Lost Weekend: Finishing up in Delhi

Ok so it wasn't a lost weekend but where did it go? In fact the last 4 weeks just went. In training they tell you the last month of a VSO placement will be gentle. Tidying up loose ends, saying goodbye, eating cake. That sort of thing. Not here.

I was busy trying to squeeze in training for the Delhi Half Marathon (I haven't yet got sick of dropping that into conversations). I had a visitor over from the UK then I remembered the strategy plan for ASLI. There was the flat to finish up and furniture had to be sold and belongings packed. An unbelievable amount of stuff vomited itself out of my wardrobe and the flimsy cane bookshelves yielded a bumper crop of jewellery and brass Hindi mini-Gods. I started the clearance. There was four or so bin bags for VSO volunteers to rifle through. This is a benefit of someone leaving - you get hand-me-downs for your usually sparsely equipped cupboards. Judging by the amount I was getting rid of I must have done well over the last year. The remaining went to the cleaner and there was an inordinate amount of stuff to be posted and couriered back. Frightful. I clearly can not travel light.

After the house sale I had my leaving party. We made a profit from the goods we bought last year so that provided the beer for what was to be the last party in the house. Arun of ASLI/Deafway fame (i.e. the wonderful man I have had the pleasure to work with over the last year) provided the food and manned the barbeque in exchange for being fed with Kingfisher. The Deaf Way staff created amazing canapes and took over food preparations. I concentrated hard on drinking and saying my goodbyes. I had an amazing time and it was a wonderful send off after an unbelievable year.

It was back in the office on Monday after partying, moving out and dealing with a hangover of proportions not seen yet this year. I managed to finish some final bits and we had the obligatory pizza (Puneet, the IT and English teacher, was leaving too). After lunch I said my goodbyes and there it was. I blubbed. Totally unexpectedly. Anyone who has kept up to date on this blog will know how much I have enjoyed being here. And that is a gross understatement. I've lived, worked and breathed Delhi. Anyone who knows how dusty it is here can imagine the hardships I may have had to endure.

'Will you be back?' is the question du jour. I hope I have given some idea of how much the Deaf community is still being discriminated against here. Interpreting services are just one part. Education where sign language is virtually banned, not being allowed to drive, a total lack of equality when it comes to employment, no mental health services, a lack of academic sign language and interpreting qualifications...it goes on. I'll be offering any assistance I can from the ether. And I have some plans afoot but I'm not done in India just yet. It's all about the R&R and taking some time out to consider my next steps. It's the beach for me for now. 

10 Down, 2 to go

As is usual on the old blog, I feel the urge to reflect on what has happened and what the coming months will bring. A VSO placement often feels like it is broken up into a few stages. There's the strange first three months, the last few and the long bulk of it in the middle. At 10 months in, it certianly feels like I've been here a while. Now I'm on the final stretch it's the right time to look back and more importantly look forward to what is to come.

I look back and in some ways I feel I’ve been here forever. I can’t remember what it’s like to walk into a Tesco’s and be confronted by a range of cheeses. The common thing that’s said about India is it’s an assault on the senses when you arrive: the colours, the smells, the noise and general chaos. Thing is after months of shopping at vegetable stalls and small shops when I get into a fully-stocked supermarket I think I might feel consumed by the smell of the bakery and overcome by the salamis. I’ll be freaking out at the choice. Once I’ve recovered there is a chance I’ll be shocked by all the consumerism and will never venture into such an establishment again.

Work wise I’m currently on the third interpreter training program and writing this from Coimbatore in South India. We’ve ran out of time to do course number 4 and 5 so ASLI will be doing this after I’ve gone. This means I need to ensure everything I need to do is completed before I go, everyone is happy with what they are doing and everything is sustainable by making sure any skills and knowledge have been passed on. I’ve seen the course develop over the months and I’m really happy with the progress we’ve made. I won’t be needed at the next now it’s all up and running. There’s no relaxing yet though as there’s a few more things to keep me busy until the end of November.

I’ve had my final placement review, I’ve started catching up on reporting, I’ve planned my last few working months, have a vague idea of where I want travel afterwards and I’ve booked my flight home. In the middle of all this reflection and the tidying up of ends I just want to get back. By the time I get there three of my friends will have new born babies and people keep emailing me amazing news. Before I came, friends and family all reassured me that nothing would change in a year. They all lied. As much as I love it here and want to come back, it’s time to finish what I came here to do, plan my future then go and see all the lovely folks back home.

