You Put Your Whole Self In...

September 22, 2008

We woke up this morning and got ready.  We didn’t know what was in store for us today.  We were told that we were going into the village today.  I was happy to hear that we were going to be doing something new again today.  We got ourselves together and we were off on the motorbikes again.  When we got to the village we were told that we were going to be one our own for the day.  I got a little bit nervous.  Manjula left us and people who could not speak any English surrounded us.  We went to the village school and met the children.  It was a government school.  There were 85 students and 2 teachers.  If this was a school in the US it would have been shut down in a heartbeat and there’s no way that teachers would put up it.  I thought about Adam as I sat in this classroom.  I thought about how he talked to me a few days before I left the states and wanted to make sure that I went to vote for the referendum (which I did).  These teachers have nothing like that.  There are really no options for them.  They get whatever little money the government is willing to give them and if they don’t get it no one supports them.  They were so happy to have us.  I think that they thought we would be able to help make changes for their school.  They sang songs for us and we sang some for them.  We stayed with them for over an hour.

During the children’s lunch break they came and found us.  They all wanted to be close to us and touch us.   They sang more songs, and we taught them the Macarena and the hokie pokie.  They loved it so much.  Their smiles were from ear to ear.  We spent over an hour doing this with the children.  They were so excited.  When we had to leave the children were so sad.  They asked us if we could spend the night and stay with them.  We shook their hands and said goodbye.  It was really hard for me to leave them.  We waved goodbye and I knew that the memory of their American visitors would remain with those children forever.  I was happy to have another opportunity to shape their opinions about Americans.  I think that I am doing a really good job of making Americans look like good people.  I never thought that I would have to do this.  We got back to Manjula’s house and it was time for us to head back to AREDS Trust office.  I had a terrifying ride back on a motorbike.  A truck on the highway almost hit us.  It was really scary.  I definitely prefer to ride in cars here.