6.24 - MmmMHhhmmm life is good :)

This morning I got up early and got to go for a walk through the local village with some of the volunteers. It was really neat to see them as they were all getting ready for the morning. Something neat is that they draw a special design outside of their doors each morning to keep out the evil spirits. Religion is a very integral part of the way that they live and gives a reason and a purpose to so many of the things that they do which is very neat to see. To greet someone, you say, “vanacum” with your hands clasped together in front of your face… they will say “hello” but love it when you say “vanacum” !





Today, I had the chance to work with the construction team. The main project this year is helping all of the people in the colonies participating in the microfinance programs to build bathrooms for each of their homes. Today, we went and moved piles of rocks and sand from one house to the next. They mix the sand and rocks with a powder to make morter and use the bricks brought from the volunteers as well to make their bathrooms! Most of the people that we were helping were home when we moved the rocks and sand to their homes so I didn’t get to see a lot of the people that we were helping, but it was neat to know what all of the work was going towards.






*The harder the work, the more you sweat...right?!! (some friends from my team: Drew, Mar, and Abby!







During play time today, I went to the school’s “life dance” class which was really really neat. I posted the link below to the video of the kids rehearsing one of their dances. Their teacher (a volunteer that is here for a couple of months) has been helping to choreograph this dance for the kid’s life dance class to a David Archuletta song, “Somebody Out There”. Archuletta actually came to RSO a year or two ago and sang this song to all of the kids. The kids love love love this song and constantly ask me to sing it to them at night. The dance is very touching. There is one point in the song where they all dance in a way to represent the way that their parents move with leprosy which is very beautiful (about minute 1).

** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlC-wwziiao – Somebody Out There Dress Rehearsal

*It started to pour outside while they were in dress rehersal! I lovvee the rain...especially in India :)



Tonight at family time, they brought in a huge scorpion that they had found right outside of the boys hotstle!! Yikes! We have to bring flashlights wherever we go when the sun goes down just in case we run into a snake or scorpion of some kind. Scary huh?! They are going to save the scorpion for their biology lab!


I had brought out my video camera the other night to video them making up a dance and they saw a video of Caden saying all of his animal sounds :) Sooo they wanted me to send you guys a video of them saying hello to all of you!! Here you go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOfN55I9a88 – ‘Night Family in India

We just have so much to be grateful for. My friend ali was telling me about a little boy in her family that says that every Monday night is a bad night and all the other nights are good nights. She asked him why this was that every Monday night was bad and he said that every Monday is bad because that is the day that his mother and brother ran away. He now remembers every Monday as this terrible terrible day…
Another hard thing for the kids is to have volunteers come for a couple of weeks, become so attached to them, and then have them leave again. There is a girl in my family, Satia (I actually call her Jess and she calls me Corey :) ) that cried the whole day because the volunteer that she had become best friends with had to leave today. It was really hard to see her so sad… she said that the one thing that she wanted for her birthday was for this volunteer to come back.
Although there are a lot of sad stories like this, there are a lot of really happy stories as well. My experiences here in India are helping me to realize more and more my strengths and my weaknesses. I love it here and it is going to be hard to say goodbye to the kids and the people.

*After we put the kids to bed we got to dance in the rain :)
Euli vanacum… good night :)

6.23 :)

I was able to tutor again today! Our focus was their reading today which was fun! For the older kids, we worked on reading short stories such as Hansel and Grettle, the Elves and the Shoemaker, Repunzell, and a couple of others. Some of them just love to read while for others, it is a real struggle and you really have to work with them to sound out each word. I had tutored mostly girls on Monday, so it was really funny to see the difference between them and the boys. The boy that I tutored today, Satish, had two ways of reading to me… yelling or whispering… literally… hahaha  It is just always very rewarding to help them with their reading or homework problem sets and see them light up when they finally remember how to say a word or get a complement from a volunteer about how they did something. Villichamar, another boy that I worked with, wanted two huge high fives after each problem that he did!

Another neat thing that happened today was that I was able to paint with the Indian lady, Mira, who cooks and cleans for the volunteers. She doesn’t know any English so it is hard because sometimes you will tell her thank you for something but are not sure if she understood what you said. I was getting all of my paints ready in the kitchen before I did my art class and had gotten a lot on my hand. Just for fun, I used some of it to paint a flower one of the papers in the kitchen. Mira walked in and saw what I was doing and came over smiling really big (this was the FIRst time I had seen her smile!!). She then opened some of my paints and started painting with me! We just painted for a while and laughed at what the other person was painting or trying to say. She would try to tell me something in Tamil and I would in English and then we would just laugh together. Even if you do not speak the same language, you can find other ways to communicate and make them happy! Neat, huh?!

*"auntie auntie, I want purple!!"