Pics from:
http://www.billboardmama.com/wise-construction-c-4_30.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/63695821@N00/1327862465

Lingua Franca

Learning two languages has been a challenge and one fraught with usual faux pas. In Hindi if you don’t roll your R enough in Kurta (shirt) it sounds like kutta (dog) and everyone giggles. I mostly use Hindi for auto drivers and vegetable shopping so I find that it hasn’t developed as much as I’d have liked though at times I sound quite good.

The other language I’ve been learning is Indian Sign Language (ISL) and it is one of the languages of my work here. In the UK we use British Sign Language (BSL) and I’m fluent. It’s a common myth that there is a universal sign language. Pretty much every country has its own sign language due to communities developing their own just like spoken languages developed. Sign Languages have been researched by linguists as early as the 1960s and proven to be full languages in their own right. As many different sign languages have similar grammatical features once you learn the vocabulary of another sign language it can become much simpler.

But there are still complications. As one of my first encounters with ISL was an international sign linguistics conference in Delhi I met many Deaf people from around the country. Trying to learn a new sign language is a bit difficult when you’re meeting people using five different dialects of ISL from as far apart as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Also some Deaf people prefer using the American finger spelling system. In Delhi they mostly use an alphabet similar to the British system. Finger spelling is used for spelling anything that doesn’t have a sign or does but you just don’t know it! It’s more complicated than that but I won’t go into that here. I find it gets interesting when people fingerspell Hindi words to me. Luckily these tend to be about food so I’ve obviously learnt all those words.

It was really hard at first trying to remember to stick to very visual elements of the language and to pick up the Indian signs along the way. Sometimes I have to work hard to decode the language if I don’t know what the subject is. Once I know the context it’s much easier and I just get it. I find myself wishing I could just sit around the office chatting to the Deaf staff and students but it’s a mix of Deaf, hearing interpreters and sadly, laptop time as work must be done.

The hardest things to learn are the real cultural signs that have been adopted into ISL. Many of these are slight head nods or certain movements of the hands. Some of these signs are used by hearing people on the street gesturing to each other that something isn’t possible or when they are agreeing to something. But it’s great when it all fits in and I love it when I sign in ISL without coding from the BSL first.

And just like Hindi I’ve had a faux pas in ISL. In my first month I asked a Deaf member of staff what the sign for toilet was. I spelt it out and asked for the sign. I wondered if it was appropriate but thought that’s an important sign to learn and I really wanted to find one at the time. He held out his first two fingers palm facing upwards and pulled them back. Not many people use toilet paper here which is why eating with your left hand is taboo. So in my naivety and surprise I thought the sign was a graphic description of what Indian people do in the bathroom. Anyway a month or so later whilst chatting with staff over lunch about travel arrangements I realised what the man thought I had spelt: ticket.     

Here’s some info is you want to know more about Sign Languages:

World Federation of the Deaf – Factsheet on Sign Language

Learn Indian Sign Language

UCL Mini-lecture: The truth about sign language

UCL Video - A visual people and a visual language

 

Pics:

Hindi Alphabet from Google Sites

International Women's Day from The Deaf Way Foundation

Queuing at the Delhi Counter Part II - A Legal Alien in New Delhi

The visa process is painful. The expat forums are full of queries and no-one knows what the processes are or what the different types of visa mean. As volunteers we sort out our own visas and must sit around for hours in strange government offices. It is a rite of passage one must go through to be allowed to stay in India. Here’s the rather strange story of my experience:

DAY ONE

10:07 Arrive at the Ministry of Home Affairs reception and use elbows to obtain a number. This is slightly different from buying Gouda at Sainsbury’s.

11:03 My number shows up on the LCD. Elbow way to front to hand in form and be given slip of paper that allows me inside visa facilitation centre.

11:05 Queue at visa centre reception. No one is at the desk. After ten minutes a group has gathered and a man rocks up. Elbow in, hand over form and sit down for the long wait.

12:41 Called for interview where there is much staring at paperwork from official. I’m told to come back at 16:30 to collect letter which must be handed in tomorrow, still sealed, at the Foreign Registry Office.

16:40 Return and wait for an hour and a half alongside irate European who seems to think that if you complain about the system it will immediately improve. Collect letter and leave having wasted a day of work.

