Now I Know Why I love This Place

Some of you may remember the days when your parents said, 'Go out and play.  I'll call you for lunch.'
We made up games, played stick-ball, tag, puzzles, baseball in the street, climbed trees, made snow forts, played hide and seek, sang Girl Scout songs and a bunch of other things.  We were safe, and we were free to be kids.  You had chores to do (I had to practice the piano every day, and Neal and I did the supper dishes.) But every minute did not have to be filled with activities because it wasn't safe to play in the street or in the vacant lot a couple houses down.  You could play until after sundown.  And then you'd hear your parents say, 'Lynnnnnnn.  Time to come in.'

Though it is unsafe and dangerous not far from us, St. Michael's compound is locked in every way possible.  Guard at the front gate, the other two entrances are locked permanently.  Within the compound is the church, the Bishop's house, an administrative building which includes a meeting room for larger gatherings.  There are two sets of guest rooms which are rented to visitors.  I mentioned that one is two floors high and the second story has a huge sewing room.  Both of my salwar kamees were made there. There are already roses and Bassu makes sure the dahlias get 'dahlia food.'  There are marigolds everywhere.

There are two libraries, one for students with textbooks in English and Bengali and one for the rest of us.  Many historical and theological books.  I suspect some priceless editions are in there.  There is a TV room which has BBC news and an interesting assortment of English, Hindi and Bengali TV.  I think there are 102 channels.  This is all accessible within a block's walk.

    I think I told you before that there is a cement playground 50x50 surrounded on two sides by the school and the hostel.  There are two trees at the edge of the playground.  The school goes from Nursery to grade 7 or 8 (15). That's also where the children's kitchen is, the computer room and the children's library.  The children get 4 nutritious meals a day, and 25 of them live on the second floor in the hostel,  boys and girl's rooms.  It reminds me of summer camp except there are 10 sets of bunk beds in each room.  Each child has many chores:  they have to keep their beds made, their trunk orderly, wash at the same time, eat meals together, brush their teeth twice a day and study together.  There's a middle commons room where they eat and watch THEIR tv.  There are loud bells which tell them when to get up, when it's time for breakfast and when they are supposed to go to bed.  There is only one older boy and about 4 older girls and all the rest are younger.  They take care of one another.  They have a housemother (Aunty) who makes them toe the line.  They are a large extended family, and they make sure no one is left out.

There are also children who come for the after school program, with English, Hindi, dance, music, my choir, etc.
That's 4:30-6:30 with excellent volunteer teachers. They have a meal and then go home to their families.  My little God-child Mitali, 4, goes home after supper.  She wears this adorable hunter green cardigan and runs around with all the other children.  All are in sweaters, because for them it's cold (60).  There is a lot of play time in between activities and before meals.  There are swings and a slide. To see them play so joyful
and laugh so much and run around chasing each other reminds me of when I was a kid.  We're a close community here with 'tough love' and pure love. They line up before school and sing Christian songs, and sing Christian songs before and after TV.  There's singing somewhere all the time.  They are from Hindu families, but they sure know a lot of Christian songs.

This is community living as I remember it.   I can no longer go fastfastfast, nor do I want to.
Only the Bishop knows how to go fastfastfast, and even he just came down with a bad cold.
THINGS mostly bore me and do not contribute to the quality of my life.
I will tell you when I don't want this pace of life any more.  Right now it's exactly as I want it to be, And I thank God for it every day.

Surrendering to the Fog...

I have lots of wonderful things to write about: an ordination in the half-finished cathedral, my work with the choirs, visiting the bastis (slum villages), and living in the hostel with 35 children from 6-17.

But what I really need to share is my mission as a Christian here.  I answered a call to 'be', not 'do.' I know about the doing part, but I'm walking in fog about the other.  My call is NOT to be a music teacher, although I spend a significant part of my time doing that, and I know the children are widening their exposure to Western music and are happy about doing so.  I'm also my usual ebullient self, finding joy, delight and surprise as I go about my daily life.  I wave to everyone I see, and they're starting to wave back, though that is not customary in India.  It's much too overt.

