in what we do and starting various projects as well as her own organisation. I said why start an organisation and duplicate so much work when you can just work with us and collaboratively mould Educate for Life as if it were her own? So she’s going to come out for a couple of days next week to take a look at the lie of the land with a view to doing something for a couple of months. She’d set up something like a hand-made paper workshop, doing it with the children and people from the community. On top of that Madan, a friend from Udaipur who is a miniature painter is interested in working with us for some months. He’d do painting with the kids, but is also really interested in learning a lot more about NGOs, social work and informal education/learning etc, so he’s also coming to see how things are. Then on top of that which is already on top, yesterday I met a really nice woman called Simona, from Italy. She’s a sculptor living and working in Udaipur who works in marble. She’s going to come out to the school when I’m back from UK with some marble and some tools and do some sculpting and things with the kids.

So there is a hypothetical surge in activity and involvement with Hunar Ghar. We’re scrubbing up how we organise ourselves and diversifying the teaching and learning influences that go on there, and doing it with people that are specialist in their areas so the kids and teachers will be able to see how successful and passionate and happy people can be in work that isn’t sitting behind a desk in a government job. There’s no good in getting ahead of one’s self here, but maybe this is the beginning in a quantum shift in attitude to education and learning in Bakhel? Heck that change is going to come at some point it’s just a matter of when so it is all the beginning really!

This week there has only been one formal session at Hunar Ghar! Did you get that? Three days and only one formal session! Normally there is a formal session with each teacher every afternoon but somewhere, somehow, it stopped. I didn’t see the fairies as they snuck out of the room having sprinkled their dust, but I didn’t need to;  the effects are obvious. Happy children, happy teachers, playing together and telling stories, making things and dancing to the music they create. I wasn’t there to witness it myself sadly, but I can’t wait to get there tomorrow afternoon and join in the change.

Happy days!

Are the days of formal education over at Hunar Ghar? Can Ed manage to get everything sorted before he goes to the UK? Will Sharon and Dwain make it together? Find out in the next episode of Educate for Life – the blog.