No longer 'new' (and a tour of the neighbourhood)

I'm afraid that once again I've forgotten a lot of the things I'd been intending to write about. It's been another busy week, although not quite as crazy as all our guests have now left. We've been busy having meetings and planning sessions for the next 3 events though, and then getting on with preparing for the first of those.

On Friday, we had Sophie and Aleia's leaving ceremony. They each gave a presentation about their time here. Sophie's made an amazing book featuring loads of things she's learnt along the way, and Aleia created a slideshow of photos. It really impacted on me to see how passionate they were about their time here as SVs, the amazing things they've done and how much they've learnt. It was a bit scary because I felt like it was a lot for me to live up to. When I'm done, I'll actually have been here for a few weeks more than their term, and to think I might fit in as much as they have seems impossible. It was very inspirational though. I feel like there will be a big gap in the team when they leave this week, and Jessica and I will need to find our feet very quickly.

The second part of the ceremony was officially the end of our training period; Jen removed our 'new volunteer' badges, and we instead received Sangam pins. Gwen also gifted us little pouches which are useful for carrying phones (or in my case recently, tissues) when you don't have pockets. So now we are officially full members of the programme team, and have a number of responsibilities that are just ours in the next events. The whole team sits down together and decides who wants to/ can do what. Upcoming tasks for me include the neighbourhood tour, indian afternoon, reflections and flag ceremonies and many other things. I'm really enjoying having my own task list which I can work through at my own pace - within reason. Still fairly worried that I'll struggle with some things, but Jen, Gwen and Net and Ellen are all really supportive and answer any stupid questions I come up with, and the rest of the staff are awesome as well.

The second part of this blog is to feature some photos that hopefully give a bit better idea of what Sangam looks like, and the area it is in. I took these photos from the top of the water tower, which gives great views all around!

Ellen climbing up the Water Tower

 Net above the pool; in the top right corner is the Jubilee Garden - a really relaxing place :)

 Jessica looking over the pool... These buildings are the main part of Sangam towards the road.. underneath is the dining room and our offices, on top are the staff bedrooms, one of which I'll be moving into soon!

This is the Jubilee Garden, the roofs are of the dorms, I'm staying under the arch in the bottom right corner at the moment!

 This is the local area. Sangam's roofs in bottom right, in the centre is the illegal slum, currently housing about 600 people. Our neighbour on the left side is also a slum, but it's legal so the inhabitants receive ration books so that they can buy subsidised goods. On the right of the picture is Phule Nagar, the local middle-class neighbourhood. This is where we do our 'neighbourhood tour', where we get our milk from everyday; our local sweet shop, pharmacy and doctor can be found here, and it is also where a lot of our local staff live.

 In contrast, This is Hari Ganga, a relatively new build of flats just a few hundred metres down the road. People living here will be bringing in around RS25000 a month; usually with husband and wife both working. This is one of the horrors and yet somehow amazingly beautiful things of India - that entirely different worlds are quite literally on each others' doorsteps.



 I hope that helps some of you to picture things a bit more clearly. It's very difficult to describe India to people who've not experienced it for themselves exactly because of this diversity - it seems impossible. At Sangam it is so calm and shaded, it's sometimes easy to forget that a very busy main road is just outside the gate, and that there are people living in abject poverty just across the road, and alongside people who are really living quite well. You have to be able to accept these things in order to live here, but that doesn't mean we're not trying to do things about it. Sangam's programmes are all about empowering people to make changes, and we work with a lot of community partners who do similar things. As part of the birthday event we've just finished, we also began an exciting new connection with both the local slums, and held a birthday party - planned and run by the participants - for 60 children from these places. Many had never had birthday parties, or perhaps didn't even know their birth date, but the photos are amazing - you can see the joy and excitement on their faces. Although I had to stay at Sangam and work, I looked through the pics and was so happy that it'd happened. Hopefully it's the start of some great things happening here.

Leaving you with some food for thought I hope,

TTFN x