I see a number of the staff and others with a profound faith and a different way of thinking about God.  I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I hear it in sermons, prayers and even in the snail's pace the hymns go, where I can meditate on every word.
 
They have a different relationship with God.  They seem closer to Him than I do and I want what they have.  I don't read the Bible every day or set aside time to meditate or pray.  I pray for people as they tell me their stories, but I don't remember to pray again for them as a conscious decision.  If I do all these things, am I still just 'doing?'  Will I receive the grace I long for by reading John or saying Compline?  I feel as though I'm a surface Christian.  It's all about ME.

Maybe what I really need to do is surrender to the fog.  Maybe that's where God waits to hold my hand and walk with me to the next place.

Living In India with a Brain Injury

Almost 4 years ago I had brain injury from a car crash.  It damaged the right side of my brain, which organizes information, prioritizes things, and provides focus and concentration.  It's like a colossal case of Attention Deficit Disorder.  You make a plan in thirty minutes; it will take me an hour and a half.  It also left my left side weaker than the right, and balance problems.  Not horrible, but pretty significant.  In Green Bay I made a lot of progress with my balance.

A month ago I  fell three times in two days. The final straw was falling up on cement stairs, and each fall reminded me of the time I fell and broke both wrists.  All buildings are cement  with no railings.  The playgrounds are dirt with rocks.  Every piece of walkway or lane or stairway is uneven and sometimes filled with rocks.  I have two pair of high end New Balance shoes and Birkenstock sandals.

 I had a good cry about it with my friend Sally, another missionary.
While I was waiting for the car to take me home, I centered for 15
minutes so my brain could slow down.  The plan I used so successfully
in Green Bay is useless here, so God has another plan for me.  I'm
finished teaching for today, so I'm going to nap and do needlework.

PS:  I have made myself walk so slow as though I were 100.  I watch every step I take right in front of me.  I cannot walk and talk to anyone at the same time.  I cannot look at birds, trees or the sky anymore.
this plan has worked very well, and everyone around helps me.  As for the ADD, write it down, write it down, write it down.

I can feel the prayers.  Thank you so much.
Peace and blessings,

Indian Road Rule for today:
Article II:  Indian traffic, like Indian society, is structured on strict caste caste system.  Thre floowing precedence must be accorded at all times.  In descending order, give way to: cows, elephants, camels, water buffalo, pigs, goats, dogs, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, pedal rickshaws, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, handcarts and pedestrians.

I have often seen signs on the backs of commercial vehicles:  Obey the road rules.  Honk Horn.
And boy is THAT true!  Bye for now.

Come on in for a cup of coffee!

My room has an L-shape , with other part of the L containing the bathroom. When you enter my room you see two twin beds looking like fourposters and vinyl flooring looking like laminate wood.  One bed I use as a flat surface to put books, shawls, computer case.  The other one which I sleep in has mosquito netting, which fits over the top of the fourposter and comes all the way to the floor.  In the twenty first century mosquito netting is colored and printed so mine is pink with large flowers on it,  Very well designed and easy to work with.  Between the beds is a little side table, which has our electric water heater.  I have coffee and tea but no milk, since I don't have a fridge.  Should I try getting used to powdered milk?  We can have cookies, but if we don't eat them all or dispose of them properly, the sugar ants will come in droves.  Ah, the lessons one has to learn. 