*The crazy crazy photo that we got to take! haha... this is only a third of the kids- it took ten min just to get them to take this one!! haha


The art classes were definitely a highlight of my day. For Hollie and Monica who helped me find a way to make room to pack all of the painting supplies at three in the morning right before I left, thank you thank you thank you!! I loved painting with the kids and I ended up having about twenty kids come to paint with my friend Ali and me. They were so excited about painting! We used a bunch of plastic garbage bags for paint shirts which was funny because some of the tinier girls were swimming in them! Getting the picture with some of the students that came to our classes was probably one of the most chaotic things that I have ever done, haha. Their housemother was yelling to them in Tamil to listen to me while trying to talk to me in English and they were all running around with hands COVERed in nonwashable tempra paint (they had run out of the washable paint at the store!!) and taking their paint shirts off before they had washed off their paint covered hands!! Ah! We absolutely loved it though and we got a painting of just their handprints which will be fun to have.










Overall, just another day where I am filled with so much gratitude for what I have been given in my life and the opportunity to be here.

*My friend Ali and I after our art class!(just an fyi... only half of that is sweat...it rained before :) haha

*Nashanti holding up here picture that she did for an art contest at school

*Nathina and Anitha being goofy during family time:)

6.22 - A Day in the Colony

Becky told us a neat story the other night about a man named Novann. He is a patient in the leprosy colony that I visited today and he was there at the bus drop-off station to greet us! He is this tiny tiny old man who, for years and years had not been able to see. An eye doctor had been working with the RSO program to help patients with leprosy receive the treatment and surgery that they might need for their sight. (Another quick note about leprosy is that because it is a nerve degenerative disease, it will typically only affect the limbs (hands and feet), but if left untreated, it can progress to noses collapsing and eye lids coming off, causing a lot of damage to the eye).


*Novann singing "hallelujah" over and over again
The doctor saw Novann and Novann asked if he would be able to do the surgery to restore his sight, but his sight was so bad and he was so frail and old, the doctor thought that it would be impossible. Novann begged him to at least try the surgery, telling him that he had never been able to see his grandchildren. The doctor agreed to at least try, still being worried about even doing surgery on a man so frail and old, and it was a MIRACLE!!! Novann’s sight, against all odds, was restored and he was able to see again!!! Becky told us how he jumped up and just sung praises to Jesus and shouted “hallelujah” over and over again! He now will greet all of the volunteers from RSO and sing and shout hallelujah! (Wow. A lot like the story of the ten lepers!) He loves the attention as well :) He gave us a five minute concert of him singing and praising Jesus and asked to take a picture with each of us! God truly still works miracles.

My main job in the clinic today was to scrub their feet and clean out their ulcers. That may sound like an uncomfortable job, but it was actually a really neat experience. These people know no English, so it is really hard to communicate (I only know how to say “hello” and “thank you” in Tamil), but often a smile and a simple “Vanacum” (hello!) would go a long way. After we had washed their feet, another pair of volunteers would oil their ulcers and then the nurse would cut away their dead skin and apply ointment and bandaging. RSO clinic come and do these regular check- ups twice a month to each colony and all of the patients have been instructed on how to care for themselves in the interim periods. After this, their blood glucose and pressure levels are checked and they pick up their antibiotics for their disease. There was actually a lady whose blood glucose level ended up being 467 (normal levels are around 120), so they had to rush her to the hospital. Something neat is that in the colonies that RSO has been able to treat over the years, the leprosy has stopped progressing- how neat is that?! There are still hundred of colonies in India that do not receive treatment though…

*Oiling and bandaging stations

*Jacob and I :)

*Outside of the clinic that we worked in

One of the biggest lessons that I learned today:
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the need that is around you, thinking that there is so much that is so much that people need that you do not have to capacity to change or help. I have never in my life seen a people living in such humble circumstances. You wish that you could somehow restore back their hands and feet or give them a more sanitary place to live. But I cannot give that to them, I have no way of doing this. None of us can heal them or take away the terrible stigma that they have placed on them, but we can do little small things each day to help them to feel loved and respected…to help them have more dignity for themselves.
We should never underestimate the power of small acts of kindness. Becky, the lady who founded this program, told us that “once you have seen, you have the responsibility to go and do”. This is exactly what she had done and there are hundreds of families that are happier and better off today because of her acts of kindness. If everything that she has done with the RSO program had gone to help only one person, such as Novann, it would have been worth it.

*Their village

6.22 - A little bit about leprosy

Wow. That is how I feel every day! Today my team and I drove about fourty-five minutes away to the nearest colony. Kim, the medical coordinator talked to us a little bit more today about the effects of leprosy on our way there...
(*They told us that we should never call them “lepers” but call them “leprosy affected” people, people with leprosy, or just patients as they would be in a formal medical setting. They do not want the disease to define who they are. )

Just a few years ago, it was common practice here in India to spit on those with leprosy as they sat on the side of the road. If their shadow touched you, you would beat them. If they were on the same side of the road as another individual, they would move to the other side of the street just to avoid even being close to them. Leprosy in India is looked at as God’s greatest curse and is caused by some great sin in the preearth life of this life. Today, as leprosy is understood more as a disease than a curse from God, the cruelty has lessened but they continue to be ostracized- some refuse to even look at them still.

