Three Weeks

Well, it’s been three weeks since we arrived, and that is truly hard to believe! Delhi is very different from anything we have known, and that is certainly saying something, considering that we as a group (there are four of us now) have collectively lived in Canada, Central Asia, England and Northern Ireland. It is great!

It is also a challenge, and a joy. Graham and I are teaching English together full-time, in two slums, covering about 85 children with 13 lessons a week (we have more lessons than I wrote previously), which makes up to 18 hours of pure teaching, not including lots of planning and travel time. Did you know teachers in India only turn up about 50% of the time?

It is hard to describe the happiness of these children. For some reason I expected everyone to be sad, for their quality of life is extremely poor, but quite the contrary, they seem happier than we are!

Indeed, just from being here you start to wonder what exactly it is that makes us happy…these kids have little food, tiny houses, no money and no safety, and yet – somehow – they are still full of joy and energy and love. Lunch breaks in Mayapuri (the second slum), for example, are carefully planned so that we have time to play with the 15 or so children that always turn up. The kids actually fight to get to us! I would not be surprised if more start turning up, either, for there are 10,000 people in Mayapuri, and most of them will be kids.

In other news, I recommend The Lotus Temple (soon to be The Baha’i House of Worship), which is very beautiful, shaped like a lotus (surprise!!!), and echoes inside last about six seconds! Very quiet and very peaceful.

Asha is also much bigger than I realized…they work in 46 slums, and their work is statistically very widespread and effective. Many of the children we see from day to day were being cared for medically by Asha before they were born, and thank goodness.

With care,
Jon