Giving ≠ Higher Living Standards

A few days ago, I went with our pastors to a retreat home in Goa to have a time of learning and relaxation.  At the retreat home, I went into the bathroom and just filled a bucket.  I marvelled at the fact that I could fill a bucket for my shower directly inside the bathroom & I didn’t have to carry it from a water tank outside.  In the middle of my bucket-and-pail shower, I turn the shower head’s knob and to my surprise, a constant stream of water flows out.  I have been so used to showering with pail and bucket, and no working shower head for the past 5 months that I didn’t even SEE the shower head until halfway through my shower.  The next morning, I walked into the bathroom and filled a bucket.  I only remembered the working shower head after my shower.

This experience got me reflecting on the challenges of bringing higher living standards to underprivileged individuals.  When I was living in the outskirts of Bangalore for my DTS, my friends and I became quite close to some neighbouring kids that live in poverty.  We had fun with them, took them to Sunday School, treated them to snacks, and met some of their needs.  They had no underwear and slippers.  A few days after we bought it for them, we asked where their slippers were, as we saw them running around barefooted.  They had left their slippers at home because they weren’t used to wearing them.  The rest of the 2 months my friends and I were there, they only wore the slippers for special occasions when we went to town.  They also didn’t always wear their underwear & lost them 1 by 1.  Apparently the 4-year-old boy would throw his underwear over the fence.

I’ve seen a group of boys at a children’s home blessed with a tiled floor.  They had a concrete floor before.  What’s sad was that after some time, their white tiled floor became dirty.  They swept it every day, but a lot of the dust and garbage was swept into the corner of the room.  Apparently, this is common.  I’ve seen dirty corners in a lot of homes.

Out of our concern for children who lack nutritious meals, my friends and I have cooked meals with lots of fibre and vegetables.  The kids looked at the big chunks of vegetables & wondered what they were.  Seriously.  They didn’t even recognize the vegetables on their plates.  They were used to vegetables cut into tiny pieces and cooked so long in spices that the individual pieces were indistinguishable and the colour of the vegetables took on the colour of the sauce.  While they gingerly chewed the vegetables, their faces registered shock and then disgust.  How do you introduce a fibrous and nutritious diet to people who are used to eating mounds of white rice to satiate their hunger?  How do you begin to teach them to savour a healthy serving of crunchy vegetables when they’re used to 2 bites of soft vegetable—sometimes even put through the blender—for each meal?

A sad insight I have gained is that you can give people the best facilities and various gifts to raise their living standards, but sometimes it’s done in vain.  What they need simultaneously is someone to live with them and teach them how to use and maintain the facilities as well as the gifted items.  Raising the living standards of those who are underprivileged or uneducated is not as simple as giving a few hundred dollars or building a children’s home.  It’s not as simple as cooking a balanced meal for the malnourished.  It takes unconditional love, unlimited patience, and constant education.  It takes diligent surveillance and a healthy dose of nagging. 

“Where are your chapels (sandals)?  You need to go and get them from the back porch now.”

“Come on, I know you don’t like beans, but you can’t eat all the rice with sauce and leave the vegetables on your plate.”

“Don’t put your wet towel back on the shelf even if it’s folded nicely!  Hang it outside if it’s sunny and inside the laundry room if it’s not.”

“Stop!  This scrub is used for the shower floor, and that one for the toilet.  If you use 1 scrub for everything there’ll be cross contamination. (like they know what that means.  I usually just say “chi chi” to indicate that it’s dirty)”

“Who swept the room?  How come all the dirt and candy wrappers got swept onto the back veranda?  And how come the corner is so dusty?”

“No, don’t dump the pants you peed in into the laundry basket.  Put it onto the back veranda so we can wash it.”

I know there are common frustrations of mothers, but the challenge increases exponentially when you have 17 children as well as a huge language barrier between you and them.  What makes it more fun is no running water and fantastic inventions like vacuum cleaners and washing machines.  Yes, there is still value in gifts to raise one’s living standards.  At the same time, acquiring a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine will require more teaching and training and close supervision.  In short, we need more staff!

There's so Much to be Grateful For

(yes, I stole the title from a Christmas song... I believe it's by Josh Groban)

Living here does something to you.  Something positive.  You begin to be thankful for things you never even noticed in the past.  Like water.  And sunshine.  And electricity.  And libraries.  Imagine the sweet bliss of being surrounded by mounds and mounds of books and comfy couches.

