As promised, on Tuesday myself and two coworkers headed to the tracks to find the little girl who needs medical attention. As we entered the slum I immediately felt that something was off. All over, shanty homes had been knocked down, burned and removed. Quickly it was explained that the people in that area were being evicted, my stomach dropped. I can't even get into how I feel about the government evicting the innumerable amount of homeless all over the country... but it made me worry of course for all of my friends, all of the children we have come to love. I worried that we wouldn't find the girl who needed help but luckily with the help of some of the other children, we did. When she walked towards me I realized she was probably about five, and she walked like she was completely out of balance. My coworker who speaks the local language helped me talk to the father. As we were talking, I smiled at the girl, and reached out my hand to "tickle" her belly. It was rock hard against my fingers. Lurch in my stomach again. After much talking the father explained that he couldn't leave to take her to the hospital with us. One reason was because the government is evicting people from the slums and if he leaves, surely their home will be knocked down. The second reason was because he didn't feel that anything was wrong with his little girl. Knots in my stomach. I don't 100% know what I expected, I knew we wouldn't just swoop in and skip off to the doctor but I hoped he would trust us. The conversation went well but he wouldn't come with us. The end compromise is that I will return on Saturday and they will tell us then if they will go with us to the doctor. So, please continue to pray friends. 

I initially thought I wouldn't share what I am about to but I think I want people to realize that it is not all rainbows and butterflies on Sundays. That despite all of the good and how much those of us that do this every week believe in it, that sometimes it is hard to the point of me having to walk away. You see here is the thing about me, I am a person who wants nothing more than to give, I am a lover, I am a servant and I am a person who feels endlessly. I feel so many emotions and I allow myself to feel them fully. So maybe why that is why I am sitting here full of guilt when maybe I shouldn't be but anyways here it goes.

It is winter here, at night under my thick blanket I wake up cold. I can't even imagine how cold it gets sleeping on the earth under a tarp. My friend/coworker arrived back in Guwahati this week after being at home for a stretch. She brought with her warm clothes to give to the kids and today (after much discussion) we decided it would be okay to hand it out after we gave the food. We wanted to give the meals, then walk away from the crowd to gain a bit more privacy/control to give the clothing to the kids. We both knew it would cause some madness, which is why until this point I have not given out anything beyond food in the slum. So that is what we did. The day was crazy to begin with, the crowd was massive, there was pushing and shoving and it felt like we had never been there before. It was a strange day, however when the food was gone things calmed and we continued on with the plan. I held Anjuna in my arms, hugging her then we walked hand in hand towards her home. As we got further from the crowd my friend handed the bag of clothing down to Anjuna with the intention of letting the kids sort it out, having no idea what would happen next. In a split second my little girl was swarmed, attacked by the other kids and even adults. She was on the ground screaming and crying out. People were hitting her with sticks, being completely animalistic and I was just tearing through them trying to pick her up. All I remember is yelling a lot, and scooping her up from behind and getting hit myself. Her sobs and screams hurt me like I have never hurt before. I pulled her away but the crowd kept pushing, she still wanted clothing of course and so she continued to put up a fight to receive something. I can't even describe what I was feeling in that moment and afterwards. I had to walk away at a point and couldn't look back. A few minutes later I still heard the yelling but saw Anjuna and some of the other children again. She came to me and looked utterly defeated, my feelings of guilt compounded. I picked her up again, she lay her head on my shoulder, I said I was sorry and soon we had to part ways. 

Every week is such a positive and happy experience. The trust we have built, the joy that surrounds every meal there is real. Today I allowed the kids who trust me so much to be hurt (physically, emotionally) and I don't honestly know how to process this. I believe in giving, in serving and in acting on needs in your community. I whole heartedly believe in the purpose of Asha Guwahati and that is why I wanted to give out warm clothing when the opportunity came. What I didn't want was for the kids' survival instincts to kick in and cause them to harm one another. Even more than that, I did not want to put children who are so connected to us, who trust us to feel as though we were pitting them against one another. People will argue until they are blue in the face about their feelings on charity organizations, on giving assistance around the world and here in India specifically. The scene today might make a perfect argument of why people shouldn't just hand things out to those in need. I calmly listen to these opinions frequently and many time there are valid points made by either party but I stand by what we do here (both in the slums and at the surgical center) and anyone who visits and is a part of either of those stands by us too. The problem is that now I am stuck wondering how you forgive yourself for letting a child you love deeply be hurt by a situation you put them in...

22/01/12

 Through the thick crowd we easily spot familiar faces, huge smiles, bright eyes and open hands. Weekly it is like having a reunion with loved ones you have been long separated from. Anjuna found her way through the throng this week, placed herself aside Deb and asked to help pass out the meals to her fellow children. Her order and understanding of the process, her ability to explain to her friends our purpose makes me speechless. Her need and desire to help gives me hope. It is not about the attention or the chance to have her picture snapped, it is about the moment. At the end of the frenzy she gives a quick hug, a goodbye and we have to wait again for the next joyous reunion.

Again this week, my new friend Sima invited me to her home. She stood on the outskirts of the crowd, watched the food being passed then excitedly made her way to me. She led me up those dark steps, down the tiny hallway and into her home. It felt like she was holding something back but once we arrived she let it go. With a shaking excitement, she embraced me as tightly as her little arms allowed. We hugged, she jumped up and down, and her face lit up like a thousand lights. She couldn't control her happiness, her friend had returned! We must be kindred spirits because at one point she couldn't sit any longer from the excitement so she asked me to dance. Dance we did, right there in the small open part of the room. It was definitely a moment where I wondered to myself "Is this my life?" and told myself never to forget what I felt in that moment. Life has been full of a lot of those moments lately.

