Champagne in one hand...

F(Ph)enomenal Friday: Sana Mulla, Teaching Us All

Happy Friday Everyone!

This is the third part of my series of F(Ph)enomenal Friday posts about the people of Children Walking Tall kids charity in Goa.  Click on Part I and Part II for the previous articles.

If good things come in small packages, today’s F(Ph)enomenal person is, um, phenomenally good! Meet beautiful Sana Mulla, 21, 85 pounds (5 stone) of concentrated feisty!

 

Sana (ACTUAL SIZE!!!) with Maggy (volunteer) and her brother William

Sana was one of two Children Walking Tall teachers when I volunteered there last year.  The kids adored Sana and she gave all that love and more back to them.  This young, independent, self-assured, multi-lingual 21 year old female was a fabulous role model for the children, but for the girls especially.

Sana with some of the Morning School Kids

 Possibly the cutest video in the world! Days of the week practice in Morning School. 

Sana taught English, Gujurati and basic math to the 3-6 year olds (and occasional 1 and 2 year olds who tottered in for nursery rhymes!) at morning school in the Karaswada slum. 

Too young for school. Definitely not too young for a cuddle!!

In the afternoons, she helped the older kids with their homework and mucked in on the crazy, messy, sticky, glittery craft projects the volunteers organized.

While us volunteers unattractively melted in the heat and humidity of the slums, Sana floated around, cool and elegant in a rainbow cloud of sari silk! She retained that composure, whether teaching ABCs to squirming kids, or breaking up an argument or episode of domestic violence that frequently broke out just outside the Morning School classroom.  It was incredible to watch this waif-like girl fearlessly mediating fights by people literally twice her size! She would do anything to protect those kids.

Fruit time! Sana handing out sweet limes (the children are given fresh fruit every day)

Sana was born in Goa, but her family now live in Khanapur, a small village in the neighboring state of Karnataka.  Her studies began at a government primary school in Urdu medium (classes were taught in Urdu) but she moved to an English medium school (Lady of Lourdes high school) from 5^th grade.  She studied for her B.A. and went on to gain her B.Ed, then taught at a Goa high school.  Some of the girls at that high school attended Children Walking Tall and pleaded with Rob to recruit her.  She started at CWT in Feb 2010. 

Watching her dedication to the kids, I already recognized that Sana was a phenomenal person. As I learnt more about her and her background, my admiration for her grew immensely. Despite being old enough to be her mother (yikes, her mum is 2 years younger than me!!), Sana and I became great friends and she invited me to visit her family.  I am unable to adequately express to you what an extraordinary honor that was. Some of my most incredible travel experiences and insights into foreign culture have been when I have been privileged to stay with locals.  My memories from that trip and the feelings of warmth and love will stay with me always. 

It took 5 hours and a couple of very jerky buses through the mountains to get to Khanapur.  I dressed modestly as Sana’s family are devout Muslims, but I received a red carpet welcome by what seemed like the entire village!

Looking at me, looking at you.  Checking out the stranger in the village!

Some had never seen a ‘foreigner’ (white girl!) in the flesh before! They were fascinated!!  I was proudly paraded around the village and visited many families who rushed to bring me sweet, sticky, heavenly chai tea and Indian snacks (seriously, I was floating in that sugary, spicy goodness!).  It was obvious that the villagers were of very modest means, but they showered me with generous hospitality and warmth. 

Our house, in the middle of the street

Most of the villagers spoke little or no English.  However, language provided little barrier for our communication – human kind in the truest sense of the word, is displayed by touch, gesture, smile and laughter.

Whilst on a walking tour of the village Sana’s friends drove by and insisted on driving us to some local beauty spots. On the way, they suddenly stopped and one of the boys mysteriously hopped out and disappeared into a shop.  He came back with chocolate for all of us!

A local beauty spot

Khanapur's local market

How spicy would you like that curry?

Name that vegetable!!!

