Tues 8th October

Hello there my friends.....

So to continue with the stories of the children. Today it is my emotional little friend Diana. 

Diana is 12 years old and has been at the Hospice now 7 years. Diana I must admit is one of my favourites. She was the first child to befriend me and when I first arrived used to draw me lots of pictures. Diana is a very emotional girl and if she's upset about something she will completely blank anyone who talks to her, and I usually never do find out what was wrong, but, though, when she's in a good mood (which sadly is not as often as I'd like these days) she's a really fun friendly playful little friend. 

Now Diana never knew her parents who were both HIV positive they both died when she was a baby and again it was her mother she contracted the illness from. Diana has an older sister but when she got married she went with her husband to live with her father in law and had a child of her own and she was unable to care for Diana anymore which is the situation which led to her living here at the Hospice. She has grandparents but they are very old and unable to care for her. 

Diana never gets any visitors at all & it seems has been completely abandoned by her family- no doubt the answer to and including having HIV to why she's such an emotionally troubled girl. Actually I'm surprised the rest of the kids aren't affected the way Diana is by the events in their lives. Although that will likely change as they all grow older. 

If it were possible to adopt Diana and bring her back to England I would but I don't actually think she would want that. She's gradually distanced herself from me for reasons not known and is never happy to see me anymore like she used to be or draw pictures for me like when I first arrived, which is something I've found quite sad. 

Bonds & friendships formed & broken are some of those themes of life shared by all of us.

I really hope life eventually comes together for Diana although her prospects, to be honest seem bleak to me (finding a husband, and having a family of her own) but nonetheless are possible. Maybe she will find happiness & see an end to pains that trouble her little heart & mind. I hope so, I really do. 

Stuart :) x

p.s. Diana's not an easy one to get a pic of by herself so, here she is second from left :)

Weds 2nd October

Good day friends! :)

Today I will continue with my stories of the children & today it is the turn of Jennifer.

Jennifer is 9 years old & has been at the Hospice for 4 years now. Jenny is one of the HIV negative children which is great. Jenny came to be here 4 years ago through a family decision. She, like Suresh who I recently reported on, is also from a very poor village. Her father died from HIV a number of years ago but her mother who is also HIV positive is still alive & comes to visit Jenny every 2-3 weeks & they seem to have quite a close relationship which is very nice. 

Now Jenny's family seemed to need to make a decision between her & her brother. Being very poor they could only afford to care for one child & they decided to keep her brother with them because, again, the male inherits the property. When I was told this, again it seemed another case of a bit of a cold & even sexist choice but after hearing more of the story & understanding more about what happened it occurred to me how hard life is for these people & in the situation they were in they had to make a hard choice, which is easy for people like me to make snap judgements on but they had to make a very hard choice & in this case I guess it's quite a rational one. 

Her brother will inherit & she will get an education. In this case I think it was not a matter of 'getting rid' of a child as it has been in other cases as there is still a strong bond between mother & daughter. Although thinking about it I have never seen her grandparents or brother or other family visit her. :(

Anyway Jenny seems quite happy with her life here and has quite a strong personality. Now don't let her pretty smile fool you! If you cross her you better be sure she will take you to the cleaners! She has a scowl that would make a pack of starving Hyenas think twice. I would like to take a photo to show you what I mean, but I'm worried if I did & she caught me, I would have no face left afterwards. 

Actually then again I caught her on video giving one of the kids a piece of her mind over some issue over a toothbrush.

Here's the link;

http:/youtu.be/R63XbBpqWVU

See what I mean? I think she will grow up to be a very strong woman (and probably a bit of a hen-pecker to some poor man one day hehe)  :) But actually if you haven't made the mistake of upsetting her she's actually a very sweet girl.

Anyway that's all from me for now catch you later friends hope you are all well and having fun :) x x x 

Thurs 26th September

Hello there my friends.... :)

Well my friend Paraman is back from hospital but it turns out (as usual) there were misunderstandings & communication problems about why he was there. His visit was to have the hernia problem looked at but mainly it was to be with a friend as a visitor to keep him company as his friend is quite unwell. 

Now I asked Paraman why he didn't have the operation and he told me it was because it would cost 10000 rupees. Which is far beyond what he can afford & is a struggle even for me too so as to keep the budget on track. Nevertheless he has to have the operation so I have decided we will contribute 7000 rupees towards his operation. 

