A Tearful Good-Bye

It is 8 am on Saturday in India, and I just walked downstairs to a near empty house. Linda W. flew to Malaysia to spend time with her host family from her Peace Corps days back in the '60s. Ginny and Ann were on the same flight to Hong Kong, where Ginny will continue on to San Francisco and Ann to Taiwan. Ann's parents will shed many tears of joy over how beautiful and adult-like their 18 year-old daughter looks when she gets off the plane in her bright orange and purple sari! Linda M. is in Mamalapuram for a couple of days of R&R before her flight departs. I am here in peace and quiet....well, except for when Roshan cries. He has a fever today.


Yesterday was our last day with the community of Chennai, and it was a good-bye filled with mixed emotions. Unlike the end of a vacation, I am looking forward to going home. At the same time, I am sad to say good-bye.

I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the experience I have had here, so I am not sure what to say. Maybe I will write just one more blog upon my return. :) I will say this - I will never regret this experience. It has challenged me in ways I could not have imagined and taught me so much about the lesson of walking in others' shoes and how amazing it is to experience another culture. (I even started to pick up the language of Tamil and began to think with an Indian accent!) I am inspired to create future travels in such a way that I experience the culture rather than just fly somewhere, take a few photos to say, "I was here," and go home.

Have I changed? I am not sure if one can change in three weeks time. However, I do have a whole new level of awareness about life and a great respect for the people in India and especially, our country manager, Stephen. Global Volunteers warned us about "re-entry shock." In other words, it may be difficult for us to adjust to our old way of life given what we have seen and done here. (So be gentle with me the first couple of weeks, my friends!)

So what did we do on our last day? Read on!

The morning started off with our typical schedule of a team debrief over breakfast and the reading of the team journal. Then we were off on our respective duties.


Linda M. and I finished off our construction project. In three weeks time, the inside and outside walls on the first floor have been plastered, the bathrooms completed, the wall on the second floor completed, and a new sidewalk built so the water will flow into the drainage ditch as opposed to sit around and attract hundreds of flies. This may or may not sound like a lot of work but considering these workers don't use shovels, wheel barrows, or any other seemingly modern equipment, this was a great step forward to giving the orphans at SEAM a better home. We really enjoyed the masons.


Sister Rose treated us to lunch, or shall I say a feast, at Assisi Elam. I think we counted 11 dishes for 6 people. I was thrilled that a few of them were extra spicy. Over the three weeks at Assisi, we took care of 40 kids in this daycare/orphanage, which is run by Doctor Sister Rexline, who we had lunch with yesterday. It was both fun and interesting to figure out how to teach those under the age of 5 how to sit still and how to speak English.


The afternoon was filled with conversational English and my first big good-bye. I visited St. Joseph's for a final session of conversational English. Since Linda M. was in the car on her way to her weekend getaway, it was here I said good-bye to my side kick here in India. I truly wish her the best life!


I took on her five novices as well as my own group. I was more teary-eyed walking into the room of 10 novices than during the good-bye. Our last session was filled with questions. One girl, Pasca, wrote a list of 25 questions that she wanted me to review with her and correct. Interestingly, several of these questions, if said in the US, would be insulting, so I requested she think about some of the comments to make sure they are truly OK to say here in India. For example, one was was, "Don't you know this!?" I explained to the girls that India and the US have different cultures so it might be OK to speak this way here (or maybe not) but in the States, this would be similar to telling the person he/she is stupid. They gasped and giggled!


Some other cultural differences between the US and India to take note of: 1) It is common to be asked questions like, "How much money do you make?", "How old are you?", "What caste are you in?"
2) Men and women do not eat together. The man eats first, then his wife. It is not as bad as one might think. The rationale is that the woman runs the home, which includes cooking. She knows how much her husband eats, so she makes plenty of food. While the husband is eating, he is thinking of how great it is to have such yummy food in front of him, but he wants to be sure his wife eats, so he saves food for her. So it works both ways.


