Mangos and Fevers

Tonight, I am angry with India. Tonight, a little boy is going to bed alone with a fever. He has no one to look after him but the teasing shoves of the five boys who share is dormitory room.

As the children stood around the trash tonight, juice from hot-sweet mangoes dripping down their chins and arms and falling from their dusty elbows, I noticed Sakthivel sitting by himself. I went over and almost before sitting down, I could feel the heat of a fever radiating off his skin--a fever is a dangerous thing when the weather is already close to 100 degrees each day.

I help Sakthivel find a clean shirt amid his messy trunk which holds all his possessions--mostly threadbare clothes. He is quiet, pensive--a sick little boy in the middle of a country that refuses to give him a mother, a father, a family. The children's home model is a common one--parents and relatives with no safety net, send children they are unable to care for to live in homes like SEAMs.

As I sat silently beside Sakthivel, I felt the hard, pulsing sting of tears behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw and put a comforting hand on his little, threadbare shoulder. He looked up at me with gentle eyes and I found it harder to keep the tears hidden inside my own eyes. I wanted to lay a cool washcloth on his forehead. I wanted him to know someone was worrying about him. I wanted to be there if he woke in the night and I wanted to make him breakfast after the fever broke

Later, finally alone in my room, I let all the ocean of salty-sad tears fall. I'm not just crying for Sakthivel, though. I'm crying for all the lonely children of India, and though my eyes will eventually dry, I know my heart is constantly crying for change, for the dreams of these children and their fevers and their tired, dusty feet.

Sakthivel (L) and his little brother Monickam (R)

Painting India

This past week, I've spent each afternoon painting the dormitory at the SEAM children's home. In the monotonous, buzzing heat, each brushstroke covers up more of the grime that has pressed into the walls. It's been four years since the walls were painted. Four years of dreams, nightmares, hopes and disappointments pressed by small greasy hands onto the walls as the children drift to sleep in the almost liquid, humid air. Four years of finding their way by feel along the walls in the middle of the night. Four years of balls bounced off the sides, leaving sticky Chennai dirt and city exhaust from the thousands of auto-rickshaws, cars, motorcycles and trucks that thunder past each day.

In the hours of painting, I've reflected on the past four years and the difference my first trip to India made in my life. It's been just a little over four years since I came to this country for the first time. I was abroad on the Global Semester with twenty six classmates, and I arrived with just under the acceptable weight of luggage and a heart ready to change forever in this hot, tumultuous country. I was slipping into love with Chris as we spent lazy afternoons talking about home and I was slipping into love with India as I watched children beg food and money from tourists on the streets of Mumbai and Bangalore.

Just like the walls at the dorm, I've painted India over many parts of my life. I've worked hard and saved money for two years to come back to this country where I've left pieces of my heart with all the children I've met. The family that has been working alongside me this past week leaves today and said goodbye to the children at SEAM last night. As the kids sang a song and thanked each person, tears came to my eyes, imagining the heartache of tearing myself from them next Friday before I head home.

As I continue to explore and try to understand the complex culture of caring for the orphaned and poor children here, I am continuously painting my life with their joy, their loneliness and their needs. Trying to put the needs of children here over my own desires in the U.S. is not always easy, but as I watch them scamper around playing cricket and jump-rope in their dusty courtyard and see their hard, hot beds and their soft, knowing smiles, my heart breaks and I know there has to be something more.

Home Again

As I sit under the drifting halo of my mosquito net and reflect on the past few days in Chennai, India, my heart is full. It is full of the love of a country I have come to know intimately, but which constantly surprises me. It is full of the children peaking out from the creases of their mothers Saris as a family of four races along the congested street, all on one motorcycle with no helmets in sight. My heart is full of the smell of garbage, heat, cows and joy and full of the colors of brown cows in the road, jet black dogs sleeping in corners and the cheerful, sometimes lonely eyes of the kids I get to spend the next two weeks with.

On my third day here, I finally feel settled and rested. Twenty-seven plus hours of travel, overnights on planes trying to sleep sitting up and too many meals served on trays, exhausted me on my way here. Now that I've exhaled the airplane air and inhaled dirt, grime, heat and pure fascination I am ready to continue this third adventure in a country that feels just as much like home as my own bedroom in Minneapolis.

This morning was a visit to the school I'll be helping at for at least this first week of my stay. We met the principle, a very kind, gentle and excited man who was clearly thrilled we were there to help. We then went around to the classrooms (7 in all) and met the kids. They stared at us with large brown eyes and chimed "Good Morning Missus" in unison.

The afternoon was spent speckling ourselves with white and pink paint as we re-finished the children's dorms at SEAM Children's Home--a place for orphaned and poor children to live and go to school. The best part of the sweaty, messy afternoon was the look of appreciation on the faces of the girls who saw us finishing up their dorm room when they came home from school. Our day ended with games of cricket, table pool played with coins in a wooden board and lots of hugs and struggles over our attention from the kids.

I am happy to report that tonight's shower might have been the best shower ever taken by anyone, ever. However, despite my cleanliness, I am now sweaty all over again after washing my laundry in a bucket.

