Geilsland goes to India

Posted on Monday, 13 December 2010 09:30AM by Sharon Frencher

Hi , my name is Sharon Frencher and I work at Geilsland School in Beith, I recently took part in the first leg of an exchange trip to India that was organized through SIRCC and Who Cares Scotland. We took 4 young people from different residential settings across Scotland and fundraised in order to make the trip possible. We are all continuing with the fund raising to bring our Indian counterparts here in May/June next year. Whilst in India we lived at the Udayan Children’s Village in Jaipur and assisted the staff with the everyday tasks required to look after their 54 children. The differences were immense but our Young people adjusted very quickly to the Indian way and by the end of our trip found it pretty much the norm to eat curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At the village the Children were between the ages of 3-18 years and lived in dormitories some housing up to 14 children, many who had been rescued from the streets.   Our day began with helping the younger children get washed and dressed for school, this was always a challenge as you would be chasing some of the kids round buildings as they tried to avoid the cold jugs of water used to rinse the soap off. Our washing facilities were much the same a cold cubicle, a cold tap and a bucket and jug. We helped around the campus and painted the kitchen and dining areas, cleaned out school buildings, worked in the fields and done some gardening with the most basic equipment imaginable. When the children returned from school we would help with homework then join them to play games on the sports field, around 6pm every night the whole campus would head to the meditation circle where the day would be discussed before meditation then dinner. Our days were very busy and tiring and we would be in bed by 10pm every night, we did manage some sight seeing and the feelings experienced when seeing the    Taj Mahal will be hard to forget, it was a jaw dropping moment. During our stay we tried to share our culture with our hosts and we made a traditional Scottish meal of haggis neeps n tatties, this was met with a mixed reaction. We also had a Scotland/India day where we were treated to an excellent display of Indian dance and drama, and in return we shared some Rabbie Burns poetry, country dancing and the worst rendition of Auld Lang Syne I have ever heard. We shared pictures of Scottish landmarks and painted Saltires on the faces of the children. We also hosted a Halloween party and the children enjoyed the dooking for apples, and It was no mean feat designing and colouring  around 60 face masks. Near the end of the stay was the Indian festival of Diwali and this doubled up as our leaving party, as the children danced the night away we put presents for each of them under their pillows and it was a joy to see their faces when they went to bed and found their gifts, it was really sad when we were leaving as it had begun to feel like home and we had been made so welcome. Our hosts put great effort into making our stay very welcoming and we hope to do the same when they come to Scotland.