A Visit to SOS Kindersdorf - Rajpur

Down the mountains to Rajpur

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At around 5:00pm, we made our farewells and were taken down to Rajpur, not too far from Dehradun, where there was another school and Tibetan community run by SOS Kindersdorf www.sos-childrensvillages.org/. After settling in to the newish and modern by Indian standards guesthouse, we meet our very softly spoken, sponsored boy, Sanduk, who Howard had last seen in 2004. After our lovely minder, Mrs Lhamo left us alone, he opened up a little more. In another year or so he will transfer up to Mussoorie to finish high school. Sanduk was allowed to stay with us for dinner which was fried rice, where he insisted on serving us and ensuring we had enough. And, yes if possible we would have been fed to bursting point. Sandy (my nickname for him) is about 15 years old, but as he has no papers, one can't be sure. After Saturday morning school, he was allowed to join us for lunch and part of the afternoon. While I stayed in taking various medicines that Mrs. Lhamo had brought for me from their dispensary, Howard and Sandy went into the village to find some snacks for our trip next day, to Shimla. Sandy was being very quiet again and it turned out that he was feeling sad at the short duration of our visit. Shopping, not very successful was over and our boy spent the afternoon with us He and Howard went for a walk around the children's village and to see the school and where he lived. There are about six boys in Sanduk's dorm, but room for eight or more When they returned, we encouraged him to have a go on the little laptop. A real treat because the children were closely monitored and regulated on computers. Also, Sandy doesn't have money to slip into an internet café! Howls of laughter, when he asked us if we knew Liam Hemsworth? This young man is an Australian actor and singer and Sandy's favourite – Shows we are both out of touch oldies - never heard of him. Well, at some time soon we will have to get hold of some information and maybe music and send it over. I think the kids have access to a CD player.

Dinner with Sanduk was solemn, though Howard explained that we were not usually able to stay more than a few hours with our sponsored children. This didn't help too much. The boy never sees his family and has no-one close. He is able to telephone his father once in a while to get news from home but never speaks with his mother as all they do is cry. Even the parents don't see much of each other as the father has had to travel to Lhasa for work.

Next morning Sandak came to have breakfast with us, then we took a walk around the children's village and met his first house mother and saw the cottage where he first lived as a youngster. On our return we headed up the seemingly endless steps up to the road where our taxi was waiting. We'd made enquiries and Mrs. Lhamo took it upon herself to find a driver with a permit to Shimla – in a neighbouring state. Our driver didn't have much English but he seemed like a nice person. So we climbed aboard and first drove up to see Sanduk's dorm and school and then a very sad farewell.

To call the Indian roads poor is too complementary but when we headed up into the mountains on a short cut it deteriorated into a potholed goat track. It might have been a short cut, cutting out a drive to and through Chandigah, but this was a main road. At the state border, which was marked by a tree and an abandoned shack, we were held up by a couple of policemen. Howard said, stay in the car, don't get involved. Much discussion went on, other vehicles came and went and eventually after about ten minutes our driver returned and asked for 500 IR. He'd been fined for not wearing a seat belt. My blood was almost running hot and I can guarantee that on that day at least two people wore seat belts in these two states! Howard and I!! We'd been done by that famous Indian corruption! Now three of wore seat belts for the remainder of the drive to Shimla. Just on eight hours later as evening approached we made it into the hill city, the capital of Himchal Pradesh. Our driver kept on going until we found our friends (whom we'd phoned earlier), Lobsang and his wife Samten waiting at a side street and were guided down a precarious lane to our hotel. Here, we asked Lobsang to get the story from the driver and confirmed the fine. We gave the driver 1000 IR tip on top of the fine so that he would not have been out of pocket and he was ever so grateful. This was a journey of some 240 km on some of the most terrible roads we had ever been on – apart from going 4X4 driving.

So we checked in and our friends came down to inspect our vast room. Lobsang was anxious as he had picked this hotel for us, being the closest to their home and wanted to make sure it was suitable, and it was, with white walls, dark wood panelling and furniture and a panoramic view over the city, clinging to the side of the mountain and descending into the valley.

More on our Shimla visit soon...........