Yesterday, today and tomorrow Deepak, Rajkumar, Preeti, Nanadlal and Ajit are at MGIS for staff capacity training. I was there yesterday but came back to Udaipur on the train last night. Unfortunately Ajit has been feeling a bit rough and yesterday morning when we woke up in the hotel he was running a fever, so I went with him to the government hospital across the road. I’d not been in a big government hospital before so that was a bit of an experience but they had taken good initiative when designing it; all the corners in the the stairwells, usually a favourite place to spit paan, a staining red chewing product, had tiles with images of gods on, and no-one will spit on a picture of a god.

It turned out Ajit didn’t have malaria or swine flu but just a gastric inflammation and he went back to the hotel to rest. I was initially a bit annoyed that I was missing time at MGIS but it meant that Deepak had to take complete charge of the situation, and he did so very well indeed. He is really developing into a fantastic coordinator. It is easy to see a marked different in him every time he goes to MGIS. Preeti, Rajkumar and Nandlalji were similarly inspired and I’m sure two more days there will really help them.

It’s so important for them to see in action what we talk about in teacher training sessions, the harder thing will for them translate it into their own actions at Hunar Ghar: How do we create what we see there? But it all slowly slowly helps with their understanding.

I met with Pascal briefly at the end of the day and he confirmed my starting there as a learning initiator. I’ll start applying for my working visa as soon as I arrive back in the UK at the end of October, so all being well I’ll start at MGIS in January. Can’t wait!