Every time a sector of society goes on strike, everyone ends up striking (I'm not sure if it's voluntary or not) and they block all major roads and highways.  Even the kids get a holiday from school when there's a strike for water and electricity.  The latest strike resulted in less power cuts in the town.  Yesterday I had a full day and night of electricity.  Almost.  We had almost 24h straight of electricity save 2 short 10min cuts.  I was almost motivated to bake except I had a ton of computer work waiting for me and not enough butter.  The town has increased hours of running water--from 6h to 10h.  Despite the convenience of more hours of running water, squabbles over water taps still break out in the neighbourhood.  Most homes don't have their own tap and the most they have is a storage tank.  When there's running water, there is usually a mad dash to fill up your tank.  High pitched voices at full volume over trespassing hoses that are hogging the running water ring out as early as 7am.  Still, we're lucky to have running water at all, as opposed to well water.  Well water is good, except at the school, it's pumped up into an open-air water tank and then pumped to another open-air water tank near the bathroom or near the kitchen.  What's fun is when we have to scoop out decomposed leaves and other organic matter (I'm not even going to begin to speculate what that may be...sometimes it's just better to turn a blind eye) that have coagulated into slimy long green strips that resemble seaweed.

Sunshine.  Without it, it takes 3-4 days to dry my clothes, and even so they feel damp.  It's not like I can hang the clothes in the house and crank up the heater either.  At the end, the clothes still feel damp and smell musty.  

Electricity is nice when your 3G internet is finally working, but your laptop's batteries are drained.  And it's good for plugging in liquid mosquito repellents when you sleep.  It's also nice when you're flushing your toilet with a bucket, but you need light to see if everything flushed down or not.

To my knowledge there are very few public libraries, and in the limited time I've spent in the cities, I haven't heard of any or seen any.  Books provided entertainment and fed my imagination from a young age.  A common summer activity for my family was to visit the library, and we had our own mini-library of Chinese storybooks and Disney picture books at home.  The children here don't even have 1 book for pleasure reading.  When I go home, I'm going to hit the library & stock up on fiction!  Then I'll pack my bags full of children's books and bring more stuff back for our reading time.  

You've Got to be Kidding Me!

1. I wake up one Sat morning at 7am.  The kids are supposed to "sleep in" till 7 or 7:30am, so I tiptoe to the outdoor bathrooms so I can have a few more min of peace and quiet until the chaos of being "mom" to 17 children.  The door to the boys room creaks open and Santosh, our youngest boy who just turned 6 comes out.  As I walk out of a stall and return the bucket to the water tank, I notice that one of the bathroom doors is wide open.  Santosh was standing there with a pile of softened yellowish brown poo on the bathroom floor.  

"Jesus!  Help me!"  I cry out.  This is when my love is tested.  Can I help him clean up?  I've changed plenty of diapers, but this is a whole new level of child care.  I take a coupla deep breaths and laugh out my disbelief at what I'm about to do.  I grab some newspaper and walk back to try to pick up the poop.  Darn. It won't drop into the toilet because it's too soft and gooey.  I end up cleaning up as much as  I can with newspapers and then using water to flush the rest down the drain.  I guess we're lucky we have a drain on our bathroom floor.  It's there because that part is supposed to be the shower.  I survived the test.  


2. The electrician wires the bathroom lights on the right to turned on by the left switch and the lights on the left to be turned on by the right switch.


3. One of our boys (grew up without a mom & herded livestock to help make a living) takes off his shirts by ripping it open.  Guess what happens to all the buttons?


4. 1:42am.  I wake up with a start from a dream in which I'm in a cave and I'm half immersed in water.  I feel this wet sensation on my legs and touch my sheets to find that they're all wet!  Half asleep, I gingerly feel the floor around my bed to discover it is dry.  Forcing my eyes open, I got on my feet to close my windows to the howling wind and torrential rain.  After I plop back into bed and try to sleep again, I hear this periodic "drip drip drip" and feel it on my sheets.  Groaning, I get out of bed again to turn on the lights.  And, to my amusement, I find a hole with the diameter of 1cm in the 6-month new--or shall I say, old?--ceiling and water leaking onto my bed.  Angling the bed doesn't help.  Sticking tape on the hole doesn't help.  Finally, I get a brainwave and open my umbrella.  I propped it between the AC and the ceiling fan to redirect the dripping rainwater onto the floor instead of the bed.  Leaving the children's home and coming back to the town for 2 days was supposed to be a peaceful break for me with no kids waking me up to accompany them to our outdoor bathroom.  Little did I know...

5. We have 2 brothers who have herded cows and sheep as well as washed clothes to support themselves because their dad was seriously ill and the mother deserted the family.  Although they're around 8 and 11, I often feel like I'm dealing with giant toddlers in the terrible threes.  

The younger one tears into the bedroom with his towel wrapped around him and his dirty and wet clothes in a heap on the outdoor bathroom floor.  Great.

"Akash!  Put your clothes in the basket!"  I call out.  Akash pretends he doesn't hear me and continues doing his thing in the room.  I quickly dump some lice shampoo into the hands of one waiting boy and stride into the room.  I grab Akash's hand and guide him to pick up his dirty clothes to dump in the laundry basket.  I then go to his room to help him find a set of clothes.  Reaching onto his shelf, I groan in disbelief.  Not again! All his clothes on his shelf are rolled into balls and 75% of the clothes is wet or damp.  Fantastic.  Akash and his brother always put washed clothes that are still damp on their shelf or they just dump their dirty clothes back.  It's a never-ending battle to keep their shelf organized and hygienic.


