Reel Youth International
Reel Youth is currently making a film with young people who have been rescued from the adult prison system in Nepal. They are also going back to India in the next 6 weeks to visit the kids they worked with last year. Come back often to follow their journey!
The children’s home in Sankhu looks down on a series of terraced rice fields, and after dropping the kids off at school one morning, I sat down with the farmers as they were about to begin their days work. Despite not sharing a common language, they used gesture and simple words to communicate that they were a family (grandmother, mother, daughter, two brothers, father, and grandfather).
I watched them set up their threshing machine on a big tarp. I had seen a few of these machines prior to this and thought they were some type of clothes washing machine. Seeing it on the terrace of a rice field put it into perspective. This was a piece of farm machinery. A foot powered spinning device that knocked all the rice off the stalks into a pile. A miniature stationary combine.
The women cut the stalks down and arranged them in piles, while the men carried the piles to the threshing machine, and then brought the threshed stalks back into the field to dry. I wasn’t planning on it, but something in my farming upbringing urged me to get my hands dirty. So barefoot, I started helping the men, working mostly with the grandfather.
Every piece of rice was treasured. Great care was taken to ensure nothing was wasted. Quite a few times, as I handed the grandfather a pile of freshly threshed stalks, he would search through the pile and find a stalk or two that still had rice on it. He would gesture for me to open my hand and then put 10 or 15 pieces of rice in it. I would walk them back to the threshing machine and drop the them into the growing pile. It seemed like a signal to the two younger men on the machine to slow down and make sure nothing is wasted.
Watch the Threshing Machine in Action
Every hour the team would take a break to smoke, sit in the shade, and drink what I later realized was a millet based home brew. I thought it was some type of fermented energy drink, but after a couple of bowls, I started feeling the effects. Not entirely sure it improved my productivity, but it made me feel like I was part of the team.
millet brew
At the end of the day, we had filled four bags of rice. It didn’t seem like a lot considering there were six of us working. Made me think about buying a bag of rice back in Canada and how far removed we are from the producers.
After the bags had been filled, I helped carry them down to the village to be stored. With just a strap around my forehead holding the sack on my back, I struggled to keep up with co-workers on the 15 minute walk.
With rice being a staple in the children’s diet that we are working with and my own while traveling and back home in Canada, I was gently humbled by the number of hands it passes through before reaching my plate.
Thanks for reading!
Mark.
www.reelyouth.ca
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Tags: farming, Nepal, Reel-Youth, rice, Youth
Some of the kids told me they walk over an hour to get to school every day.
Many of the P.A. Nepal kids go to the local public school in Sankhu. We spent a few days in school with the kids, getting to know their incredibly sweet principal and teachers while witnessing life at school.
There is a sincerity and seriousness to some of these children that defies words…
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Category : Blogroll
Tags: Himalaya, Nepal, P.A. Nepal, Reel-Youth, Sankhu, school
the morning market in Durbur Square
Ordering food in Kathmandu is entertainment.
I have a perfect view down the corridor separating the two kitchens. They are linked by doorways draped in fabric, I assume to keep the flies out. The two boys who take orders zigzag between kitchens like they have misplaced something they are not particularly attached to. Each time they switch rooms, they get lost in the doorway cloth. This last time, they simultaneously buried themselves, like children hiding in curtains, then slowly untangled each other from their mess, laughing.
I think this is an apt metaphor for many things in Nepal. The Nepalese attitude of acceptance and lightheartedly dealing with what comes their way contributes to how ease can be found amongst chaos.
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Tags: Kathmandu, Nepal, Reel-Youth, traffic, youth-filmmaking
Erica and I have arrived! After a year of planning and preparations, Reel Youth is in Nepal making our second international film.
We are partnered with a Canadian organization called the Kamala Foundation and a Nepali NGO called Prisoners Assistance (PA) Nepal to make a film with children who have been rescued from the adult prison system.
We are shooting the film on a Sony HVR A1U, an excellent compact HD camera
Thanks to Lorne Lapham Sales and Rental for helping set us up.
