July 17-22
I moved on from Delhi to Haryana, which is the neighboring
state. It rained a lot. But that didn’t stop anyone from driving on the roads.
My next assigned place was Sanjoepuram Children’s
Village. The area was a lot different from the upbeat city-life of Delhi. This
was more of a village/rural place.
The SyroMalabar Catholic Diocese of Faridabad runs the
Children’s Village and in there is a school which has over one-thousand
students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
When the principal found out that I came from the U.S.
for a brief visit, she immediately had me visit all of the upper level classes
to talk to them about life in America and the education system there.
The students were all so loving. They wanted to know
everything about America. They wanted to know everything about my life, my
family, and my schooling. They were so curious and had such a genuine desire to
know more about my culture. They felt so happy to meet someone from America for
the first time.
I could never see American students so genuinely
interested in asking someone visiting their class from India about his or her
life experience in India. If an Indian
born person did come to my 11th grade classroom, I’m sure half the
class would zone out, including me. How pathetic.
That’s the thing about India; they love when foreigners
come to visit them. They want to know everything about your background and what
life is like for you in a different country. And they absolutely love when they
hear foreigners try to speak a few words in Hindi.
But in America, we don’t really care much for foreigners.
In fact, if you don’t speak English, better get out of our country! God Bless
Amurica!
I asked the 12th graders about what their
schedules are like at school, and it’s really packed. They have so many
subjects in one day –biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, English, Hindi,
physical education (which is more of a sports medicine class), and electives.
They have so much to study and the exams are painful. Doesn’t seem like much
fun.
After about thirty minutes into discussing life in
America, one of the students raised his hand and asked me to sing an American
song.
It was a really awkward question for me, but then it
struck me that they don’t have any music classes in their schedule, so they
probably aren’t used to hearing singing in their classes.
Woah.
Wait! Where have I seen this before?
And if your name is John LoCoco and are not fully sure what I'm talking about
I decided to be a rebellious American and so I went to my
suitcase and brought back my wooden flute.
Today’s class will be about jamming out to music, hearing
the students sing, and showcase their talents.
It was awesome.
I played a few Hindi songs on my flute and they were all
so surprised that I knew so many of their favorite film songs. They all seem to
know every word to every single Bollywood movie ever made. When it comes to movies
and songs, North Indians are like Malayalis on steroids.
So many of the students really love to sing, but they don’t
have the opportunity to grow in their singing talent through a music class
offered at school.
I felt like such a boss. Look at me, arousing the talents
of the students and having a somewhat “music class” like how Shah Rukh Khan did
in Mohabbatien, minus the violin, Hitler-like school principal, and imaginary
Aishwarya Rai following me around everywhere.
They asked me what my favorite movie was and I said DDLJ. They all gave me a really weird
look and said that was a really, really old movie.
For these kids, I guess it’s comparable to asking an
American teenager what his or her favorite movie is and hearing him or her
respond with The Sound of Music. A
classic, but really old.
They asked me to sing a song from DDLJ, but I only knew
the first five words of Tujhe Dekha To
Yeh Janna Sanam. They told me to sing it anyway, and so I did, resulting in
an uproar of laughter from the class.
I was a bit sad. Why were they all laughing at me?
And so I asked the class to sing an American song for me and
so they did. I was about to burst out laughing, but I had to control myself.
Not sure what’s funnier –hearing Tujhe
Dekha To Yeh Janna Sanam in an American accent or Justin Beiber’s Baby in an Indian accent.
One of the students asked me if I knew any dialogues from
any Hindi movies.
Dialogues?
I barely know any Malayalam movie dialogues. I wish the
phone-a-friend option was available. I could’ve called Geordie Daniel and duped
them all.
So I asked one of the boys to do a dialogue instead, and
he did, though I’m not quite sure what movie it’s from. Om Shanti Om?
Most of the students at Infant Jesus School belong to
neighboring villages, but there are about one-hundred female students who live
in special homes run by religious sisters on the campus itself.
Why are there special homes on campus for girls?
The girls that live in these homes either are orphans,
have physical disabilities, or both.
Around forty-percent of the girls have at least one
member of the family back home. Many of these girls have fathers who are in
jail, and because of that, their mothers, who are housewives, cannot
financially support them in their education, so the girls are sent here.
The remaining sixty-percent of the girls are fully orphans.
They were picked up on the streets by an agency and brought here to the Children’s
Village to be taken care of.
