Hosahalli Tid Bits

Sameer

On my first bus ride to Hosahalli I talked with the bus driver for the last 10 minutes of the way, a guy called Sameer. He gave me his number and told me to call if I ever needed anything at all, be it bus routes or groceries from the city. Believe you me, he wasn’t kidding. On my first return trip from Mysore, I missed the 4:30pm bus to Hosahalli and called him up to ask for alternatives. He not only told me about a 5:30pm bus that went in the same direction, but also texted me a few minutes later with the name of the stop point and the bus’ vehicle number. When I found the right bus, the conductor asked me if I was Sameer’s friend. Sameer had called the bus central to ask for the bus number, and furthermore called the driver team and told them to look for me. Really great help! Two weeks later, after I had had amoebic dysentery and the school’s water filter was out of order, I called him and asked if he could pick 2 liters of mineral water for me. He arrived at the bus rest stop at 9:30pm that evening, and instead of allowing me to walk up to meet him in the dark he drove the bus down to the school, 1km away. He didn’t want me to risk running into wild animals (there are elephants, wild boars, and, albeit rarely, tigers that come out of the forest at night). Sameer refused to take a tip for it and underlined that he did it for friendship, not for money. It’s amazing when you meet such selfless people who are willing to help you out in spite of being practically a stranger. I hope he understands my deep appreciation for him.

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When I recently walked up to the “main road” shop a kilometer away, there was an old guy who asked me to take a little girl’s picture with him. On the way back, he called after me and said I should slow down so we could walk together. He babbled rapidly in Kannada, but I understood his point – he was going towards the school himself, and it’s always better and easier to walk as two. He had a hearty, almost toothless smile. He pointed out his house and departed the path just outside the school gate.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from moving into a new room in Hosahalli, it’s that I hate wall clocks that don’t work. I’ve never seen the darn thing function and yet I still steal glances at it once in a while, caught off guard, to check what time it is. And it never tells me; it kinda feels a little like a personal insult, hehe.

The Hosahalli Roadside Shop

Standing outside the shop, looking down the road leading to VTCL

Except for a couple of kiosks between the two school campuses, there aren’t any shops right by the school. In fact, the school is around 3.5km away from the nearest village which has commercial life. There is however a ‘larger’ shop up by the main road and a couple of small kiosks (and drinking shacks further down the road), only one kilometer away. Once I found out that they stock bottled water, sodas and bananas, I started coming there quite often. I used to walk up to the store with Abhishek or Abbie & Karen to buy bananas and water, but they ran out of both for a while. During my last week at Hosahalli I would walk up to the shop on my own almost daily, and purchase water and some puri snacks to eat before dinner. I’d first sit outside the shop for a relaxed half hour, drinking soda and talking to the various school children that would walk by on their way home. It was especially fun taking pictures of the kids; they loved seeing the pictures on my camera afterwards. That’s one of my little rituals I’ll miss about Hosahalli. 

A Day in the Hospital

On Wednesday the 11^th I started having the runs. Normally not one with a squeamish stomach, it lasted all night without getting better. In the morning I noticed that I was passing blood, and decided that I should go for a hospital visit to be on the safe side. Luckily enough, the VTCL school is affiliated with two rural hospitals that cater for tribal people in nearby villages, so I only had to take a 20-minute drive. The bus was extremely late that day, so I ended up taking a jeep (over-packed jeeps ply the routes between towns and villages as an addition to the government-run bus). On the last two kilometers, the conductor packed 6 women into the backload, so me and the other guy had to hang onto the outside of the jeeps. I normally wouldn’t have minded, in fact I would probably have found it rather exciting, but just not on a sick day... Ah well, there’s always a first. 

Although unknown at the time of arrival, I had Amoebic Dysentery. The nasty little critters had made me pass water over a dozen times since it started, so I was really weak from dehydration. The doctors immediately put me on a ward in the nursing station where they could keep an easy eye on me (“since [I] was alone”), and hooked me up to an Intravenous drip. I tried wriggling out of it by asking for Oral Rehydration Salt because, well, I really don’t like needles, but they wouldn’t hear of it. I have to admit that the three bottles of liquid they ‘pumped’ into my veins really helped and I felt way better that same afternoon. I also got started on a couple of bottles of antibiotics. 

I have never been hooked up to an IV drip, and I really wished I had brought my camera. I would have taken a picture of myself with the IV Drip, a thumbs-up and a broad grin across my face – that would have captured the irony of me looking way more sick than I actually was. 

I was very bored that day and swore that I would bring a book next time I went to a hospital. In the evening I went looking for the two Cornell volunteers I had met at the school, and found them in one of the doctors’ house. I had a good talk with Dr. Mohan while the girls made fried rasgulla with his wife, Dr. Arundhati. The next day I (finally!) got discharged around lunch time, and got a ride back to the school by the Deputy Director of SVYM who was headed out to watch Karen & Abbie’s leaving presentation – still tired, but with a supply of antibiotic pills.

