Great Expectations

Prior to coming to India, I worked hard to steer my mind from any expectations that began to creep into my mind, which I did a good job of. However, as the days here have progressed I must have subconsciously set expectations that I would never be able to meet. This expectation was to give love to the people of this community, but with that came an apparent description of what this would look like. I realized all this after coming back from my weekend away as I could not understand why my first day back from volunteering was so frustrating to me.

After a couple of days of being away in peace and quiet and the reality hitting me about my head injury, I was slow going. Luckily, there are four other lovely women here who helped me understand a bit of what was happening. By sharing their own experiences during this trip and lessons from their lives, a light bulb went off for me. I was setting an unrealistic expectation for what this trip was about.

Logically, we are here for three weeks. We are not going to fix the challenges this community faces everyday. Instead, the impact of our specific role is a drop in the bucket, although a very important one. This may seem obvious, but trust me when I say that this is a hard reality to put into practice. I would love for each child to get in a line so that I could provide each one individual attention and when I felt each was in good shape, I could help the next. That's not how volunteering for three weeks works.

Once I realized this, I made a choice to set no expectations for what helping these children looks like. I no longer visualized what "learning the computer" or "speaking better conversational English" needed to be. I simply approached each task of the day with a blank slate. And no matter how simple the task, I gave great praise for each person's win for the day. Thankfully, I had one of the best days yet. More importantly, the children were also smiling.

I also realized that it is one thing to imagine the situation this community faces but a completely different thing to understand it and apply your own knowledge to help them. It took several tries, but I think I have it down now.

Some fun/interesting tidbits from yesterday....
Stephen came to SEAMs with a bag of goodies provided by a volunteer which included chocolate and a pen. The orphans were glowing. Can you imagine that the first instinct of one of the boys I was working with was to give me his chocolate?! That is simply how they are. These children have so few possessions but their first instinct is to share what they have with their guests. Amazing!

Sheeba, Stephen's wife, helped Linda W. and I into our saris, which we wore to St. Joseph's. The novices were thrilled. The Indian community so appreciates when we dress in their attire, which I might add is way more comfortable that much of our Western wear. I am not sure if I will ever know how to put one on myself, but I can try!

Last night, the team had dinner on the rooftop of our guesthouse. The big, round moon rose over the neighbor's rooftop, stars filled the sky, and candlelight lit our table. There was a cool breeze in the air, which was refreshing given that we are approaching a hot Indian summer. What a great way to end our day.