For a New Tomorrow.

I’m sitting at the Miami International airport waiting to board my last flight pondering about the conclusion of the long, and needless to say, life-changing experience I just had. As I sit here, over analyzing, I’m trying to figure out what these children, and this model, and India mean to me all together, and it is impossible to put in words. I guess what I would love to do for this “end of the beginning” is recount the last amazing few days I had in India and what it feels like to be back on this side of the world.

The goodbye began Monday morning even though everyone knew that I was not leaving until Wednesday. For some time, all of the girls had asked me to wear Indian clothes for my last days there, and so I did. I wore my blue sari on Monday and though it was very sweet to see their excited faces, It some how also signified that my stay there was coming to an end. Therefore, the melodic cries of my fourth graders began that morning, along with the first few out of dozens of cards cards ( I ended up with 200 of them) saying something along the lines of: “Please don’t leave me, but if you must, I wish you the best of luck and you will be in my heart forever”. This time I wouldn’t try to make some stupid joke in an effort to make them laugh, this time it was just not in me to do that, I usually just looked up at the ceiling expecting somehow that the knot in my throat would just slip right down into my stomach. It was okay if glistening tears rolled down my cheeks but I thought I’d leave the unending and much louder cries for later on that week. Teaching class my last three days was the most difficult thing during my whole stay there.

Anyways, the last few days it was as if the Indian breeze smelled sweeter, as if the sun shined brighter, as if the amount of spice in the food was just right and as if every minute of my day was worth gold. I just wished the days would keep on going; that they would never end. But then again, when I would go to bed, I would close my eyes and dream of home; it was time.

There was one thing however that made the last of it all a bit stressful. The children have these so called “autograph” books, where they ask the volunteers that come and go to leave their feelings about them writing down on paper. First of all, they gave me about 80 books two nights before I left expecting me to write pages and pages, amongst the nervousness of packing my bags and saying goodbye. And secondly, though I came up with sweet words to write on each personalized book, my words fell short from what each of them really meant to me. Regardless, I know that it meant the world to them, and so my last night there I stayed up the whole night (that’s right, before my 18 hour flight and 20 hours of traveling) and I wrote in each one of the books. Towards the end the notes became shorter and my handwriting messier but they know I tried my best.

Then the time came when Ms. Beena (vice-principle) stood up in front of the whole school at assembly to summarize, in a few words, what I had meant for this school. She spoke about how much she along with everyone else truly appreciated everything I had done and that they were going to miss my enthusiasm and affection. Then, Rajni stood up and said that the choir had prepared the last few nights to sing for me a couple songs that he knew I would love. He sat at the piano, and began to play the most beautiful music. They first sang a Tamil song and then they sang a song from the Phantom of the Opera, the one that says: “Think of me, think of me fondly when we say goodbye. Remember me, once in a while, please promise me you’ll try…”. He played to powerfully and they sang so sweetly, and I just cried; out of sorrow, out of joy, and out gratitude. Then it was time for me to stand in front of the school to say goodbye and say anything I wanted about my experience with them at Shanti Bhavan. It was very difficult to speak because I was crying but I did say a few words. I spoke about how harmony is one of my favorite things in this world, and I that I had never experienced a harmony as strong as it was at Shanti Bhavan. I encouraged them to see in each other the good things and to appreciate their differences and to celebrate their similarities. The whole assembly was very emotive and a truly perfect goodbye.

I left Shanti Bhavan with tear-filled eyes but with an ecstatic heart. I am so excited to go home and I just cannot wait to take part in igniting smiles on the faces of Nicaraguan children. This model that The George Foundation has established is a brilliant one. Embracing a “smaller” group of underprivileged children and providing for them an education like the one that you and I receive. Meanwhile, inculcating in them values and ethics geared towards helping each other and those they left behind rather than one of personal successes and material gains. These children speak of becoming the best they can be and for what…to go right back to where they began and build a new tomorrow for those people in the untouched corners of our world.

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It has been a pleasure sharing this experience with you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for accompanying me through my words.

A million thanks to those who made it possible for me to get to India, this experience and therefore, you, have changed my life.

Love

Fractions!

Trying to make fractions fun in my fourth grade classroom =).

Bharath Obama?