6. A private English-immersion high school cancels a day of school because of heavy rains.  Apparently the school was flooding.  


7. We receive our school account's bank statement for July (that means from the 1st to the 31st) on Sept 3rd.  A quick look at the stamp on the envelop tells us that they mailed it on Aug 28th from the capital of the state, which is only an 8h bus ride or 1.5 flight away.  How does one of the biggest banks in India take 28 days to mail a simple bank statement that has only 1 entry on it?

8. "Noooooo!  STOP!" I yell as Kiran (the older of the 2 brothers aforementioned) pees right onto the ground in front of 3 kids.  The kids were all walking a little ways away from the veranda to rinse their plates before dinner and 11-year-old Kiran decides that the grass is a better place place to take a leak than the bathroom in the back.  He's already had the consequence of cleaning toilets several times from doing open-air all over our campus in the past.  What's the next level of a consequence that suits the misdeed?


9. It's impossible to get gas cylinders quickly refilled here.  In Jangareddigudem, we ran out of gas yesterday.  It's been 24h and still we have no cooking gas.  All the firewood is wet from the incessant rain.  Luckily the pastor's aunt lives close by, so his mom just cooks there.  We'll be fortunate to get gas tomorrow.  The gas cylinder at the school was taken from the senior's home, and we applied for gas on Aug 3rd.  It's been over a month and we have yet to get gas to cook with.  Apparently our account with that cylinder got deactivated because we didn't purchase butane for a few months and it's taking over a month to reactive our account.  After it's reactivated in the headquarters in the state capital, Hyderabad, we still need to wait to actually get it filled.  

The cook has been cooking a lot outdoors despite the rain.  We keep our firewood stacked on the veranda to keep it dry.  We even had to buy gas twice on the black market out of desperation.  Apparently what some individuals do is that they purchase extra cylinders and wait until there's a shortage of butane or when people get frustrated with the gas company.  Then they hike up the price by 30% and resell it.  "Gas, gas, please come.  Don't wait another day." (sung to the tune of "rain, rain, go away")

Stars that Splatter the Sky

“Aka, eipenda? (Older sister, finished?)” the eight-year-old in front of me queries.

            “Almost done, chile (younger sister),” I reply.  I scrutinize the fine-toothed comb in my hands and find a tiny black blob.  Sticking my fingernails into the tight space between the teeth of the comb, I endeavour to get the blob out.  I dip the comb into the pail of water to clean it thoroughly.

            “Aka, me too!” another voice pipes up. 

            I look up to see the chaos before me.  Some children are waiting patiently; others are busy scooping water with pails out of the water tank into buckets (we have no running water) to prepare to wash their hair; still others are impatiently crowding around me demanding that they be next.

            A week after our 20 children arrived at the children’s home, I was doing the girls’ hair and I made a horrific discovery: lice.  I had never thought to check everyone’s hair when they first arrived.  I always assume that people don’t have lice, and not the opposite.  It never even occurred to me to check.  I should have known.  I’ve encounterd a lot of kids with lice and I’ve heard that most village kids have it. 

            Since then I’ve been washing the 5 girls’ hair with lice shampoo every day, every time I’m at the school.  It’s taken a lot of cajoling and persuasion to get them to cooperate.  They don’t see is as a big issue because they’re used to it.  I mean, everyone has it, why not jump on the bandwagon?  The girl who was the least reluctant to cooperate had 100 big fat adult lice combed out of her hair during the 1^st hour!  If her thick black hair is as dark as the midnight sky, then the nits in her hair are as numerous as the stars.  And I’m talking about the stars you can see when there’s an electricity cut and there’s absolutely no light pollution.

Just yesterday, boys approached me to get their hair combed.  I haven’t combed every boy’s hair yet, but out of the 6 heads I combed, 5 had lice.  Fantastic.  Now half the children at our children’s home have lice.  I might as well take on the position as the licerminator.  I’ve seen lice in every shape and size.  The baby ones are transparent, but they’re red if they just had their breakfast.  As they group up they turn gray and then eventually, black. 

            The problem is multifold.  First of all, the medicated shampoo isn’t strong enough and it’s intended to “stun the lice” so you can comb it out.  The first thing I’m going to do in Canada is to get some strong lice shampoo that actually kills the lice.  Another problem is that all the kids sleep on the floor on bamboo mats.  Because they sleep so close to each other, I get them to sleep in alternate directions.  However, some of them rotate 180 degrees, and by the time I wake them up the next morning, their heads are touching other kids’ heads.

            Not only does sleeping on the floor exacerbate the lice epidemic, but it also can be dangerous for the kids.  Last Friday, we spotted a 1m long snake near the bathrooms.  Later, we were playing a group clapping game with all the kids sitting in a circle on the veranda when suddenly one of the older boys jumped up in fear.  He had discovered a scorpion on the veranda!  Snakes, scorpions, and centipedes (whose bites are terribly painful, as I discovered in Feb) are common where the school is located.  We are the only settlement in a 2km radius, and we’re surrounded by forests and fields.  Beds.  A simple solution.  We trust that God will provide for them soon.

