Op vakantie

In februari ben ik met een groep van zestien mensen in totaal naar New York en Boston geweest. Wij vorm met zijn allen UUMUN wat staat voor University Utrecht Model United Nations. Met deze groep trainen wij het hele jaar voor 2 conferenties in Cambridge en Harvard waar wij de Verenigde Naties naspelen.

In het kader van de Model United Nations conferentie in Harvard zijn wij op bezoek geweest bij het VN hoofdgebouw in New York. Gezien het feit dat de millenniumdoelen hier zijn bedacht zal het jullie niet verbazen dat overal posters en ander materiaal met betrekking tot de millenniumdoelen hangen. Leuk om na alle research over millenniumdoelen nu eens te zien waar ze zijn bedacht en vastgelegd!

Hoi! Ik ben sinds zondag terug van een onvergetelijke reis naar Malawi die ik heb gemaakt. Voor meer informatie hierover, of voor ideeën en tips om geld op te halen voor zo'n reis, ga naar mijn Worldmapping blog! De link hiervan staat op mijn profiel.

Eva

In het tijdschrift Memory Magazine kun je nu het interview met mij lezen, in de rubriek 'Travel'! Over mijn ervaringen van vrijwilligerswerk in Kenia.

In India hebben we veelal gewerkt bij het Samugam Trust [http://www.samugam.org], een organisatie met meerdere projecten die als doel hebben om sociale en maatschappelijke problemen op te lossen in de regio van Pondicherry en Tamil Nadu. De problemen hebben vooral te maken met diegenen die het meest benadeelt zijn door de maatschappij, zoals de mensen in de laagste kassen. De oprichter en baas van de organisatie is Bruno. Met hem hebben we een interview gehouden over wat mensen in Nederland kunnen doen om zijn organisatie te steunen. Zo verteld hij kort over vrijwilligerswerk en de projecten zelf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtko4VMd1tQ

Wij werkten bij een kinderopvang voor zigeunerkindjes. Zij woonden naast een afvalberg waar zij van leefden. Hun ouders geven slechte opvoeding en leven letterlijk 'in het vuil' dus is deze opvang er voor dat de kinderen niet in het zelfde leefpatroon vallen als hun ouders. Daar naast hebben we in samenwerking met Bruno een klein projectje gedaan waarbij we spulletjes kochten voor Lepra patiënten die vastzaten in een oud verlaten ziekenhuis, verstoten door vrienden en familie.

Onderstaand is een korte documentaire die gemaakt is, waar bij je een beeld kan krijgen hoe de leefomstandigheden zijn van de zigeuners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EZrmDykNz6Y

Wil jij ook wat doen maar je weet niet hoe? Stuur ons gerust een mailtje naar koenoosterbroek@gmail.com

Het is eindelijk zover: ik heb me aangemeld voor de reis naar Malawi.

Ik kreeg vandaag een mailtje van Worldmapping. Je kon je namelijk aanmelden voor de nieuwe reizen. Ik ging als een speer naar het aanmeldformulier en vulde mijn gegevens in. Alles check-check-dubbel-check gedaan en opgestuurd.

Het is dus eindelijk al een heel klein beetje officieel: ik ga volgend jaar vrijwilligerswerk doen in Malawi. Ik kan nu al niet wachten..

We zijn al weer aan ons eind gekomen van de reis. We hebben zo gigantisch veel geleerd dat we het moeilijk in zo'n korte tijd kunnen verwerken. We hebben het gevoel dat we enorm zijn gegroeid en dat we de kinderen en de ouderen waarmee we werkten vooral veel blijdschap hebben kunnen geven.

Zie hier ons fotoverslag!

Wel vonden we dat we over het algemeen gigantisch moesten zeuren om echt aan de slag te kunnen, we werden veel te veel in de watten gelegd. Ook merkten we dat sommige project organisatoren toch wel het belang hadden bij eigen fame en fortune. Zo kwamen we in aanmerking met iemand die prachtige projecten ontwikkeld voor straatkinderen, maar die wel geld in eigen zakken steekt en vooral over zichzelf wilt praten. Helaas kom je dit soort mensen dus tegen in alle facetten van de samenleving..

We hopen dat we je goed hebben geinformeerd en we zijn ALTIJD bereikbaar voor je vragen! Heb je suggesties, opmerkingen of vragen over onze reis en rol als wereldsupporter dan kan je altijd mailen naar koenoosterbroek@gmail.com of steffie.pluimers@gmail.com!

