Thursday 11th June - A very rewarding day!

How to Climb a tree!

In order to see all the Vision Rescue teachers, I needed to go on the 2nd bus rote today which unfortunately meant no football but I am very glad I went. As many of the teachers seem to miss some of the injuries that the children have, I been keeping an extra eye out and this morning I spotted yet another septic wound at the first location, Kurla. An 8 yr old boy (called Manoj) had a large gash on the side on his foot which had not been treated and was going septic. When I asked one of the teachers (also called Manoj) to find out how he had got the wound, he said that he had caught his foot in his bicycle chain about two weeks ago. Manoj (teacher) and I decided to take Manoj to his home in the slum and speak to his parents. His parents said they wanted him to go to the doctor to get it looked at but he refused to go because he was scared they were going to cut his foot off (this is what most children think). Big Manoj reassured little Manoj that this would not happen and that we would go with him to the clinic, as it was close by. Another helper, Sanjeet, also came with us. We walked for about 10 mins to get to the clinic and when we arrived there was a small queue. Sanjeet and little Manoj sat and waited in the queue whilst Big Manoj and I waited outside. Whilst we were waiting, Big Manoj got chatting to a boy (Rahul) who he used to teach on the bus. He was washing one of the moterbikes outside the clinic. Rahul is 12 years old and now attends school but neither of his parents are able to work. This means that he has to earn his own money to pay for his schooling. He does this by washing motorbikes. He is trying to save up to buy himself a school uniform, his school books, a bag and a geometry set. All of that costs about 750 rupees. I then found out that he earns 300 rupees (4 pounds) a month for washing motorbikes. 4 pounds a month - I was shocked! It would take him 3 months just to earn enough to buy all the things he needed for school. This would result in him missing some of school (which will start on Monday ) so he can earn more money. Here was a situation where a simple need could be met! I asked Manoj if I could pay for Rahul's school uniform and equipment. He agreed that it would really help Rahul and his family out. I gave Manoj enough money to cover all the equipemnt and 2 school uniforms and he took Rahul and Rahul's mother to the shops to buy all the stuff! I will never forget the look of delight on Rahul's face!! It is amazing how something so small to us can mean the world to some of these children!

Meanwhile, little manoj had been given a tetnus injection and his wound had been cleaned and bandaged. Sanjeet had also been given some other pills that little Manoj had to take each morning and evening. We paid the doctor and then headed back to the bus. We dropped little Manoj back at his home and Sanjeet explained about the pills. He will need to go back to the clinic in two days time to have the dressing changed!
When I returned to the bus, I was given a demonstartion on how to climb a tree by two boys. They made it look so easy and there were no branches to use.
We then headed off to the next two stops, Deonar (the rubbish dumping ground) and Mankhurd where I was able to watch the teaching. Deonar was yet again an investation of flies but I tried hard to ignore them rather than doing my Jackie Chan karate impression in order to get rid of them. At Mankhurd, the children were again very nicely in two lines when we arrived, and there were loads of them. Unfortunately, there was not enough room on the bus so quite a few of them had to wait outside while the teaching was going on. I was very impressed with today's lessons. The children were very attentive and work hard during the 45 mins. I made some notes during the lesson and fed back to the teacher what I had observed and where she could improve. After the feeding at Mankhurd, we headed back to the kitchen for lunch and then went for a cup of tea and banana fritters at a cafe in Mahim.
I then got a taxi back to my accomodation where I started to type up the days events.
A tiring but very rewarding day. Tomorrow it will be back to the football and the last teacher training session of first visit.