There is an uncanny resemblance between the new American President elect Mr. Barack Obama and one of my fourth graders, Bharath.

My roomate Suparna decided to interview him:

I hope you enjoy as much as i did =)

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An interview with Bharath of the 4th grade, president-elect Barack Obama's doppelganger.

Q. How does it feel to look like Barack Obama?
A. It feels awful. I need to do so much of work and I need to change so much after six years...

Q. You do realize that you're not actually Barack Obama?
A. ...and I know that I'm not him. I need to have long boring meetings.

Q. Would you want to be president of India?
A. Yes, but not of America. I like the people of India and I want to take care of my parents. Diwali and the best festivals are in India. And I can eat chicken.

Q. Are you happy for Barack Obama?
A. Nope.

Q. Why not?
A. Because others are scolding him. Barack Obama turned his back on some people. I don't know who, but we heard in news today.

Q. So you heard only half of the news?
A. Yes.

Chopin, Puppets, Robots and A SNAKE.

Hello everyone!

First of all, thank you for all of your concerns regarding the current situation in India of the many terrorist attack and warnings. I have been keeping up to date with the happenings even here in the rural world and although we are all safe here, the spirit in India is one of shock and sorrow. When we first heard about the bombs that were set off in the hotels in Mumbai, everyone here who has family in Mumbai, including my roommate Suparna, got really nervous, and began frantically making phone calls to make sure everyone was okay. Luckily all of their relatives were out of harms way during the blasts. It is a true tragedy however, that so many innocent people lost their lives yet again for this never-ending hatred of differences. It is heartbreaking to think how difficult it is to build something good and how easy it is to tare it down.

I am a bit nervous about my flights back but I'll make sure to listen to good music on my I-pod and say a prayer every hour or so...On Thursday morning the government called out a red alert for all the main airports in India; they receive threatening emails about possible terrorist attacks in the airports of Bangalore, Madras and New Delhi. I fly via Bangalore, Mumbai and then off to New York and Miami. I will make sure to keep myself informed until my flight on Wednesday but at this point all I can say is, that everything about this experience has been a God given gift both for me and for all the children of Shanti Bhavan...this experience has in one way or another made clear that my purpose and mission are no where near their end...so it all good! Besides, terrorists usually make their terror statements when things seem to be running smoothly not when countries are on "high alert". And if anything were to happen in an airport or a plane next week (knock on wood), I promise to start singing John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" and reciting Thomas Merton Prayer about God never letting us face our perils alone...and everything will be okay =)

Though there are terrorists and killings and hate in the world, there are corners where the sun shines bright and where smiles spell out the word love...places like Shanti Bhavan. We have had a wonderful past couple of weeks. I know it was a bit early but we actually decorated our classroom with CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS =), they are amazing. We drew a huge Santa Clause and a huge Elf, and a huge Rudolf; we made stockings that we hung from golden colored strings, and as they dangle in the breeze, the kids look over at them once in a while and open their eyes wide with excitement. Before I leave next week, I will fill them up with cute pencils and candy so that they can cheer up a bit. Though we have indeed had a blast, this week has also been a crazy tear fest. I feel so sad. Many of the fourth graders, as they sit quietly doing their math problems, they suddenly start crying, one by one...they don't want me to go. The tears break my heart and though I want to cry too, I swallow the tears and make a farting noise with my mouth, and say, "Woah, did you hear that? What was that? Who was it? That one is gonna be a smeeeeelly one", and they all crack up and in seconds forget why they were crying. Next week, tears will flow but there is nothing wrong with crying. We all deserve the chance to say goodbye to our beautifully established bonds.

Anyways, enough about the goodbye...Something I had yet to mention about Shanti Bhavan is the way they celebrate children's birthdays. Seeing as how there are only 365 days in a year and 206 children, birthdays occur very frequently, so although the celebration of each birthday is not very big, it surely is very emotive and sweet. In the assembly hall stands a bulletin board that reads whose birthday it is each day. In says 'Happy Birthday' in huge letters, the date off course and the child's name and grade. Then, during teatime in the cafeteria, they help the child stand up on a chair and everyone else circles around them to sing Happy Birthday. The second verse is "May God Bless you, May God bless you, Happy Birthday (Ex.) Dear Chandra, may God Bless you". It is really beautiful. But that is not all. Then, following an Indian custom, the child grabs a large tray and walks around handing a candy to each one of the staff members and volunteers. For one's birthday, you give presents rather than receive them.

