ASIA

Tha shower is colder than ever today, and there's no electricity AGAIN (great!). The next few days are all likely to be the same so after this entry, we will write again at the weekend!

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It's now actually Friday 28th and we are currently chilling in our hotel room in Zen Bed and Breakfast hotel, Thamel. However, we have had a very busy and tiring few days so I haven't been able to catch up with the blog. I'm going to write about Tuesday and Wednesday in this entry.

On tuesday, we were with the same community again. We taught the lesson on 'self esteem' (but felt pointless again as Shweta could have read off the sheet). However, at the end of the lesson, the women said that although they are interested in these life skills lessons, they aren't as important to them as other lessons would be. Shweta asked them if they wanted to be educated on human trafficking and they all said yes and were very interested. We were so happy (finally!!) but also annoyed as we were told by numerous people that trafficking isn't an issue in these communities so aren't worth being taught about (even though it is the program we actually signed up for!!!) ... yet they were so much more interested in that lesson, than any others. And besides, human trafficking is an issue that people should be educated on worldwide.

It turned out that a lot of the older women had experienced knowing people who had been trafficked many years ago. And that trafficking does occur in small communities occasionally - particularly withchildren. A lot of the younger women were not as aware of these issues. It was so frustrating that it was one of our last days, and the women actually really wanted to hear more!!!

We finished that lesson, shared some stories, and then they were still interested in talking to us. We asked Shweta to find out what they wanted to know more about, and we said that we would go off and research about anything they wanted and would teach them a lesson of their choice (we weren't supposed to, but we were so fed up of teaching pointless stuff to these women!!). They said that they wanted to know about different cultures, and also learn some basic English.

So after the lesson, we got the bus to the office so we could use a laptop and made a big poster on different cultures around the world, and included statistics on women's trafficking around the world, and also how women's rights have changed worldwide.

Sumira asked us what we were doing, and then we ended up talking to both her and Dinesh and explained that we were disappointed that our program isn't what we were told it was. We said that we came to teach about Women's Trafficking Prevention.. but have instead been teaching about life skills that the women are not interested in, and do not have time for. We explained how embarrassing it was when only 2 women showed up at the start of that day's class, and how they are not interested in these classes. We explained how the women told us that they do not trust organisations, as past organisations have promised one thing, but broken their promises. And that, when we taught about human trafficking - they were all so interested ... and this was what our program was meant to be ... yet we got told to teach otherwise.

Instead of apologising, they were all so defensive and said that it must be culture changes as to why we were complaining. We weren't even complaining as such - we think it's great what they do...however they shouldn't be saying one thing, and then on arrival saying completely different. Sumira said that she gave us the opportunity to go to another community where women's trafficking is an issue (which 1. Is a complete lie and we have many people who were present at that time that she claims she said this ... and everyone said this was not mentioned and 2. Women's trafficking awareness should be taught in ALL communities as it's an important issue worldwide).

In the end, Bhupi came and spoke to us (the organisation manager) ... who was using every excuse under the sun to excuse his staff and put the blame on us. The whole thing made us angry, because we only came to the office to use our initiative to create our own lesson, then tried to explain what we were doing to Sumira when she asked... then it almost ended up in an argument, when we were only trying to give feedback about how the program isn't what it says it is, especially when the local volunteers are doing their own thing anyway. There have been numerous people who we know who have complained about their programs.

But anyway, on Wednesday we taught our lesson on culture (after our 'stress managements' life skill lesson first ... as Om was coming in so we thought we would stick to the schedule first!). The women were not that interested in that lesson. Then we taught our lesson on 'Women and Culture' which the women loved. We started off with facts about the world (with a worldwide map in the middle of the page), then spoke about each continent and chose a country from each continent to talk about in detail. With each country, we gave: the name, the language, a flag picture, the currency, how they greet people, national food, national animal, Women's Rights in that country, and the problem of Women's Trafficking in that country. The women loved it!! Particularly when we taught about England, as we had English coins and a flag of the UK (which we let one lady keep!), and they were very interested as of course we are English.

Not a single woman spoke over us, interrupted us or was not engaged. They were all getting so into it. They were sharing stories along the way as well, for example: one lady explained that her family lives in Australia. One lady got up and started dancing at one point - it was great!

We had taught two lessons, but they wanted to stay longer so we did an English lesson. We made all the women practice having mini conversations - they were all giggling trying to pronounce the words and were laughing at each other. Om asked to have a word with one of us at one point, so Hope went, and although Hope tried to explain why we were disappointed ... Om sprung it on to us and said that we should have realised the link between human trafficking and life skills. And that although trafficking wasn't a problem in these communities, these life skills help them to avoid being trafficked .... so why would we not raise awareness about trafficking and then talk about the life skills after to empower the women as part of Women's Trafficking Prevention? It made no sense because we understand that these life skills are useful if we related them to Women's Trafficking, e.g. Increasing self esteem, being aware of their rights as women, improving public speaking helps to empower the women which in turn will help them to be less vulnerable to being targets of traffickers. However, when we are told not to teach on this as it's not an issue here, the lessons were not relative and far too westernised. It's difficult to teach women to manage their stress, when their stress is a result of work overload for example ... but something that they cannot avoid in this culture. But anyway, I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it haha - we just wish we did our own thing from the start!!

After the English lesson, we were all taking photos on the Go Pro. One lady started doing her hair as soon as the camera came out haha - she was so cute (the same lady who was dancing!).

After the lesson, We went back to the house as it was the anniversary of the death of the granddad's mother so they had lots of family and friends round to share the memories of her life. We spent all afternoon with their friends and family. As part of the culture, the granddad put dyed rice on our head and gave us 100 rupees each (its tradition to do that here!). A lot of the mothers there were interested to know about our culture, and wanted to share with us their culture. Some of the women were so funny. One woman asked to see a picture of Jonny and said she wanted to marry him haha! So many different people came round as the afternoon went on (so many children!!). At about 7 pm, we were all shattered (most likely from entertaining children for literally 6 hours haha!!).

So we went to bed straight after dinner.Read more