Wij gaan door met onze rol als wereldsupporter in Nederland.. Er is nog veel te doen!

Daarom gaat de laatste vraag van de week over wat we in NL kunnen doen: Wat denk jij dat jij concreet zou kunnen betekenen voor de mensen aan de andere kant van de aardbol. Wat kan jij in Nederland doen, of wat raad jij ons aan om hier in Nederland te gaan doen wat voor concrete verandering kan zorgen?

We’re now officially halfway through our trip and we regret leaving so soon… The sun is addicting and there is still so much to see. However, we have learned a lot during our stay and some impressions and opinions have changed.. Being a celebrity because we’re white As you know we’re European, meaning we have white color of skin. And it’s weird to say it but damn right the Indians know it. Right from the start we have been treated and stared at as if we’re Reese Witherspoon and Keanu Reeves, and often we have been treated as such. People want to go on camera with us for no reason (other than posting it on Facebook with their ‘white friend’), everyone stares, people come running after us to as if we can attend their parties, we even had a whole class of schoolgirls just gaze at us for a full five minutes. Just as I’m typing this RIGHT now I can see our neighbour across the street gazing at us while hanging up her laundry.. it’s all very weird.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/DSC01661... People at the beach who stopped for a picture with us. This day we went to the beach with the kids from Samugam.

It does have benefits.. People are so friendly and helpful, it feels like we have personal assistants ready at every streetcorner. People really find excuses to talk for us for no reason. On the bus everyone want to help us reach our destination and childeren especially can’t take their eyes of us and when we wave at them become really happy, which in return gives us a smile on our faces. It has some cons as well. We get photographed when chilling on the beach, making it feel a bit awkward to be in our swimsuits. They also see us as big, fat, walking wallets. People think we’re filthy rich. As westerner wallets we face higher prices than the locals, who know what is usually charged. Ofcourse in relation to the average Indian person we are super ultra rich (we could afford this a flight ticket to India ofcourse with a lot of help from our parents and the Wereldsupporter program) but in Holland we are nothing more than poor students. Here we sometimes feel like we’re members of a Royal family. We didn’t ask for this lable of ‘superiority’ yet it is slapped across our face and we can’t take it off. I can imagine how people could get very addicted to this feeling and I personally do not see that as something good. It feels somewhat like tens/hundreds of years ago when Europeans were still in power..in fact, sometimes this whole area of India feels like that with their primitive bamboo huts (houses), clay stoves and ancient temples.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Anbalayam orphanage, our latest project We really got fed up with the latter when we came to our newest project, Anbalayam. Anbalayam is an orphanage for childeren, but also an NGO that organizes projects in relation to Global Warming awareness, HIV/Aids awareness and more. We were supposed to work there as a volunteer, just like our other project, but instead we got a fully catered tour of the organization. The bosses of the organization proudly told us everything about Anbalayam, while we were driven around town together with two very spoiled teenagers in mini skirts from London. The assistants cooked a very diverse meal for us while they themselves ate only their daily simple rice (the British girls did not eat their food….as they found it gross) and when we arrived at the orphanage one child was told to dance for us as if she had to entertain us. We decided not to focus on this project after we spent a full day in front of the computer unable to do anything on their website because of a very lazy and busy manager and painstakingly slow internet.

Prices and poverty Don’t be fooled, the average Indian person in this area, and probably throughout the country, is still very poor. A lot of people still live on the street and a lot of people lost their house during the cyclone last month. People have very good jobs when they earn an income of 450 euro’s (30000 rupee’s) a month, the amount our landlord receives as a salary for working for the University here in Pondicherry. This is considered a middle to high wage here and it’s still not enough as he has to support a wife and two kids. Wages start as low as 2 euro’s a month for cleaning ladies and we regular advertisements for jobs for 45 euro per month for office type jobs. The financial crisis and environmental crisis (strongest cyclone in decades) do not make things any better. People are begging and even childeren are begging as they tend to earn more money doing this than adults. I’ve yet to encounter anyone who says their job raises enough money to get around. Prices are a lot lower as well, as we now pay about 2 euro’s per night at out guesthouse. A bottle of coke at our favourite restaurant is 20 cent and a meal about 3 euro’s, while renting a scooter is 1,5 euro for a full day. You get the picture.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Getting chai at a local shop for 10 rupees. That’s not even 2 cents.