The children we are working with are in one of two homes that PA Nepal runs. Some of them were child soldiers for the Maoists and captured by the Nepali army and rescued from detention centers. Others have parents in jail, and before PA Nepal rescued them, were living in very difficult conditions in the adult prison system.
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Nanjunda and Harish, on the streets
News from Operation Shanti’s director, Tracy, in Mysore.
“Well, we are now trying to get Harish, Devaraj, and Nanjunda to the boarding school.
Nanjunda’s mom is a bit of a risk to the process, as she really doesn’t prefer that Nanjunda goes to school, since he helps her carry bottles of water to her little corner on the street. The other street moms are trying to change her mind, so we’ll see… Nanjunda really wants to go to school.
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Category : Blogroll
Tags: disadvantaged-youth, India, Mysore, new-beginnings, operation-shanti, Reel-Youth, school, street-kids, youth-filmmaking
We decided on the name of ‘Goonda’ for the film we made with the Mysore kids. One of the main characters is named Nanjunda, and his friends often call him Goonda. Goonda means ruffian or hooligan, which fits the culture of the boys who live and work together on the street. They act as a pseudo team or gang, and we definitely experienced their hooliganism!
The film is currently touring with the Reel Youth Film Festival (RYFF), being viewed by audiences across Canada and parts of the States. ‘Goonda’ will also be featured on Global BC as part of a half hour show with selected films from the Reel Youth Film Festival.
Here is the trailer for the Festival:
‘Goonda’ will be released on Citizenshift in early 2008.
Stay tuned for updates on the kids we worked with in Mysore. We’ve got exciting news to share!
Mark.
www.reelyouth.ca
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From inside the internet shop I can see them.
They are sitting on the steps waiting impatiently. Every once in a while they wave and gesture wildly for me to come outside, afraid I might forget my promise to play when I am done.
I met them earlier today, they were hanging around, just off the ‘no-go zone’ of the front porch of the shop. Like many street kids, they are ’shoo’-ed and sometimes SHOE-ed away from the businesses that line the streets, left to hover on sidewalks and curbs. They had just been sent away, but were back and peering into the cafe, waiting impatiently for me to finish with my e-mails.
When I come out we break out into a session of beat-boxing and imitating each other’s dance moves. I play the jaw harp and they show me their Bollywood moves. I fall in love so easily. Like the children in Mysore, Hakim and Raoul are only looking to be noticed. To have someone who cares about them and is willing to play. I suppose I’m looking for the same thing.
Erica and I took them to see Pirates of the Carribean one evening. They had never been in a movie theatre before and were bursting at the seams with excitement. It was such a contrast seeing their dirty bare feet stand on the moving escalator up to the theatre. The younger crowd of movie goers gave us warm smiles; a welcome change from other touristy places we ventured with street children. The movie was in English, but it didn’t seem to matter to them. We giggled and imitated our way through the whole thing.
As dusk fell on our last day in Pune the monsoon hit us hard. I didn’t think I would see the boys again before we left, but as we turned the corner, running to our favorite restaurant, we were treated to one of the highlights of the trip:
They are so perfect.
Mark.
www.reelyouth.ca
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Tags: goondas, India, OSHO, Pune, Reel-Youth, street-kids
May 27 :: Kochi, Kerala
cumulo-nimbus Kochi sunset
The skies have been threatening rain for days now, with towering grey cumulo-nimbus clouds creeping along the horizon accompanying unbearable humidity.
Last night the monsoon finally arrived in Kerala. As the sunlight waned the lightening began. By dark the skies ripped open with torrents of rain. Parched, dusty land turned into puddles, then shallow ponds. People all along our street stood at their windows to watch the storm.
The next morning it was pouring again. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 am. Having booked a taxi to take us 45km out of Kochi to a sanctuary for working elephants, we were committed, rain or shine.
We drove out of the city and through the main bazaars of small towns. Open store fronts hung with shiny curtains of single use shampoo, instant clothes detergent, chips and sugar coated herb blends; their ends held together along perforated edges. Buckets, rags, saris, lungis and tiffins… each store’s entire stock visible from the street. Tucked in behind the chaos is the owner/their children/cousin/uncle/brother/niece or any combination of the above. A deep other-wordly voice drones the contents of the shop, slurring the words together, until everything sounds like mantra-like repetition of ‘MASALA CHAAAIIII…’
Unlike the fruit-stands in the rest of India where we’ve seen neat pyramids of mangoes and melons, here fruit hangs in harpooned screens: cucumbers, watermelon and mangoes… garnished with sprays of green herbs.
