India 2009!

It’s June. Wow. Time is absolutely flying by. I woke up this morning to a call from Dad, which was weird because he was lying in bed, getting reading to fall asleep. We had a slightly more successful journey by rickshaw, although we still weren’t quite sure exactly how to tell the driver to turn, or how to stop. Our current method is to just sort of poke him in the back until he turns around and sees which way we are pointing.

I really don’t know how to describe to you what it was like to walk into the small room where all the children were studying this morning. Every time I look at them I think of what their lives could have been like without SOUP, and each time I am overwhelmed with this feeling of gratitude that somehow they were able to find a way out of that situation. I am also so inspired and amazed at how well behaved and happy they all are. They have been through things I can only dream of, and are nothing but smiles. Before arriving here, knowing that there would only be about 9 children to work with directly each day, I thought that that seemed like a small number. Now I’m so incredibly excited to get to know each of these 9 children individually, inside and out, before I leave Allahabad. Today we met Kajal, Rinki, Pooja, Sweety, Rahul, and Gautum.

Michelle and I haven’t made any formal plans to do with the children for today and tomorrow, because we want to be able to assess what kinds of things they’ll like most, and what kinds of things they’ll need most. This is what we spent most of today doing. For the first few hours, we worked with the children on their English. This was definitely a challenge for us – because each child is at his or her own individual reading level, and we had to find a way to make sure they were all doing work that was effective for them. Michelle worked with Pooja, Sweety, and Gautum, the three older children around 12-14. Gotham seems to really like math, so she showed him some interesting math problems, and helped the older girls to write answers to questions in English. I worked with Kajal, who is blind, so I had to give myself a little crash-course in Braille. She traveled to the United States for 10 months last year, so even though she is limited in her vision she knows English amazingly well and is a huge help in overcoming the language barrier between Michelle and I and the children. I also worked with Rinki, who is 9. It was tricky figuring out how best to help her and what I eventually had her do was copy down a word I had already written and then draw a picture of it, to show me she understood what it meant. We are just so impressed at how much English the children already know and at their desire to learn. It’s summer vacation for them, and they are up at 9:30 in the morning studying a second language!

Joy’s grandson, Abinov, was a big help to us also. He is 15 and speaks pretty good English, and he also knows the children really well because he lives in the house with them. He helped us with some of the work we were doing with the children and after we had finished, around 11:30 AM, he helped us organize the children so that they could dance for us. Dancing was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had here in India so far. First of all, the children are all AMAZING DANCERS!! They’re all taught at school. They first did individual performances for us (to the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire!!) and then afterwards tried to teach Michelle and I some of their moves. That went…interestingly J Then they asked us to show them some American dance moves. Michelle showed them how to do heel-toe, and then showed them how to crib-walk. That was a huge hit and I think her legs are actually still sore from squatting so low! After that we really just danced for awhile, all of us together in this tiny room. I really think that was the moment when we first truly, deeply bonded with the children. It’s awesome how music and dance can do that to people who don’t even speak the same language.

After dancing we played a few of their games. The children are so creative – they have such a small space and very limited resources, but they have each other, and so they create tons of fun games to play among themselves to pass the time. Our favorite was their version of hide-and-seek. Because there’s only one tiny room, and 8 big children, what happens is one person is picked to be “it,” puts on a blindfold, and is spun around the room three times. Then everyone in the room taps and tickles the blindfolded person; meanwhile it is that person’s goal to grab somebody in the room and be able to identify them without taking the blindfold off. This game brought even more laughs than dancing.

After lunch, we sat down with Joy to continue our talk from yesterday. We learned a lot more about the specific operations of his shelter home since 2002, his current plans for SOUP, and his dreams for the future. We’re beginning to see much more clearly how we can best be of help to Joy and his organization and we have SO much hope for what we’re going to be able to accomplish over the next few months.

One of the most important things we’ve learned is that Joy actually has a very precise and meticulous accounting and budgeting system, one thing Michelle and I thought we were going to need to spend more time working on with him. The real problem is that Joy isn’t really of the computer generation – he’s in his 60s – so he has trouble getting all of his records onto a computer in a system that can easily be emailed to other people. His current method is to scan the documents and email them, but a free email won’t support documents of that size. What EFICOR does for his HIV/AIDS patient budget is that they give him a predesigned template, which he can easily fill in – and he does this successfully every quarter for them, so we want to make something similar for his shelter budget. We’ve also learned that several past SOUP newsletters have been published successfully – the problem is that the woman that created them no longer works for SOUP, and Joy never learned how to make one on his own.
We also have a clearer understanding of exactly what the shelter home was when it closed in January, and what Joy envisions it being when he finally reopens it. When it closed there were 22 children staying there, with a staff of around 10 including Grace and himself. This included cooks, cleaners, counselors, and caretakers for the children. 10 additional staff would also go out into the slums of Allahabad each day to do street outreach with the children; this is where they were actually able to rescue many of the children from. When they closed the shelter home, the children were sent to several different places - but SOUP is still recognized as a shelter home by the Indian government. To be recognized, SOUP must be inspected every 3 months. As it happens they just passed an inspection on Sunday, and the government continues to approve of the decisions Joy has made for the children’s care until he reopens the shelter. They have however said that by the next inspection, Joy needs to have purchased new land to build this new shelter. Joy says he envisions the shelter expanding to serve 50 children and also have a section that plays an advising, counseling, and vocational educational role for around 25 young women.