DAY TWO

07:30 Arrive at Foreign Registry in auto. Realise I need to pay 80 rupees and have only 60. A passerby takes pity on me and gives me 20 rupees. The kindness of strangers. Resolve to hunt him down later and pay him back. Put name on list. I am number 10. This feels like a good number to be.

09:38 Return after breakfast at a nearby hotel to a long queue of pushing Afghani’s on the left and perturbed other where-esles on the right. Push way to front as I am number 10. As I wait two British men push their way into the queue behind me. The one at the front asks if I am British. We have a conversation about queues and what reason we are all here. They require exit stamps in their passports so they may return to India after they have been to Dubai. I tell my new companions that the Afghani queue is for refugees. European woman in front of me turns round and offers a pitying but withering look. She tells me they are not refugees but medical tourists as the doctors in Afghanistan are supposedly not as good as India. Feel slightly stupid and apologise. Get to front and I am told I am late. Get given number 20. Dammit.

10:01 Inside the building clasping our numbers we all queue again to see the man on reception. I chat away to my two new British friends. Number one is the slightly older of the two and is very jovial. We chat about India and the UK, about colonialism and the British influence here. Number two is thinner, slightly younger. He is probably in his late 40s/early 50s with lovely demeanour. Number one chats away with me. He tells me he has a franchise in automatic pizza making machines and he has been trying to sell them across India but this hasn’t worked well so far. Number two says that I shouldn’t believe anything number two says.

10:05 I have by now discussed why pizzas cannot be sold on university campuses yet in India as the food is all subsidised in canteens and delicious. I have also told them both all about VSO, my placement and when asked what I will do when it ends I joke that I may return to the UK, settle down, find a husband. I get a strange look from both of them. Remind self that some of my humour should be reserved for friends.

10:07 Still chatting I ask number one a question. He mishears and says, ‘Our names? I’m Nick and this is Gordon.’ We talk about the length of the queue again. They need to catch a flight to Dubai and have to leave in one hour. I call up my flatmate and get advice from the FRRO guru, Nikki-ji. She has been here many times. I tell her about the two men and tell her my number. She tells me it took her three hours but it all depends on what is in my envelope. I relay this to my companions. As they are here for a different reason there is a small possibility they can get out in time to get their flight.

10:09 OMG! It dawns on me that number two is Gordon Sumner aka international superstar and amazingly talented one: Sting. Realised I’ve been trying to give them insight on India and pizza machines. Cringe and try not to laugh. I can’t look up and fiddle with my paperwork for 30 seconds to regain composure. Breathe.

10:10 Tell number two, aka G/S, quietly that I have figured out who he is. Exchange knowing glances all round. Ask number one who he is as he looks as if he may be familiar too. I have a laugh with them both that he is not in fact a pizza making machine seller and is in fact a BBC journo or something. He tells me his name and tells me I probably won’t find him through Google.

10:12 Ask them why they don’t have a handler. Point to man just in front of us who hands over seven visa application forms causing us to wait another 10 minutes. We agree you probably have to come in person for a visa stamp.

10:13 Tell G and N they probably get asked this all the time but can they donate some money to VSO. Write down my Just Giving website address and my blog address. He reads out Jen Does Delhi. I tell him that it is a play on the title of the famous porn film of the 1970s entitled Debbie does Dallas although state that is definitely not what I am doing here, it's just that the title just makes me laugh.

10:15 Get to front of queue. Man dismisses me and says I do not need to renew my visa until April when it runs out so I should come back then. Tell him I am here to register with police as well. He doesn’t even look at me and waves me away. Say my goodbyes to G and N. N says he will hunt me down and marry me at the end of my placement. I tell him that it would be lovely thank you. G wishes me luck earnestly. Feel amazingly lucky and humbled. What a day and it is only 10:15! Who cares if FRRO have dismissed me?

10:18 Call FRRO Guru-ji. Realise in all the excitement of meeting G and N that I didn’t give the receptionist the unsealed letter I got from the MHA the day before. Tell her that I met Sting and she unknowingly gave him FRRO advice. Inform her that this takes her to new levels of FRRO guru-ji-ness.

10:20 Convince security guard that I need to go back in very quickly as I forgot something. He points back to the queue outside. Wave around letter frantically and look slightly maniacal. Plead. Beg. Get let in again. Phew.

10:22 Barge my way to front of inside queue and plead with man to open my letter. He points to queue and again. Plead again and stand still refusing to move. Thrust envelope into his face and put on my best feminine helplessness face. This never usually works.

