Winds of Change.

 “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe…” 
- Anatole France

One of the best things about being out of routine life is how much can happen in such a small amount of time. In the UK I blink and find that the week has run away in a flash, whereas seven days on the move here can feel like a small lifetime.

In brief, so much has happened since I last wrote. Perhaps they can be themed under the following alliterative headings:

-Dreams
-Delhi
-Distractions
-Disaster
-Desertion

Dreams: Days after I posted The Silver Lining(s) last month I got a call from Boss. This resulted in a long awaited hop-from-one-foot-to-another-with-unprofessional-squeals-of-excitement dance. “We have some work for yourself and J in Kashmir, starting early January” he said. He really really did! Dreams can come true!!

 J’s reaction? Raised eyebrows of extreme interest followed by a small pause and medium-dry response of “I’ll only believe it when I am stroking that flight ticket in my hand”.

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”
– John Steinbeck



how much to Goa!


Delhi: 6pm, 31/12/11. Call from Boss: “The security situation in Kashmir has been deteriorating over the last two weeks, so all entry to foreigners has been restricted and we’re reviewing our programmes there. So don’t come to Delhi –you’d best stay in Bhubaneswar”. The ceiling of my Delhi hotel room cascaded on me right there and then. There’s nothing quite like timing is there… And a very Happy New Year to you too.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” –Lao Tzu

Distractions: Luckily it was a Happy one…chance encounters, glittery party mask wearing, rooftop party attending, smoggy firework gazing, dawn street wondering, hours of sofa chatting, 8am metro hopping , decadent room service ordering, 11am sleeping, entertaining Bollywood cinema attending, spontaneous decision-making, annual leave-taking, 40hour train catching, single berth sharing, South India arriving, 2am phosphorescence swimming (amazing), palm-leaf hut living, bare foot cliff walking, dramatic little toe stubbing, sunset point dolphin spotting, beach fire tent camping, shared ‘mums would disapprove’ risk-taking, other people’s worlds learning, adventurous boulder mountain climbing, 8 metre high rock into reservoir jumping, self-scaring into achievement gaining, warm sun on face contentment enjoying.

82hrs travel over 11 days. Worth it for for almost daily ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else’ moments? 
Worth every minute. 

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.” – Martin Buber

   

   

Disaster: In the taxi to my new place of residence, 20km south of Pondicherry, on the South Indian coast of Tamil Nadu, I soon realised that Cyclone Thane (30/12/11...which never made international news with a death toll of 47) wasn’t a myth after all, but actually happened. This small stretch of South India’s coastline bears the scars of some 135kmph winds and lashing rains. Fallen electricity pylons, uprooted trees, bent up bus shelter roofs, sorry looking coconut groves. I do like a bit of destruction.

As my heavy old bicycle had to stay put at Delhi HQ I have been thrilled to find a tin shop here which rents creaky bicycles at 8p/hr –not bad value. During my creaking around Cuddalore’s suburbia I found myself along the coastline at dusk, making my way through an eerie watercolour painting of post-cyclone ruin.
Not another person in sight. Stillness. Signs of a life once here; a mirror hanging by a single nail, a blackened cooking pot on its side. The path was strewn with debris, fallen palms and drift wood. Lined by empty and roofless cement houses that grimaced with jagged walls - left to the mercy of vines which have been pushing their way through bricks since the Tsunami of 2004. Splintered, faded wooden fishing boats broken and left lying on the beach, collapsed onto one another. The boat propellers rescued from battered boats lie in uniformed rows, sharp, rusty and ominous. The creak of a bent over tree. The shifting of a dead coconut. It felt like Blairwitch’s seaside equivalent. Yet in a strange way it was quite a beautiful moment.

So yes, this is more like it. Rather than in Orissa where the floods had dried long before I arrived, and where Mother Nature’s force was evidenced to me only by a few water-level lines marked out on chalk walls and mud huts, Cyclone Thane seems a little more...raw.

Cuddalore

A few days after my arrival in Cuddalore, J arrived fresh from his annual leave. Along with the local NGO partner, we make up the only staff in the Humanitarian Team working on the response. No pressure then. We are currently living and working from a modest hotel room in Cuddalore. It is a dramatically unexciting town, but compared to Bhubaneswar at least it offers far cleaner air, smiler faces, just about bearable traffic, and the choice of South Indian cuisine, South Indian cuisine, or South Indian cuisine. Yum for me, getmeoutofherebeforeIcry for J. I don't think he's eaten in about four days.

Affected villages outside the town have had their palm-leaf huts quite badly destroyed. Agricultural work available since the cyclone has been largely reduced due to the damage caused to crops. Conducting field visits was insightful; local wages are the equivalent of just 60p-£1.40 per day (for her, for him) so families are struggling to raise the funds to repair their houses without taking out loans or putting a great strain on their daily food/living budget.

Hence, amongst other areas the main focus of our response is the setting up of some ‘Cash for Work’ programmes for the worst affected and most disadvantaged families. 

Providing cash in emergencies is one of the newest and most successful strategies in the sector. The idea is that giving families cash (rather than items) to invest in what they deem to be the most beneficial resources/greatest priority to support themselves (ie. food, livestock, building materials etc) is the most quick, efficient and dignified way of helping in a disaster situation. It supports the local economy, allows room for freedom of choice, empowers those receiving assistance and allows them to tailor humanitarian aid to fit their own precise needs, which logically tend to vary from household to household. Additionally, the Cash for Work programmes not only directly involve the local population in the response (as it is the communities who chose the nature of the labour to be done) but it also prevents the notion of a passive charity ‘hand-out’. A pretty good strategy all round.

As over 350,000 thatched houses have been damaged by Cyclone Thane, this Cash for Work response will be primarily aimed at house reconstruction with the locally available materials. I’ve always wanted to build my own house…hope I can pick up some skills…

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

  

***Newsflash*** Desertion: 11am, 28/1/12.
I picked up a soulmate in January. But visas expire and flights are scheduled and I don’t think I will ever grow out of trying to unacknowledge goodbyes. The morning I became soulmateless I walked into ‘Bon Bakes’ in hope of finding some light J chat distraction.
‘Bon Bakes’ is our new favourite office-cum-café in the French-owned state of Pondicherry, where J is actually able to eat. It is here where you can unfailingly find him sat on the same sofa in the same corner, with signature quiche on one side of his laptop and chocolate tart on the other. An Eiffel Tower is printed in the background to complete the picture, and the boy is content. 

Quiche? check. Choc tart? check.

The scene is broken by the first thing he says to me: “I’m deserting you again Leah; I’ve been sent back to Bhubs and have to leave immediately”.

Boss called to take J away –just hours later he was making his way back to Bhubaneswar to work on an interim report for the EU, leaving me with an empty mug of chai in my lap and comfort eating muesli under a slow turning fan.

So what now? Apparently I’m being transferred elsewhere again too. Supposed to find out where yesterday, and today, but I still haven’t heard. It’ll probably be to the Internally Displaced Person’s camp in the north (a refugee camp of sorts, where communities are sheltering from internal state conflict). 

So I guess it’s goodbye to quaint Francophone Pondicherry and hello to rural dusty India. 




Pondicherry seafront


Perhaps as suggested by the interlacing of travel quotes in this blog post, my ‘Work Angel’ vs. ‘Travel Demon’ voices of rivalry within have been proving difficult to keep in check. It has been a whirlwind of a month ('scuse the pun) and I currently have some amazing memories playing in my backfiles. But essentially, I really. must. focus. Assignments, deadlines and trainings to complete and only one month left in this crazy country. It’s time to get real…

 “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go.
But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac