5 key facts

27/3/11
James had a sleep in so left to my own devises I went fishing. Mummy gave me some dough bate and after 2 hours I had caught 2 small fish. Dishnoo one of the local boys came over to talk and immediately caught a fish as did another child. They then got a little net and taught me how to bate the net with rice and weight it down with stones and catch two or three fish at once.
After lunch of the fish that we had caught and numerous other curries James and I went to play cricket with the local boys. Using a piece of palm tree for the bat and stumps and a rolled up fishing net for the ball the game began. Neither James or I were very good but it was fun nether the less. We then jumped into the river with the boys and played catch for an hour. The boys had a distinct advantage of being the same colour as the water and consequently could go below the surface, disappear and then pop up somewhere else. The boys hinted that they would like a proper cricket bat but were not pushy so when we got back to the accommodation we asked the owner how much a new bat would cost. At 500 rupees 7gbp this was eminently affordable for us but equivalent to the farther wage of a number of the boys we had been playing with. Jobs ranged from mud digger, sand collector, toddy tapper (the juice of the coconut tree that is fomented- bloody horrid) and farmers. As we had had such a good day with the boys we decided to ask the owner to buy a bat for us.
Over dinner one of the owners Thomas talked to us about Kerala and the back waters. Over the period of an hour we leant 5 hey facts about Kerala and its relative wealth

1) Its gods own country- thus is the best place on earth
2) Social Changes- the last king of Kerala outlawed the cast system making society much fairer
3) Political changes- the communists ended the feudal system and allocated a plot of land to each family so they could be self sufficient
4) Fertile land- blessed with sufficient rain and good soil crops grow easily, can be sold and none needs be hungry
5) Education- 95% literacy rate means people are educated, more self sufficient and less likely to engage in extreme politics
Whilst all this things made Kerala good in Thomas eyes he bemoaned the loss of tradition as the kids aspired to be engineers, doctors, and IT professionals. This mean that the traditional (and rather hard) way of life was being lost and increased mechanization of the work become a reality. It was Thomas's vision that he would set up a cheap home stay for volunteers who would work with the young people to continue the traditions. These lead us onto discussing the opportunities for us to volunteer. Unfortunately the school year was due to end in two days time and our limited time meant that working in a clinic was not possible. After some thought Tomas said he would give us space in his garden for us to organize activities for the local children…

28/3/11

Another early start saw us walking through the backwaters on a 3 hour guided walk. We were accompanied by a Dutch medical student also called Luke and three Swiss hippies who were undertaking Ayurvedic treatment (massage, forced vomiting, putting rages into the stomach to draw out bile and bloodletting). The guide was a very jolly, completely mad ex alcoholic local mad who showed us how to make a whilst out of a leaf, blow bubbles from a plant, explained the backwater agriculture and generally made us laugh. After the walk and breakfast more fishing was entered into with both James and I successfully catching fish for lunch.

Later that afternoon we played cricket with the local boys and had a swim. We put the word out that the following afternoon we would be organizing games. This was generally well received and there was an air of excitement on the young people’s behalf and an air of trepidation on our part! After another swim with the local lads we were invited to dishnoos house. We were welcomed with tea and revived the boy’s homework. After this we saw the cow (which the boys were frightened of but looked fine to me) and invited to eat chilies. Never one to give up a challenge I gamely joined in managing to hide the extent of my moth burning.

Later that afternoon we hopped on two bikes and cycled though the backwaters and again met lots of young people who were keen to talk. Being exhausted and fell into bed early.