A local street scene (check out the camera-shy chicken!)

 

The food I ate over the weekend was wonderful!  Sana’s mum made endless flavorsome curries and chapatis, and worried that I hadn’t had enough to eat! Her uncle and aunt begged that we return to their house on Sunday night and made a huge beef biryani feast!  We all sat on the floor together to eat. It was fabulous!

Not good for the ego - I really was twice the size of everyone!

In a quiet moment, Sana showed me some of the dry food that her mum prepared during good times so that if ever food was in short supply, she could still feed her sons. Despite this, the night before I left, Sana’s mum shyly presented me with a sari.  I was so moved by the generous gesture. 

Me and Sana's lovely mum.  Do I look big in this??? (I felt like Gulliver in Lilliput!)

Sana’s dad is around my age (40 – although when Sana’s family guessed that I was 18, I almost picked up sticks and moved to Khanapur and married her brother;-) ).  Sana’s dad is a highly intelligent man with a kind face and dancing eyes. His English is excellent. He adored learning and was immensely proud of his daughter.  The loving bond between them was obvious.  Sana told me that he had to leave school when he was very young in order to earn money for the wedding dowries of his 3 sisters.  Can you imagine being in a similar situation?  Her dad ran a wedding lighting and decoration company (Christmas lights in California have nothing on the lights at Indian weddings!!!) but he suffers from very ill health (from dry gangrene) and so relies on his son to do this now.

Sana and her amazing dad.  I so hope I get back to chat to him again.

The family house was multigenerational.  Grandparents, sons, daughters, wives, nephews, nieces, cousins and grandchildren lived together.  Infants to elderly slept side-by-side on the floor in the front room – the family bond was like nothing I have ever seen.  I felt so privileged to witness it.

Sana's highly respected Grandparents

One of the youngest.  The gorgeous Mohan.....I soooooooooooo nearly nicked him!!

I watched the women prepare food together. They chatted, laughed and sang together.

 

 

Sana’s grandmother was a skillful chapati-maker!

Singing was something that brought me closer to the local girls.  Dressed in modest Muslim clothing (generally salwar kameez with headscarves), the little girls, at first shyly, moved closer to me, to take a look at this strange intruder to their village.  Sana and I decided to teach them a few of the English nursery rhymes we taught the 3-6 year olds in morning school.  We attracted quite the multi-generational audience as we worked our way through the classics (Kumar the camel, 5 little ducks, walking through the jungle, 5 little monkeys, twinkle twinkle little star, down in the forest, London bridge is falling down) all with ACTIONS!! Never blessed with a great voice, my 4 months in India with kids made me belt out the songs with little self-conscience anyway!!  The girls lapped it up.  We had a rollicking sing-song (they learnt the English words so fast!!) and the fun and laughter just filled me with joy and made me realize how incredibly fortunate I was to be able to have this experience.

Going to the bathroom was quite the adventure.  Having spent most of the year hovering over holes in the ground, this did not phase me.  However, I have to say that the time I was asked, in front of the entire family if I wanted ‘a number 1 or number 2?’ and then was earnestly paraded down the street accompanied by Sana and her cousins to a house with an interior toilet, was one of the more cringeworthy/giggleworthy moments of that trip!! 

The memories of the weekend trip to Khanapur will stay with me always. To see the modest background from which Sana comes, makes it even more F(Ph)enomenal to me that she has achieved so much in her short life.  She constantly worries about being able to support her family (she is the major breadwinner in the family), particularly with her dad’s ill health. I know how much she adores her family and hates being even 5 hours away from them, but she would do anything (including changing career) if she thought it would help her family.  Sana may be little, but she makes a colossal impact on a lot of lives, including mine. I hope she gets all the opportunities she deserves.

Next week: the real stars of CWT – the KIDS!!!

F(Ph)enomenal Friday: Be The Change You Want To See In The World - Rob Lyon

This is part II of a series of F(Ph)enomenal Friday posts about the people of Children Walking Tall.  For part I, click here.

