6/17/09
Blogger Timmia Hearn Feldman, Morse College 2012
Written from Toukkhel, Godavari, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
The quality of the heat was the first thing I noticed was different. Along with several hundred other passengers, I disembarked in Delhi, India, and was instantly struck by the heavy heat of this part of Asia in the summer. Heat such as I had never felt before, despite my childhood in the scorching summers of Kansas and winter breaks in Trinidad and Tobago. This heat was heavy, thick, tangible, and somehow far more bearable than other heat I’d felt before. Perhaps it was more bearable because it was so foreign. There is intrigue in what is different. It surprises me how easy it was to adjust to life in the heavy heat, to the fact that there are only two meals a day, morning and night, and that both are curry. How little it surprised me to suddenly have no shower and no toilet paper (only a tap, a bucket and water). But life went seamlessly on, and before I knew it, I was in love with not only the children who have become my students, but with Nepal itself.
It strikes me as strange that I never want to leave a country where human rights are so pathetically lacking, where wife beating is all too common, and where male dominance is the order of the day. Where there hasn’t been a stable government in years, where pollution and littering aren’t really even concepts but instead such common practices that the rivers and roadsides are dotted with almost as many plastic bags as plants, and where the education system, to say the least, is sub standard. And yet, somehow, I find pleasant breezes that make the heat more than bearable, and see the smiles of my students as more than worth every clean well organized school room in my own home town.
The organization I am currently volunteering for is highly progressive for Nepal. The boys learn to respect the girls, and the girls learn to have respect for themselves, and learn their own value. They are friends across gender and age, and there is nothing more wonderful to see than almost all of the 103 students here having a profound appreciation for what they are given. From education to food, they absorb it all and take nothing for granted. And I know that is because they have come from slave labor in Indian circuses, where abuse was a daily experience, or from the streets, begging and stealing for their daily rice, or from abusive or grindingly poor families. I know that these kids have suffered more than anyone should ever have to suffer in a life time. I’ve visited the huts where some of the kids come from. I have seen the terror of being reunited with a family who could not protect them, as well as the tears mingled with longing to stay with their families, and anger at those same families. The other day in class my fellow volunteer, who has been having a very difficult time here, had to leave class half way through because it became too much for her. The students were all very worried and after class all went out to see what was wrong. She told them she’d been missing her family, and one of the girls in the class began to cry. Missing ones family is a very sore subject. But through all this suffering, something truly beautiful has been born. These children are given the opportunity to have ambitions and hope of achieving them.
Two students will be off to university in a year or two, and might get to go abroad and get an internationally recognized education. Others have already left the refuge, with university degrees, though none international as of yet. But it’s not just in higher education that these children are getting to thrive in. I watch them every day and see the bonds of love between them, see their trust and love of the staff here. They are being protected, they have a support system, and despite the large number of them, they are each known personally and loved individually. And they find beauty in their lives. Not just beauty in their current fortunate situation, but beauty in the surrounding landscapes: they take pride in Nepali music and culture. The young ones have hearts so open to love, and they cling to my hands when we take walks together or play together. They are responsible and thoughtful. There is honesty in their smiles and their words of broken English that I am working to improve. Within the heat and pollution of Nepal there are the most beautiful breaths of fresh clean air. Off of the dirty streets are beautiful fields of rice, and houses of stunningly elegant architecture. From lives that could have been just one great tragedy have been born stories of laughter and learning, joy and knowledge. Tomorrow some of us take some of the older students trekking. Another adventure unfolds.
