Raleigh India 13O/P International Citizenship Service

Lou Rowen writes: 

Since the IY3 team arrived in Mydanahalli they have undertaken 4 Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) activities.

IY3 with some of their neighbors

Manjula digging the long drop

 These 4 activities included creating a village map and timeline, conducting household surveys and making a Venn diagram. All of these activities depended on the participation of the community members, the purpose of which is to include them in the process of village development and to give them more ownership and responsibility over the project which will help give them accountability over the development.

Village mapping in progress

The information form our PRA activities is essential for creating the foundations and gaining village baseline data which we will use to guide and influence the rest of our project, including, what kind of health camp to conduct and what to do for our secondary project based on a needs assessment. 

The next stage will be to conduct our first health camp in Mydanahalli following this we will begin construction of ecosanitation units.

An now for something completely different – the team from IY3 shocked the village on Tuesday when they ditched their usual attire of scrubby t-shirts, long shorts and old flip flops for clean sari’s, white shirts and lungi’s. The occasion was the festival Dassara which involved a blessing on our construction tools at the local temple. Reports suggest our neighbours are still reeling from the shock!!

Lou, Kayleigh and Leanne in their sari's  

Dan, Rhodri, Ravi, Ed adn Vijay in their Indian attire

The local children

And now to Ed for his account of a charming Indian game......

The game of “Kabadi” is taken very seriously in India. It is like a ramped up game of tag played at double speed which takes no prisoners. It involves one player in a team crossing into enemy territory with the explicit aim of tagging one or more opposition players and sprinting back to home territory before being surrounded and tackled to the ground. It is at once a game of skill, subtlety and art game and a one of gratuitous violence. The rousing chant of kabadi, kabadi builds anticipation to a fever pitch before releasing it in a kaleidoscope of noise, speed, teamwork and mangled bodies. It is a lot of fun and is a memory I will take with me as I progress through the weeks. A tournament at field base during mid phase is in order I think. India Yankee 3 for the win.