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It is with great misfortune that Ina, our new coordinator who was due to start on Monday, had to phone up on Saturday and inform us that she would not be able to join the team, not at the present time at least. There were one or two issues that needed her support at her home which she wasn’t aware of until very shortly before she was due to come and join us and, upon finding out, found herself with only one decision she could make.

It is a great shame. Ina would have been fantastic at Hunar Ghar. She may yet still be, but not in the foreseeable future. Ina was to be the first employee to join us because she wanted to take part in something she believed in rather than joining because she needed a job. In her lies the kind of intrinsic motivation and  desire to learn and work hard that we are looking for in Educate for Life. We do see it in some of our staff that joined for the sake of work rather than ideas, such as Deepak, and we’d like to see it a more pervasive theme within the motivation of our staff.

So the search goes on. And on. And on. I have every confidence that in the end we will succeed, just this time it didn’t happen in quite the way we envisioned. It is very important for us to (1) have someone through whom we can diversify how Hunar Ghar interacts with the community, (2) find someone to support Deepak in the work he does and (3) break our dependence on Deepak 0n whom so much is based.

Deepak has show yet further marked improvements in his abilities of understanding, organisation, time keeping and communication so I am now much more confident in his ability to take a lower-standard employee and to train them to be well comptenent at Hunar Ghar. Before this was not the case, so I had reservations about taking on ‘un-inquiring’ individuals, such as Deepak once was himself, without Ash or myself there to guide them appropriately. It is strong testament to Deepak’s personal achievements that that is now no longer the case, so I’d better get on the phone to Sharmaji to see if he can’t sort us out with such a person. The exciting thing here is that if we do take on such a person and they are motivated sufficiently by Deepak and the rest of our support system to develop their work ethic and understanding, then it is a very positive thing for the potential growth of Educate for Life beyond one school. If that personal development is achievable without the physical presence of Ash or myself, that our ‘employee’ and resource structure is sufficient in generating it, then it means perhaps that Educate for Life can grow using the existing stock of excess bog-standard employees rather than needing people with initial special motivation. This gives far greater scope for broad implementation of our work than if we are dependent on ‘special’ people. As they say over here, let us see.

In a move not usually associated with me, I’ve started my packing for India, with a full 8 days to go before I, er, go. I spoke to Pascal at MGIS this morning so they know when to expect me, and I think I’ve pretty much got everything in order so all I have left to do really is get on that plane.

It’s a bit of a journey at the other end – 20 hour wait for my train in Delhi then a 20 hour train ride – but there we go. I’ll take a couple of good books.

I’ve got my visa! I’ve got my visa! I’ve got my visa! *does a little visa approved’ dance

Yep, so I’m off to India, Hunar Ghar, and MGIS. I’m pretty happy about it, to say the least. For a moment I thought it was a tourist visa, as the sticker in my passport is the same, only there is an ‘E’ rather than ‘T’ in one corner.

So I went back an looked at my last visa, which I thought was a tourist visa even though I applied for a business visa back then. It turns out there is a ‘B’ in the corner. Business. Oops. I could have save myself quite a lot of hassle if I’d noticed that a year ago.

I forgot to mention when blogging earlier, I went up to London for the day today to apply for my visa. I’ve asked for and employment visa this time, as I’ll be working as a ‘teacher’ in MGIS. There was a slightly worrisome moment when the guy said I wasn’t getting paid enough to be eligible – I needed to be paid Rs 35,000 at least per month and my wage is nowhere close to that, but the woman in the next window along overheard and said that it would be fine as I was applying for a teaching role. That didn’t mean I could get away with filling in more paperwork and the details of the ‘plant’ and its ‘output’ I’d be working at. I think I can see the kinds of jobs working visas are intended for.

But still, I got it in OK and I’ll know by next Wednesday probably if I’ve been granted it or not. It’s never confirmed til it is in your hand, and I’m applying for a teaching job which can make it harder to get a position as they work on the basis that there are already plenty of teachers in India, so why employ me from outside? But teaching at MGIS is slightly different, as I explained in a covering letter, so hopefully I’ll be OK.

Fingers crossed…

I was recently on a train from Urumqi to Shanghai when I met Teddy, a young architect, in the restaurant car. We fellow Europeans ignored each other for the first day or so, neither wanting to just gravitate to the familiar ‘other backpacker’ when all around there were people and culture to discover. But on a two day train journey, one can meet a lot of people, and time came up for us to chat with one another.

Teddy was very interested in Hunar Ghar and thought he might come out and help us, which I thought a splendid idea. But lots of people think it is a fun idea to come out to India as they live a happy fantasy of challenge and adventure. Teddy however seems to be a man who converts his ideas into reality, because he continued to email me about the idea, eventually say that, if it was ok with us, he would come in March. And so he is coming in March to help build two new classrooms.

I’ve not fully developed his brief yet, but a central idea will be the creation of ‘developed’ classrooms from local materials. This is not a simple challenge. The idea is that the completed classrooms should be of as high a quality as can be achieved using modern materials and equipment, but using the simpler tools that we have to hand. It is a great misconception of developmental thinking that it must use materials such as concrete and steel. These are both expensive, high energy, polluting materials that cannot be maintained as effectively as more local materials.

The challenge is to use materials such as stone, mud and wood to the effect that is required, strong, secure buildings of ergonomically effective design that people can be proud of. And there in lies the problems; poverty, as it were, is not always objective. There are many houses in the UK made from wood, wattle and daub that are strong, secure and highly desirable but in India among certain societies it may be seen that it is the materials used that defines a house as modern and developed, rather than the house itself. In this same manner, it may be more desirable to have a poorly designed building, because that is what other people have and it is desirous to fit in, rather than have that which is actually better.

This situation is not all too dissimilar to the PT which Ash talked about in the previous post. Wrong or right isn’t a concern – what other people are doing is.