Selakui

Our third week in India has been spent with our New Gen friends Phil, Elizabeth, Jane and Brian visiting Noth India. firstly to a school and orphanage in Selaqui near Dehradun which was started by Yip and Frieda McRae around 40 years ago. On Easter Sunday we joined the boys for a picnic and swimming in a river. Great fun and huge admiration for Kiran the cook who cooked breakfast and lunch for more than 60 people over a camp fire!

Phil has been coming to Selaqui for around 20 years and has developed some great relationships- especially with some of the boys. we heard inspiring stories about the early days of setting it up. on one occasion Yip was put in prison for trying to defend the orphans bring taken away to another home by the police. I loved his words 'human beings are designed to be heroes'

We stayed with great friends of Phil called Paulus and Bewla and their 2 daughters. Steve joined Phil and Brian to do some jobs around the farm including painting and playing with power tools.

 Jane was in her element making clay tiles from line an oven and teaching a couple of the boys how to do pottery. 

And I spent a couple of days at the school with a new student called Sharuck, a 15 year old boy  who had an accident several years before that had resulted in paraplegia.  I was somewhat daunted at the task of giving him 1:1 tuition to ascertain his ability and help prepare him for joining a class after 5 years of no schooling. But he was a great lad and tried really hard so my task was not too difficult, especially fir maths for which he showed a real aptitude. It was wonderful to see his progress but very sad to have to say goodbye.