Being apart of things

Nebin's beautiful design in the Hope Arts Shop
Ummmm......H2O
Family night-Water maddness
The shop getting bright and shiny-This picture doesn't give it justice

At one time
At one time these faces were strangers
At one time there was no communication between us
At one time, I understood as little as an ants is the universe
At one time, all I had to give was a smile
At one time, all I could see was the end
At one time, all I had was packed bags

At one time, I would never believe that I found a family in India.
With all of the uncertainty I have, from which food is safe to eat to what I am doing here, one thing I know for sure is that I will never think of India in the same way. One night I was thinking…what did I think of India before I came here? Not even books can tell you what I thought, what I thought of it was practically blank. Now I stand in the country of India with not only picture to tell a story but interactions with people that writes a novel in my mind.

At one time, I felt like an outsider, looking into a home for widows, an outsider looking into children’s eyes, an outsider looking into the humble widow’s work days. At one time, I would never think that I was part of something here.

I haven’t really thought I was part of the things that go on around the widow’s home till just in the past week. I was working on the Hope Art Shop and I pasted a widow. I asked “how are you” in Hindi and she replied and then asked me and I replied. Then words seem to want to drip out of her mouth, but she hesitated knowing I wouldn’t understand. Although that was frustrating, there was something in our interaction that gave me joy, perhaps it was because it was a connection, a connection that at one time I didn’t have.

Every month at the widow’s home there is a family night for the staff. This month there was water games. The evening was warm with a bit of cool breeze, very comparable to early August evenings. People gathered around playing water games, about a dozen mothers stood from the side lines with their babies and as I looked around, I was overwhelmed by how I knew everyone around. At one time, I walked into a room of the same people and called them strangers.

There are always children around, either the staffs of the widow’s home or the widow’s children. When I enter a room, I am greeted with a “hello Aunty”. There are also many babies around ranging from 1 months old to 1 year old. The times are countless that I laugh or joke with the children around. At one time, I was felt insecure around children and babies; I wasn’t quite sure how to act around them. I am learning you don’t have to act anyway around them; you just have to have fun and be yourself.

My friends and family are very far away. But I am developing a family in India, which at one time I could have never even thought of having. No longer will I think of India as books portray it, although it is filled with unexplainable poverty, tons of people, and cattle roaming the streets. It is a place of a smiling and relation based people that of at one time, I never thought I would be apart of.

Love: Jessica e.

Photos: for the moments words are not enough...

.love this.

.Veggie Shopping {typical}.

The Kids: waiting for water...

DAY 1: Swimming Camp

.some of the girls.

"hello, sweet girl."

{the view from an} AUTO RICKSHAW

these kids smile like they mean it...

.Rhama and Abishek.

And their faces light up like sunshine...

Brown eyes…teeth stark white against soft caramel skin…a small and skinny frame that is somehow capable of hours of hard work…and a smile that penetrates to my very core.

This sight has become one so dear to me. The sweet, innocent joy of the children I interact with has spoken volumes to me as I live out my days in India.

I have always loved kids. Perhaps it is because I am the middle child and had a baby sister to help look after from age 3 ½ on. Or maybe it is simply a personality trait God gave me for such a time as this.

Whatever the case may be, I find my love for children only growing as the days go on and I spend more time with the ones here. There are so many to meet, to teach, to play with, and to love. There are moments where I feel as though my heart might simply burst with the affection I have for them and the laughter they bring to me.

They are all so beautiful. Sometimes I sit quietly and just watch them and their silly antics. Most times I don’t understand what they say, but we have learned to play together and ignore the language barrier.

When I have the chance to take a break and watch the kids play cricket, marbles, or made up games it is sometimes easy to forget where I am. Sometimes I forget where they are growing up. At those moments where they play so carefree and happily, I can easily forget that some of these children are fatherless, homeless, or living a lifestyle more difficult than any I could imagine.

My American mindset can’t grasp being nine years old and helping to raise younger siblings in a house made of a tarp, while your mother cleans houses and your father spends all that she raises on drugs. I can’t comprehend being fourteen years old and having only one eye that functions because of malnutrition as a young child. When I see a small boy scrubbing floors in a house with his mother, I can’t imagine being ten years old and assisting in bringing home support for your family.

I have lived a blessed life. I don’t pretend to deserve it. These sights I see and people I meet make me realize exactly how lucky I have been to be raised by good parents in a solid environment.

But even though those situations are shocking to hear about and see, there is something even more surprising and unbelievable about these little people.

Their smile.

