Real Work

The last week Marty and I have been getting stuck into some 'real work' over here in India. I have been coming to understand how hard the life of an Indian woman is! Their work is never done and it is day in, day out, as I wrote about in a previous post. So in the mornings, I've been sweating and slaving away in the kitchen attempting to learn the art of Indian cooking - everything from scratch!! So far I have learnt a capsicum dish, potato dish, and a breakfast dish called 'poha'. I have also been taught a chicken curry, but I have yet to try this out on my own - that will be the next task! Getting close to being able to cook a full meal of dal (lentils), rice, chapatti, vegetable and meat curry. Marty LOVES fresh chapatti's, especially with Vegemite. As I work away trying to roll the perfect chapatti, somehow several of them seem to disappear somewhere....

Preparing the chapattis

The finished product!

Marty on the other hand has been labouring - digging and carting bricks and sand. Ashirvad has been borrowing electricity connection from a nearby church as they are yet to connect their own electricity ('borrowing' in the true sense of the word, with permission - not the illegal 'borrowing' of electricity that happens all over India!!).

In order to get connected, a cable had to be laid under the ground for 270m from the connection further up (I'll have to take a photo of the pole for you) all the way to the hostel. They had hired labourers to come and dig the trench, then lay the cable - it has to be placed in the trench, then covered with sand to absorb the shock movement, then some bricks to protect later on should a road or anything come over the top and then finally be covered back with dirt. However, after doing part one and digging the trench, the labourers never showed up the next day, or the next - TII. 

(Sadly, we believe that as they had received part payment for the work that they had done, they had gone and gotten drunk and thus were out of action - alcoholism is a huge problem here. The poor wives and families most likely won't see any of these earnings, but it will all be spent on alcohol). 

Rain was threatening, which would have meant that the trench would have become filled and had to be dug all over again - so with the labourers nowhere to be found, the Ashirvad staff did what was necessary, and laid the cable themselves!! It was quite a site to see. Marty worked really hard and sweated it up for sure! The cable is all ready to go now, so we are just waiting for it to be properly connected....hopefully this will happen in the next few days. 

Again, an insight into life in India - in Australia, you would probably hire one company who would project manage and take care of the whole job of providing, laying and connecting the electricity. But here, there are all separate parties - Ashirvad researched and purchased the cable themselves from an electrical store, so first we had to wait for that to be delivered (waiting, waiting...). Then there is an electrician hired to advise on what needs to be done and how. Then there's the labourers hired to dig the trench and lay the cable. Then there's the electricity providers who have to come and inspect and do the legal connection. It just goes on - if one link in the chain falls, nothing happens - so difficult to move things forward here! But by God's grace, they have managed this far and we know somehow, some way the electricity will get connected. 

Getting the bricks ready

The long stretch towards the children's home

Marty and Obed

That's my man!

Sanjeev helping out

Cable, then sand, then bricks