And today, I welcome you to.....

“Who Wants To Be A (rupee) Millionaire” (cue loud audience applause)

For 1000 rupees: Have you even seen or read about an injustice or disaster and thought “I’m going to do something about this?  I can do something to make this better”?

Come on. Hands up…. high in the air….that’s it, right up. Yep, lots of you and I’m very glad to see it.

 
For 10,000 rupees: Have you ever followed that thought by donating money to charity?  Done a sponsored bike ride/swim/run/Harry Potter reading marathon?  Keep your hands up….come on Hilary, Karen, raise them high.  Do you sponsor a child in a 3^rd World country? Have you ever written a letter to a politician or stood up in a meeting and declared your desire to right an injustice? Yep, keep them up – Fantastic!! Many hands still in the air.

 

For 100,000 rupees: Have you ever been so moved/incensed that you have decided to up sticks, leave a career, move to another country, battle with (often corrupt) officials who constantly question your motives and set up your own charity, to make absolutely sure that you can make a difference?

No one? All hands down?  You can ‘Call a Friend’……

Hang on….I see someone….weaving in and out of Goa traffic (worthy of a blog post all of its own) at breakneck speed, on a Bajaj Pulsar 220, dodging sacred cows (ugh, apart from that one ;-) and skidding into the hall with both hands aloft!!!!  
Meet Rob Lyon, founder of Children Walking Tall! 

 
Hang on though….not too fast….there’s one final round….for 1 million rupees….

Is there anyone here with the patience of Job, who has his motives for running a children’s charity in India constantly questioned, is at the mercy of a landlord who can (and did) double the rent of the charity headquarters? Anyone who, when the license for having a ‘childcare facility’ ran out, refused to pay the um, “fees” (bribes) to unscrupulous officials because he was determined to spend that money on the KIDS, endured multiple hostile “inspections” and decided that with no license to have children at Mango House, he would take Mango House to the kids…..into the slums…. for two years and counting? Anyone that has done all that and:

 
Yep, we still have one man standing.  Congratulations Sir.  You (deserve to be) are a (rupee) MILLIONAIRE!!!!  Give the man a Honeybee and Coke!!

 
Rob Lyon, having some rare downtime!

Add a few ‘Dudes!!’ to Rob’s vocabulary and a skateboard (or maybe, more fittingly – rollerblades – he used to be a wicked rollerskater) to his feet and Rob; dark hair, glasses, 5 o’ clock shadow, laid back almost to the point of falling over, would blend into a southern California surfer town.  His tenacity however, has taken him on a completely different path. His dedication to > 100 slum kids is palpable.  His life is the kids.  Like a dedicated father, he works non-stop to give them the very best. That laidback trait of his has served him well also….during eternal interactions with Indian burocracy.  Curiously, said laidback trait completely disappears when on aforementioned bike ;-)!

8 years ago, Rob, a (then 30 year old) computer programmer traveled to India with his then-girlfriend to volunteer at a kid’s charity in Goa for 8 months.  When he returned to England, he couldn’t stop thinking about the kids and how he might do things a bit differently (and better).  Friends and family encouraged him and not too long later, Rob was back in Goa.  He founded Children Walking Tall “A UK Charity Helping Children In India To Have a Childhood Worth Remembering” in 2004.  Rob wanted the charity to have a base, somewhere kids from slums near Mapusa, Goa, could come, learn, wash, eat, receive basic medical treatment and most importantly PLAY in safety.  The Mango House looked like the perfect place!  What do you think?

  FOR RENT:  Charming Portuguese-style house, large gardens, a dream home for the DIY enthusiast. (Reproduced with permission from the Children Walking Tall Website)

Rob however saw the potential, and with determination, and volunteer support the dilapidated wreck was transformed into this!

