Escape from the Deccan

My time in Andhra Pradesh has come to an end. We spent the last few days zooming around on buses to Avanigadda and Visanapeta, finishing off work and sitting in on awareness programmes and meetings for the next public hearings. We were treated with a few visits to PSVS hostels for school dropouts: heads, shoulders, knees, toes and other variants of fun. It's strange to think of it all continuing, work which is so important for so many, yet so exasperatingly fragile.

Here is a picture of the gang of volunteers, workers, helpers and general superwomen from the Avanigadda compound. I will miss their warmth, their solidarity, their cackles of laughter at any given opportunity.



And another photo for good measure; there are million thing that I haven't had a chance to comement on in this blog, and the MJM College walk is one of them. In solidarity with a donor who is walking thousands of miles around Holland to raise money for the college, the students at MJM walked 20km a day for five days. Quite a feat in that temperature. The photo shows Wilf and Bhaskar - who works for PSVS and the college - taking a rest after a particularly sweaty day of the walk. Bhaskar really is a king among men, adored by the students and indispensable for the NGO. He is also famed for his excellent taste in fried snacks and sweets - his gifts to us were abundant!



I shall miss the Krishna District and all its charms: the arching palmyras, the lush, wet, paddies, the bedazzling heights of Vijayawada, the monkeys hanging out in Tiruvur, the activists and NGO heros who are too many to list and are left to do too much, Theresa with her infinite maternal kindness whose heart is that of a true warrior for social justice, and last but not least, the wails of the pigs outside of our small and lovely flat in Gannavaram.