Asha

This is a story I wrote for Asha, a child from a Jaunpur Village, not far from Sainji. Having lived in this area for seven years, I think it captures the struggles many families are dealing with, but more importantly highlights the strength and resolve I have seen in so many people here over the years. 

Asha with her Tarkhanna mother and father and sisters (l-r -- Nitu, Lalita, Goodie, and Nisha)

November 27, 2006

Dear Asha,

It doesn’t seem fair that I should begin telling your story by first talking about your mother’s death, but unfortunately your mother passed away early this morning at the Landour Community Hospital, here in Mussoorie. The doctor said she died peacefully, and was surrounded by her family and village friends.  She was just 39-years-old – too young to be departing this world. But the doctor said that there was nothing they could do for her. In fact, she was surprised that given the nature and intensity of your mother’s illness (tuberculosis) she held on as long as she did.  I believe she did because she wanted to know that you were going to be ok. You have been with Joy and Kyle, and your big sister Celia (or CC as she likes to call herself) for five weeks now. My, how you have changed, and you in turn, have changed all of us who have come to love you so much.

Asha, I truly believe that someone, perhaps you or your mother, called to us from your tiny village of Tarkhanna, nestled in the Garhwal hills. Long before I came to Mussoorie for my Hindi Language studies, I would get a strange excited feeling deep inside when I would think about being here, even though I had no idea of what Mussoorie was actually like, and knew nothing about the surrounding Garhwal Valley. But on my first day in Mussoorie, I took a walk around Landour, and I caught a glimpse of the Garhwal valley and all the little villages nestled in the hillsides. Every day I would stare across to the villages, and I knew that I would go there.

 Finally I got my chance. I was introduced to Omprakash and Sherifin through a German couple who came to stay one week at Rokeby Guest House where I was staying (and also where  your mother and father were staying). Omprakash and Sherifin are medical outreach workers who visit many of the villages in the Garhwal Valley to offer medical care and social welfare.  I am working towards my PhD in Anthropology, and I am planning to do two separate studies in India beginning next June. One is to be in a village community and the other in a slum in New Delhi. The focus of my study is to understand why so many children leave home, and to gain some insight into their family relationships. From what I have learned about the Garhwal Valley, it has been deeply affected by climate change in recent years. There is not enough rain or snowfall to produce healthy crops. As well, the population boom in the 60’s and 70’s led to smaller land plots for inheritance (i.e. more sons to divide land between). Hence many families are not able to grow enough to feed their families. Many men are migrating to the cities for work. Often they become alcohol or drug addicted, and some never return home again. Much of the work then falls on the women’s shoulders.

On my first outing with Omprakash and Sherifin, I met 16 women from 16 different villages. One of the ladies mentioned that in her village there was a family with five children and they were having a very difficult time economically. So we agreed that we would visit this family on our next visit. Two weeks later, Omprakash, Sherifin and I arrived at your village. We were led into a small room. There was no furniture, only a few boxes holding all your family’s worldly goods – blankets, a few clothing items, and some food.  Your mother was seated in the center of the room and she was holding what appeared to be a small bundle in her lap. On closer inspection, I realized it was a baby – you. I asked to hold you and your mother gently placed you in my arms. Asha you were so small, weak, and sickly. You kept coughing and coughing. Your eyes kept rolling back in your head, and you could not cry – only mew. I asked how old you were and your mother said you were 3 ½ months. I could not believe it because you could not have weighed more than 5 pounds. Your mother was very sickly and Sherifin indicated that she suspected she had tuberculosis. Your mother told us that she had no milk to feed you with. The only nourishment your family was able to give you was buffalo milk, and that was difficult to get, because your family had very little money to purchase it, so mostly you received chai (tea with lots of water and a little milk and sugar).

 I asked what your name was, and your father said you did not have one. When I asked why, he answered that he and your mother did not know if you would live. I swallowed the lump in my throat and I looked at you, and your big brown eyes were looking up at me. I whispered to you then that I would do everything in my power to make sure you did live, and I asked you to promise me that you would fight hard to live. Your big brown eyes held steady, and I felt as if you understood. I was sure you did.

A crowd was gathering outside your house, and everyone was smiling and pointing at me. I did not understand, but soon it was communicated to me that your parents and the villagers thought I was there to adopt you. My heart did a jump, and my mind raced to think of a way I could make this happen – but I am a student, with little money.  I am not married, and I am only here until December. I explained to your parents that I could not take you, but promised to help both you and your mother.

 After much discussion with your father, it was decided that you and your mother would be brought to the hospital the next day. I worried that this might be too late for both of you, but apparently your father wanted to consult first with the local pundit (holy man) to remove the evil spirit that was troubling both of you.

The drive back to Mussoorie that day was the longest one I have ever taken. I kept swallowing hard because I did not want to cry in front of Sherifin and Omprakash. I did not know them well, but now that I do I realize that it would have been ok, because they were as troubled and worried as I was.