I asked the priest who runs the facility why these girls
were abandoned on the streets by their parents and he said that many people in
certain areas of India find it extremely burdensome to have a daughter and to
prefer to a sons instead. I asked him why boys are preferred over girls and he
gave me a list of reasons:
-Having a daughter means having to pay dowry. In the
nearby village, the minimum dowry for a girl is ten lakh Rupees (one-million Rupees, around
$17,000) worth of goods, consisting in electronics, furniture, property, and even
cars.
-Having to live a life that is constantly concerned with
your daughter’s safety, especially at night.
-If your daughter is raped, there goes any chance at
“marrying her off”, since no guy in the right mind would want to marry a woman
who has become “impure” through rape.
-Also, if your daughter is raped, your family must deal
with the shame brought onto your family name.
I took a few Women and Gender Studies courses this past
year and I’ve read so many articles, seen so many videos, and heard so many
testimonies about the reality of women in certain parts of India. But to
experience it first hand and in front of my eyes was a whole different
experience.
These girls were
orphaned because they weren’t born as boys.
But the priests and sisters at the Children’s Village
take in these orphaned girls and treat them with highest dignity and the
equality they deserve.
Their housing and meals are fully taken care of. Their
schooling is fully paid for, including college. When the time comes to get
married, the facility pays for their wedding expenses, including their dowry,
since dowry is an unavoidable part of marriage in many parts of India. After
they get married, the facility even finds a place for the girl and her husband
to raise a family, paying for most of their expenses, including a home.
And also, the priest in charge has even hired a
basketball coach for the girls so they not only learn to play the sport, but to
play it well.
Equality is big here at the Children’s Village. Equality
is so big here that when the girls scrimmage, the coach equally applies the
rules of the game to each person on the court, regardless of physical
disability.
The day I was there, he called a “double-dribble” on a
girl with one arm. Not exactly sure how that’s possible, but equality is what
matters here.
I was the guest captain that day and I got to be on a
team with a few other girls. I asked them if I could name our team, “Team USA”,
and they rolled their eyes and said sure. Team USA it is.
Watch out Team JOY, a new team is on the rise.
The Catholic Church gets a lot hate for her teachings on
many womens’ issues –contraception, IVF, abortion, women’s ordination, etc. Because
of these positions on womens’ issues, the Catholic Church is often seen by many
as the Church that discriminates against women.
Now, I do not wish to go into every single womens’ issue
and explain why the Church teaches what she teaches, but what I do hope and
pray is that those people who think that the Catholic Church hates women, may
discover these hidden places in the world, like the Children’s Village, where
orphaned girls are taken into loving homes, where they are educated, empowered,
and treated with equal dignity in a society where they are abandoned because of
the number of “X” chromosomes they have.
At this small orphanage, in a remote town in India, the
Catholic Church does not hate women.
At the Children’s Village, the Catholic Church loves women.
They are treated as equal to men, both created in the
likeness and image of God, and thus both having an inherent human dignity that must
be respected and valued.
I do not know how someone can say that the Catholic
Church hates women when Church-run institutions like the Children’s Village exist
in the world.
When any of the girls get sick, they are rushed to a
nearby medical clinic where their immediate medical needs are taken care of. If
one of the girls needs serious medical attention, the priest in charge will
rush her to the nearest hospital and make sure she is properly taken care of.
A few days before I came, one of the girls needed a
surgical procedure and so she was brought to a major city hospital. The total
cost of her medical care was one lakh (100,000 Rupees).
The Children’s Village does not have an unlimited amount
of money, but when situations like these come, the priest in charge puts the
health of these girls above any amount of money.
Medical care was a big part of Blessed Kunjachan’s
ministry as well. During his time, there was only one government hospital in
Ramapuram. Though Kunjachan did not have any medical training, he had a natural
skill for using herbo-mineral remedies to take care of physical ailments.
Many people, regardless of caste, would come to him for
treatment and healing. Whenever Kunjachan heard about a sick person in the
Dalit community, he would rush there with his medicines and stay with the
patient until he or she had been fully relieved.
Kunjachan did not have an unlimited amount of time, but
when situations like these came, he put the health of the Dalit people above
whatever scheduled tasks he had that day.
Boss.
As the Lord rose
from the dead in glory,
And appeared to
Mary Magdalene,
God gave this
blessing to a woman, than to a man
To fulfill the
scriptures he was born of woman
As soon as Lord
Jesus rose from the tomb,
He appeared to
another woman in all his grace,
Lord, in Your
loving and caring providence,
Every woman is the image
of Mother Church
Wednesday, Period
of Dedication of the Church, Onitha d’Mawtwa, Lelya, SyroMalabar Liturgy of the
Hours
If you are interested in volunteering here, please let me know.
mndckl@yahoo.com
mndckl@yahoo.com
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