Apple Peels

From Aug 10^th to Aug 21^st we had the pleasure of hosting David, a volunteer from Taiwan.  After lunch one day, he peeled an apple to increase his fibre intake.  Siddu, a 7-year-old boy who is often homesick, approached David and pointed at the apple peels as if to ask for permission.  After David nodded his consent, Siddu took a peel and ate it with relish.  David felt sorry for Siddu, so he gave him a slice of apple and watched as Siddu gobbled it down.  Most children from impoverished families, including the kids who are currently residing at our children’s home, have diets of mainly rice.  Rice is not only their staple, but it is also the main foodstuff they eat to satiate their hunger. 

A typical meal consists of 2 bites of really salty and spicy vegetables and some kind of soupy dish.  When I first stayed with a low-income Indian family, I thought Indians just liked their food super salty and spicy.  I later realized that I was eating too many vegetables (compared to what they usually eat), so that’s why I found the food too salty. 

My heart always cries out when I see the children so happy to eat a banana.  Bananas are the cheapest fruit here, and you can get a dozen small ones for 40 cents.  However, if you look at the income of $50-100 of a typical lower-class family, 40 cents is a lot.  If a father of a single-parent family or a widow makes only $50/month, it means they’re surviving on $1/day for food.  And that’s for like 3-4 people.  Things like fruit, eggs, and meat are considered as luxury items consumed on special occasions.

My heart also aches when kids tell me their favourite food.  Most kids back home in Canada might say McDonalds or ice-cream, but at least 4 out of 20 of the kids at our children’s home said eggs.  Can you imagine?  Back home, we always have eggs in the fridge and more often than not, I choose not to eat eggs.  Here, for families living below the poverty line, eggs are a precious commodity.  In March, a dozen eggs were 85 cents.  Even then, many families cannot afford to give their children eggs every day.  Now, in Aug, eggs have inflated to $1.20/dozen.  Absolutely unaffordable.  As around the world, inflation is hitting the poor the hardest. 

I’ve lived here so long that I’m used to eating soupy rice.  The other day, I had the luxury of eating some boiled spinach, and I found that I wasn’t used to chewing the fibrous food.  I usually can afford to buy some fruit for myself, but I always feel guilty when I have to hide to eat fruit because I can’t afford to buy it for everyone.  Financial support is good, but we’re praying now that our micro-businesses can start up.  For starters, we want to purchase 15 buffalos so they can provide milk for our kids, and we can sell the rest of the milk to dairy manufacturing companies.  We don’t know how to procure the capital for our micro-business ideas, but our eyes are on Him, the author and perfecter of our faith.

No Sacrifice

All the tears, the discomforts, the loneliness, the frustration, the inconveniences, the language barrier issues, and the worldview clashes are worth it when a child says, "I love you, aka (sister)."

Please continue praying for me.  Jason Upton's "No Sacrifice" is my prayer:

To You I give my life, not just the parts I want to
To You I sacrifice all these dreams that I hold on to

Chorus

Your thoughts are higher than mine

Your words are deeper than mine

Your love is stronger than mine

This is no sacrifice

Here's my life

To you I give the gifts Your love has given me

How can I hoard the treasures that you've designed for free?

To You I give my future as long as it may last

To You I give my present, to You I give my past

Inflation

I know inflation is happening all around the world, but it’s occurring in gastronomical proportions here.  For example, chicken went from $2/kg to $2.75/kg and chili peppers from 20 cents/kg to $2/kg.  It might not seem like much, but when you think about the daily budget for food of an underprivileged individual—60 cents—the inflation is killer.  There are people who earn $1.70 a day as daily wage labourers and they get called for farm work based on the season.  If there’s no work to be done in the fields, they don’t have any income.  Shepherdesses earn even less. 

Living here makes me appreciate the Canadian government’s support system even more.  People earning below a certain amount get child benefits and many people enjoy free medical care.  There are food banks and different organizations reaching out to the less privileged.  Here, if your husband deserts you or if your wife dies, you’re on your own.  You gotta just etch out a living for you and your children.  Some do daily wage labour.  Some go into the forest and collect edibles to sell on the street.  Some herd buffalo.  And some—the ones that are really sick and unable to get medical help—beg their friends and relatives for relief. 

For some, inflation is just a pinch, but for those living in poverty, inflation is a deep gash.