Now to the people here at the Hospice I appear rich. I wish it was so! There are so many ways I have seen to help but those things are, I guess, not what God has sent me here for. One thing is that 3 grown men that work here share a tiny little flat that should really be for one person only, also the women here share a single room. They all deserve their privacy & I'd love to have the money to build them all a home each the size of the flat that the 3 men are staying in but that's never going to happen. Anyway no point thinking about things I have no power to change. 

What is real though is the budget. There is 70000 rupees left which works out to about 5000 rupees a week which seems enough but I know there will be more things that come along like paying for my visa extension coming up soon, but mainly there will be those unexpected things I'm concerned about, and that I will be able to make the budget last & have some left over to gift to the Hospice. 

Basically I guess I'm writing this as a way to assuage & work through my worries & concerns I have in my head but I would be grateful if you would pray for me to have peace of mind in this matter, for wisdom in spending your money on the correct things & that although having a heart is a good thing, please pray for it to not make rash decisions & important choices for me. 

Thanks guys bye for now! :) x x x

Weds 26th September

Good day to you friends!

Today I will continue with my stories of the children & today I will tell you about Suresh; 

Suresh is a fine looking young man of 13 years. He is a very smart boy & is doing very well at school.  He is also very good on the drum that he plays at worship & prayer times, and has living here at the Hospice for 4 years now. 

Suresh is another one who has a bit of a sad story. Again he contracted HIV from his mother at birth. His mother is still alive but his father died 7 years ago.  

How Suresh came to be here at the Hospice began when his mother got remarried a few years ago. The mother of the man that suresh's mother married did not like that her son has not had any children of his own so in order for him to receive an inheritance his step father had to basically 'get rid' of Suresh. 

I kind of understand the reasoning behind this although I don't agree with it in any form whatsoever. I think the cold hard reasoning behind this is that the step grandmother wants to keep any properties within the family & not pass onto a non blood relative- namely Suresh. Also I can imagine quite reasonably she wants the family line to continue but I'm not sure how that would be facilitated by making Suresh 'go away'. Also as Suresh's mother is HIV positive, although possible, I'm not sure that a continuos family line is actually something that's all that realistic. But then some people have a very strange & illogical way (at least in my opinion) of seeing the world & how to go about doing things. 

Nevertheless I think these events have worked out in favour of Suresh. His family are from a very, very poor village & there are no schools there so this boy's very clever mind would have been wasted & completely uneducated. Life there for him would have been a complete dead end. 

Here he has a good education with things to challenge him & has the opportunity to make something of his life. He is hoping to become a Pastor one day, something that I think will be easily achievable for him if he chooses to stay on that path. And although he doesn't have his mother, which is sad, he has a much bigger adoptive family here at the Hospice who will always be there for him. 

Stuart :) x x x

Mon 23rd September

Hello again friends....

So my next post was to be about my trip to the school in Melayakudi but unfortunately it was cancelled as Gnana (the little Indian priest who invited me here when he visited our church last year) had an important meeting & was unable to take me there. I will be going to visit the school at some other time though I will let you know when that happens. But nevertheless some good things came from the trip into Madurai City. First was that I was able to get the song books for the children's worship time that I told you about a few weeks ago which is great- another thing to tick off the list. 

The second was that at lunch Kirubai (Gnana's wife) asked me if I had any ideas for any new programmes that could be helpful to the Hospice. Kirubai is the Honarary Secretary of Arulagam Hospice. Hospice is an offshoot of the Theological Seminary that Gnana presides over which was run from Madurai but now functions independently. 

Now I have had an idea in mind for a while but I hesitated before to broach the subject with the people here at the Hospice as I thought it was not really any of my business to push my ideals onto a different culture with a different way of living, & I didn't want to upset anyone but she thought I had a good idea as she dislikes rubbish everywhere as well. 

I told her about the work I've been doing with picking up the rubbish and that I had in mind to buy bins to put around the Hospice & set a plan in motion to collect any full bins each morning and take them to the pit & burn them, to save it from being dumped outside & being blown around the Hospice grounds (which is extremely demoralising for me). Another I idea I had was to get the children actively involved in picking up the rubbish so they can learn the responsibility of taking care of the home they have been given, and for the adults to lead by example. Another idea was that if I caught anyone dropping litter to beat them frantically with my beating stick (especially adults) until they had learned their lesson.

All these ideas (except the beating stick) went down surprisingly very well all round so this plan should be put into action this week, although I'm sure it's going to take a while to get all the adults & children fully together with this as they are so accustomed to just dropping things wherever they may be. 

Now I just want to make it clear I understand why these peoples do this. I don't look down on them at all it just really saddens me. Its a learned behaviour & the government provides no rubbish collection here or education on the subject so its just a normal way of life for them. But I really want to help them learn how to keep this land looking like a home, not, to be frank, a rubbish dump, which in turn should improve their standard of living and feeling of well being. That's the plan anyway. 