There are three panels of windows which face the west, sort of, and there are curtains which block out the light pretty well.  Our backyard meets St. Michael's School, where I teach.  I can usually hear raucous noise from about 7 am (kids screaming with joy?) There are no screens, and I would like to open them but humid air comes in with or without insects.  So I use the air conditioner.  It's where the wall and ceiling come together;  it has a remote control and you can dial-a-temp;  It also has a fan in the air conditioner.  Then there's the heavy duty ceiling fan, which is great except when you're trying to sleep.  I think we'll use a combination of them, until you decide which is more comfortable for you. 
Anyway, back to the windows.  From my view I can see the cows grazing, the chickens roosting and how the vegetable garden is coming.  We thought there wasn't going to be a garden for awhile, because the young man hired to be the farmer let the seed potatoes rot and basically did nothing for his wages.  The diocese bought a tractor and when I came it was left in the mud under some trees. The farmer lost his job, of course, and there was no one to replace him for several months.  This is prime planting season for the winter crop.  Well, the new farmer hit the ground running, planting tomatoes, chilies, cauliflower, eggplant and other vegetables.  Then THE CREW attacked the tractor.  The bad farmer had stolen all the tools from the tractor, and it had tires that were like cleats.  then I saw real tires on it, and a bunch of us went to cheer THE CREW on.  A farm machinery expert was there.  It's a crank motor, so several of the young men and boys had to learn how to crank it fast enough.  Then there's the whole carburetor deal, and the Bishop's wife (who knows about machinery and engines)  tweaked something, and with five other 'consultants' it was running in five minutes.  Now, how to plough ground?  I saw three kids about 12 sitting on a plank with three nails in the dirt, being the furrow-makers.  Now almost all of it is ploughed and planted.  We hope that in a few years we can grow most of our own food, especially potatoes, since that is such a staple.

Back to my room.  When I'm in the bed, I look directly at a kitchen sink and a marble cabinet top.  it could be turned into a little kitchen, but it hasn't been yet.  So I look around my room.  I bought a neat steel desk with three drawers and an office chair.  I also bought a steel armoire which is painted to look like honey oak  Pretty good resemblance. There is a door with a full length mirror (the girls come in all the time to look at themselves and laugh.)  There are three shelves in it for tops, slacks, underwear, etc. but not a place to .hang anything. There's another door below it.  The other side looks somewhat like a clothes stand, but it's challenging to hang anything there, although my hangers fit on the top rung.  Below that is a glass sliding door about 8 inches high and then another much larger space  below where the door works like a barrister bookcase.  I have a really good desk chair and another plastic chair for you to sit in.

Do you need to 'freshen up?'  Most non-Indians (including myself at first) do not understand all the possibilities in this room.  There's a fine toilet, and corner sink.  The hardware is the standard of Kohler: solid and beautiful.  You say, "Where can I take my bath?"  You can't.  There's a five gallon plastic tub and another 3 cup pitcher.  There's also a spiral shower head like we have, and then you're on your own for awhile.  All the other knobs produce water of all kinds from several different places.  You can get hot water if you use the 'geezer' high above all the plumbing and turn it on.  It heats the water, but I had months of cold showers before someone told me how to use it.  They're kind of bracing, if you don't think about it.  If you want to use the tubs, fill them with as much water as you need. Use your scrubbee, lather up good and there you are clean.  You use the little pitcher to rinse yourself off with, and go back into the tub for some more water.  The system works well, and you use very little water.  I use the shower head to wash my hair.  Now here's the neat part.  If there's no tub, where does the water run out?  The floor is slightly raked to the back of the room where the toilet is. There is a very large pipe connecting to the outside.  You just pour your buckets of water toward the toilet, and it just runs down the pipe until it reaches the gutter below.  Now that we've had tea and you got a chance to freshen up, how about we walk to the market?








 

So Much Love

First of all, if you wondered where my blog about living with a brain injury went to, well, someone  with a brain injury wrote it.  What do you expect?   No, I actually did write one, and for two days it was on the page.  I will go hunting for it again.

Now, about So Much Love.  There is a cement courtyard large enough to play basketball surrounded by two floors in an L shape.  The first floor is all classrooms, and the other side of the L has the library, the computer room and two offices.  On the second floor above the classrooms are the two hostel rooms, one for boys, one for girls.  In between is my bedroom, so I'm in the middle of wonderful traffic/racket several times a day.  Each room holds ten bunk beds.  Everyone is in school from kindergarten to Grade 10 (junior year).  They wear school uniforms and then when they come home the girls change into these wonderful saris or long tops and pants.  Sparkly, beautiful, dazzling.  Remember, these are children from very poor homes, yet the few clothes they might have make them very beautiful.  Of course they think mine are mostly drab, and in comparison to theirs they are.  So every time I wear sparkly or different earrings, they say, 'Very nice miss.'  When I wore my two kurtas they raved!  And they finally just couldn't stand it any longer ; 'we make up your face!'  'We fix your hair!'  so five of them ran around my room discussing how best to make me look beautiful.  And they did, of course.

