the orphanage

I want to be honest and real about my experience, I hope that everyone appreciates it, and I apologize in advance if anything is hard to read. First of all I would like to state my admiration for these children, and to tell you all how much joy they have brought me. The orphanage smells terrible, like pee and sick dogs. The children do not wear diapers or any sort of underwear, there is a completely different standards of what is appropriate and clean. Some of the older children are potty trained and even most of them lack manner, they will take of their pants and run to the bathroom or pee in the hallway, the younger children and physically disabled will just go and there is often not enough clothing, especially in the correct size, to change them. When the children poop themselves they wipe them with their dirty pants, their is no real care for their cleanliness or health. When they are bathing the children, they clean them in a cold bucket of soapy water and rinse them with a hose, they are all dried with the same rough towel and dressed from a pile of clothing on the floor, they share all the clothes and are rarely dressed appropriately. Some of the older kids, if given a chance, will pick clothing that is well suited for them, but most of the children are given clothes that don't fit. There are four children who cannot walk, not including those who have the ability to learn. These children are carried from room to room, and put on the floor, no wheelchairs. We do spend a little time each day working on physical therapy, only with two of the four, they will cry, and usually want badly to give up. The physical therapy is done in the same hallway that all the children play and the embarrassment makes it more difficult for them to take it seriously. The children cannot go outside and they spend most of their time in this one hallway, where they play and fight over few broken toys and pieces of plastic. On several occasions I have had to take pieces of cellophane, or plastic bags away from the children, they will be chewing on it or even putting bags over their heads. The women who I work with are mostly kind, but with an overly strong hand. The children are always hit and yelled at. It is very difficult having such an intense language barrier, I have yet to learn but a few words in Hindi, and despite what I had heard nobody at the orphanage speaks English. Sometimes I see the children getting punished for another's mistake. Today one of the smallest children was robbed of her banana, and when she cried and tried to take it back one of the women smacked her to the ground, Acheala is no older than two. The woman who did this is very cruel to all the children, and the only one in whom I see no love. They all hit the children though, even the youngest of the children. There is one child who is blind and has terrible fits, there is little to calm him, sometimes nothing works. I'll sing to him or rub his belly and back, which he loves, but he is treated as though he is completely stupid. I see him react to music and stories though and can tell that he is intelligent for his age, just tormented by his world. There are four children that get to go to school, they are the only ones who are of age and have no mental or physical ailments, one of which, Leela, I have fallen completely in love. She is so smart and tries to help with all of the other children, she is always dancing and showing me things that she can draw or does in school. I see other children who are smart enough, but deprived the luxury of going to school. I still do not know all of the names, it is difficult to learn them, when they do not understand my terrible Hindi and cannot understand english, but we are getting there. This has been a very heartening and challenging experience, but I am grateful for the chance to know these children. It is extremely hard to know that there is no way to give them a new path to travel and to try to except the way of life in the orphanage. I love everyone of them, and have much more to say, i'll write again soon.

Day 2 & Day 3

March 10 was the first day of a two day holiday called Holi. I had not yet get to gone to the orphanage. The story behind Holi is this: there was a Demon, and he had a wish, he wished not to die in this place and that....until he listed most places in the universe. He had a sister, on his side and a son who worshiped Vishnu...so the sister and the Demon wanted to kill the son, but every time that they came close Vishnu would save him...then the sister said that the Demon should take him into the fire and the Demon would be protected because of his wish, but the son would die....but by a twist of fate the Demon died. This is the short version of a long story, but you get the just. So on the first night of the holiday there is a big bonfire and more somber mood...the next day however there is a celebration and everyone has these different colors of powdered die. People come up to you and say "happy Holi" as they put it on your third eye center and your cheeks...but also there are these massive wars with the color, by the end of the day everyone is covered in layers of color. It was a lot of fun..there is also a feast and festival with live music. It is so beautiful.

This is not my photo, but it gives an idea of what Holi looks like.

Day 1

I arrived in Delhi at 3:30 am on March 9th, I had expected the city to be asleep but to my surprise it was still alive. When I landed I saw the sky filled with smoke and stepped into the new climate; I was overwhelmed with the smell of smoke, trash, and warm musky air. I was picked up from the airport by Amita and Prany, who have become my family while I am here in India. We set out on the six hour drive to Jaipur. During the first hour of the drive we roared with speed through the desert road but along the road,  on the opposite side, we saw three accidents. Each was an enormous decorated bus that had tipped into the middle of the road. After a short distance we were stopped by the worst traffic jam that I have ever seen. All the cars were driving on the same side of the road and the the street had lost any sense of order. Busses, motorbikes, and cars were all sounding there horns, which each had a different tone, in hopes that it would make some difference in moving the cars ahead of them. It seemed like miles of cars at a stand still in front of us. Our driver moved to the shoulder which was even backed up and traffic moving in all the wrong directions across the road. After two hours of barley moving traffic we started to move again, now the sun was starting to rise. We drove through several small villages on our way into Jaipur, along the road were huts with shops and people sleeping on the side of the road. There were camel carts and women carried baskets atop their head. When I arrived in Jaipur things were in the same manner at a larger scale. The streets are full of madness with cows and camel pulling carts along side cars, bikes, motorbikes and rickshaw taxi's. When I arrived at my new apartment I went to sleep and woke up to realize that none of what I had seen was a dream. I was/ am in India.