My 100th Blog!

This is the school I will be teaching English. We had a Rotary Service Project here. 

The children are holding up their new back packs. 

Rotary Club of Dehradun Central and me

I am very excited to announce that today’s blog is my 100th blog! That is a lot of adventures, travels and service! So today I am going to write about two very exciting projects I participated in with the Rotary Club of Dehradun Central. First, I need to update you on my living situation.

We can't speak the same language, but we can definitely communicate! 

I made a HUGE change! I moved from the Yoga Ashram into the home of a fellow Rotarian. Life at the Ashram was just too solitary and dreary in many ways for me, and actually quite expensive. I needed a safer place and I wanted a more social environment and interaction with others. I am very comfortable in this new home and I have great new friends to be with and share with. I am living in the country side North of Dehradun in a place called Sehestradhara. It is not uncommon to site a leopard here, so I will keep watching. It is monsoon season in Northern India, so we have rain almost all day every day!

Rotary Club President Kailesh 

By moving, I also changed my place of volunteering, which is sad, but necessary. I will miss my little friends at Karuna Vihar and I need to go back to say farewell, but I live too far away now. I am going to be teaching English at this little country primary school near Ashok and Anila’s home. I went here on Friday with the Rotary Club of Dehradun Central. We brought the children paper notebooks, pencils, an eraser and a brand new back pack! It was a wonderful day; a wonderful Rotary project. These children live in such poverty, and I really look forward to working with them. Anila has collected clothes, through Rotary and Rotaract, for the children, and I will distribute them after getting to know the kids.

This young man does not attend school regularly, so we gave him his back pack on the road.

This is where I am living now...Sahastradhara, Dehradun, India

I have seen more of India in the past four days than I had in the 3 weeks at the Ashram. Wal-Mart stores are in Dehradun in the name of “Easy Day”. They sell the Great Value brand there. It was my first time in a big grocery store here; I only knew of the small little shacks along the road. Dehradun has a population of about 2,000,000 people; India calls that 20 lahks. India uses a different name for their big numbers; one lahk is 100,000 and one crore is 10 million.

Anila is thanking her brother for his love and protection on Brother-Sister Day Aug 13th. 

Cousins are doing the same and celebrating their relationship in absence of a sibling. 

Anila's brother has 6 sisters, so he got six bracelets.  Now he gives 6 gifts to his sisters :)

Saturday was Brother-Sister Day; a day that a sister thanks her brother for his protection and love by tying a red bracelet on his wrist, and the brother gives her gifts. I celebrated the day with Anila’s family as they celebrated their siblings.

The kids of the Kusht (Leprosy) Ashram. 

An Independence Day Ceremony 

My new friends :)

Monday, August 15th, is Independence Day for India. The Rotary Club met at the Kusht Ashram, a leprosy ashram that they support throughout the year. We gave them fruit, samosas, and clothes. We had a small flag ceremony in honor of Independence Day. I had never seen leprosy before, but I had read a lot about it because leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, has a famed history in Hawaii. My heart was truly touched there. When I occasionally get to feeling that my life has become difficult, God gives me an experience like this to bring me joy and to remind me that He is with me.

Rotarians handing out fruit and samosas. 

The hand of a Rotarian in the hand of a leper...my favorite picture! 

In India, "kusht" means leprosy. It is called Hansen's Disease in the US.

The children were so happy to be touched and talked to! They held my hand, talked to me in Hindi, asked me to take their picture and laughed with joy when they saw it! I had a truly wonderful day, and you can see by the pictures how happy everyone is. I have said it before, but in a different blog, so I must say it again: Rotary is doing amazing things all over the world, and I am proud to be a Rotarian!

One of the patients with Hansen's Disease (leprosy). 

We are distributing clothes to the men and women of the Kusht Ashram.  We will return another day for the children.  We had childrens clothes, but not enough for all of them.