(sorry it's sideways.  It uploaded this way and there's no function to turn it around) 

Baking in Rural India

I’ve been wanting to make these peanut butter cookies from a mix I got as a care package from New York, so I kept waiting for electricity to be more stable.  (There have been power cuts for at least 2 hours every single day of the 6.5 weeks I’ve been here) One day, we had power in the morning, and we had power in the afternoon.  I thought we’d for sure have power at night, so I started making the cookies.  When I was putting them on the cookie sheet, the power goes out.  I’m lucky the power didn’t go out while they were baking!  Fun times J

A few days later, I wanted to bake again, but there was a lot of burnt stuff in oven, so I decided to clean it.  I brought it to the outdoor tap and started using a wet rag to clean it.  Jagadeesh sees me and asks, “aka, help?”  Seconds later, Ganesh comes and tells Jagadeesh to go and rest, saying that he could help me clean the oven.  Since they both were so eager to help, I let them work on it and went to prepare my baking supplies. 

We brought the oven indoors near an electric outlet, and I plugged it in.  I tried to open the door of the oven and felt a minor shock.  I barely noticed it because I experience the same on a frigid and dry day when I take off a coat.  The oven was tilted and about to fall off the stool we placed it on (the current kitchen we use doesn’t have counter tops), and I tried to straighten it.  Suddenly my knees buckled and I screamed involuntarily.  Some teenagers ran up to me, and asked me what was wrong.  That’s when I realized I just experienced a huge electric shock.  I had only touched the outside of the oven, but I didn’t know that it’d give me an electric shock.  I felt pain where the electricity entered my body through my hand & left through my feet.  Then they left the oven under the fan for half a day to dry it.  When I tried baking that night, I plugged everything in and turned it on before plugging in the cord in.  Luckily I didn’t get a shock again.  There are so many 1^sts in India, some pleasant, but some not so pleasant.

Jagadeesh

I’m learning how to be content with very little from Jagadeesh, a 15-year-old boy.  The zippers on Jagadeesh’s backpack are all broken and the material separating the different compartments is torn and the straps are coming off.  I asked him if he needed a new backpack and it said that it was ok.  He has been carrying it with the small strap used for hanging that is on the top of the backpack. 

One afternoon, I noticed him sewing during homework time.  As I walked closer, I realized that he was sewing the broken zipper shut on his bag!  I’ve never met a 15-year-old—maybe I just haven’t met a lot of teenagers—that will not demand a new bag or request that a broken zipper be fixed, but instead proceeds to sew up the zipper.  I told him that he could do his homework and I’ll take it to a tailor in the neighbourhood to sew.

“No problem, aka.  I can do it myself.”  He smiled at me and kept sewing.

Now he only uses certain compartments on his bag.  Astounding.  I am totally bourgeois compared to the kids that live here.  

Amurta

For whatever reason Amurta’s mom sends her to the free preschool held in our compound at age 2.  She started crying for her mommy, so I had to pick her up to comfort her and I started carrying her around.  I was drinking water and she says, “enti?” meaning “what.”  I figured she was asking me “what is it?” so I said, “water.”  She repeats.  “Waterlu.”  Then she points at the talcum powder and questions, “enti?”  I reply, “powder.”  “Powdera” she repeats.  Mirror becomes “Miramu.”  I couldn’t stop giggling to myself because at the young age of 2 she has already somehow realized, perhaps subconsciously, that words must end with a vowel.  So she added a vowel to every word I taught her.  Her accent is out-of-this-world cute!

In Telugu, all consonants are attached to vowels, so you wouldn’t have a word like “Macdonald” in which there is no vowel between the “c” and “d” sounds.  It's so amazing how toddlers subconsciously know grammatical structure without anyone teaching them.  Anyhow, the kids keep me amused.

Efficiency

I was talking to this girl a few days ago and I mentioned the word “efficient.”  She didn’t understand it, so I endeavoured to explain it to her using simpler terminology.  After some time, I decided to teach through example.

“You know McDonalds?  Well they are very efficient,” I state.  She shakes her head.

“Ok... KFC?” I query.  I think that she must know KFC since it’s so popular in India.  Judging from the people I’ve interacted with, KFC might be even more popular than McDonald’s AND it’s in the city that is 3h away from us.

“No, aka.” She wrinkles her forehead in confusion.  “What is that?”

I decide not to even attempt to explain McDonalds because first I’d have to explain what hamburgers and fries are, so I thought KFC would be easier to explain.  “Well, KFC is a place that makes food really fast and they make fried chicken.”

“Oh, like what Ama does.  She makes fried chicken too!” she exclaimed.

Hmmmm.... Well, I’m glad that she connected the new knowledge to her background knowledge, but in my explanation I totally forgot that village culture is not a restaurant-oriented culture.  I don’t even know if she’s ever eaten in a restaurant before.  Lol... it’s so funny how I often realize that things we take for granted as common knowledge in our culture is not common knowledge in other cultures, especially rural areas that haven’t been touched by technologies such as computers and the internet.  

School Supplies

Although things are generally cheaper in India than Canada or the States, $50/month is still really hard to live on.  That's how much the minimum wage here is.  Jobs that make $50/month include daily wage farm labourers, government street cleaners, and some construction labourers.  A bus ticket costs around 25 cents, a bottle of coke around 60 cents, and a loaf of bread 50 cents.  However, rice is 1/2 of the price it is in Canada, and it is the staple food of South India.  Luxury items like TVs, washing machines, data projectors, and laptops are the same as Canada, if not more costly. 