So enough of my banging on about that. My friend Paraman is still at the hospital, not sure when he's going to be back but I'm assured he is ok but I'm hoping he will be home soon as I quite miss him. 

I will be writing another of the children's stories within the next few days & hopefully if all goes to plan the budget should be permitting me to buy all the children who need them shoes & belts next week. Also I will get round to the report on the children's day at school I know it's a long time coming but I will get there in the end. 

Ok hospice fans that's all for now just a couple of pics for you- India has many strange signs that boggle my tiny mind. Usually I'm in a vehicle & can't take a photo of them but here are a couple I took while in Madurai- prepare to be confused my friends.........

Another one I saw while on the bus said "Please do not drink & drive while drinking & driving". I get what they're asking me not to do, but brain says sentence does not compute. 

Bye for now, Stuart :) x x x

Fri 20th September

Hello there friends..... :)

Well its been a good week with keeping busy & getting jobs done here & there. We were out of firewood for cooking rice so we went to a small palm tree plantation & got a big load of palm tree branches which took about 3 hours to collect all we needed it was very tiring! Also there were horrible big orange spiders hiding in them I was worried some might come out as I was carrying a load and try to eat my face but they didn't & I was ok. Here's a pic of the truckload and the plantation;

The total cost for the wood was 300 rupees & truck hire 450 which is a total of about £8 which is a bargain so I decided we would pay for it out of the budget. 

Some bad news- my friend Paraman the woodcutter has had a very unfortunate episode with some very heavy 50 kilo bags of rice that were delivered & has been taken to hospital with hernia- which makes me feel extra bad about beating him in an arm wrestle the other day. He will be ok but it's going to cost him so I've decided we will help with some of his hospital bills, 2000 rupees which is just over £20. The total costs of his treatment could be as much as 7000 rupees but we don't know yet. When considering he only earns 5000 a month that's a lot of money for him. I'd like to help more but the budget is not permitting at the moment. 

On that subject earlier in the week I decided that we would pay for all the seed that was planted the other week. Initially they asked to borrow it but I decided that we were in budget to help out there as well which is all great stuff. 

One other bad bit if news is that the medical visits out to the villages to give injections to the poor people has still not gone ahead as we have still not received the medicine from the distributors, so please could you pray for this to all come together. Even though its hotter now than we get to enjoy in our summer it is winter for them here & when the rains come the people get sick like we do in our winter time so we really need to get out there to help them. 

Tomorrow I will be travelling to Madurai City to visit the school in Melayakudi. I am very much looking forward to this as I've often heard it talked about in church with the charitable work that we do in helping them & now I'm getting to visit which is great. I'll be taking pictures & videos to share the experience with you. And on that subject I have made another video for you- a tour of the Hospice. I've already done this with photos when I first arrived here but I though you might appreciate a proper look round. Here's the link;

http://youtu.be/zC5IGjKzPj8

Again, if you don't know how to open the link if you scroll down to the post I made on Sunday 1st September it gives a very simple lesson on how to watch them. Bye for now everyone hope you are all well & missing me like crazy! ;) Stuart :) x x x 

Tues 17th September

Well hello there. 

Thorns. Nasty evil thorns. As I've told you I've been doing some work here and there helping out the woodcutter & this week we have been clearing the thorn bushes which let me tell you is no simple task. These thorns are huge, averaging an inch - 2 inches long,  literally sharp as a needle and seemingly have the density of titanium. They are so nasty they would make a Rhino whimper & run away crying for his mummy. Trust me. I've seen it.

Here are a few pics I took of the thorns as we cleared some of the land today; 

Nasty aren't they. Now bear in mind I'm doing this in t-shirt, shorts & flip flops. The flip flops are the worst sometimes you'll step on a really nasty one & it'll go straight through into the bottom of your foot. More often though you'll step on a thorn twig & it'll dig into you shoe and as you step forward you'll drag the barbed wire stick across the back of your heel or leg. Which always brings a smile to my face. Anyway after that we push up all the cuttings & uprooted bushes into gaps in the hedgerows to keep out those pesky Rhinos;

All being said its a bit painful and I do sometimes wonder if when God cursed the ground after the fall and thorns began to grow if He cursed the ground here three times over, but I enjoy it. It's part of what I came here for and its satisfying work, keeps me busy & its all good fun working with Paraman the woodcutter. 

Just thought I'd tell you that little story. Bye for now my friends, Stuart x x x