June 26th - A Trip To The Beyond

I asked one of the station attendants which bus went to HD Kote.

“Both” he replied.

Well, which one is better?

“As you chose, whichever you prefer”

Uhm, ok but what’ the difference?

“One is 3 rupees change”

I felt I was beginning to get somewhere with this…

“So, which one leaves first?”

“That one”

Guess which one I took…

I’m in the VTCL (Viveka Tribal Center for Learning) school right now, having just been introduced to exactly how rural I’ve gotten. In fact, this place is so far rural it’s about a kilometer from the end of the bus line, where there is one or two kiosks and pretty much nothing else. I really wish I had brought some more water and snacks with me from Mysore (I cut my chips stock in half by eating a bag of them for lunch), but I’ll probably work something out – the bus driver gave me his number and said he could help me out with bus routes, or anything else for that matter.

The rest of the bus ride, which started with the interaction above, had gone really smooth. The only tricky part was finding the right bus stop in Kote where I could get a bus to Hosahalli village, because not very many people have heard of it, but I just had to ask about half a million people (and wave off an extremely persistent taxi driver – he didn’t get it until the 6^th time I said no). I had arrived about an hour early for the 2pm bus, so I chilled around for a bit, had a cup of chai, and noticed that people this far from Bangalore actually stare at white people (echoes from the past?!). I didn’t want to move around with my huge suitcase, so I didn’t go looking for lunch which I would later come to regret. The next bus ride was also around 1.5 hours long, and it finally began to dawn on me that I was going deep into the countryside. I started grinning from ear to ear, for no apparent reason. Except perhaps surprise at my own lack of realization until now. I have mixed feelings about traveling to such a far-away place – it’s difficult leaving friends and familiar places behind in Bangalore, it’s scary yet exciting to start new work, and it’s really scary to be so far away from cities and shops except it’s also kinda cool. I had an amazing 1-2 weeks at a village school in Rwanda back in 2005; most of all I loved the beautiful hills, fresh air and serene lifestyle. So my mood switched a little back and forth between anxiousness and excitement. At some point my euphoric mind went kinda like this:

(Looks to the right) uhhhhh, cows!

(Looks to the left) uhhhh, goats!

(Looks to the right again) OH, cows AND goats!

… not to mention the slowly undulating hills and occasional lake that I saw on the way.

I immediately got shown to my room. It’s a small building on the edge of the old campus grounds, quite near the boys dorms and the main dining hall. I have two rooms full of bunked beds, all to myself. I haven’t quite figured out which one I’m gonna pick yet. I could see already then that there was gonna be a lot of mosquitoes – yet another thing that reminds me strongly of Rwanda.

Up by the main campus, I met two students from Cornell called Karen and Abbie who are also staying here for another three weeks. Yay, friends!! English is definitely not people’s forte out here, so I am really glad to have them plus a young Indian intern called Abhushek that I can speak with at ease. I was shown around campus for a bit, met with the headmaster for a few minutes and then sat down to watch the girls try and connect to the internet with the office’s sole online PC. Yup, one connected computer for the entire campus – and it runs on dial up. Guess who won’t be online much for the next month?!

Besides teaching English and helping out with office work, a new research project has emerged in my mind. When I met with Dr. Balu this morning just before leaving for Hosahalli, he explained that it could be very useful if I talk to as many current & former students to learn lessons about their experiences, and infer whether SVYM is meeting their goals of being culturally sensitive to these tribal kids or not. He said it’s very difficult for an insider to take a step back and look at evaluating such things, so he would very much like it if I could write something about it. Moreover, this fits quite closely with issues that Vishal from Dream A Dream had raised about how these kids fare after their 10^th grade and attempt to pursue further education in modern places like Mysore – apparently the school has an extremely high drop-out rate (slash return rate) because students are unable to fit into “normal” society. This could furthermore be an awesome new focus of my Lilly work, seeing as I haven’t gotten very far with my original plans so far (not to mention that my original issue to look into in Hosahalli isn’t even an issue anymore). I need to start planning interviews already so I don’t end up wasting away my month here.

I’m excited for my time here, and if I make the most of it I will also be able to have an actual impact which will be felt in the long-term. If I find a pattern behind the rumored drop-out rates, then I should be able to push for Dream A Dream getting involved with teaching appropriate life skills for the tribal students which will help them assimilate into urban settings without forgetting their cultural heritage. I just need to plan my work properly around my teaching schedule (which should be determined by tomorrow). Big potential indeed!

I’m starving. Can’t wait for dinner at 8:30pm.

PS: The first bus conductor tried forgetting about my 15 rupees change on a 35 rupee ticket. Sorry pal, but it doesn’t look natural starring at the traffic for that long so I know it was deliberate.