Welcome back to the 2nd chapter of the trilogy: Chinese Singaporean in Indian India. In this episode, I will discourse on my stay in Kuruchi village and my experience in the construction of the pre-school.
Fast forward to the destination, there was PANDEMONIUM when we arrived at the village, the entire village population must have been there. Drums, flowers, dancers, noisy kids, pokey adults, you name it, they had it! It was quite a pleasant surprise. After all the protocols and mumb jumbo we arrived at our lodging place which were school classrooms. The classrooms were dusty and spartan but it was nonetheless much better than I had expected. I was prepared to stay in a mud house with straw roofs so I was more than relieved that we were going to have proper shelter for the week. I picked a cosy corner of the room, furthest away from the window so that the bugs are the most unlikely to reach me but my precaution would be useless as I would soon find out.
The construction of the pre-school was quite tedious because we have to shift sand and bricks with insufficient and backward equipment. By backward, I mean hoes, metal plates and sacks so it was pretty much inefficient. Basically we were transporting materials to and froth without anything with a wheel. However, we got the job done which was pretty cool.
The most horrible aspect of this expedition is not the dung-laced roads, not the dirty environment, not the horrible and rude service at the restaurants but THE INDIAN KIDS. And I say 'the' as in 'DA Indian kids'. They were terribly irritating because they will ask for your name and your parents' and your siblings and I suspect everyone else in your family and beyond. The juicy part is that they do it on a daily basis and almost everytime they meet you. So it kinda gets on your nerves especially after an entire day of labour and masala meals.
It must have been the food because I fell terribly sick when I came back to Singapore. I was paralysed and felt really awful. My hockey teammates say it is Masala withdrawal symptoms and that I was having cold turkey. Speaking of which, I am pretty sure they have got spices in their Christmas turkey back in India. Incredible India, you gotta love to hate it.
