Andrea back in the village...

End of july I was finally able to come back to my village for a month. It really makes a difference if you are in touch over e-mail an phone or if you are right on spot! I have to be active in the village so I arrived on 23rd of july with a load of sport shoes and painting colours for the kids in Delhi. When I arrived in the village I first of all had sweet hot chai and aloo pranthas and I immediately felt at home! The air was warm and humid, temperatures around 35°C. In the late afternoon it started raining nearly every day so that the ground was full of water. Besides the water, the cows felt very comfortable on the ground during theday so that we had to start every practise by removing the cows first, then their remainings and then we had to repair the fence again... This became our daily routine - we urgently need a bigger ground with a proper fence! The kids didn't care much - for them it was priority to have the chance to play... I am impressed by the energy and motivation they have day by day! After lunch I am giving english classes - here we made some progress as well - small, but we did... Saturday is always drawing day - kids love it as it is something new for them! This time I can learn the names of the kids quite easily - probably because I am used of indian names in the meantime. Boys and girls at the hockey ground are really good now. I am thrilled! We selected a boys team of 13 boys that got a special practise as I arranged a match against DPS school in Jaipur for the 18th of august. I am starting to draw half of a circle around the goal to show them that this is the place where they are allowed to score so that the goal is counting. In the following days, the boys are drawing the circle and it is getting smaller and smaller... I try to show them how to stop and score a penalty corner, but the ground is too much "hubble bubble" and I need to change the technics. The boys are loosing patience as it is really difficult to stop the ball. Ok - we try that again in Jaipur on the spot... I am asking Chandu to organise me a plastik sheet where I can draw a ground and show them simple rools and positons with buttons in 2 colours... Chandu is removing an advertisement for a school from a wall in town and I have my showmap... The boys were picking up very fast whos is on which position and what is the quarter line and the middle line and so on. I am distributing the sport shoes that we collected in Germany - the boys are excited - finally not playing with sandals or barefeet any more! I start aciting the umpire to teache them what is right and wrong. Now the remaining problem is, that the boys are all running behind the ball - so how to teache them to keep their position? We draw a vertical line on the field and devide them in two teams per team - the left and the right one... That works quite well! I am always yelling: passing - passing - from time to time somebody is listening... But when I think back that these boys are playing for only 4 month and didn't know anything about hockey - we have achieved a lot already!