Home Away From Home

September 1, 2008

We had our first class session today.  It was basically to go over all of the things that we will be doing in the next four months.  It seems like a lot to do in such a short time.  We were told that we would be going to many different festivals within the next couple of weeks.  We will be staying at Visthar until the 18^th of September and then we will be gone for about a week.  This means that we will have a lot of time to adjust to living in India before we set out into the country.  I have discovered that Visthar is like a getaway for us because when we were in Bangalore the craziness of the city just made me want to come back to this place.  I feel comfortable here.  I feel like I have a place to rest and be at peace when I am here.  Its funny that after only a few days I feel like this place is a home away from home.  We are thousands of miles away from our families and so we have had to become close with people who we have never met.  The Visthar staff is so amazing and welcoming to all of us.  We were introduced to all of them this morning.  We had to play a hilarious name game to help us remember all the names.  Let me tell you, some are difficult to pronounce.

After the introductions were went to another classroom to talk about our expectations of this program.  Everyone was asked to write down his or her greatest expectation to share with everyone.  The majority of them were about self-growth and getting out of the comfort zone.  As soon as I heard this from the other students I started to realize that we are not so different from each other because we are all seeking very similar things.  We all want to set out from where we are the most comfortable and really experience the world for what it is and not just for what we think it is.  Living in the United States is a privilege for me and for you.  We are blessed with so many things that we often take for granted.  It’s amazing to see how much we have while others have so little.  Most of the people who I have met so far live very simple lives and seem to be content with the things that they have.  By American standards they live on very little but here in India they live very well.  We have clean water to drink and toilets to use as Visthar.  We always get 3 meals per day plus 2 times to enjoy tea and some treats.  We have very lucky to have all of this.  We were told today that the rain had washed out the road leading to Visthar (the road was not very good to begin with).  People in India have to deal with the sort of thing all the time and the government probably will not come out here to fix this problem, and if they do come the job will not be a permanent fix.  It seems like people are often on their own here.

We were inaugurated into the Social Justice, Peace and Development Program today.  It was really amazing.  As we walked into the grass roof hall, the women of Visthar burned incense around our faces and placed a small red spot of sandalwood ash on our foreheads.  The children of the school welcomed us by doing a traditional song and dance around the child-god Krishna.  This dance was very complicated but the girls did a lovely job at performing for us.  It was one of the most beautiful and innocent things that I have ever seen.  As they danced my mind wandered to what life is like for the girls who live here at Visthar.  They are all the children of Davidasis.  Davidasi means a slave to the gods.  Basically, their mothers are temple prostitutes.  The girls are brought to Visthar so that they can break free from the cycle and become educated women.  Thinking about all of the things that these girls have had to go through in their short lives is troubling for me, and yet here they are dancing for me and welcoming me into the community.  How privileged am I?  These girls are beautiful and full of life and wonder.  I want to know everything about them and learn from them.  As David has put it, “Out of the mouths of babes comes truth.”  That is a powerful statement in itself and at Visthar I truly believe it.