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Come 4:00pm, when the heat had lessened I would teach sport while Chris taught music. We’d take the ‘big ones’ and ‘little ones’ in shifts. I loved these afternoons, as the monsoon season arrived the brown playing field and the thick forest along the side exploded into a rich, vibrant green. Looking up I could see the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, the tops often poking out of the clouds that had sank into the valley. Despite the many games I tried to teach the children their favourite turned out to be “Tag Sir, play Tag!” I soon discovered that, when playing Tag, f the boys were allowed to be ‘on’ then they would soon start hitting each other and if the girls were ‘on’ no one would ever be caught! As a result most afternoons at Joybells saw me pelting around the playing field after numerous giggling, and surprisingly elusive, children. It definitely kept me fit. They may have been small but there were plenty of them and they could disperse… more over by the time I’d caught the last one the first ones were denying they’d ever been caught! Come 8:00 we’d walk the children back up to the school and hand them over to the staff for dinner and bed. By this point it wasn’t the kids but me who was knackered… The evenings at Joybells were spent with Joy. Myself and Chris would sit on the porch outside her room, eat and chat. Joy, who all the children adored and called ‘Ma’, is a truly amazing woman. The way she relentlessly loved and fought to get the best for the children was a challenge and an inspiration. She’s faced many trials including a car accident from which she emerged having had a complete memory loss. She regained her memory only after a period of years and still suffers from serious migraines (which, of course, she refuses to go to hospital to get proper treatment because she doesn’t want to be away from the children for too long). It was rammed home to me just what she’d already achieved when she tenderly got out her photo album and showed me the pictures of the children when they’d first arrived a year before. They were filthy and had a hunted, worn, look about them. The quieter, shyer ones, she explained, were that way because many of them had suffered atrocities from abuse. One only had to visit the neighbouring town and look at the conditions the children lived in there to realise how much Joybells gave to its children. Entering the local town I’d be beset by cripples, women and children carrying babies, asking for money so they could feed themselves or their children. The experience would be enough to shake most people to the core. Retreating back to the school, that Joy aims to expand to 450 children, the contrast would be striking. My days at Joybells blended into weeks, the corn shot up around me, the forest crept closer and closer, I saw monkeys raiding mango trees and children raiding cherry trees. As the days went by and I got to know the children as individuals I grew fonder and fonder of them. You quite simply could never meet more loving, accepting, genuine, children who took such delight in life. We’d go on walks in the forest, where mushrooms would be a constant source of fascination, the ‘big ones’ would take off their t-shits to cover the ‘little ones’ and protect them from insect bites, and I would be somewhat bemused by the endless stream of flowers that the children picked and brought, beaming, to present me with. It was too soon the date to head homeward arrived. The kids had gotten wind that I was leaving, it was quite simply heart-breaking having to explain why I had to go, even harder to explain why it would be a long time before I could come back. A young boy of 8 put his hands, in the shape of binoculars, up to his eyes and told me that if I looked through them then I’d be able to see Joybells… The morning I left Joybells the children walked me to the gate at which they’d shyly greeted me a month before. We were all quiet. Trying to say goodbye to Joy the words stuck in my throat and I viciously fought back tears as I forced a smile, hugging and waving farewell to the children. I climbed into the tuk-tuk and with a final, painful, wave, was driven away. Sitting in the air conditioned airport at Delhi, I was able to reflect. Before India I’d heard about poverty. Unfortunately, when I’d heard over 113 million children in the world lack access to basic primary education, all I’d heard was a number. Meeting fifty-two of those children, who, because of the actions of one woman, had had their lives turned around, and spending only a month teaching them, playing with them, holding them, chasing them, laughing with them, comforting them, being exhausted by them, being used as a climbing-frame by them, loving them and being totally accepted and unconditionally loved by them, I had learnt more about what it was to serve the poor than 20 years of listening to talks about how important it was or watching adverts about the suffering in the world. I was reminded of the Chinese proverb, “I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand.” As I sat, reflecting, I realised there was simply no way that when I got home I’d be able to put my experience into words, “I guess”, I thought to myself, “I’ll just have to tell them it’s only when you do it, that you get it.” I knew I could never claim to understand what it was to live in poverty, but what had sunk deeply into me was a desire to do something about the brokenness of the world. Fifty-two children of 113million are but a drop in the ocean, but as Mother Teresa once pointed out, the ocean is made up of drops… After the boarding the plane I shoved my bag into the overhead locker and collapsed into the seat… I didn’t wince… I’d left India. India however, was never going to leave me. If at this point, the reader thinks I’m being a touch melodramatic, may I end with the challenge. Do it. Then you’ll get it. |
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