Our driver slows to ask directions from random people as we turn onto smaller winding streets. At each junction in the road he inquires again and I wonder at the boldness of Indian taxi drivers setting off with only vague understanding of their destination.
“If you don’t know, wing it” sums up much of India’s ad-hock tourist industry.
We stop at a shop for chai. Local men who have probably been occupying their chairs for years, grudgingly, move and motion for us to sit down. They tell us the elephants like bananas and we obediently purchase some.
Not much further down the road we see them.
My heart leaps… elephants!
For one month of the year these elephants who daily hauls things or accept pujas in temples, get a retreat from their work here. Their morning ritual finds them in a wide, shallow river being scrubbed with coconut husks and playing in the water.
I did not know how much I love elephants until now… I watch them sway, almost swagger as they lope to the river. A trainer or two per tusker. I follow a safe distance behind, marveling at their size and working on the courage to approach them.
coming to the river::an elephant and her trainers
This morning there are 6 in total. The oldest, a female: Paravati, is 30, the eldest male is 28. Next is Eco ~ 10yrs, then a girl ~ 4 1/2, male and female both 2 and the baby boy was 10 months old. I wish I could remember all of their names… but their personalities stay with me.
The trainer/elephant relationship is obvious. Some trainers sing to their elephants… cooing words of encouragement… “lay in the water my sweet and let me rub your dusty skin.”
Others border on cruel… chains around the elephants ankles, sticks with hooks on the end, slaps and shouting.
The elephants personalities emerged as well. The middle female was curious and playful - her trunk tiptoed over my body, smelling my skin, my neck, my cheek, my hair. She alternated between blowing huge bubbles and tickling me. She rolled around, rubbing herself against the river rocks, unaware of her incredible mass. I scrambled over slippery rocks to stay out of from under her.
this little girl loves to tickle me
Eco, the 10 year old male was strong and determined, impatient with his trainer, he would try to get up only to be hit and yelled at to lie down again.
Eco in chains
The oldest two were huge and relaxed and let me climb over them to reach their bellies and toes. Paravati (the female) lay down in the water and completely submerged her face, occasionally blowing out huge bubbles and bringing her trunk up for a breath. She lay facing the big boy, whom I suspect is her boyfriend. The two intertwined trunks underwater between long breaths.
What struck me most was the gentleness with which they wielded their power. The oldest male would take Mark’s or my arm and slowly wind it towards his mouth. With a serious effort I could just extract my arm from his python like grasp, aware that he had total control of me. He played with me, pulling at my arm, me pulling away, again and again. Mark encouraged me to touch his tongue, soft and smooth, all muscle and movement.
the hand licker
Mark playing with Eco
I adore elephants.
Thanks for reading.
Erica.
www.reelyouth.ca
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Tags: elephants, India, Kochi, Reel-Youth
Again, so much has happened since I last wrote. We will fill you in with the in between, but for now, this post will catch you up on our last week in Mysore.
Every morning for a week we met up with Tracy outside the KR hospital near the Nandini milk stand, working with mothers and children who live on the street. The gathering would include baby wipes face washing, vitamins, basic first aid, a snack, and a lot of play.
Tracy of Operation Shanti handing out the morning snack
Sunitha and Fatima (standing), two of Fatima’s grand children (twins Imran and Parveen) and a lovely woman friend.
Fatima’s grand-daughter Parveen
These mothers came on our last day. They are Fatima’s daughters and her grandson. Usually Fatima brings the oldest grandson on her own. (below)
Imran
During the hour long session, we focused most of our energy on the younger children. I played my jaw harp and we danced in the street, gave an endless supply of piggy backs and swings in the air, each time I put one down another waiting. We played Ring-around-the-Rosey and sometimes Erica and I just held them, comforting them for as long as they needed. We communicated through the universal language of gesture. So much was said.
Pallavi needed to be held a lot. We witnessed her mother hitting her with a stick numerous times.