All the children run up in the morning and say 'hello miss.  Where you going?'  or they drill me on my Bengali:
'Kaemon acho' (How are you?)  and I say 'bhalo achi' (I am good).  'Aj mongolbar.'  Today is Tuesday.
When they get home in the after noon or after supper some of them will ask me questions in English because that's one of their subjects.  They are so loving.  One afternoon I was feeling homesick and had been crying.  One of the girls knocked on my door for something else, and five of them crowded round saying, 'Why you cry miss?  you no cry. We love you.  You no cry.'  And they crowded round and hugged me to make the tears dry up.  It's not just me; they interact that way with the whole world-guileless, open to anything.

They also think I'm a dancin' fool!  They dance gracefully and sensuously, and will eventually teach me how to do some version of what they do.  But even if I'm doing a terrible imitation of the Supremes, they laugh with delight and follow me.

One last thing.  I have been self-conscious of my double chin for at least a decade now.  Now, two little ones have discovered it and love to touch it with their fingers.  They laugh and laugh.  And several women my age were looking at it last week, saying,'That's what ours will look like.'  With curiosity, not disdain. The girls love to shake the skin on my upper arms, and they touch my skin because it's so soft. They're so unjudgemental.  Really makes you love being yourself.  I see unconditional love every day, all day.

Indian Rule of the Road No.1:  The assumption of immortality is expected..

see ya later!

An Unforgettable Moment in Music Education

I am the choir director for 2 different private schools in Durgapur, and there is a certain amount of 'friendly' competition between the 2.  An ordination is occurring in the new cathedral on Nov. 14. (Just alittle pressure) and the students have been out for almost two weeks for a Hindu holiday or poojah..

St. Michael's has had a music teacher, so he hand-picked 30 of the best singers, and there was my choir. St. Peter's, on the other hand, has never had a music program and the principal wanted to ensure that I got all the best voices, so he asked me to audition every student from 4th grade to 7th, which is 350 children.  I told him I would NOT audition Grade 8.  I whittled it down to 150 students (there'actually quite a number of musically talented students here.)  That means there would be 2 choirs.  Principal says great. Then sthe teachers rightly ay that their students cannot be away from their academics that much. Then last Friday the principal asked me to form a choir of 30 students in 3 days, and there would be a rotation of the periods the students would have for rehearsal. Then he stopped talking as though I would
know how to arrange the rehearsal schedule.  Ah, yes.I made it clear
with a smile that I had no idea how to do this and that he would have
to do it.

So, how to choose 30 from 150?  I wanted something objective and fair without auditioning 250 students again.  So I decided to go down the list and circle every sixth student, which came to 32.  I couldn't
read their writing, although it was in English.  So I asked the wife of a visiting Indian couple to help me sort this out further.  You see, I had no idea whether each 6th student was a boy or a girl. So we
went through the list and found that I had chosen 18 boys and 12 girls. We  got to 15 each by a unique method.  She read through the names, adding names she liked the sound of, and discarding the names she didn't like.  So unique, so elegant, don't you think? Most of all, it's DONE!  Done is good!  And June and I had great fun concocting this plan .  Then the principal tells me he really wanted 20students.. "Cheese andRice!!!"  I told him that we're fine as e are. What the principal wants most is for the
students to sound good, so we're going to sing 'Simple Gifts' by rote, learning the song by reading the words.  And teachers, now I know what it means to travel from school to school to school.

The really neat thing about it, though, is that the children are so adorable and physically so beautiful.  They love the kind of playing you get to do in music, because in each of their other classrooms of
50 students, they are very regimented so they can get academic work done.  As I have always said, It's all a grand experiment!

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Living in India with a Brain Injury