Yesterday
all the volunteers were lucky enough to go to the nearby village of
Devalapalli. According to Mr. Anish, the head of facilities at SB, about 150
families live there. Although I have driven through the village a ton (you have
to pass it to get to Shanti Bhavan), I have never been able to walk through it
and interact with the inhabitants. I was really excited!
The
village tour started with the group of volunteers piling into the school
transportation, which is an ambulance. The George Foundation also runs the
nearby Baldev Medical Center and SB uses the ambulance for transportation. The
village is within walking distance but with a group of 6 it was just easier to
drive. I wish it had a siren! The first place we went to was the village
temple. The "priest" of the temple opened it for us and blessed us.
He did a whole ceremony of where we waved the fire to us, put a pink dot on our
forehead, and also poured a handful of some kind of herbal water over our head.
We were a little afraid it was cow urine because some temples have that, but
luckily we were told after that it was just herbal water!!
After
the temple we rushed over to the school to interact with the kids before the
end of the school day. At first all the children were extremely shy, it was
only after they realized that we had cameras and that they would be able to see
their picture on the screen did some of them come up to us. This was a
government school and many of them did not speak English and thus it was hard
to communicate. The older ones told us their name, while the younger ones just
stared at us with scared little faces. A little boy had ink all over his mouth
and face, so me and Ale tried to ask what happened and the poor little boy just
looked at us with eyes that seemed that they were going to burst into tears at
any minute. The classrooms were just one big room…no desks, and chalkboards for
the kids to do their work on. All the children were extremely cute though and
all waved bye to us and even chased us down the street screaming, “bye!!”
The
next stop on the village tour was a house that The George Foundation built. It
was built for a cleaning staff at the medical center and her family. Her
daughter, mother, and grandchildren were waiting for us at the house. Her
daughter was in the 12th grade and spoke some English so we were
able to ask her some basic questions. I also talked to the grandmother via a
translator and she was asking questions about my age, etc. Their house
consisted of a 10 ft room with a small TV, a tiny bedroom with no mattresses,
and a kitchen with a gas burning stove and kerosene lamps. Surprisingly I saw a
jar of Skippy Peanut Butter! We spent our time there just interacting with the
kids…a lot of neighborhood children also stopped by to see us. The two youngest
were pretty shy, but I started tickling them and their little giggles
brightened my day. At the end, we said goodbye and once again all the children
chased after us waving and screaming.
The
village tour at was truly humbling. All though Shanti Bhavan is extremely close
to villages, it seems like a whole different world. We have beds, food, clean
water, etc. These children in the nearby villages are living in extreme poverty
and will not have the same education or life that the kids here at SB will
have. I was having a really bad day that day and the village tour really lifted
my spirits. It really put it into perspective on how lucky I am and how I
shouldn’t let the insignificant things bother me…these village children still
smile no matter what.