I wonder time and again…How do they smile when there is no daddy to pick them up and spin them around? Why are they full of such joy when their sweet mothers have been hardened by too much work or the death of a husband? Do they not know any different? I ask myself. However, I have decided that is an excuse we tell ourselves. It would be simple to ease my concern for their lifestyles and my guilt at my own by saying they are only able to smile because that is all they have known. It cannot be true. They are human and feel the same pain and discomfort I would if I were put in their shoes…yet they find joy in living.

As I go about my duties each day I wonder what being here is supposed to teach me. I have realized that there is much I will learn and it cannot be narrowed to one simple thing. But as I interact with kids in school and in summer activities, I find they are unknowingly teaching me more about life than I could ever learn within the walls of my school back home. And how do they do it? Quite simply…they find enjoyment in the little things…they appreciate the tiniest treats…they allow people and relationships to bring them joy and don’t rely on physical circumstances to determine their happiness…and above all, they share that smile with everyone around them.

I don’t know what all I will learn in the next several months I spend here…but even if there is nothing more, I will consider this journey more than life changing.

I have seen some of the worst living conditions in the world and heard about some of the most heartbreaking circumstances being lived out by mere children. And it is the children in those stories that I interact with and it is those same children that I watch express the joy of life.

Could there be anything more beautiful?

I have yet to see something…


♥Nebin

Even in India I can hear those crickets sing...

There are times when I sit by myself at night, on the wall of our rooftop where the breeze brings a cool that only evening in Varanasi has to offer. The power goes out for about 10 hours each day and so there is only the moon to light up the picturesque image of the neighborhood I live in. I close my eyes in those moments…the moments of the day where it is somewhat quiet. It is so surreal that I could almost forget the busy chaos of the day I just finished. The sound of the crickets’ song fills the air and my mind travels quickly to the last words of my dad before I left:

“Write to me Nebin…Tell me what springtime sounds like in India.”

As I listen to that familiar sound, my mind again travels…only this time to the Pennsylvania nights where it was just 8-year-old-me and my dad sitting on the steps of the deck he built, beneath a star splattered sky, and he would say:

“Listen. Do you hear that? You can only hear that at this time of year. Shhh…Just listen.”

For thirty seconds I live in that memory, the dirt and sweat of the day meaning nothing…and then the train whistle sounds. Just like waking from a dream, I open my eyes and am reminded of where I sit. The events of my day come flooding in and again my mind begins to churn in futile attempts to understand and relate to my surroundings.

It is at times like those that I wish I was a poet…someone good with words. My mind swarms with thoughts and questions and I swim in a sea of frustration as I search for the best way to communicate them.

The days here go by quickly, as overall time seems to drag on into infinity.

New and exciting experiences are a dime a dozen, and yet I am at a loss for words.

Jess and I meet more people and with each new face, I realize how miniscule a being I am.

Every day I grasp one thing extra about Indian culture, and every day I find two new things to be confused about.


Please do not misunderstand…it has not been a discouraging week. In fact it has been quite the opposite as those who were mere acquaintances become friends and life continues to flow smoothly.

This week was our last week of teaching school until July. My class was excited to finish their schoolwork early in the day, have an “end of term snack”, and be on their way home to begin break two hours early.

The summer holiday has officially started and so begins our summer schedule. Jess and I will be just as busy as before, taking breaks only to beat the heat. I will be teaching individual piano and general music lessons and so far, have seven children signed up. Jess will be the main teacher in a summer swimming camp that will run for two weeks. I and another friend will assist in that exciting endeavor. English class will fill our Monday afternoons and a mixture of other widow’s home projects will plug into the empty time slots.

Truly it is an exciting time for us as we realize we have been helping out for almost two months and begin to look forward to the things ahead. There are still days where I feel overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted as the process of adapting continues. I still have moments where I can hardly portray what I see going on around and inside of me. Those are the times when I lack all words, yet I know that if I let one word slip, they would flow unending. In the midst of so much to sort through, I am continuing to learn not to compare my home to India, but to appreciate what each one has to offer. This past week was probably the first where I was able to look at Jess and say honestly that India is becoming “home”.

And so tonight, as I type this blog post and listen to the singing of the crickets, I am not weighed down by my experiences and neither do I flee to thoughts of a distant place. Tonight the sounds around me do not make me miss home. Rather that familiar buzz of the song of a cricket brings a smile to my face. I find I am so thankful for the fact that no matter how far I am from the home I am accustomed to, from friends, from family…I am still under the same night sky, looking at the same moon and stars, and hearing the same springtime sound... the sound of singing crickets.

With Love,
Nebin