My heart breaks when I see children so excited about small things.  Some of the children come 1h early to the school in the HMJC compound, so once I gave them some children’s books to read.  When the 2 boys saw the books, they exclaimed, “Books!” and looked at each other in delight.  There are libraries in the cities, but here in the country side, books are scarce.  In fact, I even went to the big city 3h away from here (it’s one of the 3 biggest cities in this state) and I couldn’t find a decent bookstore.  All the bookstores only sell school textbooks and workbooks. 

The children are also super excited about paper and markers.  (“sketches,” they call them)  When they saw some markers in the office, they begged to have them, and how could I resist?  I am always for children having art supplies.  Actually, the markers were bought for our village outreaches to even more remote places.  Places that don’t have stores.  Although we have stores in our town, a lot of families can’t afford markers or fancy school supplies for their children.  The kids in our free village school (taught by a volunteer teacher and held in our compound) all practice their ABC’s and 123’s on blackboard slates. 

Today I noticed a 6-year-old boy carrying his notebooks, slate, and chalk in a plastic bag marked “corn feed.”  I’m guessing his family can’t afford a backpack.  He comes from a difficult family background.  One of his parents was unfaithful and gave HIV to the other.  His father has a drinking problem and doesn’t come home in months. 

I hope I’ll never become desensitized to the suffering and challenges of others.  I just see so much, but I don’t want it to ever become acceptable in my mind.  The cry to stand up for justice and to ensure everyone has the human rights (see http://www.humanrights.com/) they’re entitled to should always resound in my heart and feed my determination to make a difference in a life.

Ganesh

I take my buckets down to the outdoor tap the minute I wake up because a) there's only running water from 6-12pm; and b) I want to use the relatively warm tap water to shower instead of water that has gotten super cold from sitting in my bathroom overnight.


I return to my room, and within minutes, the buckets return to my room full.  Once again, Ganesh takes the initiative to serve others.  He's 18 and in gr.8.  He had epilepsy and as a result of his seizures, he couldn't attend school for 6 years.  He started school late and has difficulty speaking clearly.  No matter what curve balls life has thrown at him, Ganesh has a wonderful heart of service.  When it rains or when it's windy, a whole bunch of leaves and dirt get deposited on the veranda outside my room.  Every time he carries water to my room (I don't have running water) and finds the tiled veranda dirty, he asks me if I want him to clean it.  I tell him that he can if he wants to, but I can do it myself.  He then proceeds to clean the veranda joyfully and thoroughly.

When he sees me filling a bucket with water to wash my clothes, he asks, "soap" and gets me the detergent.  When he sees me squeezing water out of towels or bedsheets, he runs to help me.  He has such a gift of service, and what's more amazing is that he's always joyful when he's serving others.  So many times I'll hear him singing or humming as he's doing chores or running errands.

Ganesh is also very earnest and diligent.  Even when facing mundane tasks that the teacher gives him for homework like copying paragraphs, he concentrates on the task and does not get distracted when the other kids are talking.  We started reading Genesis during group devotions and he was so into the Word that he read ahead.  When I was doing laundry, he came over to me and started summarizing Abram’s life.  This morning we carried water together up to my second-story room twice and both times, he continued summarizing what he read. 

One time, I asked about his family and found out that when he was really young his dad left his mom.  Later on, he got married to someone else and they started a family.  His mom works at a college as a janitor.  She works from 4am-7pm every day, but is only compensated $50/month.  Ganesh’s dad doesn’t really contact him & the last time he saw him was 4 years ago.  From what I know, most children of divorced families don’t have the privilege of spending time with both parents in this culture.  Because Ganesh’s mom works such long hours and she makes so little, she sent him to stay at our children’s home.  


Ganesh is just one of the kids I’m able to learn from.  I’m learning how to serve more and how to go to that lowest place of humility.  I'm learning how to be content with less.  These kids are so wonderful, and I’m incredibly privileged to be taking care of them!

Candle Suicides

After 5 weeks of living here, I've come into contact with a disturbing phenomenon.  The mother of someone we know had to bear some terrible insults from a neighbour.  The next morning, she pours oil over herself at 4:30 and sets herself on fire.  When she was rushed to the hospital, the doctor said that she only had 10% chance of survival.  She passed away the next day.

6 days later, we arrive at the school site at 7am when one of our skilled workers comes up to me and says that he has some serious family business and he needs to leave right away.  He jumped on the auto to travel for another 45min to get home.  The next day I heard that his whole family rushed to the hospital at a nearby city.  Another case of 3^rd degree burns, but this time the 19-year-old had 5% chance of survival.  The worker’s wife’s niece was caught in a kitchen “accident” and whole house burned down.  Her 3-month-old baby boy was rescued out of the fire in time, so he just suffered from breathing in smoke.  This young mother was conscious at the hospital and apparently she kept saying, “I don’t know why I did it.”  Her death was filed as an accidental death, but she most likely committed suicide.  I can’t help but wonder what prompted her to take such drastic measures.  In-law issues?  Abusive husband?  Postpartum depression?  I don’t even know if most people in the countryside know what postpartum depression is.