Build it and they will come…..Reproduced with permission from the Children Walking Tall website

The Mango House kitchen - BEFORE:

mmmm, 5 second rule does not apply

and AFTER:

you could eat off the floor!! (not advised by author!!). Reproduced with permission from Children Walking Tall website

 The Hallway BEFORE:

Reproduced with permission from Children Walking Tall website

and after:

Fun times with Goofy, Tigger, Pooh and Dumbo! Reproduced with permission from Children Walking Tall website

And come they did.  Around 50 kids from 2 local slums came to the house 5 days a week for morning school, afterschool, showers, play, sewing classes, crafts, meals and basic first aid (every kid LOVES a “puttee” (bandaid)!).  As Mango House’s childcare license was nearing expiration, positive inspections were thought to guarantee a seamless renewal……Two years later, at a burocratic crawl ungreased by backhanders, Rob still doesn't have a renewed license in his hands. With bittersweet irony, since the license has lapsed and Rob et al. have been forced to take CWT into the slums, the charity has been able to help many more kids (well over 100) but with less structure and stability (slums are often transient locales).  CWT may also have the world’s only slum savings bank for kids (with an interest rate to make you envious!).

Taking Mango House to the slums. Aly (AKA "Sir") helping with homework at the schoolroom at Karaswada slum.

We're gonna have to put the school fees up for this classroom!!  a BEFORE photo!!

Song time at the, em, "outdoor classroom" at Crossroads slum

Rob and the staff at CWT still labor to get the kids (usually from out-of-State and lacking necessary paperwork) into school.  Savita and Heena at Mango House sew their uniforms.  Rob rushes them to hospital in emergencies (severe cuts, burns, abuse and infections are rampant in a slum environment) and the charity pays for all the kids’ medical bills.  CWT organizes day trips to the beach, the circus, for a boat ride, pedalos, a train ride, to the aquarium….heck even the bus rides to get to where we were going were adventures (and some of my happiest memories).

"Has it all gone in?"  Sunblocktasticness on a beach trip

Rob and Saroja (CWT's cook) on a pedalo ride at Mayam Lake

Make it go faster!!!!! Fun at the Children's park (open from 4pm only!)

At the park near the slums.  What do you MEAN it's broken?  Push me, push me!! Thank God for Tetanus Vaccinations!

Rob LOVES those kids.  And they love him.  Go anywhere around town with him (eeeek! Perched on the back of the Bajaj Pulsar 220) and you will pass lots of beaming faces, frantic waves and ‘ROOOOOOBBBBBBBBBB’ s.  The man is mobbed like a rockstar when he arrives in the slums!  and it’s all that love, that keeps him doing it.  Let’s face it, how many of us get to witness on a daily basis, how much good our work is doing?  I mean really doing?  In a "be the change you want in the world" type way?

Rob’s future hopes for the charity are simple:

“…to keep helping slum and street children by providing them with a chance of a loving and fun childhood. I will try to get them off the streets, into school, get them fed, improve their health etc.”

I hope he keeps on keeping on.

If you are interested in volunteering, riding on the back of that motorbike or just finding out more about CWT, click on the cute little animated icon in the top right hand corner of my blog!  While you are there you could subscribe to my blog and start getting email notifications when I post ;-)

More about the people of Children Walking Tall next Friday!

Have a fantastic JULY 4^TH WEEKEND!!!!

 

 

F(Ph)enomenal Friday: Helping Children to Walk Tall

One thing I love about this blog is that I can make the rules, then bend and break them all!  Perhaps it is a reaction to all the controlled GLP (Good Laboratory Practice), GPP (Good Publication Practice), GCP (Good Clinical Practice) and GDAISNAIDP (Good Do As I Say, Not As I Do Practice) to which I adhered during my biotech career. Here, I can write what I want, when I want and people can choose to read or not to read (although I hope they choose to read – by the way do you realize that my page views spike when I mention nudity or bikinis in the titles to my posts?!!).

