My New Job

Today, my job description changed.

Rather than being the International Education intern,

I think that I have become the "Hair Braiding Intern".

Although braided hair is definitely the vogue for Indian women and girls,

French braids are rarely seen.

Therefore I spent all afternoon French braiding...

mostly into pigtails for the smaller girls,

but a few headband-style for the older ones.

Thanks to many years of camp counseling,

my fingers were ready!

I was even braiding in the pitch-black when the current was out for about 2 hours...

and enlisted to help braid in the morning before their Independence Day program.

Watch out, Master's degree...I may have had a career change :)

Married and Pregnant?

An old intern has returned to Visthar
to stay for a few weeks and spend time with the girls.
Since she left a year ago,

she has gotten married and is now pregnant.

In Indian culture, girls get married very young

so it is not abnormal for the girls to ask me

if I'm married, why not, and tell me

that after I return to my village it will be time for me to get married.

But now, thanks to Barbara,

I have been told that before I can come back to Visthar

I need to be married and pregnant, too.

Thanks, Barbara :)

25% Complete

Today marks the day where I celebrate being one-quarter of the way done with my 6 months in India.

Am I counting down?

No.

How do I know?

Welll….I brought four toothbrushes to India. And at the beginning of Week Two, I started getting anxious that I would forget to switch out a toothbrush and end up using the same one for 6 months (gross) or that I would be too hard on one and throw it away early, therefore using up my ration and maybe running out of toothbrushes (or at least functional toothbrushes) before I came home.

So I, being the concrete sequential person that I am,

Pulled up my calendar and counted the days, divided by four, and then counted the days until I knew which days would mark my “New Toothbrush Days”. I wrote the dates on a post-it, and that post-it is now stuck to my desk so that I don’t forget (It’s right next to my “Malaria Mondays” reminder post-it).

Dad, I know you’re laughing right now…but I also know that you would have probably done the same thing J

English Frustrations

English is the most awful language that there is. I have always heard that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but never realized that that also makes it one of the most difficult to teach.

Really.

Why the heck do we have silent letters? That doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t say them, don’t write them. And imagine not only the learner’s confusion but also my own as we’re reading a story and she struggles with “night”, pronouncing it “niGet”. I explain to her that when “gh” are together, they are silent, you don’t say them. Three sentences later we get to the word “laughing.” In laughing, the “gh” is pronounced like…an F?

Consistency people, consistency.

*Note: I do know the answers to all of these questions that I pose about language…I took linguistics and many, many years of grammar that have helped me understand how the presence of those silent letters and sounds often change the sound of proceeding or following vowels…but to try explaining that to somebody who barely speaks English and whose language you don’t speak? VERY frustrating indeed.

Sick Day

Well, last night I went to the hospital again. But this time, it was for me.

Sunday night I got home from a dinner out and had goosebumps, extreme chills, and was sweating something awful. All day long I had had a headache.

I went to bed right away (8:45!) tossed and turned through the night, and got up at 7:15 to skype with my family. My throat hurt and I must have looked terrible, because they all looked really worried about me and suggested that I take it easy. Which I did, going back to sleep until I was awakened for our Monday reflection at 10:50, then to bed again until 1:45 when a friend brought me a plate of plain white rice. At this point my coworkers got kind of nervous that I had malaria (don’t worry, I don’t) and told me that I should go to the hospital.

I always like it when people tell me to go; I would never go otherwise. I’m always nervous that I’m not sick enough to warrant seeing a doctor.

Anyway, the Indian hospital was quite the experience. We were offered tea, the nurse took my temperature in the waiting hallway, and another patient’s consultation took place in the doorless room directly in front of me. They called me into the doctor’s room, and Crystal took a seat in the room next to another older lady who was there the whole time (I still haven’t figured out who she was). The door, which led directly to the waiting room, was open the entire time. The doctor was very nice and asked all the routine questions, got to the bottom of the problem, and announced that I have a tonsil infection. She then prescribed an injection, an antiseptic to gargle with morning and night, and three different oral medications.

I was then instructed to lay down on the table so that I could get my injection. They pulled closed the half-curtain which covered just up to my waist. I glanced at the old lady, shot Crystal an, “Ah help me!” look and then I focused my gaze through the open door into the waiting room, gripping the table as they gave me a great big booster shot.