It’s quite strange to see this amount of poverty when there is a white community of Aurovillians next door who built a huge golden ball in the middle of nowhere in order to build ‘the perfect community’. They might have been wiser to invest it in other causes, we think. Indian customs, habits and traits. As we are living here longer, we start noticing habits, traits and customs we did not recognize before and which are definitly worth pointing out.

India equals chaos. There is no structure and they seem to like it that way. Power outages are regular as power lines are a mess, the streets are full of rubble, the traffic is complete anarchy, the busses are overcrowded with people hanging on to the outside, there is trash everywhere and there are a lot of funky smells coming from everywhere. Hygiene is not a priority here. Hands are used to eat with, but only the right hand, as the left hand is considered to be dirty because they wipe their butt with it after going to the toilet. There are not trash bins anywhere to be found and I don’t even want to know where the sewer ends up. I think people kind of ‘gave up’ on the latter when the cyclone hit and scattered rubble and trash all over the place.

As for the animals, the cows live on the streets from the garbage people leave there. As are dogs and cats who we are not allowed to touch as they have flees….but some are really cute. We have a new friend outside our house who is always extremely happy to greet us, but he might be a bit retarded as he walks funny. We give him food as Indian people are mostly eager to slap them away from their food. Cats seem to be mostly active at night and make god-aweful sounds. We also had a huge spider in our home yesterday which our neighbor told us to be venomous!!

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... We saw an elephant, and it blessed us! Part of Indian tradition of a very powerful temple.

As far as people go, we do recognize that not unlike rural parts of Holland, there is a lot of gossiping going on here. Neighbors all seem to talk about each other, and we stopped counting the times we’ve been told ‘not to tell this’ to anyone. We are kind of dissapointed by the fact that some people are not as honest as they seem and we thought them to be. Even when working for the greatest causes you can imagine (helping the most poor people in the World) we see some organizers being more concerned with their own ego instead the focusing primarily on the faith of these people. This sucks as we had hoped not to find that in this place. It seems that this is spread across all of humanity.. When working, we always have this European standard in mind. We now know we have (I don’t know if it’s good or not) adopted the ‘time is money’ mentality. When working we like to see some kind of planning, a schedule. Work should be efficient and structured and in India, well they’re not any of that. When looking at Indians at the office we can’t help but feel that they work really slow and sometimes don’t know what in Shiva’s name they’re doing. We saw a so called “accountant” move his desktop-icons on his computer for a full hour, accomplishing absolutely nothing. Maybe the European standard is extremely high but we can’t help but feel like we want to go back to that standard, just to feel fulfilled that we have accomplished a lot at the end of the day. Closing.. This morning we’ve been preparing our trip to Goa to chase some cocohuts. We’ll be leaving on Monday at noon. Our time here in Aurobeach is coming to an end, and we will really miss this place. As I’m typing this again I feel like I have missed much I could discuss, but time is precious in the East and we’re off to Pondicherry to do do some serious shopping. Until next time!

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Enjoying ourselves in Auroville’s Tea Garden.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Fisheye view of a beautiful lake near our village.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Cute gypsie kids.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... These are some of our neighbours.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Out for dinner with some fellow volunteers.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Pondicherry by night.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... We be cruisin’ on the muppet.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/DSC01641... And last but NOT least, our tiny, polluted but lovely beach .

Question of today, which we want YOU to answer: Steffie can not go to the beach in her bikini. People will take pictures of her too much. We also have had a bad experience where an Indian teenager touched the breasts of one of the older woman volunteers. Why do you think they behave this way, and what would you do to prevent or counter this behaviour?"

So it’s been a couple of days since we updated our blog but we’re just so busy being overblown with impressions, activities, ideas and pecurities that we simply couldn’t find the time to get to a post done. Even now it is an in-between because we’re dead-tired from a long and amazing day here in India. Right now Koen is laying beside me fast asleep so I’ll make it a short one.

For pictures, click the links. http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0240...

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0320...

Here is a video with the childeren we took care of. http://vimeo.com/36357774

Our house is on the first floor, above an Indian family.

http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0122...

We live in a very nice typical Indian street next to a very (very) busy road. The street still has traditional huts in it where people actually still live in, just like 50 and more years ago. Left to the hut live Senthil, Karin, Anantha (the Amaidi family who helps us) and above their place live more volunteers who we partied with yesterday.