 
Sex sells! Cheap tricks for blog hits Dr Smelt, cheap tricks!.

So, back to bending and breaking rules.  A HUGE part of my life last year and in fact a HUGE part of my life, my life, was the 4 months I spent volunteering at Children Walking Tall in Goa, India.  Four blissful, messy, scratchy-eyed (I got the WORST conjunctivitis), soggy (monsoon and humidity suck!),  mosquito-bitten, musti, cuddly, glitter-covered, crazy moped riding, curry eating, life-lesson learning, tumbling, swirling, twirling, sari-wearing, come look my shop-tastic, honeybee and coke-ness months!

Feeling hot hot hot!! Pink eye SUCKS!

 
Ah! That's more like it! (thanks to mum's amazing electronic scrapbooking skills!)

But how was I going to write about CWT, a place crawling with F(Ph)enomenal people, in a single attention-maintaining blog post? I pondered, I worried, I resorted to math (of sorts) and decided to bend my own rules.

Using the blogging equation:

If # of inspirational people/m² (A) > 4 paragraphs + 6 photos (B) then # blog posts = (A x B)^sara

I calculated that I needed >1 Ph(F)enomenal Friday to describe all the inspirational people I met at CWT.

And so it will be!

The obvious F(Ph)enomenal person to write about here is Rob Lyon, the 37 (is it Rob? ;-) year old English founder of Children Walking Tall, who went to India to volunteer with slum kids for 8 months, 8 years ago and who only briefly left (before returning to establish his own charity that did things a lot better). And I will write about him.

Curry time!! Rob 'my superhero outfit is at the dry cleaners' Lyon chilling with Heena (sewing teacher at CWT) and the vols.

But CWT has many other F(Ph)enomenal people who inspired me in different ways. Of course, the stars of my very own Slumdog Millionaire (± a millionaire) are the KIDS!!!!! The incredible kids! Living and thriving in 2 slums in Goa. Laughing, loving, playing, caring, surviving, rag-picking, making soooooo much mess with glue and glitter! Tiny humans with enormous personalities.

Possibly the cutest BFFs ever!!

Musti (naughty) but nice (like, "Can i put him in my handluggage and take him home?" adorable!)!!

The support cast isn’t too shabby either. In the next few weeks I’ll introduce you to many of the dedicated and talented staff who keep the kids fed, safe, healthy, educated, clothed and entertained.

And of course there’s the volunteers! – a motley crew of ordinary people like you and me (hey, I was one!) with widely varying ages, nationalities, backgrounds and reasons for volunteering.

Anne on a face-painting day.

Brave Katie being dollied up by over-enthusiastic make-up artists!

Some of the kids’ parents also make a ‘special appearance’ – often redefining “Ph(F)enomenal”(!) but their stories are eye-opening nonetheless.

I hope you will feel inspired as you come to know and respect these people. Who knows, maybe one of you will decide to volunteer at Children Walking Tall!!!! That would be amazing! What a F(Ph)enomenal experience you will have – one that will change your life (and the kids’) in a good way, forever.

But enough for now. I crossed blog attention threshold a couple of paragraphs back! I’ll just begin with a few facts about Children Walking Tall and a promise to tell you more about it's people next friday.

• Children Walking Tall was established in 2004 in Goa, India
• It is a registered UK charity dedicated to helping slum and street children in India
• It is headquartered in a beautiful Portuguese house called ‘Mango House’ with outreach to 2 slums near Mapusa in Goa.
• It provides food, shelter, medical care and education for over 100 children (and sometimes their parents!)
• Balanced meals containing a protein (chicken, egg, fish etc) and white rice are given to the children 5 days/week. Fresh fruit is distributed daily also.
• CWT aims to give the children something most have never had before: a childhood worth remembering with LOTS of play and day trips.
• CWT relies on volunteers who can come to Goa for a minimum of 3 months.
• Volunteers work at Mango House and in the slums, as teaching assistants, Craft Masters and Gate Keeper of all things glitter related!
• Honeybee brandy is approximately $2 a bottle in Goa. Gin is just under $3 :-)
• Volunteering at CWT is likely to be the most incredible, memorable, life-changing activity you will ever do.