And then it was over. I bought half of my prescriptions at the hospital and then walked down the road to get the rest at the pharmacy, praying that they were correct because the guy running the shop was not a doctor nor a pharmacist and he definitely didn’t speak English. I bought some pomegranites and oranges for vitamin C….and then it started to rain.

We caught a rickshaw to take us most of the way home, and the rain let up a little bit…until the rick stopped and it was time for us to walk. Of course then it decided to pour, which was very conducive to a speedy recovery J

This is Sandhya's Story

Remember when I was willing my legs to move me towards that hospital room a few weeks back? Well, I was visiting a precious 9-year-old named Sandhya, and she died today.

Sandhya was suffering from HIV/AIDS. She had most likely contracted the disease at birth, for her mother was a Davidasi. In Hindi, dasi means slave, and davi means god. Therefore, working as a temple prostitute, her mother was a slave of god. Sandhya joined us at Visthar in an effort, I’m assuming of her grandparents but am not positive, to protect her from being dedicated as a temple prostitute as well. None of the other girls knew of her disease. In India, HIV/AIDS carries a stigma larger than an elephant and if they had known, the sad truth is that Sandhya may have been treated differently. But as it was, the girls were sisters. 70 loving, playful sisters.

Because Sandhya was sick, her immune system was lower than the others’. She caught cold a few weeks ago, which quickly progressed into a violent flu and pneumonia-like disease, bringing her to a nearby hospital and soon to one further away when the first could not provide the proper treatment for her. As Sandhya’s body grew weaker and weaker, the girls held long moments of personal prayertime before their mealtime prayers, crying and praying for the restoration of her health. But Sandhya was propelled towards jaundice and into a coma, which is when she passed away.

This is a part of the life cycle that I was not planning on experiencing while I was in India.

My organization has members from several different faiths, so we had a multifaith memorial service for small Sandhya. I don’t always agree with the theology that is used during these times together, but a few things did stick out to me. To keep things, short, these are the two points that I would like to share with you:

1. In times of hardship, pain, death, dying, and despair, we often comfort ourselves with the words, “It is God’s will.” I don’t know about you, but, in the moment, that isn’t very comforting to me and is very difficult to understand. Yes, it perhaps God’s will that this was the time for her short, sweet life to end and He is holding her now up in heaven, where she is no longer ravaged by disease. HOWEVER. Pain, death, dying, and despair are never a part of God’s will. Satan came to steal and destroy, but JESUS came to bring life, and life abundant (John 10:10). Sandhya’s death was the result of a deadly disease that was brought on by an oppressive tradition…neither of which were ever within God’s perfect plan for mankind, but the result of our own sin.

2. This is not just Sandhya’s story. All around the world, there are thousands of children dying from HIV/AIDS. Thousands. This is sometimes hard to understand until it is real, and in the world that you and I live in this number is often just a number. A sad number, but a number nonetheless. Now, that number has a name. That name is Sandhya. And Sandhya is only one.

Prayer

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can’t even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I’m aiming for, how will it ever occur? So now I take the time every morning to search myself for specificity about what I am truly asking for. I kneel there in the temple with my face on that cold marble for as long as it takes for me to formulate an authentic prayer. If I don’t feel sincere, then I will stay there on the floor until I do.

This is another excerpt from Eat. Pray. Love. She writes this while practicing meditation in an Ashram in India, and while I’m not really into that whole meditation thing, her comment on prayer really resounded with me. it reminds me of when, within Christian culture, we pray for “blessings”. What does that even mean? Do we even know what kind of blessings we are looking for? Would we know if God answered our prayer for blessings if we don’t even ask for them in a certain form? Are we shorting ourselves? Are we shorting God by not allowing him to display his full power in answering our prayers?

Oh. And how many of us are this disciplined? To stay with your face on that cold marble for as long as it takes to formulate an authentic prayer? (It causes quite the back pain; believe me, I tried it this morning.) In fact…when was the last time you truly prayed an authentic prayer and not just a rub-a-dub-dub-thanks-for-the-grub? My challenge to you: formulate an authentic prayer today. And don’t get up until you do.