I've now been serving at Manav Sadhna for exactly 1 week.
Somehow, I had expected it would be a shock to be confronted with the poverty,
the illnesses, the poor conditions of living, etc. But somehow, no shock. I guess
my brain must be filtering all that, because all I see are the smiles, the sparkling eyes and the incredible energy available.
Meghna also said within the first 10 min I had arrived at A'bad that Manav Sadhna would
feel like a family in maximum a week and it does. I live in the volunteer house
with 2 really nice australian girls. Some other key characters in my life are also mentionned in Mariette's blog :)
Every morning at 10:45, we meet for "prathna" which is a
spiritual session + a team meeting. Good opportunity for me
to get to know who works here and to sort out practical points. Also to take
a moment to myself and focus on my intention and listen.
The highlights of this week have been:
1. the day out with the blind school - 50 children + 8 teachers
+ 4 of us from MS. Someone had donated the funds for that day
and we really had a lot of fun; so did the kids and the teachers.
I took mostly care of Kaulash, 5 years old; somehow, beyond the obstacle
of blindness and lack of common language, we managed to create a bond.
by the end of the day, while he didn't master my name (which is difficult for
indians to get), he could recognise me by my voice and touching my wrist + he
would call me ben (= sister in gujarati). Wherever we sat, he was
really good at exploring the environment around him with his hands...
I hope life will be kind with him. I feel he is equipped with abilities (intellectually and
emotionnally)
that will help him make the most of what comes to him, so I am hopeful...
2. Craftroots festival: 3-day fair bringing together artisans and crafts from Gujarat with the A'bad
people.
to understand what the festival is Gramshree is a sister organisation to MS
and was the main organiser of that event.
open 10am to 10pm, with everybody working the whole day. I had an
amazing time, learning and doing so many different things - talk about being the moment!
- I made chiappatis (only some for the 1000 we were making that day for the staff and visitors).
- I helped demonstrating, folding and selling bed covers,
- Jillian taught me how to make earings
- I greeted the visitors in hindi/gujarati/english and even sometime french
- I got a tribal wall painting on my arm
- I learnt about all sorts of crafts, directly from artisans themselves
- I got my picture in the India times :)
What made all this valuable was the people I was doing it with, and the people I was meeting in the course of doing it!
It was amazing team work, with communication and work crossing
languages, religions, borders.
; we all came out happy and exhausted :)
Today is day off for all of us :)
Next objective when I get a chance is to share some pix with you.
xx
Caroline
