Day 2 - Sunday 21st July

Having touched down in the communist controlled Kerala state, rather than Tamil Nadu, we now

had a lengthy bus ride ahead of us. We waved goodbye to the Western world as we were 

greeted by the sight of many many Indians waiting for their family and friends outside the airport...

in complete silence. There was one television on the outside of the airport wall which was 

showing the news, presumably to entertain those waiting. We had to walk through the crowd to

the mini buses and the silence was slightly off-putting after we'd been warned to be prepared 

for a lot of chaos and noise.
 
A convoy of three buses waited for us: one for the luggage and two for the passengers. The 

luggage bus was sparsely populated with seats, and although it looked like we imagined an 

Indian mini-bus would (compared to the generic passenger buses), I think we were relieved to 

find out that we weren't actually expected to travel in it. Similarly, though the driver my bus 

beeped ferociously every time he wanted to overtake, it was a relief to discover that the ride was 
far removed from the journey from hell that we'd imagined. We tried to get some sleep with 

varying degrees of success. 

 

After 3 hours in the bus we arrived at Sri Jayendra (SJS) to a rapturous welcome from the staff. 'Hearty Welcome Dear Emanuels' had been written on the steps up to the entrance in chalk alongside a beautiful floral pattern. We found out that there would be no teaching tomorrow as it was a public holiday. Despite this, and the fact that is was a weekend, several students also appeared to greet us, either because they were boarders or lived locally. They instantly engaged us in conversation and embarrassingly were able to remember all our names much better than we could theirs. We then set about unpacking our suitcases and facing the tricky task of setting up our mosquito nets. Some struggled more with this than others and most of the girls ended up having to use string attached to various points in the ceiling and on the curtain rails in order to make their net more tent-like.

 

Mr Hunt then took willing volunteers on a tour of the village - Sankarnagar near Tirunelveli Junction in Tamil Nadu. We passed the GKV primary school where some of us will be based. This building originally housed Sri Jayendra when it started back in 1981. The school only had 55 pupils then but it has now grown to a whopping 2800. We then came home for lunch, our first true Indian curry. Those who strongly dislike spice realised they might be spending the next 3 weeks living off chapatti  and white rice. Having taken a serious power nap after lunch, we crossed over the road (which is more difficult than you'd expect seeing as drivers seem to drive on whichever side of the road they choose) from the boarding house to SJS. We were taken on a tour of some of the classrooms by the headmistress, Mrs Usha Raman, and deputy head mistress, Ganga. We were particularly impressed by the quality of their chemistry lab and thought the motivational posters added to the communal atmosphere of the compound. Pictures from last year's trip and mini biographies of this year's pupils were displayed on pinboards around the central quad. However it was evident from the widespread mentions of Mill Hill (the other school which is linked to SJS) that Emanuel can further its connection to the school.

 

After our tour had concluded we all got one of SJS's mini-buses to a nearby town, Tirunelveli Junction. This was much more like the India we had imagined: 4 people clinging onto one motorbike, the incessant beeping of rickshaws' horns, many emaciated cows and goats freely wandering around and the constant threat of being trampled by traffic at any point. Usha and Ganga bought some jasmine to put in the girls' hair. We went into the popular department store 'Pothys' to purchase some saris, for the girls, and kortis, for the boys. To say the sari floors were busy would be an understatement... you could hardly move. On top of this we were constantly stopped by parents asking us to shake their child's hand or, in one instance, even to have a photo with them. It was as if we had suddenly become famous. Eventually we all found what we were looking for and piled back into the bus to return to SJS. When we got back into our rooms everyone collapsed, utterly exhausted and slightly delirious, on their beds. After dinner at 20.00, we soon fell asleep having been up for a grand total of 35 hours. 

By Kimberley