Pallavi crying shortly after being hit by her mother.
Two of the mothers were HIV positive, one of them pregnant with her second child. We witnessed a lot of abuse between some of the mothers and the children. The children’s lives are tragic, but despite it all, there is so much joy and laughter.
Latta and Prema
Nanjunda, Erica and Lakshmi
The older boys (aged 10-18) drift in for the snack and make sure their younger siblings were looked after. They were impatient with our insistence that we spend the full hour with the younger children, wanting to escape with us to the swimming hole and beyond.
Krishna feeding Imran
Leaving the smaller children each morning was difficult. Most of them wanted to follow us and join in with the big boys adventures. Tears flow easily.
We would spend the rest of the day with the older boys. We were their protection from street vendors, store owners and a large proportion of adults who look at them with disgust. The stray dogs in India often cower when approached, so used to the abuse they receive. I saw parallels with the boys, in terms of how society treated them. But there was no cowering among the boys. They are fiercely brave and courageous warriors. They always stood up for themselves, seemingly unafraid of the consequences. I suppose their survival depended on it. I saw them deal with drunk angry men and stand unflinchingly to the raised hands of vendors. Their cuts, bruises and burns are physical testaments to their strength. Their emotional scars can be seen in their eyes.
Venkatesh
Nanjunda. His nickname is Goonda which is slang for gangster or troublemaker.
Like the stray dogs, these children find strength in numbers, forming a pseudo family. I would praise the older children for helping the younger ones and every time we took a group photo, we got in the habit of chanting, “TEAM”!
Team
Layer after layer was shed, the more time we spent with them. They let their guards down and we became family. We smuggled them into the touristy parts of the city, showing them sights they could only otherwise see from a distance. I thought that living on the street brought a certain freedom, but because the children are viewed as vermin by most of society, there are invisible walls everywhere. With them as tour guides and us as protection, we broke a lot of walls down. It makes me laugh to think of us all piled in for a horse and carriage ride and trapsing through crowds of clean tourists and Indian families on holiday. Laughing all the way. We had ice cream and took memory cards full of photos. It felt like a family holiday, Erica and I with a small mob of the most beautiful children in the world.
Surya
We took Loekesh and Nanjunda to dinner at a middle class restaurant one evening. Although there were some smiling and understanding faces in the restaurant, the majority looked at us with disgust. A mix between, “how dare you bring them in here”, and, “are you crazy?”.
Nanjunda and Loekesh in the restaurant, watching footage from the day before.
It is bringing tears to my eyes, as I think of the suffering in their lives. Manikanta, one of the youngest boys, has been in and out of his family since he can remember. When we met him, he was one week into making a final decision to leave, choosing the street over the torture at home. We learned that his mother rubs cayenne pepper in his eyes as a punishment.
Manikanta
So many of the stories are the same. Abusive and neglectful parents who push their children out onto the streets, or single mothers who raise their children on the same streets they were raised, or children who are treated as slaves at home and choose the streets as a sanctuary. Hardly a sanctuary though. Basic daily needs are a struggle. Food, shelter and clothing scraped together from their little “businesses” selling light pens and the charity of amazing organizations like Operation Shanti.
We soon discovered that a large proportion of the boys do something called “solution”. Otherwise known as huffing. Putting rubber adhesive glue on a ball of string or handkerchief and sniffing it to get high. They spoke of it without embarrassment or shame. It is a coping mechanism, “like getting drunk”, they said.
“solution”
The most basic of needs is love. We poured it out with everything we had, all the time knowing that we would be leaving. We held them when they cried, broke up their fights, shared food, danced, laughed at each other, made up secret handshakes, took endless pictures and video and said, “YES” to (almost) everything.
Saying goodbye broke my heart. They all asked for our phone number in Canada and as I passed it out, I began to cry, knowing they wouldn’t be able to call. My tears provoked the others and the toughest boys in Mysore began to sob. “Please, no solution”, I cried into Manikanta’s 10 year old ears. “Team, team, team”, I cried pointing in a circle around the group. They nodded with tears rolling down their cheeks.
handing out our phone number
Venkatesh, Nanjunda, Krishna and Parveen
Manikanta and Raghuva as we were leaving
Harish and Kaleem
As we began to leave, we got bombarded with gifts. Spending what little money they had on key chains with their initials on it and “gold” necklaces with stickers instead of diamonds. “So you remember”, they said.