The view from our rooftop when looking towards the ocean. The beach is where you see the palms. http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0034... http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0140...

We’re neighbours with a hindu temple, awesome! http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0148...

A panorama of our street. http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/DSC01636...

On the motorcycle is Senthil, our great help since we got here who lives next door. And below you see Senthil with his wife Karin in their office. http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/DSC01645...

Since our last post so many things have happened to us that I could write a 15 page article about it. As we said in our last post we were going to visit an orphanage. Well, plans changed and this week we went to the ‘gypsy’ community instead. Next up is the Anbalayam orphanage though. The gypsies are amazing. I can’t explain the shock that went through me when I first saw how they live there. They live along an abandoned airport and a big field full of garbage dump. They’re totally excluded from normal society and appearantly it was organised that way. See, the government actually does not want them near the city area because they are members of the lowest cast! Yep, India is still pretty traditional and old fashioned and they still live by the casting system. So the government, those good sameritans, gave them jobs and housing, which actually means they get to live in huts and tiny houses and work on the dump collecting materials like copper to sell. Now, this situation sounds pretty strange. But even stranger is that the gypsie people seem to like it that way. They live near the garbage and kind of treasure their way of life. Bathing is a word they never heard of, they proudly tell us their last time of washing themselves which can be weeks or months or more. Flies all over the place and the smell is unbearable. But they’re absolutely fine with it, it’s their way of culture. But their kids are suffering from it. Not seldom you see little kids eating sticky stuff covered with insects and with dirty skins and wounds. The gypsie life is obviously not for little kids and that’s why there is Samugam Trust, the centre we worked at this week. They ask permission from the parents to take them to a care centre where they’ll get washed and sleep and play. They can live there 24/7 if they want and their parents allow it. It’s been a very interesting week and we learned a lot about kids with difficult pasts and about the Indian culture. Photo’s of the gypsys will follow soon…! http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... Here’s us at the center with our kids and caretaker Swathi. The kids from left to right are Tamil (the smartest and brightest…she’s so sweet we would love to take her home but yeah..) Dinesh, Aurupondi, Lakhsman (who’s really into Koen) and Vinoth (who’s really into Steffie).

We also visited a ‘home’ for Leprosity patients. It’s basically an abandoned hospital where elderly people with lepra have been ‘dumped’ by their families. They are rejected by society and nobody visits them accept for 2 caretakers, sent daily by our project, Samugam. When we visited them with our new Denish friends, some of them cried because the elderly people are so lonely and nobody ever visits them except us. Some of them can’t go outside since the entrance is locked by palmtrees which were ripped out of the ground because of the cyclone that hit earlier in Januari. They are trapped. One man has been sitting in the same spot over there for over 7 years!! We are going back there on friday to do a special project…you’ll see! http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-... http://www.genesisdesigns.nl/wereldsupporter/wp-content/uploads/2012-02-...

Inside the leprosity home and Steffie doing the hair of one of the patients. The woman on the right needed eye surgery, which we paid for directly. It was only about 8 euros. Besides being flabbergasted about Indians and their habits we also made friends here. There are quite many other volunteers here (most from Denmark) and also a few Dutch. So it’s really cosy and yesterday we went to dinner together which was really nice. We also nearly lost our lifes by driving back in rikshaws, who were racing to be the first arriving. Now, the Indian traffic is really something special, not a second goes by where you didn’t almost crash into something/someone. We were winning with our very skilled and risky driver but then we ran out of gas.

We took a picture with our roomy, Maya, just before the driver filled up the tank again. The race was extremely frightening but totally worth it. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iWvNjewFCTs/TzfG6QocSkI/AAAAAAAAALM/4cBbJgtl_Q...

Today I’m meeting with my new friend Swathi and I’m gonna take her for a treat because she has already treated me so much even though she doesn’t earn shit. Jobs here are so poorly payed it’s really sad. Koen and I feel like rich bastards here. People look at us like we’re millionaires.. Here are some more pics..we have a lot more to show but we’re calling it a day! Goodnight!

Question of today, which we want YOU to answer: We have had many guys come up to us and ask to go on a picture with us. They ask this all the time. They don't even prefer to go on the picture with Steffie (who is blond and a girl!) but sometimes even only want Koen. What do you think, would you enjoy this type of behaviour, and why do you think they want to go on the pictures with us so often?