Something else has been weighing heavily on my mind this past week. As I shared, we walked down through the slums last week to hand out the last of the meals. The other group, led by my friend Deb, came across a young girl who appeared very sick. As it is with many of the kids, she had no clothes (in the winter here) and had to be coaxed out to receive a meal. Later on at home Deb showed me the pictures and my stomach dropped. The little girl needs to see a doctor, but her family can not pay. I can not stop thinking about her and I can't help but think that our paths were meant to cross. So, I decided that tomorrow I will have to go back and offer help to her family. Please, friends can you pray for the little girl with a belly so big and limbs so thin that she can barely stand? I plan on paying for the care she will need and I was hoping you all would be okay if some of the donations I have received lately also went to her? All I know is that I can not ignore her blatant need for medical attention. She can not be so close to me, so close to a hospital and be allowed to just suffer. My mind has been in a constant state of prayer that her family will accept the offer of a visit to the doctor and I hope that you all will support me as I approach them tomorrow.

 (sweet Anjuna helping me mark a hand)

 (Then handing out the meal)

(Hello from my new best friend's house :)

15/01/12

This weekend as we set up at the train tracks, you could feel that it was a holiday. There was an air of calm, many shops were closed, there wasn't any traffic and fewer people. There ended up being an unusually large group of volunteers coming alongside Deb and me this week, which I ended up being thankful for. The children trickled by to receive a meal and as we got down to the last fifteen or so packages, there were no more children in sight! The group of us ended up splitting in two and going into the slums itself. My group had a little tour guide, he took us down and around, passing out food on the way. It is always so awakening to walk through the slums themselves, to see the children stooped down eating the food we made, the looks of wonderment from its residents. We finished and meandered back to the rickshaw stand to meet up with the rest of the group; we were just enjoying being present in the market area, all in different conversations with locals.

A young girl who is always present at the tracks but refuses the meals drew me in, asked me to sit on a pile of collapsed cardboard with her so I did. She was around 11 or 12 years old and I had never really had the opportunity to talk with her. We exchanged the usual questions; I came to find that her uncle ran the little chai stand near by and she pointed to the building next to us, up to the third floor, and told me that was where she lived. Her eyes lit up as she asked me to come see her home. (Mind you the whole conversation was in my broken Assamese and her broken English.) I couldn't say no to those big bright eyes so hand in hand, off we went up to her home as I explained to my friends that I would walk home in a bit.

She led me up the stairs, down a dark hallway with rats scurrying by and finally through a tattered cloth hanging in a doorframe. Inside I was greeted with the smiles of her mother, father and two younger brothers. Mom had just gotten done bathing, the children were eating and quickly the girl asked me to sit down on their shared bed. They had no issues with me showing up out of nowhere and the girl was so happy to have me there, to show her parents one of the people who comes to their area every Sunday. They offered me food and water and I obliged. As I sat there and ate, she brought by every family member available explaining carefully how each person was related to her. As I finished my bowl of food she helped me clean up and then sat down and held my hand while we giggled at her playful brothers. My mind tried to take in the whole moment,  my eyes, the environment. The bed her whole family shared was smaller than the one I sleep in by myself, her whole home smaller than my room. There was an alter in the corner with the candles burning low, a television and a small shelf on which they stored and made food. It clicked. I wondered, week in and week out, why she would not take the meals we brought. As I partook in the bit of food in their home I realized that she was honest. She knew she had food available to her, she didn't want or need to take a meal herself. I felt honored to have been invited to her humble home and then to have her family feed me!  Eventually I explained I needed to go but we couldn't walk outside without stopping and meeting her auntie. Finally on the street corner as she released my hand to part ways she told me "Every Sunday, to my home you will come."

Every week I feel like my heart shatters and is rebuilt in a way that I never knew was possible. Each time it gets pieced back together it seems it is made bigger and one of these days, I am quite certain that it will be too big for my chest. Some days, today being one, I come home from feeding the kids and I weep as I clean up the dishes. I promise you, it is not because I am hurting. I cry because of the grace we are shown every day here. I cry because I am allowed to have my heart shattered to a thousand pieces by a place that knows perfectly well how to break you down and put you back together so that you are better than when you started.

Today one of the slum girls, Anjuna, sat down next to me as I was passing out the last few meals. She had her baby 'sister' on her lap and after a break to take a picture she picked up one of the meals and started passing out the food with me. A girl whom weeks ago begged from us on the streets now sat beside me and gave with a smile on her face to her fellow children. A girl who, when we started passing out meals in this particular slum, tried (and was successful on some occasions) to take multiple meals for herself, now helped explain to the coming kids and families that everyone receives one meal. The happiness in her giving was apparent. Can you see now how the change in her is so real that it brings me to my knees?

These emotions were only compounded as I thought about Anjuna being around ten or eleven years old and I re-read an email I received from a fourth grade teacher this morning. In the email she explained that she had stumbled across my blog through Sometimes Sweet and that her class decided to collect change in the month of December to donate to the kids here. She went on to tell me that  though the socioeconomic demographics of her school are rough, the children of her class were able to "look beyond themselves and see the needs of others," they stuck by their decision to collect change and today, their donation made it's way to Guwahati. Children of ten or eleven years old saw a need far from the reaches of their reality and gave their nickels, dimes and pennies to help children of the same age out here. Once it reached here that love continued and the kids of the slums embraced the act of handing food out to one another. Can you see now, why my heart just breaks only to get put back together beautifully?

We have a huge responsibility in this world. The compassion that we show, the way that we open ourselves up in front of children affects them tremendously. Like light refracted through water, what we shine on them is magnified and multiplied and sent right back to us, or more importantly, to the world as a whole. Can you see now why it is so important to nurture a child's heart, to treat it as your own?