BLING!: Our gifts of painted gold and sticker “diamond” necklaces around our necks and sadness in our eyes.
I will never forget them.
The film we made with them is beautiful. So much joy within their struggle.
Mahadev filming with Nanjunda
Our translator, Maney, fit in perfectly.
I keep thinking I see them in the crowds of every city we visit. But it’s always some other child, living a parallel life, I’m sure.
We hope to come back again next year. If you would like to support our work click here to donate through our secure Paypal system.
Stay tuned for more stories from the rest of our adventure and updates on the Mysore kids.
Mark.
www.reelyouth.ca
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May 13 :: Mysore
Shreenevaz
Plans change as they always do in India. We had secured an interpretor to help us make a film with Sunitha, a 15 year old girl that we spend every morning with, but she was a no show.
The boys, on the other hand, were there in full force.
Often they only stop in for a short time and then the gang hits the streets again, but Sunday there was a shipment from a factory in India, peppered with some T’s from the UK full of new clothes for everyone. The boys stuck around to admire their new duds and play tag in the hospital gardens.
Nanjunda’s new shirt… appropriately ‘where ever I lay my mat is my OM’
We decided to go for an adventure with the gang.
the crew
A sturdy little boy secured one of my hands and led the way, sometimes walking, sometimes jogging, always ahead of the pack. He seemed reluctant to share my attention. The smallest of the pack, Manikanta reveled in my attention. Because of his size, he is picked on a lot, and, like the other boys, he is resilient, strong and courageous.
Manikanta
He translated everything we encountered into mime, dramatically hamming the scenarios on the billboards we passed. Every once in a while he would break out into song and dance… two finger pointing up in the air… the universal sign for party.
It felt like we walked out of town… passed the railway station, cricket patches and over bridges. Finally we came to a drain pipe that empties from under the road into a makeshift reservoir, deep enough to stand waist high, before it flows down into a creek-bed.
chasing crabs
Mahadeva
Boys peeled off their shirts. It was an elaborate process for some. Using the strings that seem permanently tied around their waist to keep whatever they are wearing from falling down, some made swimming trunks from their inverted t-shirts… spindly legs poking out of armholes.
Many of the boys had blue black Kunada script tattoos on the inside of their arms. I still do not understand what they say, although one boy expressed that it was his mothers name. I wonder when he saw her last. (Since I wrote this, I found out that the tattoos are names of their friends who have died. Some boys had as many as three tattoos on one arm.)
tattoos
Boys jumped off of everything into the little reservoir, doing flips into waist deep water. Suddenly, they were just kids. Their street savy-ness dissolved in red-brown water. Doing elaborate flips, back flops… each time they broke the water, they checked again to see if we were watching.
A constant din of ‘heeeeyyyyy! heeeeeyyyyyy!’
‘HEEEEYYYYYY!’ Vinketesh on Nanjunda’s shoulders
They have learned the hard way how to land flips into shallow water. Open sores on their bodies betray their accidental run-ins with rocks and each other.
Such kids, such boys. Testosterone flows freely in the wrestle-pit of water.
Surya, Nanjunda and Manikanta
That evening we met three more friends. Dreddie little girls with attitude. The boys obviously respected them deeply and brought them over to introduce the girls properly.
the girls
The young girls body language is bold and confident. They are polite, quick to thank us for the rice plate we got the for dinner and sure to say goodbye at the end of the night. They even fed each other from the same plate, in stark contrast to the boys who struggled to consume as much as possible.
The kids couldn’t figure out my name until I told them it was america without the A-M
‘Ahhh… Errrrrrrreeeeeeekkkaaaaahhhh!!!!’
Yesterday day and night was my favorite so far. I have never been so entertained by a bunch of kids I just got to know.
Mysore street kids rule.
team
So much more to share about these past two days…
Thanks for reading.
Having too much fun in Mysore,
Erica.
www.reelyouth.ca
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