First of all, sorry for the long wait! We landed in India yesterday night and so far it has been INCREDIBLE (to say the least). We needed some time to soak up and process our first impressions and experiences before we were ready to get in front of a computerscreen. For now, there is just too much to talk about and we feel like we want to give you tons of pictures and videos so you could see it for yourself, but there is just too much to see. If only it was possible to make photographs by blinking with our eyes; every 2 seconds you see and experience something amazing. The culture, the people, the cows, the temples, the palms, the crazy traffic and rickshaws, the dogs and kids, the very poor people living on the street, the rich people, the ocean, our new friends…and then there is still sound, music and smells.. We’re in the process of getting internet for ourselves to show you photo’s, for now it’s just text. Here’s a little story from what happened when we arrived.

Arrival We landed in Chennai after 12 hours of flying. Our flight was pretty cool, with sweet modern display where we could watch Adventure Time (one of our favourite shows) and other tv’s shows and movies..not too shabby! We arrived in the middle of the night and then we got our first real culture shock. India turned out to be very hot, very hot…the type of 25-30 degrees hot. When we walked out of the airport there were hundreds of taxi drivers but we had our own waiting for us. We got into the car and couldn’t believe what we saw. The traffic was crazy and there are so many people, everywhere! We drove for 6 hours in the middle of the night to Aurobeach through lush palm forests and through small towns, while seeing crazy things on the streets.. small abandoned kids making fires, holy cows, a lot of scarey looking stray dogs barking at our car, homeless persons just sleeping and surviving in the middle of nowhere…not a pretty sight. India has a social casting (class) system and it’s still pretty visible… It’s quite difficult to encounter people begging and sleeping on the road. We feel very rich here, and we are. Our taxi driver only received 4 euro for a 6 hour work, and that’s still a wealthy position for Indian people, we gave him double his salary as a tip which made him extremely happy. We stopped at a local house for some Chai for 10 cents and went to our new house where we met our new friends.

Our place We’re sleeping in an appartment in Aurobeach at Senthil’s place, our host. He lives with his wife Kerran and his baby across the street where he has a small travel agency. We are always welcome and he has other Danish and Dutch volunteers living above him. We live above another familie’s house (friends of Senthil’s) with our new roommate Maya. We have our own kitchen and shower and roof-top-chillout/party place/awesome lounge. Senthil, Kerrin and the other Indian hosts are extremely helpful and kind in every way. Their kids are super cute as well. Senthil showed us around the first day where we toured around Auroville and Aurobeach on his motorbike with the three of us…..Steffie almost pooped her panties. It’s crazy here. Amazing nature, great beach, great shops, restaurants and markets.There was a Cyclone earlier this month ad the damage is very visible still. However,everything is still very beautiful. We have a temple next to our house and we can see the beach from our rooftop. Today we walked around in the city of Pondicherry, a French colonial city with amazing architecture, but we’ll talk about that later because that’s a whole story on itself. For now we’ll be off for some more adventures and we’ll keep you posted on them as soon as our internet is all set! The day after tomorrow we are going to work for Anbalayam, an orphanage in Pondicherry. We are also going to work for a gypsy family near the airport, who appearently live on a garbage dump…heavy stuff. Keep you posted.

Question of today, which we want YOU to answer: We have had multiple persons coming up to us already asking us for money. Even small childeren and handicapped people come up to us because in their opinion, we are the 'rich white folk' who have money to spend freely. What would you do, give?

De wereldsupporter-poster (zie ook 'in de maak') is meegegaan naar Hampi, een stadje dat Niels en ik in onze laatste week hebben bezocht. Dit is een van de grootste verzamelingen aan archeologie op de wereld, groter dan Athene (check ook; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi). De grote tempel op de achtergrond van de foto is het hart van de stad de Virupraksha Temple tower. In deze tempel woont een olifant. Niels en ik zijn voor de tempel gaan staan en hebben indiers gevraagd om met ons op de foto te gaan, eerst een en toen werd de groep steeds groter. Het is ook niet erg moeilijk om een indier over te halen om met een van ons (blanke bleekscheten) op de foto te gaan, het is vrijwel altijd andersom namelijk. We zijn ontelbaar veel benaderd door indiers met een fototoestel en de vraag of we met ze op de foto wilden en het was leuk om de rollen een keer om te draaien. We hebben genoten van de verbaasde reacties. Hier het resultaat.