India, Day 8 - The Village Sunday School Class
In the last of many, many stops on my busy eighth day in India, my host and I visited a friend of his who teaches children out of his home every day. The kids had some pretty unforgettable faces.
Travel Blog: India, Day 8 - The kids at the riverbank.
While at my host's cheerful home village, an oasis in the middle of abject and depressed poverty state in India, we met a group of children doing laundry in the nearby river. Let me see...
A gaggle of village kids. India. A river. An open field of epic proportions.
Why, yes, a photo op was in order.
Every time I visit India, I am always amazed and overjoyed by the people's capacity for kindness, unhindered friendliness and hospitality, and their sheer willingness to participate. Shy though they were, this group of children stayed true to Indian hospitality by eagerly smiling and waving at the camera when I started clicking the shutter. They giggled and laughed elatedely when I turned the SLR around showed them their photos in the camera's monitor. I took dozens of photos of the little guys. I don't know what these children's lives are like on a normal day, but in that environment, with those kinds of smiles, they made this scene look absolutely idyllic.
India, Day 7 - The Welcome Wagon
Upon arrival at my second host's home in India, I was greeted by a fresh crowd: the orphans he cares for. I had met this group of children on my first trip to India, several years before. I never got the chance to get to know them, but my time with them on this trip more than made up for it.
All of these children are supported by Compassion International. Compassion is a wonderful organization, and the support it provides to children all over the world, including India, Africa, Central and South America, allows them to have education, skills training, food and water. They might still live in open-air houses without utilities, but their lives are enriched with nutrition and knowledge.
This group, by American standards, have no right to be as happy as they are. They live in an unsealed cement house with no running water and a few hours of electricity a day. They go to school for eight hours a day and spend four more in homework and revisions. They work hard and study hard. Yet they have the biggest hearts and smiles you could ever dream of. Whenever they have visitors, they welcome them into the house with songs and a dance or two. Even though I was only one person, they still put on the full show.
I spent a love of time with the kids in my off hours between projects with my host. We played games, I helped them with their English and sat with them to do my own journaling while they worked on their work every morning and evening. My contributions to their days always felt minimal at best, but the whole crew still treated me like one of the family, and when I got sick a few days later, they were insistent about doing as much for me as possible. I defy you to find a sweeter group of children anywhere on the planet.
India, Day 7 - My second arrival.
When we last cracked open the volume entitled "Steven in India," I was traveling south. I dodged the monsoons of India's northeast corner to go a little further south and bob back up out of reach of the deluge. My second host and I passed fields of tea and roads of corn, and we arrived safely in the little town you see below. What makes this town unique in India? The poverty and the lack of mobility, that's what. This area has the lowest education rates in India. I visited some schools, and I can say that the teachers are well-intentioned and do all they can, but when there are very few visible options for graduates or non-graduates within a hundred miles, what incentives do students have to continue?
At any rate, the welcome I received the moment I stepped out of the Bolero was intense. Very few white faces are seen in this area, and my own epidermis was more than just a novelty, it was a beacon. A mob of kids materialized all around me as soon as my feet hit the muddy ground. Young children and young adults. Cute and homely. They all appeared around me with their lips bulgingly wrapped around the enormous teeth common to the tribes of the region. These smiles were quickly unsheathed when I smiled at them. They shook my hand and held on to it in the Indian way as they asked my name and learned as much about me as they could in as short a time as possible, just in case I wasn't staying. And, as always, the people of India never glance when there's time to stare. And boy do they know how to stare. The unblinking gaze is rarely a sign of hostility or rudeness, it's simply how the culture operates. Whoever didn't come directly up to me stood at the edge of the throng and gave me a firm and unblinking once-over--their gazes can be glimpsed in the background of a few photos.
India, Day 6 - Children's Meeting
Saturday night means that the time has come for a weekly meeting of the children in the neighborhood. Like most meetings or services in India, it is conducted with music, several speakers and a lot of audience involvement.
