La le Padraig i mBengaluru

Hi,

Well, Saint Patrick's day got off to a rousing start, with a chorus of 'When Irish Eyes are smiling' before we boarded the bus. Here's Bus 3 on our last day, on the way to the build. Everyone was Irish today and we continued the merriment on the journey to the site. Here's Charley discovering his Irish roots with Jenny.

Back at House 4, we had a busy morning. The wall above the lintel has been built up to full height at the front and the left hand side and today's job was to build up the 4 layers of blocks above the lintel at the back of the house. This involved moving blocks and concrete up the various stairways, barrels etc., to the top of the scaffolding. Fortunately, we had Santosh and Magi and one of his brothers Praveen with us today. Lifting and moving blocks is child's play to them, so we were spared the heavy stuff today.

As well as being Saint Patrick's Day, it was also a festival day here in Bangalore and everyone was on holiday, so we had a full house at the site for the last day. Lots of neighbours and friends dropped in and we had some good fun and exchanges with the family. Amalia came with us today to translate and help with the small blessing of the house and the family before we finished work at about lunch time. It was a very moving and beautiful little ceremony, very informal. We all just said a few words about our experience and what it had meant to us. Amalia translated for us and then the family talked to us about their feelings for the build and the new house. It was indeed a privilege to be part of this intimate gathering. Charley had talked about 'Crying and kissing time'. He wasn't wrong !

After this little gathering we went on a walk about to see some of the other houses. The neighbours on the next street were laying the concrete for the roof .. that looked interesting. It was all hands on deck, as the concrete had to be passed a long way from the front of the house, up the scaffold and across the length of the roof to be layed. We watched for a while them moved along to lunch.

After lunch today we had a few words and a short evaluation exercise of the build with Mahesh and then we headed back to the site. One of the new Habitat homes was having it's Door Ceremony and we were all invited. This ceremony celebrates the new house and invites blessings on the hosue itself and the family. It was great to be a part of it. The yard of the house was decorated and a ribbon had been placed across the door. The 5 Habitat team leaders cut the ribbon and this formally opened the house. The ceremony invloves boiling milk inside the door to bring good fortune and blessings. The ceremony was attended by all the neighbours and friends as well as by the Habitat group. There were lots of cameras and movie cameras too. The tradition is for all the guests to touch the walls of the house and pray for the family.



We then went back to our regular meeting place at Coconut park, for the final get together with the community and the family we'd been building with. This was a great last opportunity to know a little more about how the community and in particular the Women's self help groups work. A few ladies from the various Sanga (the self help group) talked to us (thru Nirmala) and explained how they set up their groups and what they did. One of the groups was a tailoring group, and their sevretary spoke to us. The group has 15 members and each member saves 25 rupees a week. They have had a few smaller bank loans and are delighted to have just had confirmation that their bank has now approved a loan of 1 Lakh (100,000 rupees), for the group's business. All of the families we built with attended this final celebration and we had a chance to see our Shanti and her family from House number 4 again. I also got the cahnce to meet Pauline and the family from House 13 that I'd worked with last week, which was great.

Here's Sorona, Shanti's son whom we've worked with all the time on house 4.

We said our goodbye's and boarded the busses one last time to go back to the hotel and dinner and and Indian Ceili, hosted by the irish team !