Happiness

I want to write about something that has been an issue for me lately: happiness. We all struggle with being happy from time to time. I have a simple solution that each of us has already experienced, perhaps we just haven't made the connection between that feeling of happiness and lasting happiness in our lives.

So here it is: when you're feeling unhappy, help someone else.

Have you ever paid for the person's drink behind you in the coffee shop and walked away with a sly grin, knowing you probably just made their day? If not, you should try it. That's just one example, though. There are thousands of ways to help other people and each one is accompanied by a feeling of joy.

So why don't we all go around every day and just try to ease the suffering of those around us? My guess is that it's not convenient or always completely within our comfort zones, but if you can just lift the suffering of another person for a moment, I promise it's not only worth it, but you will continue to feel great the rest of the day.

In my job, I get to help people everyday. As most of you know, I work at Feed My Starving Children, a food aid organization. In my daily job, I not only feed hundreds of kids who don't have families who can care for them, but I also get to help our volunteers. All the meals we pack and send are packaged by volunteers. Last Saturday I helped almost 400 volunteers help other people. While some of our volunteers are high school kids who may not "get it," many are moms and dads and even little 6-year-olds who leave our building absolutely full of the awesome feeling of helping others.

So let's try an experiment. Here are a couple easy ways to help other people. Pick one. Try it. Let me know if it made you feel a bit happier. And before we start thinking it's all about us--this experiment goes both ways by creating a bit of happiness for the person you just helped.

• Next time you're out a a restaurant, leave a ridiculous tip for your waiter/waitress. He or she is probably barely making ends meet, so be that person that makes his or her life easier.
• This one is pretty popular right now: pay for the coffee of the person behind you.
• Smile at a stranger. Not in a creepy way, just a friendly smile to let them know that you acknowledge him or her.
• Volunteer somewhere like a food shelf or at an after school tutoring center.
• Remember a time a stranger was nice to you and replicate what they did.

That's it, people! I'm not saying this is a cure for depression or even a way to make you happy until the end of your days, but it will help in that moment of feeling alone and disconnected. I urge you to reach out and help someone else. Let me know how it goes.

Standing Still

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As you already know, I’m planning my third trip to India this summer. The country of India first stole my heart almost five years ago when I stayed there on my study abroad trip. The poverty I saw was staggering and left me wanting more for the people I saw, especially the kids.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t fallen in love with a country so far away, but I left a big piece of myself in India and I constantly feel a yearning to go back. These words are from my journal during my second trip: “India is incredibly alive. It’s shiny and grimy, happy and heart-shatteringly sad. I love it. It’s so incredibly overwhelming and I want to embrace it and keep it inside of me. I want to inhale and never exhale.”

So, while working two jobs, both at non-profits, hasn’t left me with a lot of extra money to spend traveling half way across the world, I am going to India in June. This trip is to help and teach, but also to research the culture of caring for India’s abandoned children with the long-term hope of living there and doing more. I’ll be working with kids in a few different orphanages and schools, staying with a local couple and learning as much as I can.

Will you help me get there? What I need most are your thoughts and prayers. No matter what or who you personally believe in, India has been incredibly influential to me, these are the words of my spiritual journey that began and continued in India: “I find a peace here that I fail to find anywhere else. This is where I first found God and I feel Him so strongly here. He is everywhere and I feel like I get to walk with Him and work with Him all the time. I’m not sure why I can feel so still here, but it’s like the rest of the time I am in the hurricane, whirling around, out of control and trying to stop. But here I can stop, breathe, feel. I am maybe still a little dizzy, but that’s ok, I am standing still and God is standing still with me. He is holding my hand and He has led me here.”

Second, keep reading this blog! I'll be posting now through my trip in June.

Finally, if you wish, consider contributing financially to my trip. It’s hard for me to ask for money, but I can’t do this alone. There are two ways to donate:

First, directly to my trip fund, but only through April 1^st: Trip fundraising.

Second, help pay for my plane ticket, through May 10^th: Ticket fundraising.

(You can also send or give me a check, that way we avoid the online fees: 919 27^th Ave SE Minneapolis, MN 55414).

I sincerely thank you for any help you can give, in the form of thoughts, prayers, reading or giving. Thank you for being a part of my journey so far.

Love the Unloved

I'm starting this blog a few months before I journey to India for the third time. I want a place to share my fears and worries about this crazy 2-week trip to a foreign country a month before I get married, but I also want a place for inspiration to happen. I wrote this sentence while I was in India the first time and it still inspires me today: "...for all these children and people suffering in the streets, there has to be something more."

The idea that there is more for the poor of India led me back to volunteer in 2011 and will bring me once again to India this year. When I was in India in 2011, I became fascinated with Mother Teresa. She is an icon, an amazing woman and an inspiration to thousands, or perhaps millions. Her legacy lives on in the many charities the Sisters of Charity run in Kolkata, India and other cities around the world. As I continue to read more about her, skim through some of her books and google search "mother teresa quotes" again and again, the same theme keeps popping up: love those who are unloved.

There are opportunities to love those around us every day. So for this first blog, I want to encourage you to check out this TED talk I discovered a few weeks ago: Everyday Leadership. We have the opportunity to create something more for the people around us every day. We can make people feel loved by the most simple, forgettable actions. So, to end on a quote from Mother Teresa "...we can do small things with great love."