Day 1 in India: Children's Classroom Tours, Ashraya Women, Children's Home Performances

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Our new home in Tenali was a 3-story building, and our living quarters were on the 3^rd floor. The whole building belonged to Harvest India, and I believe the 1^st floor housed a family who looked after the place. There were 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on the 3^rd floor. Us girls had 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom in the main part of the 3^rd floor, and the 2 guys had the other bedroom and bathroom that were sort of separate. Lisa and I roomed together, Ruth and Jessica shared the other room, and there was a bathroom in between our rooms that all of us girls shared. There was no central air and heat, but each of the rooms had an air conditioning unit which kept it comfortable. The only other room on the 3^rdfloor was a large multi-purpose room that served as a kitchen, dining room, and meeting room. We spent a lot of time in that room. It had pretty much the longest table you’ve ever seen with lots of chairs, knickknacks in glass display cases, etc. We held all of our morning meetings and prayer time at this table, ate almost all of our meals there, and then held evening discussions about our day aka “coin time” there.

An Indian man named Peter was assigned to basically take care of us during our stay. He would bring us coffee or chai (tea) every morning at about 7 AM. He would walk in and ask each one of us what we preferred (coffee or chai) and then a little while later, Peter would walk in carrying a tray of 6 mugs for all of us. I’m not a coffee drinker, so I always chose chai, and it was really good! I would describe it as a cross between hot tea and hot chocolate. It was very dark, had a creamy film on top, and it was sweet. Apparently, they put a sugar cube and milk in the chai. Peter would also help serve us all of our meals. He would walk in carrying a bag of food, prepare all of our plates, and hand out the plates to each of us. He also would sometimes chop up various fruits for us, like apples, pomegranates, and watermelon. If we needed anything or had questions regarding the house, Peter was the one to ask, as we saw him multiple times per day. Sometimes when we were out and about visiting different places, there would be Peter! He was a busy guy lol. Peter is actually kind of like an adopted son of Suresh’s, too, as Suresh and his wife have fostered many kids over the years. Peter was just one of many individuals who came to live with Suresh’s family as a kid, and now he has a job with Harvest India.

Our days usually went a little something like this:

7AM—coffee or chai

8AM—Morning meeting with just the 6 of us

9AM—Breakfast with Suresh

10 or 11 til mid-afternoon—visiting various Harvest India sites

Mid-afternoon—came back home for a few hours’ break, to eat, etc.

Evening—visits to other Harvest India sites, dinner

Night—“Coin time” with the 6 of us, where we each recognized another person for something good that we saw them do during the day.

Anyway, so the first day that we were there, we loaded up in one of the vans and drove over to one of Harvest India’s schools and took a tour through all the classrooms. When we arrived, we were greeted by 2 rows of children, who threw lots of yellow flower petals at us as we walked past them, kind of like at a wedding when guests throw rice or flower petals at the bride and groom. Those flower petals stayed in my hair til I washed them out that night. Lol. They also presented us with these long, colorful leis, made out of pink and yellow flowers. There were some older female students who performed a traditional song and dance for us as we walked toward the school. It was pretty cool and made us feel very welcomed.

The school building had many classrooms, and many of them had one wall that was open to the outside (aka not enclosed). We walked to the front of each classroom by the chalkboard and introduced ourselves to the children and told them what we do for work back in the states. The children were sitting on their benches, facing us. They would say hi, wave, and repeat each of our names back to us. You couldn’t help but smile at these kids! They were all so happy that we were there. Then we would ask the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, and one by one, some of the kids would stand up, cross their arms (this was something every single one of them would do), and say in either Telugu or English what they wanted to become. Many of the children wanted to be engineers, teachers, policemen, or join the military. We had a translator with us all the time, so whatever was said in Telugu (the language spoken in Tenali), it would be translated for us. India has 23 recognized official languages, with Hindi being the most widely spoken. (Just as a side note, India is the 7^th largest country in the world, and has the 2^nd largest population in the world, after China. There are 1.3 BILLION people in India, which means that almost 20%!o(MISSING)f the world’s population lives in India.)

On the property, there was a newborn baby (I think he was 9 days old), and the mother wanted us to pray over him. So we gathered around and got a glimpse of the baby and prayed over him. Some babies and children either have shaved heads, black eyeliner around their eyes, or a dot on their forehead. These all have to do with the Hindu religion. I believe we were told that the shaved heads and black eyeliner are used to protect babies and children from evil spirits, but I don't know a lot about it all!

So after touring the school’s classrooms, we walked a short distance to visit with some women who used to work in the red-light district in India. If you are not familiar with the red-light district, it is an area where women earn money as prostitutes. There is also a pimp and madam there, who oversee the comings and goings. Harvest India helps women leave the red-light district and gives them a home and hope for their future. We walked into a room where these women were making gold-colored plates out of recycled materials, which they sell. We watched them work on the plates for a few minutes, and then a few of them stood and told us their stories of what their life was like before Harvest India helped them move out of the red-light district. Harvest India calls this ministry Ashraya.

Then we drove over to one of Harvest India’s children’s homes, where they had a large banner outside that welcomed us. We entered this huge pink room with scriptures hanging down from the ceiling, and probably a couple hundred orphans (from little kids to teenagers) came and sat down in rows in front of us. About half a dozen groups of kids came up to the front of the room, one group at a time, and performed dances for us. I was pretty impressed with those kids. Not only were they brave enough to stand up in front of everyone (including American strangers) and perform dances for us, but who knows how much time and effort they put into memorizing and perfecting all those dance steps! And those kids had lots of energy! One of the boy groups wore fedoras and had dance moves very much like American boy bands. It was fun to watch. I’m always inspired when I see choreographed dance groups because I think it’d be really fun to be a part of one. There were various children who stood up and faced us as they recited scriptures that they had memorized. Again, kudos to them! Some children were receiving academic awards that evening, too, so we helped present them with certificates and took pictures with them. The 6 of us also stood up and sang “This Little Light of Mine” for the kids, which I’m sure was nowhere near as impressive as what they did. Haha!

We had packed 2 suitcases and 1 bag full of toys for the kids at this particular children’s home, but we decided to just let the adults there disburse the toys as they thought best, at a later time. As we all walked out of the huge room, the kids began placing their hands out for us to shake hands with them and talk to them. It was hard to even move through the swarms of kids! I wanted to be able to shake all the kids’ hands who reached out. At one point, this group of young boys started trying to pull me towards them, and though I knew I needed to leave and go with the rest of my group, I also didn’t want to appear rude. At that moment, Suresh basically told the boys to stop and let me go. As I made my way to the exit, I remember seeing Shawn surrounded by kids, too! It was really sweet and weird at the same time, as it seemed as if we were celebrities! It’s not often that these kids get visitors, so I’m sure it’s a big deal when they do. And that was the end of our first day in India!

Make sure to see my other pictures below!

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