Author Archives: Joel Stone

GCSE’s and all that Jazz..

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Hello everyone it’s my first blog here in India so hope you enjoy!

Yesterday for the number of 16 year olds there are in the team was a bit of a stressful today because it was the day that our results came out. However in the end it turned out that it was only me and rachel who got ours, but we will come to that later.

The day started out as a normal day, we got up then had breakfast ready for the day ahead. We then headed off downstairs because yesterday was the day that we visit a slightly flooded Fort School and Esplanade Community centre. A few of us including me, Caitlin and Lizzi had already been to Fort school for independence day but we were shockedby what we found when we got there. During the night there had been a horrific thunderstorm which literally left parts of the school underwater. The classrooms that we had eaten breakfast in 10 days ago was flooded, the water reaching halfway up our shins. This is a huge problem in Chennai, in the richer areas the land is higher meaning that the lower land is left as a sort of drainage basin to collect all of the run-off water.

Then after this we visited the first YMCA building in Chennai, Esplanade, built in 1899. It is a fantastic looking building, the pinkish coloured rock having been transported for Jaipur and the metal from England. However this view was slightly ruined by the number of stalls outside of the building, trying to make money from tourists. When we went to see the GS (General Secretary) of Chennai YMCA he said that he intended to make the building a national Heritage site, meaning that these stalls would have to leave.

Now at this point the time of getting my results was fast approaching, only a short our remained until I got them. We decided to go to Spencer Plaza (A nearby Shopping Mall) to get lunch before heading back to go to the boys town in the afternoon. Now at this point I was quite nervous about getting the results so decided to eat a huge meal at KFC to calm the nerves, nothing like food to calm you down! Then the time had come, my mum would be in school collecting them now! I took a deep breath and gave her a call! The results were good! Exactly what I had hoped for! This was definitely a day in India that I would not forget!

Now today I woke up after a not very good nights sleep!I had been pretty ill in the night, I reckon it was something I ate.. So I didn’t eat any breakfast! I know shocking! I know thee is something wrong with me when I don’t feel like eating! Anyway this morning was not very exciting as we got a load of ‘jobs’ done. So some people went off to collect gift for all of the boys in the boys town. At the end of the project we give each boy wash bag filled with items such as a toothbrush and a pencil case filled with suprisingly items like a pencil. Then after that was the job of filling 75 pencil cases and Wash Bags! A bit boring but definitely for a good cause! I meanwhile went to get 80 photos developed, a grand total of 480 rupees (around 6.50!) Then all afternoon I have been cutting out paper pieces of square (as they are now known) for a mozaic we are planning to do on sunday! All in all then a very productive day!

Love from Joel and the team, byeee

Leap of Faith!

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Well what can I say other than ‘I’M ALIVE!!’. Yesterday four of us took a ‘Leap of Faith’ 13000 ft out of an airplane and all of us managed to survive the ordeal…just! Here is how the day worked itself out:

5:30am – Time to wake up – lots of yawning!

6:30am – A car full of sleepy looking adults arrive at my house, and we’re off!!

7:30am – Hmmm where are we?! Then after some nifty and in places slightly illegal driving  by Rob we were there!

8:30am – Nom Nom Nom bacon and sausage sandwich paid for by someone else! Can this day get any better?!

9:00am – Uno! With some very strange rules that as the game developed gradually came out! (to be honest I think they made them up as they went along!)

9:30am – The briefing! Here we all learnt the correct positions for jumping and any other information we needed to know. (Suzanne listened particularly carefully to this bit, possibly due to the tall man explaining everything!)

11:30 am – My time to jump! Dawn had already been and said it was amazing so at this point I was very excited! I walked into the reception area and met the instructor I was going to be attached to, I then found out that actually he was very weird! (all this jumping out of the plane had made him go a bit crazy!) I then got my very fetching jump suit and harness on (VERY TIGHTLY!) and we were all set to go.

11:40am – It was time to get into the plane. 20 people had to fit in the back of this very small plane so as you can imagine it was very ‘snug’. As the plane took off the nerves started to kick in but whenever the camera came near me I tried to hide it as best I could!

11:55am – This was it. I had seen all of the others jump out leaving me and my instructor left. We sat on the edge of the plane 13000ft above the ground, my heart was thumping, then we jumped. It was the weirdest feeling i had ever felt in my life! In those 2 seconds i had forgotten all of the positions that i was meant to get into and was flailing and flapping my arms – much to the annoyance to the man strapped to my back. As we hurtled to ground at 130mph I was loving it! Then as soon as it had started the parachute deployed and we were slowed from 130 to 25mph in 5 seconds!

11:56 – Everything was calm! The rushing air had stopped as we floated gently towards the ground. I got to steer the parachute and so we flew wildly around the place for a few minutes.

12:00pm – Ground at last! A small feeling of relief and lots of adrenaline flowed through me. This had been one of the best experiences of my life and it makes it better knowing that all of the money that I have raised is going  to a brilliant cause!