Another event I had yet to mention is that last week, a British freelance journalist, Amarin White, mingled around Shanti Bhavan for the full week, interviewing as many people as she could, and taking thousands of pictures a day. Amarin has traveled the world in search of stories, bringing to light stories that have perhaps only been silenced because of neglect or because of the thick boundaries society has built between the urban and the rural. She is a remarkable woman who asked the right questions at the right time and who then equably drifted away into the background with her camera, almost becoming invisible and brilliantly capturing moments in these children's lives. Those moments could seem trivial but I'm sure that in her photographs you can see not only the faces of these wonderful children but also the face of hope, and of a model that is trying to lessen the forsaking of the people in these corners of the world. It was an honor to have met her and I look forward to keeping in touch with her.

On a different note, this week has been exam week for the middle school and high school grades. I don't know if you remember when I spoke about the first exam week, in which the fourth graders decided to be the loudest possible. Well, having had that experience, help all 19 of us to amend our reputation on exam week, we were amazing. I played this "Silent teams" game with them, in which they were divided into groups by their rows. Then within each group, someone was assigned to be the leader for the day to keep their team in order. The row with the highest points at the end of the week would get more surprises in their Christmas stockings. It worked like a charm. And they too kept reminding each other that is was "EXAM WEEK". Also, I wanted them to feel special and a part of this famous "tough" week, so they had a vocabulary "exam" on Friday. It included 38 words from all the stories we have read the past couple of months. They were so excited about it, and they studied really hard for it. I have yet to correct but I must certainly get to that before the emotion-filled goodbyes in of few days.

For a few weeks now, Rajni (11th grade piano player) and I had been preparing a piece to perform at the Saturday assembly. It went realy well and everyone love seeing someone dance to piano accompaniment. He first played Chopin's prelude in E minor and then transitioned into a piano improve, meanwhile I performed a dance improve to his music. It was great to se him get lost in his music, he played so beautifully. Before the performance he asked me: “Blue Jay what do you do when you get nervous before performing?…I’m kind of nervous, I even feel like going to the lou”. I told him to say a prayer and to then try to remember the amazing feeling he experiences every time he plays his music during practice. And that during performance he should try and play just as passionately, as if no one is watching. It seemed to have worked since he played brilliantly. Then the KG and the 1^st graders did their final presentation of what they learned in dance class these past few months. The KG danced as puppets and puppeteers and the 1st grade dance as robots. Imagine cute, wide-eye, tiny puppets and robots =).

After school today, Saturday, all the teachers and volunteers decided to have a good-bye lunch in Hosur at the yummy restaurant we often visit, Janani's. I will be the first volunteer to leave and then in the next week or two the other volunteers trickle away. The teachers are quirky and great and it was an honor to have worked with such selfless and welcoming people. At the lunch, Suparna and I gave a little speech thanking them for all their willingness to make us feel at home and for being some of the most selfless and therefore admirable people we have ever met. It was a very nice time.

Another event: So, I have three fears, and I try telling myself that I shouldn't fear anything, but there three things are just impossible to dismiss. None of them have anything to do with each other so I'll only mention the one relevant to the paragraph- SNAKES. I SAW A HUGE SNAKE! Now that I've seen one, they scare me even more. Now, I'm not talking about a little puny snake that hides in corners, I'm talking about an enormously long snake that was maybe the width of a coconut. I can make this comparison because when I saw the snake I was sitting on my back porch under a soft shade from the coconut and papaya trees. The hissing THING, out of nowhere, just began to slither away from about two feet away. Oh my goodness, I'm not kidding, my heart stopped as I screamed, spilled my coffee and jumped up onto a chair. It seemed to be endlessly long; it was probably like 10 feet long.

This is, I'm very sad to say, my second to last post and my last post from this dear Internet cafe in Hosur, India. My last post will be this coming week when I get a chance to use internet, perhaps in one of the airports or one back in Miami. I cannot express how much it means to me that you all took the time to read this. It has been a pleasure to process and share this experience with all of you.

God Bless.