10:23 It works! Wonder if famous lovely superstar, G, and future husband, N, are watching this pitiful performance. He opens the letter and tells me to go home. The police will visit my home to check I live there at some unnamed point in the next few weeks.

10:25 Look around to say goodbye to G and N. They’ve been swallowed up by the frantic medical tourists and frustrated Europeans. I head off hoping they get their stamps and enjoy their holiday when they return to fabulous India. Wonder if they’ll be any tickets in the post soon?

(pictures from - http://www.askmen.com/ and http://www.matteoandmathilde.com/2009/10/i-remember-during-my-times-at.html)

Bollywood: Aquafresh on Acid

Coming up to three months in India it was about time I went to see my first Bollywood movie. The film everyone is talking about here is The 3 Idiots. This is modern Bollywood but it’s indisputably Bollywood all the same. The Indian cinema experience is strange. No laptops, cameras or chewing gum. You get turned away or these things get taken away if you have any on your possession as you go through the airport style security. Ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right.

Inside, the reclining seats are pretty plush for what amounts to less than a few quid. Once I’d tuned in to some of the Hindi, I started to relax and enjoy the film. I got the gist of it. With the visual gags and the occasional bits of English dialogue it was easier to pick up the clues. Some was lost on me in the nuances of language but having done my research I hung on in there. Of course the songs and dance routines were entertaining. Seeing grown men dancing around in towels, breaking into song whilst brushing their teeth was a bit like watching the 1980s Aquafresh advert on acid. The next morning in my kitchen I was waiting for the kettle to boil. I couldn’t place the strange lyrics that seemed catchier than an S Club 7 hit. It took me a while to realise what I’d been singing but then I’m never that good in the mornings.

Bollywood films are famous for not displaying sex. Too taboo in India. This is a country where apparently no-one has sex before marriage but the numbers of teenage abortions are sky-rocketing. On screen, in the 1970s, there were apparently careful visualisations instead. Just when you’re expecting the main characters to get it on, a flower may appear instead to blossom or be pollinated by a bee before normality resumed. I was a bit surprised then when the main couple broke out into song and suddenly had on flimsy clothes. They were dancing, it rained. Soon they were bouncing around and their clothes went see-through. Easier to imagine what could happen next then without the Chelsea Flower Show type display.

The storyline was pretty diverse and epic. There was the whole gamut of emotions: birth, illness, death (not just one), a funeral, a near marriage and lots of men crying. The main character was nearly superhuman. He saved several lives. This included saving a baby and its labouring mother by building, A-Team stylee, a vacuum pump from a Hoover to suck out the stuck child. In nearly three hours the audience had the entire spectrum of the human experience.

The film may have been cheesier than the Stilton I crave but it was all fun. The scenery was stunning and I’ll definitely be jetting off to Leh soon. This is westernised Bollywood and I loved it. That, folks, was what you’d call entertainment and it’s currently showing in 53 cinemas in the UK.

VSO is go

I applied to do VSO after I saw an advert go out on an Interpreter's e-group. The minute I saw it I knew it was something I'd always wanted to do. It took me a month or so of soul-searching and a change in circumstances before I'd decided to go for it. One or two years out of the country isn't an easy decision to take.

I got offered a post in Kenya starting in July but this fell through due to miscommunication on the part of the charity. I was gutted. I'd been told one in ten placements fall through and it was something I was prepared for although obviously not happy about. With only 4 weeks before my flight had been due to leave I was itching to go somewhere so I booked a flight to Beijing and decided to take a jaunt round Asia.

It wasn't that long before I got two more placement offers: Indonesia and India. There was a hoohah over visas and some deliberation on my part but eventually I did some form filling whilst in Cambodia. By the time I'd got half way round Thailand I had a confirmation through from the employer in India.

This came at exactly the right time as I'd spent a week in Chiang Mai and had met up with two volunteers starting their placements. It was insightful to hear their stories and it only served to renew my enthusiasm and my commitment. How great then to have my confirmation only a few days later. My VSO placement adviser, John, had been amazing. He'd known of my previous disappointment and all communication whilst I was away was happily done by email with offer of a Skype conversation if I could tear myself away from having fun. He'd even offered to help with some of the form filling and chasing up of details from other members of staff.

So I returned to the UK at the start of September knowing I had a mere nine weeks to prepare. And now the story starts...