Going to SEAM in the evening was the most joyous and most difficult part of the day. These kids range in age - from about 5 to 16, which meant we were able to built strong bonds. As soon as I walked in, they were "fighting" over who could hold my hands as they walked me to the play area. The boys were quick to help in any way, the first of which was to find a nice chair for me to sit in. Sanjay, the boy I would read to while on break from construction, did a solo dance for the group. Rebeka, who is on break from school, also did a solo dance. A couple of boys competed over who knew the most verses from a particular Tamil book. Another small group did a Bollywood type of dance for us.

Then the tears came. It was time to say good-bye so each child walked over to each of the volunteers to look us in the eye, shake our hand, and wish us well. Here, I realized we each impacted their lives in some way. Specifically, I taught 9 of them how to use a computer and worked with two of them on their reading skills. Linda W. prepared several for an important exam; Linda M. taught a 12 year-old to read, as did Ginny and Ann. Tears came down my face as I hugged each boy I worked with. Of course, they were more worried about me. Imagine that. (OK, now I am crying again.)

On our way out, they begged for more photos. Linda M.'s little guy must have realized the friendship she and I built. Since she was not there, he held my hand and escorted me to the car, asking me to say HI to Linda for him. Then he started to sing to me.

Good-bye, India. I wish your people well, and I appreciate you opening your lives to us all and sharing with us your great souls.

A Special Luncheon

As mentioned in yesterday's blog, we did have lunch with Doctor Sister Rexline, and what a treat this was! Since she is such a busy women with many things on her plate, she was not able to spend time with us during the entire lunch but did grace us with her presence for a brief chat at the end.

She truly is amazing. In 1975, after completing her medical degree (the first nun in her order to do so), she started what is now known as St. Thomas Hospital. It started as a one-room building and now spans several large buildings including the hospital, nursing school, convent, etc. In her early days, she would ride her bike to the local villages to determine who needed her care, whereas she now lives at the hospital so that she can take care of people's needs in a moment's notice.

Her efforts reach across India. Often through volunteers and other convents (I believe Mother Theresa's locale is also involved in this effort), she and her team assess the needs of small villages throughout India to determine the levels of fundraising needed.

Besides the hospital and fundraising, she is in charge of Assisi Elam, the orphanage/daycare we have been assisting at, homes for the elderly, and other such things. Doctor Sister Rexline told us that she cannot run all of these things as the hospital keeps her too busy so she delegates this work to others. (Her biggest challenge at the hospital is clean water, so she must send men out to get this water.)

I was impressed with her directness and strong opinion on education. She believes that education is the most important "possession" a person can have. Apparently, she knows that Stephen's wife, Sheeba, studied nursing. She reminded Sheeba not to waste that education - she should be a nurse. During lunch, we brought over the first orphan baby to ever come to Assisi - Sophia. While she is adorable, the nuns at Assisi spoil her immensely, and Dr. Sr. Rexline had no qualms about pointing out how this is impacting Sophia's behavior. We had quite a chuckle as she was so right. Sophia won't even talk to us because we make her share our attention with the other kids at Assisi. Luckily, she is a brain child, and we are guessing that Sophia is in training to one day run the hospital.

My biggest chuckle came when Dr. Sr. Rexline's cell phone rang. My immediate thought was, "Wow! So that's what a modern day saint looks like." Don't worry, our cameras were snapping away.

Outside the hospital doors is a sign that states, "Finding out the sex of your baby is illegal." I used to think China was the only country in which boys were the gender of choice at birth, but we found that this is often the case in India as well. As a result, one is not allowed to determine the gender of the baby prior to its birth for fear that women will abort the baby. Stephen mentioned that many wealthy Indian families will fly out of the country to determine the gender, and if they find that the baby is a girl, they will abort it.

We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to meet and interact with Dr. Sr. Rexline. She is an amazing women. I wish her well - she is sick and almost died last year due to several lung infections. Once lunch time was over, we were off to our afternoon duties.

Linda W. and I went to St. Joseph's for our afternoon of conversational English with the novices. Their homework assignment was to share their favorite Bible story, and I enjoyed hearing their passion for such stories. Interestingly, this discussion brought up questions by them of religion in America and my own faith. I was very careful with what I said, acknowledging America's and my faith, but that it is different from both India and what they are doing at St. Joseph's. Luckily, they are young and hungry to learn so I gave them just enough information so they understood that our life is different but at the same time was careful not to horrify or insult them. Phew!

Off to my last day of volunteering....