How do we go about addressing such issues?  Why do people commit suicide so easily?  Is it because they believe in rebirth?  Is it because they lack a strong understanding support network?  Once again, I have questions, but no answers.  All I know is that we need to educate children from a young age the value of life and share with them the hope that is in Christ.  The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly.  

Incredible

          I'm sitting on a concrete veranda surrounded by 2 stray puppies that have taken refuge with us.  As I look up from my notebook, I see a 4-acre field fenced in by palm trees and bushes.  Workers are bustling all around me, carrying concrete to the maistrees (skilled construction workers) who will first build walls to make dormitory rooms using mortar and brick before plastering it the next day using a mixture of water, fine sand, and cement powder.
           I glance down at my notebook and furrow my eyebrows as I try to imagine my elementary classroom.  What furniture did we have?  What supplies did the teacher always keep in her cupboard?  What lined the shelves under the wall-to-wall window?  This is incredible.  I’m making a shopping list for a boarding school.  A boarding school!  I’ve always made lists for myself.  The biggest shopping list I made was for a 5-day camping trip my friends and I went on.  I’ve never even furnished a house before.  But here I am, trying to figure out all the equipment, furniture, utensils, and supplies we need for classrooms, offices, a kitchen, a cafeteria, and dormitory rooms.  You’ve got to be kidding me.   Who am I?

            A day later, I stay at home to spend more time on the computer.  This time, I’m making orientation stuff for teachers and house parents.  I’m drawing up a list of rules and regulations for students & staff.  I’m designing a daily schedule for the boarding students.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Who am I?

Nobody.  A newbie teacher with only 3 years of experience and absolutely no administrative experience.  God truly doesn’t choose to always use the experienced, strong, and equipped.  He uses the available, the weak, those who will depend on Him for everything.  This reminds me of the verse Rachel gave me in which Jeremiah said, “I am only a child.”  Yes, I am a child and I am weak, but when I am weak, I am strong because of Christ who lives within me.

A day in the life of Anita

Ok, I am involved in many different activities, but this is what a typical day in my life might look like.

5:10 5:45 7:00 7:30 9:30 10:00-1:30 2:30 3:30 4:30 5:30 7:00 9:30 10:00 10:30

Wake up & get ready for work Jump into the car to drive for an hour through the countryside to get to the remote area where we’re building the school Arrive at school & feed the stray puppies that showed up a few months ago “Water” the concrete.  This needs to happen when you lay concrete beams, build concrete pillars, & use bricks and mortar to construct walls to strengthen your construction. (Meanwhile, there is a regular power cut from 7:30-9:30 happening at home to help everyone conserve electricity) Finish watering the concrete & break time Carry concrete to pillars to fill the metal supporting structures (usually this is done by one of those concrete trucks that turn constantly, but without the budget to fund such fancy equipment, everything is done by manpower & womanpower) Water break Work.  This time I gather all the concrete bags and roll them in 20’s.  Later on, we can take the bags to a mat stitcher and they will stitch all the bags into a giant mat for us to place on the church floor for people to sit on. Water break Feed the dogs Soak towels & any available large pieces of cloth in water & hang across open windows so there can be free AC when we drive (I love how utilitarian Indians are!) Arrive home & have lunch.  Darn, during lunch suddenly the lights go out, the fan stops turning, and the fridge starts whirling.  We’re in for another 2-3h power cut.  Do laundry.  Easy, right?  Wrong!  This involves bringing my clothes downstairs in my bucket to our water tank and soaking them in soapy water.  Then I hand wash all the items (outdoors, of course), dump out the murky water, use a pail to refill my bucket with water from the water tank.  Slosh clothes around the bucket, pour out water, refill water.  Repeat 2 more times.  Carry the bucket of cleanish clothes (since I only started hand washing clothes 8 months ago, I’m not that expert at it yet) 4m away to the clothesline to discover that it already has clothes drying on it.  Carry clothes for another 4m to hang.  Return the stool to the kitchen, rinse out the buckets, fill my bucket water to bring back upstairs to store in my attached bathroom—or shall I say, toilet.  Peel mangoes to make a lassi.  Actually, many lassis.  I have to get the pulp out of at least 6 mangoes and use at least 1L of curd to make lassis for all the people that live in this courtyard-style house (the pastor and his family). Chillax, read, turn on the modem to check if the internet is working (I probably have internet working 1 day/week or so if I’m lucky) Leave to attend a cottage meeting, which is usually at least 30min away in another village and at a believer’s house.  This means we sit on a mat stitched out of rice or concrete bags under the starry night.  Sometimes we have a tarp over our heads and sometimes not.  Usually we have a light bulb to illuminate Bibles. The prayer meeting ends & the believer provides dinner to the pastor & other VIP individuals.  This happens when the cottage meeting occurs to celebrate an occasion like a birthday, one’s coming-of-age (which is determined by when girls 1st have their periods), etc.  After dinner, we pray for the family and their household. Leave for home. Arrive home, get ready for bed, hit the sack.

