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Yesterday Deepak and I had a breakfast meet with Sharmaji, Secretary of RBKS, our partner organisation. I had 3 items on my agenda:

1) A new coordinator to help Deepak- we’ve been looking for one for the last 6months, with little success and Sharmaji didn’t seem to have put any real effort into the process. However, I gave him a cross looking frown and he was swiftly on the phone to a friend at the Institute of Rural Management, Jodhpur. The students finished their final exams yesterday, and there were eight young men (all the girls already found jobs) prepared to stick around over Xmas in search of a job. Unfortunately they all want more pay than we’d offer and have already started making extra demands (including a cook!), so I decided that was a bit of a dead end. Other colleges are also finishing up now, so we’re sending round some job and organisation profiles and we’ll see what kind of response we get.

2) Land- the plot of land that we’ve built the school on has been the subject of many tense conversations between RBKS and ourselves. Finally, the government have given us the land and I spoke to the ‘Government Land Allotment Stuff’ man who is sending us the final piece of paper today! Hold the celebration however….The government only allots 1bhiga (about 1.5acres) to build primary schools. However our build is a little more expansive, so we’re technically encroaching on land that’s not ours. So the next steps have already been set in motion…We’ve sent a letter to the same ‘Government Land Allotment Stuff’ man saying, “Oops, we’ve built on land that isn’t ours. Please come around, have a look at it, give us a slap on the wrists and fine us.” We then appeal the fine through an attorney, the court inevitably finds in our favour and the cost of the land turns out to be exactly the same as the fine. Sharmaji had a way of making it sound like this was completely normal, and being India, it wouldn’t surprise me.

3) Village Development- A year and half ago I said to Sharmaji that if RBKS wanted to do work in Bakhel, where Hunar Ghar is, they should consult us first, to ensure we’re all pulling in the same direction. He took this to mean RBKS aren’t allowed to do any work in Bakhel, and Bakhel has been left out of a large watershed development program because of this. The community, were understandably a little miffed, and we’ve been looking for ways to resolve the problem since. Yesterday, we decided that the best option may be to apply for a government watershed development grant, for which we’d need to write a proposal and do a preliminary survey to demonstrate that Bakhel fits government eligibility criteria. Sharmaji has assured me that he’ll have this survey done and ready in the next couple of months. After this, if the government approve the project will go ahead, with Educate for Life contributing to the administrative costs incurred by RBKS.

It seems like there’s a never ending list of things to get done over here and each takes months or years of effort and nagging before small amounts of progress are made. I’m hoping that by the time I leave India, significant steps will have been taken toward the coordinator and village development tasks, if not the land. We’ll just have to wait and see if this is being over-optimistic.

It sounds like Ash is having the same old problems trying to recruit new staff at the moment. He was due to go to Jodhpur to interview 8 people about the coordinator job tomorrow,but none of them want to come for the money that we are offering. Of course, we are willing to pay money to get the right people but these people aren’t the right people – they are graduates who haven’t had a proper job whose family have invested lots of money in education in the promise that it means status and money in return but there aren’t the jobs there for them and no-one ever told them that success doesn’t have to be measured by the weight of their pay-cheque or the brevity of hours and work that they have to put in for that money.

It’s a shame because a lot of them would probably change their minds about that after a few months at Hunar Ghar, but darn it!, isn’t it difficult getting those few months out of someone!

Now is recruitment season in India so we do have a bigger pool than usual to target. We’ve been trying for so long now (nearly a year I think…) that we’re bound to get someone soon I think. I hope. It really would be so brilliant, it would unleash Deepak and his capabilities further, strengthen the team and build the foundations for improving the sustainability of an all-Indian Educate for Life team  and seed the potential for building our next school, which I’d really like to start thinking about more seriously.

As Ed mentioned in his previous entry, the past month has been a quiet one on the Educate for Life front- partly because we’ve both been very busy and partly because we probably both needed a pause but didn’t know it!

But tomorrow I’m off to India and I have to admit, the date has really snuck up on me. I’ve spent the last couple of days feeling quite apprehensive, extremely underprepared and slightly loathe to jetting off and leaving friends and family so close to christmas. Today this has all changed however and I’m feeling a lot more excited about getting back to village, seeing the kids, Deepak and everyone else.

I’ll only get a week there until I have to set off for the other side of India, so unlike my previous visits, I don’t have enough time to make ambitious plans to implement at Hunar Ghar. Instead, I think I’m just going to have to take a back seat, observe how things are working, offer support if needed and just enjoy myself. Although this seems straightforward, it represents a massive shift in the way Hunar Ghar runs. Previously either Ed or I were there 24/7 micro-managing the entire project, but over the last couple of years Deepak and the rest of the team have progressed so much that our role is now largely facilitative. That’s the theory. The coming week will be a test of how much the team and I have really adapted and progressed.

It seems that it has been a considerable time since I last posted. This isn’t to say that not much has been going on, just that I haven’t reported it. We almost had a new coordinator to support Deepak, but that fell through. Again. Sharmaji has repeatedly said that he would organise a new coordinator but as yet has not managed to do so after I forget how many months. Six? Ten? It used to be frustrating but I’m feeling kind of numb to it now. It also isn’t as urgent as it used to be as Deepak is doing a sterling job, but we do need someone else to help him take things forwards.

I’m also umming and aaring about when I’ll be back in India. Pascal of MGIS and I haven’t yet decided when I’ll be starting and I am waiting to know that before I book my ticket over there. My trip to Japan also rather depleted the coffers so I need to save up a bit before going back there, otherwise I’ll be home again within a month!

Ash however is on his way to Hunar Ghar on Thursday, the lucky guy. He is going to India largely for a placement as part of his Medicine course, but will be popping over to the school for a week here and a week there. I’m pretty jealous, I really miss that place sometimes and ti is hard not knowing when I’ll be going back. It is also awkward, not being able to tell them when I’ll be there or plan for it.

Out curriculum development has also come to a bit of a stand still for a bit as Ash and I have both been pretty busy recently which makes it hard to find the time. I also had, I must admit, a lazy couple of weeks before I got busy, which didn’t help. It is quite tricky just dipping into something like writing a curriculum for an odd hour here, a snatched moment there; it doesn’t support easy development of connected, coherent thought processes. Never mind though, we’ll find a way I’m sure – we have to!