Bashing

One of the orphanages situated right outside Kullu is called Bashing. Here reside about 12 children together with a 19 year old girl. There are 2 girls aged 12 and 13, and the rest are boys. The house they live in has a small bedroom for the boys without any beds, a common room which is turned into a bedroom for the girls during the night, a small kitchen where an old woman who comes during the day cooks, and a bathroom which I have not dared to take a look at. The children do not own much clothing and there is no heating or warm blanket to keep them warm during these winter nights.

When we got there I was shocked to see the state of their living situation. Especially since the orphanages we already had visited had been in a decent shape. We went in to the common room trying to do name games which worked out all right, but as they got comfortable with us things got out of control. It was when we were doing a writing game where we were divided into two teams that the children got rather noisy. I decided to take the little ones outside as they weren’t able to concentrate really well, but soon everyone came out and we could tell that the lack of a proper parental role model had influenced the children strongly. They had no discipline whatsoever. We would try to organise games again, but they would just run around trying to jump on our backs. When they played with each other, they played violently. It even got to the point where they would strangle each other for fun. I got so angry that I told that that it was not okay, but they would just reply that they were only playing. But I was now on a mission and every time I saw one kid hitting or strangling the other I put on a strict face and tell them to play nicely. It seemed to work, or; at least when I was looking at them they would stop.

Before leaving, one of the boys got knocked out. In First Aid terms he was only reacting to pain in the beginning, but his breathing was all right. I put some water on his lips and some on his head after putting him in recovery position. I kept on pinching his ears and pressing my nail underneath his to see if there was any improvement. Fortunately he reacted more and more strongly, and soon he made facial movements when hearing the sound of our voice. The girl who lives there had until that point only been there for two weeks and did not know much about how to take care of them, and in case of an emergency like this one; she would not know how to react. Their situation is very worrying. Also because right next door there are some boys living renting out small huts where people can party and smoke up. (This was not a term I knew very well before, but to smoke up basically means to get high on drugs) When those boys are bored they pick on the kids and just disturb their daily life. If anyone wanted they could just walk right in to the children since security was not on its best.

This is orphanage is run by a private organisation, and not the government. The one at Kelheli is government run and the standard there is much, much more better. We want the standard at Bashing to improve to the standard of Vashisht and Kelheli, so we are going to help set up a new home for them. This will require much funding and I hope that you are all willing to help on this. what is not much money for you; is a lot of money in India.