pagi

Today is India’s Independence day. A good 63 years in the making. This land is so old, it almost seems inaccurate to be celebrating sixty three years of Independence. Anyway, it was nice.

Today I was taken to children’s home to pass out snacks and goodies. This institution is specially cater to kids with physical and mental differences. The title of the organization is The Society for the Welfare of the Differently Abled Persons Centre. I had to read that about five times to fully understand what’s going on in that title. I was really surprised to see how big the school is, it house about two hundred and fifty kids. Most stay there from the age of 6 to 16 and are given all sorts of treatment along with education then eventually training in trades like, tailoring and making crafts to sell. Like usual, I didn’t know where I was going at first or the name of where I was. But when we walked in to the boys hall first I was stunned. The hall was long not very well lit. There were two rows of bunk beds lined against the walls, almost resembling barracks. There were young boys and teenagers, all them so sweet with expressions of excitement to have visitors. I passed out packages of cookies to each boy and each one expressed such sincere gratitude. Their teacher had told them I’m an American so they all said hello and thank you in English. I was impressed.

When we went to the girls hall to do the same, my heart fell to the floor. To see all these young girls dressed in sari’s and just as excited as the boys I felt so enlightened to just be able to service them. There were more girls than boys by at least fifty and they all sat on top of their beds and patiently waited to be greeted by all of us. When it was time to go, their teacher instructed them to say goodbye and they almost all, in sync, jumped up and waved goodbye. I just wanted to stop and tell each one of the girls that they are beautiful and to be afraid to be a woman in the outside world. I could tell by the way some were looking at me they were curious by my the way I was dressed. I feel so weird to stick out so bad. Yesterday while in another town, a village, we were walking through the town and when passed by a school some girls who were decorating their school ran up to me and were talking but I had no clue what was said. My friend that was walking alongside said, the girls are excited to see you, they’ve never seen a westerner before. That kind of stuff BLOWS MY MIND. I feel so ordinary.

Anyway, I feel ill.