Patel Nagar

On Wednesday, I had my first day teaching in the slums. In case you don’t know, I am working with an organization called Dalit Freedom Network, a Christian organization to the betterment of the Dalits (also known as the Untouchables). I am going to be working in a slum community in Patel Nagar helping teach English. While on Wednesday I didn’t actually teach, I just observed so I could know what to expect next week. It was an amazing experience.

The slum is crazy. It is this living breathing place where kids run around naked. Sewage, feces, and everything all runs together in the open air gutters. Houses are more like four wooden posts and a tarp for a roof. 7-10 member families live in a place smaller than a dorm room and a family that size has to pay for food, clothing, rent, education, and medications (if they can afford it) on a measly income of about $1,200 per year or less. The government schools don’t even educate them, they just give them food.

The school I am working at has about 15-25 kids. It is a little pink room with three and a half walls. The half that is missing is used as an entrance and a tarp is used as a door. The children are so beautiful. They have so much life in them despite this suffocating environment. But the classroom is crazy! They are 4-8 years old and many have yet to be socialized into ‘school life.’ But it is wonderful to see these beautiful kids get an education! I can’t wait to go back next week!

This weekend I am going to go to Varanasi, the Hindu holy town where many people go to die. They are then cremated and their ashes are put into the river. From what I have heard, it is a crazy place but also very interesting. There are funeral pyres and elderly bating in the river and the occasional dead body that floats up from the bottom of the river (many bodies are just tied together and sunk to the bottom… but sometimes they come loose). Regardless I am looking forward to it. From one experience to the next, such is India…