I am now back to "civilisation" after spending the last few weeks working on a project in a village in Uttar Pradesh. I had fogotten just how different city India and rural India are until I stepped out of the YMCA this morning to be confronted by small children and lepers begging for a few rupees. I still find that aspect of India hard to deal with even after 6 weeks or so here.

I am not sure how to begin describing the project or my experiences of the last few weeks or if I will be able to do it justice, but I will give it a shot.

The project is essentially the result of the determination and vision of a fairly inspirational (and Ghandi-like in my opinion!) character, Mukhat Singh. Mukhat was born in the poor village of Amarpurkashi and was one of the few who managed to get out and get to England to be educated. He studied and worked in England for several years, but ultimately decided to return to Amarpurkashi to live. When he returned, he was shocked by the ongoing poverty and lack of progress in the area. As such, he decided he wanted to put his skills and education to some use in an effort to improve the standards of living in his village.

After much deliberation and overcoming numerious obstacles, Mukhat managed to raise some funds to start a small school as he realised one of the main problems in the village was lack of confidence amongst the villagers in their ability to improve themselves or their situation. Ultimately, Mukhat realised that this lack of confidence came down to lack of education. He wanted this school to focus on agricultural techniques and other subjects which could be put to direct practical use by the village people. The standard of schooling in India generally is very poor, particularly in government-run schools, so Mukhat's aim was to provide the option of a better standard of education within the village. Over the last 30 years, the school has grown to comprise a primary school, an inter-colledge (i.e. high school) and degree collegem which specialises in rural resource management and education courses.

Having said this, funds are still short in such a poor area, so whilst the classrooms are brick built (which is a vast improvement on previous years), the classrooms are still very dark and often windowless, with little or no means of visual stimulation for the children. The methods of teaching in India are still very archaic and 5 or 6 year olds can often be found in dark classrooms, chanting parrot-like after the teacher, but retaining little or nothing of what they are being taught. Whilst the standards of living have improved to some extent over the last 30 years in this area with most families now having enough food, animals and humans still live together in close quarters, children can be seen roaming around with no more than rags on them and no shoes and any form of sewage system is non existent (which was fairly unpleasant as you can imagine).

The system of "project visitors" from all over the world staying at the school in Amarpurkashi has existed for many years. Whilst the visitor makes a small donation which is put towards improving the facilities for the villagers, the idea is that the visitor will contribute in whatever way they can during their stay, and in turn they will get a fairly unique insight to Indian culture and rural life. Including myself, there were 8 visitors to the project in February, the ages ranging from school leavers to two ladies in their late fifties.

We worked with the degree college students on their conversational English, to help them with interviews and other work related matters. We also worked in the primary school attempting to teach the younger children basic English using more engaging techniques like pictures and songs. Having said this, the lack of Hindi on my part often made the communication with the children fairly comical and many lessons almost turned into a "charades-esque" challenge. Thankfully the children were unbelievably well behaved in comparison to western children, so at least that is one positive thing about the Indian education system! Our group also spent some time painting a "cross cultural" mural on one of the classroom walls to add some interest to at least one of the bare rooms. I made sure that a Scottish man was included in the mural, wearing a kilt of course and with Nessie in the background. Ofcourse, none of them had a clue why this man was wearing a skirt and why there was a "snake" in the background.....I educated a select few who will hopefully spread the word !

In return for our contribution we got not only a fascinating insight into village life and encounters with many interesting people, but Hindi lessons, yoga classes every morning, and discussions with Mukhat on everything from arranged marriages and the status of women in Indian society, to Hinduism and meditation, to sustainable rural development. The living conditions for us were very basic, but not at all as bad as I thought they might have been. Our daily shower involved water from the hand pump, a bucket and jug and not much else. The toilets were true Indian style holes in the ground with a jug and a tap and absolutely NO loo roll allowed. This was an interesting experience as you can imagine - made even more interesting by trying to deal with the Indian clothes (including mandatory scarf, to cover your boobs ofcourse) which always seemed to be magnetically attracted to the hole in the ground. And as the weather got increasingly hotter, the stray dogs and monkeys got increasingly madder so on any mid-night excursion to the toilet (outside), a big stick was an essential item! There were a few near bed-wetting incidents because project workers were too scared to make the trip to the loo in the dark. We were kept well fed with porridge in the morning and two basic, but tasty, vegetarian meals for lunch and dinner. With the vegetarian food, strictly no alcohol rules and daily yoga - it felt a bit like a health farm for mind and body at times !

I was lucky to be with a lovely group of visitors. We all got on well which made a huge difference and became friendly with many of the local people who would keep us right if we were "doing the wrong thing" (in Indian culture-terms) and some of the local girls even painted our hands with henna in traditional style. I am very glad that I went to the project and met so many fascinating people and learned so much - I had a bit of a lump in my throat when everyone waved me off yesterday. Having said this, I felt like I had been there long enough and it was time to move on.

Maz arrives tomorrow morning, which I am really looking forward to, and we will do some travelling around together before I head home. I will be back in Edinburgh around the 26th March and will look forward to catching up with everyone after that and hearing all your news - you'll need to help me ease back into normality ! If I don't get the chance to write again before I head home, then take care in the meantime, and I'll hopefully see most of you in the next few weeks (it feels very odd to be saying that!).

Gill xx