The Mango House. Headquarters of Children Walking Tall

If you are interested in reading more about CWT, just look up at the top of my blog…..up…up….further up…on the right….I can’t point!!  And click on the cute animated icon.

Come back next week to meet some of CWT's characters!

Have a fantastic weekend!

 

 

F(Ph)enomenal Friday: Hilary and The Egg Lady

 Two Fridays ago I introduced you to Kat O' Sullivan, a lady who for me, embodies the spirit of “Living Life in Color” and blazing her own trail.  I’m meeting a lot of people like her lately and so I’ve decided to write about them, every Friday from now on, til forever…or for a few weeks at least…until I decide I won’t anymore! So, what to call this series?  Every blog post needs a title.  Hmmm, something beginning with F to go with Friday?  Motivational Monday or Stirring Saturday would be so much easier! F??? F is tough. Motivational synonyms beginning with F are completely absent from the thesaurus! Could I employ a silent F?  (F)Inspirational Friday!! Hmmm, that’s maybe bending the rules a little too far.  What about F(Ph)enomenal Friday – yes!  Gotta love fəˈnɛtɪks and the people I write about are all pretty             F(Ph)enomenal! Huraah!

I don’t intend to go out and seek these inspirational people, but rather, have them (figuratively ;-)) land in my lap. Inspirational people are all around.  They stumble (or in this case, cycle) into our lives serendipitously.  Meet Hilary Howard, 2500+ cyclists, 600+ support volunteers and a fabulously curious, slightly eccentric, but truly inspirational phenomenon – “The Chicken Lady.”

From June 5^th to June 11^th, Hilary, "The Chicken Lady" and 2500+ of their lycra-clad buddies chose to participate in the 2011 AIDS/LifeCycle and ride 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money and awareness for HIV and AIDS research, support and education.

Half Way Hilary

Hilary alone raised an incredible $5,328 in sponsorship. Altogether, a record breaking $13 million was raised by people who just wanted to help people.

Hilary told me she “rode every one of the 545 miles…..and had an amazing experience both physically and more especially, emotionally….meeting some inspirational folks along the way. There is nothing like hours on your bike to give you chance to think about life and the importance of taking care of one another. It is infrequent that one gets the sense of making a difference and being able to witness it too…..”.

Day 5 of the ride is customarily “Red Dress” day:

Hilary with a bevvy of beauties!! Believe it or not, the cute polka dot swimsuits are from Target!! 

“Red Dress day came to be because on part of the route that day you can look back and see a ribbon of red (2500+ riders) along the road”.

 

What a moving (groan!) visual that must have created.

“There is a famous character on the ride “The Chicken Lady” and the last day an egg was put on the saddle of all the riders…..” Inside Hilary’s egg was a lifesaver candy and a note which read;

“Life is too short to wake up with regrets

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Applaud yourself”

When I heard that story and read (and reread) that superb quote, I got tingles down my spine.  What a simple, hugely poignant and uniting gesture “The Egg Lady” makes each year. Take a second right now to imagine 2500+ people discovering the eggs on their saddles.  Now you will automatically visualize that huge mass of people smiling, experiencing a huge rush of love/joy/wellbeing and starting the ride that day with a renewed spirit and spring in their step pedals!

Hilary and “The Egg Lady” rock!

 Meet Ken "The Chicken Lady" Thompson (you thought it was gonna be a woman didn't you?!!)

Should you feel moved to support Hilary and the other 2500 riders in their mission to rid the world of this devastating pandemic, click here to go to her fundraising website. 

To find out how you can peddle your great big heart out in the AIDS/LifeCycle 2012 (June 3rd to 9th) click here.

Have a fabulous weekend!