Cycle of Learning. Anne Fitzpatrick

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      Reaching the end of my death-defying escorted tour, I farewelled Col and found some old high school friends who live in a tall block of apartments. With some quiet words of apology to Bike and Trailer, I hauled them up the fire stairs to the roof. There I left them to recover from the trauma of the last few days with a view of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

      I settled in a few levels down with Rebecca and Brett. Since one is a chiropractor and the other a journalist and reiki practitioner, these two were not only providing me with a bed, meals and company for a few days, but also alignments, interviews and some channelling of universal energy. Kindly, they didn’t mention my grubbiness or grimy fingernails, although a gift from Rebecca of Chanel Shimmering Décolletage Gel may have been a subtle hint not to let myself go too much.

Chapter 3: Nipple Confusion and Corporate Uniforms

      Sydney – Ku-Rin-Gai Chase National Park – Berowra Heights – Wyong – Newcastle – Maitland – Gloucester – Taree – Kempsey – Nambucca Heads – Coffs Harbour – Woolgoolga

      Totals: 3,557 kilometres – 204 hours 33 minutes – $4,847

Friday 18 March

      Sydney, New South Wales

      I spent nearly a week in Sydney, catching up with friends, eating ice cream and refreshing my library at secondhand bookshops. On the down side, I had just one school visit in this time. Another school got in touch to find out if Kodaikanal was affected by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. I cringed into the phone as I heard myself replying, “Unfortunately, no.” I paused and rephrased my answer. “Thankfully, Kodaikanal is a hill station about 200 kilometres from the coast.”

      This school, like a number of others I had heard from, would have liked to support Cycle of Learning but was dedicating their fundraising efforts this year to victims of the tsunami. That’s the reality of fundraising, I suppose. There are so many causes and charities both here and overseas asking for support. The community has limited money and attention to give and people have to choose. There is no one to blame, but it gets disheartening when your cause is not being chosen. More disheartening was the fact I’d only raised a few thousand dollars so far.

      The fundraising strategy I had been using was to notify as many schools, churches, community groups and media outlets as possible about my ride and its cause, and ask if they would like me to stop and speak to them. When I visited, after giving a talk and answering questions, I would leave them with information about how they could donate if they so chose. The Lutheran Church of Australia’s aid and development arm, Australian Lutheran World Service, had endorsed my project, and was processing donations and issuing tax-deductible receipts. I’d considered seeking corporate sponsorship before I left Adelaide, and tried approaching some companies, but the whole process terrified me and seemed to require a level of professionalism, self-assurance and persistence that I just wasn’t able to muster.

      Financial self-pity aside, the school I did visit in Sydney made me feel important. After a tour with two school captains, I was escorted to a balcony from where I addressed the entire student body who were sitting below on the basketball courts. I felt a little like royalty greeting loyal subjects. If my fundraising strategy didn’t work out, maybe I could get a part-time job somewhere being a princess to raise the rest of the money.

      After my balcony performance, I gave a more intimate reception to a group of student leaders from the senior school. I was glad to be able to touch on some of the more complex issues for young people in Kodaikanal, and share some other stories from Kodaikanal, including what Pandimeena shared with me about her life.

Pandimeena and the Grihini program

      I work for PEAK as a nurse and am from one of the upper hill villages in the Kodaikanal Hills. About 20% of the people there are cobblers – a Dalit caste.

      I am the first Dalit girl in the Upper Kodaikanal villages to finish Year 12, which I did in 1999. I was motivated to complete school by my elder brother who was the first Dalit boy in the village to finish high school. After I finished high school, PEAK provided me with financial and pastoral support to gain a diploma in Multi-Purpose Health Work. My parents, especially my father, were supportive of my training in nursing. I chose nursing because I remembered when I was a child how my mother suffered from chest pain.

      I have worked with PEAK since 2001. I am in charge of the Mother and Child Health Program, which assists six Adhivasi villages in the lower Kodaikanal Hills. I also take care of the health needs of students at PEAK’s hostels, villagers that live nearby, and girls from the Grihini program.

      I have seen first-hand the violence, exploitation and discrimination arising from caste issues in the villages. In my village, there are five dominant, so-called higher-caste, groups and one cobbler group. I have at times seen four families living together in one small house, with the result that the families suffer from many diseases.

      At least half the Dalits in my village are dependent on the landowners who belong to the dominant caste. Because of this situation, the Dalits’ wages are very low and they are unable to educate their children. Once the Dalit boys finish Year 5 they are forced to tend the cattle belonging to the so-called higher-caste people. This is a form of bonded labour.

      My vision is to get a further two years of training in a hospital, then start a clinic in my village. I would like my clinic to help my own community, which is poor and under-privileged.

      I am particularly glad that as well as looking after the health needs of the girls in the Grihini program, I am living closely with them. These girls can be motivated by seeing what I have accomplished, and they, in turn, will educate their children right through high school.

      This Grihini program that Pandimeena spoke of was the reason I first came to Kodaikanal. I’d been backpacking through India when a family friend, Norm, invited me to travel with him to Kodai, where he was visiting Grihini. In 1988, Norm, with his wife Jan, a Jesuit Father, Arokiam, and two teachers from a local school, Dency and Ruth, set up Grihini for local girls and young women from marginalised communities who were not in formal education. Grihini gave girls skills in health, income generation, literacy and numeracy, and awareness of social issues, as well as the tools to be part of social change in their villages and wider community by returning to their villages as “animators”, to educate others in health, hygiene, finances and liberative social action.

      The 28 young women I met in the 2001 batch of Grihini welcomed me into their close-knit and vibrant fold. Most days I would make my way to their space at the back of Sacred Heart College, which, being on the side of the hills, was a secluded, grassed area with a handful of buildings opening onto it. A few girls might be in the open kitchen preparing the next meal on a big fire that needed firewood constantly fed into it. One room held most of the classes – literacy, or instruction on crochet or macramé basket-making. The writing slates or craft materials would be cleared away for tutorials on caste issues, human rights and gender. The girls would have debates, devise street theatre, sing awareness songs and meet Grihini alumni who were now working in their home villages to share awareness of health, hygiene and human rights.

      Another room had a bank of foot-pedalled sewing machines for learning tailoring skills on. I could never figure the machines out, and was content to sit with a group on the floor sewing buttons onto shirts while chatter flowed around me. I gave self-defence classes to the Grihini group, one of the only skills I’d brought with me that had any potentially practical use there. It was a wonderful sight – seeing their strength and power physically manifest as we practised getting out of grabs, protecting from strikes and delivering punches, kicks, head-butts and eye-gouges. Without the kick bags I used in Australian classes, I made do with bringing the pillow down from my room for the girls to practise on. My plan for them to each bring their own pillow never transpired since, as I soon realised, the girls slept in the usual Tamil Nadu way – lined up in rows with nothing beneath them except the thin mats rolled out over the concrete floor