Randomness

Ok, here are a whole bunch of random things that have crossed my mind since I arrived in India 2 weeks ago:

Dance

I love Indian dance culture!  We’ve been dancing in the streets before our open air meetings and during our 24h worship sessions, and I absolutely love how people of all ages get involved.  I love how it’s not sexualized the way it is in the West.  Granted, there are certain types of dancing that are sexualized, but the general type of dance that the average kid and youth do is just pure fun.

Sharing

I like how people here really look out for others.  If they have a cookie, they’ll snap it in half to share with you.  If they have a bottle of pop, they’ll give you a sip.  The only thing is that sometimes I don’t like to share.  The other day, we ran out of drinking water at the pastor’s house where we were eating.  I was about to go out to buy a bottle, but one of the guys bought it for me.  I was glad to be served by a gallant gentleman, but at the same time, I secretly was a little unhappy that I’d have to share the 1L of water with 15 people since he’d be bringing the water back directly to where the DTS team was (yes, I’m a great team player!).  When he came back, I made myself drink half the bottle before passing it off.  Needless to say, they finished it off for me.  The next time I was thirsty, I snuck out, bought myself a bottle, and drank the whole liter before going back to join the team.  Yes, I am a little stingy.

The Girl from the Village

I was sitting in church, looking out the door when I saw this 10-year-old girl with special needs on the ground, her navy blue skirt dusty.  A slightly younger girl, maybe eight, pulled hard on her right hand while a five-year-old pulled at her left hand, as if trying to lift her up.  As I continued to observe, I saw a three-year-old tug hard at her feet.  The girl with the learning disability was grinning at the others.  When the younger girls failed to lift her up, one of them began using her fists to pound on the head of the girl with special needs. 

That’s when I leapt to my feet, ran out the door without pausing to put on my sandals and grabbed the hands of the younger girls.  I found out that all 3 of them were hitting her.  The girl with a learning disability couldn’t speak clearly, and even if she could, my Telugu is too limited, but I can imagine that those same girls were the ones that pushed her to the ground.  Infuriated, I reprimanded them sharply and told them repeatedly, “no hitting.”  The girls still had little smirks on their faces, so I asked a friend to come and translate for me. 

It always amazes me how cruel children can be sometimes.  Cruelty and bullying—especially to those who are weak and unable to stand up for themselves—is something I absolutely detest. 

Just in case you didn’t know…

Even if you drink 4L of water, you probably don’t have to go to the washroom when the temperature is 40C because you sweat it all out.  Seriously.

A buffalo here generally gives 15-20L of milk per day and they cost around $1300+

The best cleaner and the only one that is free is ants.  What other product will diligently run around and sniff out all the crumbs and dead insects to remove?  What other product will work day in and day out removing the undesirable items from your floor?

Sweat stings when it drips into your eyes.

Corrugated roofs make the room HOT.  Thatched roofs and concrete roofs are less hot.  It’s even better if you have a false ceiling instead of your ceiling being the roof.

When it’s 40+ degrees in the day time, your bed sheets will feel like they’ve been just taken out of the dryer even at midnight.

It sucks being a girl because then you get extra bad heat rash in places where you have to wear an extra layer of clothing.

When it’s 47C out, and you’re under the sun, wind blowing in your face is not that fun.  It feels like you’ve just opened the oven to take out the roast beef and the heat has come surging out to the point of singeing your eyelashes.

Your arms can sweat, your legs can sweat, your face and neck can REALLY sweat, and even your feet can sweat.  Oh, did I mention your bottom?

Chameleons have really cool hands.  It looks like they’re wearing mittens.  Their eyes look like skin covered volcanoes with a little black opening at the peak.

It is possible to dance in the pitch dark without anyone getting hurt. 

The sweetest sound on earth is when you hear water dripping into a bucket after 36h of no water coming from the taps.  4h of continuous water flow a day is surely not too much to ask, is it?

The most joyful shout people make is when the refrigerator starts humming, the fan starts whirling, and the lights turn out.  “Electricity’s here!”

The grossest thing is when you have an open cut on your foot, and it starts stinging like crazy.  You look down to discover that it is black.  You bend down to discover that there are a whole bunch of fruit flies (that’s what they look like) that have landed on your foot to drink deep of your pus.

Ok, I lied.  The grossest thing on earth is to open your bedroom door to discover ants swarming around a dead baby lizard.  There are so many ants that they formed a circle around the lizard.  I didn’t want to deal with it, and everyone else was asleep by then, so I left it till morning.  By then, only the head and an arm was left.

All that being said, I'm still loving it here and I feel like I'm doing what I was made to do.