One of our biggest jobs as volunteers is, yes, to help have their wounds treated and take care of them physically, but helping them also to know that we love them. We show them respect and love as we just look into their eyes and smile at them.

Leprosy is caused by a bacteria similar to the bacteria that is responsible for tuberculosis (which in most of them have as well). It is cured by a cheap antibiotic that we would be able to get from a doctor in America for under five dollars. Because of the stigma against those affected with leprosy though, the treatment needed is not available to them. The disease used to be extremely stigmatized by the government to the point that they would screen all of the citizens of India and all those that had remote traces of leprosy were out cased to a segregated colony. Today the stigmatization does not come so much from the government as it does from society in general but patients with leprosy continue to be confined to their individual colonies, separate from the rest of society.

6.21 - First FULL day with the kids!

8:30 – meeting with each of our separate groups… each day we will be split up into groups and we will be:
a.Traveling into the colonies with the medical teams to help care for the leprosy affected patients.
b.Teach the children English or work with them through tutoring Math and Reading
c.Help build anything to help with microcredit load ideas… I will know more about this when I actually go and help out!

*After our meetings, we walk over to the school (five min. walk)... we got there early this morning so we were able to hear them recite their morning prayers and have morning announcements!

9:00 – begin tutoring sessions
Each of the children are in “standards” which is equivalent to our grades in elementary and high school. You tutor them in fourty minute blocks.

*The little library that we tutor in
11:00-11:15 – PT time with the kids outside. This normally means playing a lot of tag or “chase” and dripping sweat but not caring one bit!

*Nashanti and I after PT time! I have been spending a lot of time with her :)
11:15 – 12:00 – continue tutoring in math and English

12:00-12:30 – eat lunch with the kids; they are all so loving and sweet, always saying, “Auntie, auntie, come and sit with me auntie!”; my favorite is when some of the little boys will walk by us eating lunch and try and show off their little muscles, haha :)

12:30- 2 – More tutoring!! You don’t get tired of reading and helping these kids with their classes. One of the little girls that is in my “family” each night was one of the last ones that I got to tutor today. Her name is Maliyambee, and she helped me to pick out about 30 books to read for family time tonight! All of the girls would keep coming up to make sure that I had gotten the book that they had asked for last night! How fun!!

2-4 – break
4:30 – 6 – play time with the kids
This is one of my favorite times during the day! The kids and I played on the swings most of the time, but when we weren’t playing on the swings, you could find us braiding hair or racing up and down the monkey bars. If you stop to take a breath, you realize how tired you are, but you never stop and the kids don’t either so you just keep going and laughing. Whew! I love it!!
Another thing about play time is that I continue to try to learn each of the kids names. One girl in particular that I spent a lot of time with, Anitha, is very adamant that I say each of her friends names perfectly. If I ask one of the kids what their name is, she will quickly answer for them and then when I repeat it, she will typically laugh at first and say her friend’s name again, and then get kinda mad after she has had to correct me three or four times  haha- I am hopefully going to have these names down in the next couple of days… they are very different. Most of them can say my name (“Taaosha”), but still will call me “auntie” (what they call all of the female volunteers)!

*All of the kids waiting to traid in their "star stickers" that they get for good behavior for fun things from their "star store"- we are not allowed to give the kids anything becuase they are really trying to teach them that they need to work for what they get!


*Sagayamary (on my right) is one of the queitest girls I have ever met but is also the sweetest, it is fun to be around her because she is always smiling

6-7:30 – dinner

7:30-9 – “family time”
I especially loved family time tonight. I went over to the rooms with the children that I spend each night with and brought a couple of books tonight that I had checked out from their library. They were really excited about, what I thought was going to be me reading to them. Instead, they were just excited that I had brought books that they could read to me!! I thought this was neat… they just love to read and learn.
Another favorite part of tonight was getting to sing to all of the kids. All of the girls in my “family” sleep in a small room on mats laid out on the floor. They love to be sung and I love to sing so it is a perfect end to a night! After we had turned out the lights, I would sing one song, and then they would keep saying, “one more song auntie, one more!” (they especially love songs that praise Jesus… or “You are My Sunshine”) You cannot say no to them, so of course I would sing again and again.
It was the neatest opportunity ever – while I was singing, one by one they would get up, realizing that they had not said their prayers, and they would kneel on their mat and whisper their prayer. What was so touching was that it was never just a quick prayer, but they would kneel there for five plus minutes, with their faces scrunched up concentrating on what they were saying. I don’t think that I will ever sing “Nearer My God to Thee” in a more perfect setting.

*All of the girls in my family asleep :)
I also cannot get over just how open to love these children are. Many of them come from very abusive homes in the colonies (which I do not want to relate with all of the parents in the colonies… it is just a sad thing that happens all over the world). This is hard to understand because of how much love they show us as volunteers and each other… They are never hesitant to run up to you and give you a hug, or invite you to play or help you or someone else with anything. I guess I just know how much harder it is for children to express love so openly when they have not seen it consistently for themselves and assumed that they would have a hard time as well. This just shows the miracle of change that love can have on anyone. Even the volunteers- service for others and love received brings out the best in a person.