Another thing we understand more clearly is the complicated process of funding something like a shelter. Unlike the United States, most of the funding going to Indian NGOs is foreign, so Joy’s organization must be registered under the Foreign Contribution Act, and all of his donations are regulated very strictly. This is why his accounting system is so meticulous- he basically has no other choice, or he wont’ be able to continue to receive foreign funding. He also explained how complicated it is to do this honestly. He has been approached by other organizations in the past that have tried to make dishonest deals with him so that they could receive larger tax deductions for their donation than they deserved, and Joy has refused, despite what their donation could have done for his shelter. His honesty and determination not to compromise the integrity of his organization is admirable and, quite frankly, rare. He explained how they had received their funding in 2002 from an organization called Trees des Hommes, who really liked SOUP but had financial troubles of their own and had to discontinue funding. In 2007, Free for Life Ministries began to fund SOUP, but recently their lines of communication seem to have been breaking down. This is something that Michelle and I still do not understand fully and are eager to learn more about the situation so that we can be of help, because SOUP’s biggest problem right now is finding the constant source of funding that Trees des Hommes once provided.

After our long talk, with Joy, it was nearly 6 PM and Michelle and I unwound for a little bit by playing outside with Rinki, Kajul, Gautum and Rahul. We need to be careful because both of us have a tendency to overwork ourselves, and this is the kind of situation where both of us feel as if we could work day and night to accomplish all the things we think need to be done. Yet at the time, though there is a lot to do, the work balances out. We’re like interns and camp counselors rolled into one! So when numbers and paperwork and all of that gets overwhelming, we can relax and spend time with the kids. Really, how many office situations have you been in where you could take a break by playing monkey in the middle on your front porch?

Sachindra came around 6:30 to pick us up! First of all, he and Joy have a mutual lawyer friend, which was awesome, and Sachindra had heard of Joy before. Small world! Joy’s reputation really seems to precede him in this area.

Sachindra took us back to his house, which was beautiful and literally four houses down from where we are staying. Like I said, small world. It is unbelievable how things have worked out for Michelle and I. Allahabad isn’t a huge city, but for all three of our locations – our apartment, our place of work, and Michelle’s contact from Vanderbilt, all literally within 10 minutes of each other? Sometimes Michelle and I just look at all the different things that have worked out for us and are convinced that there is a reason we ended up here.

Sachindra invited us into his office, which was air conditioned, and introduced us to his mother, his wife and his two young sons, who are very shy. (I think they are around 11 and 7 but I can’t remember their exact ages.) Sachindra actually said he would appreciate it if we convinced them that girls weren’t all that bad! Michelle and I are excited and decided we are going to become best friends with them if it’s the last thing we do J He also bought us some delicious pastries from a nearby store. We hadn’t eaten since lunch and we were STARVING, so it was much appreciated. He even gave us some Pepsi- a little taste of home!

He then talked with us for what I think was about 3 hours. Sachindra I know you read our blog, so let us take this time to thank you personally for everything you have already done for us here in Allahabad. I don’t think you will ever fully appreciate what it meant for you to invite us into your home, introduce us to your family, and share with us all of your life experiences! We feel like we’ve known you all our lives when we’ve actually only just met you.

For everyone else from home, Sachindra got his masters in law from Vanderbilt, which is how Michelle got to know him. There really aren’t words to describe him so I’m going to have to use slang and just say that he has led a pretty sick nasty amazing life. We loved listening to him tell the story of how he came to found his own NGO, which provides legal services to people who can’t afford it. I told him about how I think sometimes about going to law school, even though I don’t want to be a lawyer, and he promptly handed me a book – “Break the Traditional Lawyer Mold.” He had a lot of really awesome insights for us into how to make the most out of our time in Allahabad, especially because he knows what its like to spend a time abroad and away from everything unfamiliar. He also had a lot of insights for us into life in general – how to determine what is important to you, the importance of taking time to reflect, the importance of family…I really think we have met another Maya J It also was fun listening to him and Michelle talk about the same places to eat on campus and the same sights to see in Nashville – even though I had no idea what they were talking about it still somehow felt like a little taste of the United States.
Another amazing thing he did for us was create our birth charts. We really did not know much about them before this and were a little confused when he emailed us asking us for the exact time of our births. What it does is it uses the exact alignment of the planets at your birth to determine things about your personality. Sachindra confessed that he did not think very much of birth charts either before one of his most trusted and respected mentors did his for him. Sachindra told us how he was shocked and amazed at all that his mentor was able to tell him – things about his personality that he never thought anyone could have deciphered. Michelle and I had the exact same reaction! I’m telling you, it is spooky how accurate these birth charts are. I will never forget his face when he looked at my chart. “Oh my,” he said. “What?” I asked. “Oh my,” he said, “You are terrifying when you are angry.” My jaw dropped because not only is this very true about me, but it is also one of the hardest things to tell about my personality, because most people can’t even imagine me angry when they first get to know me. Another jaw-dropper was when Michelle jokingly asked him what type of person her birth chart would make her compatible with, and Sachindra came up with a pretty accurate definition of Kev. Another thing I thought was really cool was Sachindra’s first reaction when he saw her birth chart. He just sort of stared at it, very seriously, and then looked up and said “Have you ever thought about being a teacher?” It was awesome to see that someone else recognized her love of inspiring others, especially when every other person we’ve met here has latched on to the fact that she’s studying civil engineering at Vanderbilt.

Looking at the birth charts led us in to a deeper discussion about our individual personalities, and how we can each use our character traits to achieve amazing things in this world. It was actually really interesting for me because I think it’s the first time someone has talked with me about how even an apparent weakness can become a strength if you channel it the right way.
Anyway, suffice it to say that pages of blogging couldn’t do the conversation justice! We fell asleep pretty quickly when we got home to make sure we’d have enough energy to begin a new day with the children on Tuesday.