Tuesday 7 May 2013
Drugs and shopping
Tuesday 7th May
Hi all, today we didn't have much to do as the electricity was off again till 4pm. It's so frustrating. I found a vacuum cleaner in a cupboard in the lunch room which would be really useful to remove the dust from the thin carpets in the dormitories. At the moment the children use the traditional bunch of twigs and grass to sweep the carpets but all that does is make a cloud of dust although eventually you get a small pile. However with no electricity, we can't see if it works. Toilet update - bit smelly so we left some bleach and toilet duck outside the staff loo as a hint. Don't mind cleaning for the children but am blowed if I will clean for the adults who are more than capable and with no electricity, have plenty of time on their hands. I think with the caste system, the admin staff feel it is a job they should not do and leave it to the lower order.
So, I made a list of the drugs in the cabinet and will google those that Barbara doesn't recognise. Tomorrow I am going to draw the tubes of cream and illustrate their uses. No I am not going for another entry for the Turner Prize (I am confident that my installation of "Temples through cables' is in with a chance, No it's because Naina, the didi, can't read English at all and she is the one who usually administers first aid for minor injuries and sometimes picks up the wrong cream etc.
There is a young girl working here, and I use the term working very loosely, at the orphanage who comes in when she feels like it, Facebooks all the time, hangs about the clinic when we are trying to get on, interrupts when you are having a conversation with someone else - in other words, a complete pain. When the committee members come in, she giggles and wiggles and pouts. The only thing I have seen her do in three and a half weeks is write a cheque, answer the phone and run an errand to buy some scissors. Her job is to do the accounts, allegedly. Today we found out that she is related to one of the committee members. Nepotism? What upsets me is that we have learned that she passes unfounded rumours around and smacks the little ones sometimes because she says she just feels like it. Teenage Nazism? It is strange that a teenager can be employed to do so little work when the orphanage is in desperate need of a cleaner.
The other side of the coin is a photo I sneaked of Naina with the two babies having forty winks in the heat. She totally deserves it as she does almost all the menial tasks. She does huge amounts of washing by hand every day, helps with the kitchen work and shopping, feeds the babies, looks after them and entertains them, loves them and when anything else needs doing, oh the didi can do that. Did I tell you that didi means sister? So like a close family member.
Having done as much as we could and spent some time with the little ones, we clocked off early. We had a fab time touring the cashmere shops, cheap jewellery shops, carpet and wall hanging shops and even a genuine hippy shop with incense, flower garlands, sandals etc etc called Trance Trip. Would love to buy a kurta as there are so many here, made of ultra fine cotton lawn, embroidered beautifully by hand but I wouldn't wear it back home, so best to buy more suitable
George Harrison song, "Hari Krishna" is playing. How appropriate.
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