After all our hard work this really was a kick in the tender bits. But we weren't going to give up. With only 9 days left to change KCS for a self-sustaining better, Sarah took the bulls (read: two cowering shadows of men) by the horns. Sadly I missed her rant at Gautam and Sunod - the 'management' -, but reports of Sunod's pout (sic) and humility, and of Gautam's trademark scuttle to safety suggest that the message she delivered hit the mark. Ow.
But as with everything India, for every seemingly irrecoverable plummet from the precipice, there is some miraculous bungee which sustains your love for it. Enter Sunod, cap in hand, to plead for advice as to how to run his school. You can't ask for more than that. And the very next day, yesterday, a different school. A long long way from what we'd like, but immeasurably improved from the day before, and even, wait for it, some talk of communication and planning...
So, that's school. We are trying hard. Which brings me back to India. Try they most certainly do: mostly directing effort every which way but usefully, and always far too late to be effective, but it is effort on a huge scale. You could power countries on the stuff.
My example, though, this time has no punctuality issues. I'll set the scene.
This week is the 'Pine Tree Festival', the inaugural Pedong tourism event designed to bring in foreign and non-local punters and thus generate some revenue for a place which has little more than advanced subsistence to survive on. As Sarah showed in a previous blog, once again our training ground, the town rec, has been transformed: a huge stage, PA system to waken the dead, extraordinarily unsafe funfair, stalls; everything in fact you'd expect to find at Bestival only crapper and dirtier. For five nights the entire town has been perched on the surrounding walls, teetered on top of parked jeeps, and leant from adjacent houses' balconies to enjoy the entertainment laid on: numerous musical and dramatic extravaganzas from the locality, Darjeeling and Kathmandu based performers. It's been a lovely carnival atmosphere despite Sarah and I not understanding a word of the songs or the Indian comedies which have had the crowds baying for more. That the 'Columbus' Viking boat swing didn't go sliding from its pivot down the hill along with the 'Roti-ping' (Ferris wheel) is a relief.
But here's the thing; two actually. We're told that every hotel in Pedong is booked for the next 2 months as a result. Brilliant, but to our knowledge and from the limited exploration we have conducted, there is only one hotel, and it has perhaps 4 rooms. And, now that the national 'Dussehra' holiday is over, in fact the only 'tourists' we have seen in Pedong are us. So so much effort...
But my favourite from this whole escapade, which simply captures the essence of India in one piece of glossy A4, is the new 'Pedong, the next wonderland' tourism brochure. The content, sentiment, and pictures are good. Better than many a dusty museum ad in an English Riviera B&B in fact. Until you stop reading it and look at it. On the front, a beautifully formatted trifold. On the back, two columns. One only has to wonder at the layers of bureaucratic proofing and scrutiny this pamphlet endured before going to print, and yet still...
Pictures:
A4 genius... Spot which way I folded it first!
The kids' fashion show at the 'Pine Tree Festival' in full swing. Engineers and parents alike don't look too closely at 'Columbus', or the 'Roti Ping' (oh the irony of the onomatopoeia!)... Or their proximity to each other... I suspect that they are both driven by the same engine which might explain why when 'Columbus' is silent 'Roti Ping' accelerates to hair-raising rotational speeds!
And some of class 3 after performing at the festival... Lovely
Perhaps the brochure is supposed to be rolled into a tube. Stop being so western in your assumptions
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