Settling in

Right, the new schedule works wonders. It’s amazing what a little extra sleep can give you. We tried it for a week, and, although we’re still knackered, it’s a lot better. This week was intense though. Last Saturday we slept in till two pm, causing the AC to burn out, and that still hasn’t been fully fixed. The list of broken things in our flat is slowly building up. But luckily it’s nothing that’s too drastic. The AC is probably the biggest thing. I feel kinda bad for saying that because people living just a stone’s throw away from us don’t even have food to eat and we’re complaining about the AC, so I’m trying to forget the fact that things break.
Anyway, last weekend, hence the sleep-in, was very restful; the absolute opposite of this weekend. The week worked out very well. One thing I’ve found out is over here people like to do things on a whim. Like Tuesday night for example. After getting up at 5:30 we went to football (soccer) practice, came home, slept for like an hour, then had lunch and came to the office. There were people visiting the office from Oasis Bangalore, and as we were leaving the office at 5 ish everyone decided they would go bowling. We all went along and ended up staying up until about one (after buying Pizza Hut out of business). That was fine for me and Tom who had to be at the office at 9 but Laurie had to pull the 5:30 card. I felt a little sorry, but it fun to just hang out with a ton of people. The rest of the week was pretty normal. And when I say normal I mean the usual death-defying auto drivers, skin-frying heat, sweat-pulling humidity, and all round craziness of the Indian lifestyle. I love it. Thursday we had a games night at the local church we were at. The church is held at the Sparky’s restaurant I was on about and the owner, Thom (the guy American I talked about before. I spelt his name wrong before, sorry) held the games night at his house. His house is amazing. It’s like a bachelor’s palace. That was pretty cool. We got to meet a few new people and the food was AMAZING. We stayed till like 11 playing Beatles Rock Band. Good stuff. Then came the weekend.
On Saturday we woke up at 5:30 again to go to a football (soccer) tournament. The youth group we were going to invited us to join the team. The first game was gonna be the first time we played as a team, and also the first time some of us met. It was a knock out competition and we ended up coming fourth out of 19, which was pretty cool, seen as the majority of us weren’t expecting to get anywhere. The fourth place was 2,500 rupees for the team, which is about 35 pounds (about 20 dollars). Turns out we make a pretty good team. By the end of Saturday we were exhausted because me and Tom went straight to the church office to practice for Sunday because we were asked to play for the service. We ended up getting home about 7 ish after chasing Laurie down because he had the keys and had own little adventure. But we got back safe in the end. Sunday was pretty busy too. We managed to catch the Man United Liverpool game in the evening, and that was probably the first full football (soccer) game I watched since France should’ve beaten Italy in the 2006 World Cup final. It was pretty cool to be back in front of God’s game.
On Monday there was a birthday party that again lasted till about one in the morning. It seems lat nights are gonna be a theme for me, cause tonight’s gonna be one too. There’s a poker night at Thom’s house.
But that’s enough about social antics. The real reason why I’m here, is, as you probably know, to help people. That’s going really good as well. We’re running a music class, English class, and games sessions after school. We’re also gonna start teaching the staff of Oasis English and some girls that work in a company called Jacob’s Well. We’ll also hold after-school sports sessions in the school where we work. And, as before, we are still helping coach football (soccer). All in all we’re having a blast while doing probably the most good I’ve ever done.

My first blog

Hey! First off, the story of the title. Some of you might get it, some of you won't. I used to live in India, and my parents were heavily involved with working with the poor and people infected with HIV/AIDS and such, hence the "Potter vs. India" and there's been a 9 year gap from that until now, hence the "round II."

Anyway, I've almost been here for two weeks now, and it's intense. There are three of us on the team. Me, Laurie, and Tom. I'm the youngest, which is a weird change, but it's not bad. Laurie's about 3 months older than me, and Tom is 4 years older. Me and Tom got here at 4 in the morning on tuesday the 6th of October. We went straight to the YWCA to sleep for a night (and half a day) and then we met Laurie at the airport and all went to the YMCA. Then came orientation. Orientation consisted of 3 days packed full of sessions on the poor, teaching english, youth, sports, church, and culture. I learnt so much. To end the orientation they sent us out on an 'Amazing Race' type adventure where we were given exactly the right amount of money for certain tasks that involves us going all over Chennai (the city where we're working). That was crazy in itself. But (being the really awesome people we are) we managed to complete all the tasks still having money left over at the end. We travelled in four auto rickshaws and one bus. The bus was crazy. I ended up jumping on while it was moving and almost left Tom and Laurie at the bus stop. My life flashed before my eyes (all 18 years). For all those who know what a Mumbai train is like, the bus was like the road equivalent to that.... to a degree. For those of you don't know what the Mumbai trains are like, google it or something. You'll love it.

We moved to the flat on the Friday of that week. It's where we're going to stay until march 15th, the day we leave. The flat's perfect for us. If it was in England and America it would probably sell for like 175 pounds (about $100) a month. But over here it looks like a mansion compared to some of the living arrangements that people less than a stone throw away from us have. We have a lady who comes and cooks lunch and dinner for us every weekday, and that's such a blessing. Her name's Shanti, and seems really cool. We only met her once because we're out working all the times when she comes in, but apparently she's really "good at english, and quite shy but likes a good chat," according to a member of the previous team that came down during the summer.

Over the weekend we found a restaurant called Sparky's. Founded by a really cool Californian named Tom when he moved here 15 years ago, it's the perfect place to go if we're overwhelmed or anything. The most expensive thing on the menu is probably about a couple of pounds (3ish dollars), and it's worth about 3 times that much. We'll probably end up going there every weekend.

This past week has been insane. We were offered marijuana and hasheesh by a rickshaw driver, we fit 6 people in a rickshaw, attempted 4 adults on a motorbike, and almost being blown apart by firecrackers. The first half of the weekend we were in the office by 9am and finally home by about 8pm. We started holding after-school programmes for the kids in a community near us, and also for pre-school kids around Chennai. The kids are insane. They love to scream. By 'they' i mean the boys. The girls so far have been superbly well-behaved. For the second half of the week we started waking up at 5 30am to go to football (soccer) practice, and still ended at about 8pm. We had breaks in the middle for lunch and stuff but by thursday we were knackered. But (before my parents start freaking out about me being over-worked) we did manage to re-work the schedule so that it seems so much more workable.