When I came back to the guest house, I went to my room and shut the door, and then I let out all the tears and heartache I had bottled up inside. After awhile I was able to compose myself for dinner, but then after just five minutes at the table someone asked how my trip to the village was, and the tears bubbled up again. I went to my room, and  Joy (your mom) followed me. I told her what had happened, and we talked for a long time. We made a plan to go to the hospital the next day. Should the hospital not admit you, we agreed that we would bring you back to the guest house with us and nurse you back to health.  We would suggest to your parents that we keep you until you were well and then re-unite you once your mother was also in good health. And then we went about giving you a name. We thought Josha would be a good name as in Hindi it means ‘life’ or vigour. This was what we wanted for you.

The next day at school, we told our Hindi teachers about you and your mother. One teacher, whose name is Habib, and whom I hope you have come to know, suggested that the name, Josha although a good one, was more suited for a boy. He suggested that you be named Asha because Asha means hope in Hindi.  It is a beautiful name.

Joy and I raced down to the hospital after our classes. In the taxi your mother told me that your father had told her the night before, that whatever happened she had his full support and his blessings. He must have had a premonition. We met Omprakash and Sherifin outside the hospital. Your village mother and father were there, and you were nestled in your birth mother’s arms. The doctor had seen both of you, but you were not to be admitted into the hospital.  Immediately both your mother (Joy) and I told of our plan. Your parents shook their heads, and then added that they wanted you to be placed in a good home, that they could not take care of you, and that you would become weak again and die. I knew what they meant was, that in spite of the treatment they had been given, they still had no real means to nourish, and to take care of you. But mostly, I think your mother knew how sick she was. She wanted you to be placed in a good home where you would have a chance to grow and flourish.  Having five girls in India when you are poor is very difficult. There is the cost of marriage, and the need for a son and his wife to do the work in the home and fields, and to care for parents in their old age. So please do not be angry with your parents for the decision they made. I saw the way your mother looked at you, and there was nothing but love in her eyes for you. On the day she passed you over to Joy, she seemed so humble, so fragile. But she did it willingly, with purpose, and with so much love. The look on her face was peaceful and so loving Asha. She passed you over to your new family with love in her heart.

I sent e-mails to friends to tell them about you and your family. There was an outpouring of support from people wanting to help your family. We wanted to buy them goats as this is a sustainable livelihood and one in which your father suggested would help him a great deal. So after three weeks we had enough money to purchase four goats. Last week we returned to the medical center near your village. Your father met us and we purchased his goats. He was very happy. Then I gave him a photograph of you. He stared at the picture for such a long time. He kept stroking your little face in the picture with his finger. I told him your name was ‘Asha’ and he smiled. He said it was a beautiful name. Then he told us that your mother was not well, that she had taken a turn for the worse. I stood there on the road looking down at your village, and I wanted to go and see your mother for myself.

 I should have obeyed my instinct Asha. I am so sorry that I didn’t. It is an error of judgement that I have to live with for the rest of my life. None of us realized just how sick your mother was. I don’t think your father did either. When we returned to Mussoorie, we began making plans to have your mother brought back to the hospital for more testing for TB. But last night your mother was brought into the hospital, and she died early this morning.

  

For three weeks before your mother’s death I woke up every morning at 3 am to the sound of three knocks. I did not know what they were at first, and was troubled by it. Two nights before your mother’s passing I woke to the knocks. I lay awake, but with my eyes closed and watched the pictures in my mind. I was in the Garhwal valley following a butterfly down a mountainside, and then the butterfly turned into a light, and a woman’s voice in my ear said, ‘I will show you’. Then I saw a building with many emergency vehicles around it. It didn’t make any sense at the time, but now it does as it must have been the hospital. Last night I awoke again to the knocks. This time I saw a birthday party, and a little girl with long black hair tied back in a big bow at the back of her head. I realized the little girl must be you at about 8 years of age. I followed you, and suddenly the bow in your hair turned into a butterfly and flew away. I now believe that butterfly was your mother. She was showing me that you were going to be ok, and that it was ok for her to leave.

 Asha, every day I will think of your mother. She was very brave, and beautiful, and I know she loved you very much. Never doubt her love for you. She was a great lady.

I hold you in my arms and I wonder what great things you will do. I wonder who you will become. You must be destined for greatness because your call was so strong, and we all heard you. You are beautiful my ‘little dolly girl’ – oh how I love you!

Asha -- Seven Years Laterwww.gems-school.org

Asha (center) with new brother, Ephrem, Joy and big sister, Celia

Asha with father (Sobhan), and big sisters, Lalita, Nitu, and Nisha.

On July 7 of this year Asha will turn seven. Many have told us that she is 'a miracle'. The doctor who first treated her certainly believes that. He told me once that when he first saw her he felt she would not survive more than two days. She exhibited all the signs of impending death. Her hands and feet were drawn up and her little fingers were curled. She didn't release her grip for at least two weeks after she came into Joy and her husband Kyle's care. And her eyes were rolling around, never fixating on anything. As soon as she came into Joy and Kyle's care, everyone (including all the guests staying at Rokeby at that time) sprang into action. We had to take turns caring for her at night. At first she would only take a six ounce bottle of formula, and she didn't urinate for days. We were so excited when finally one day, while I was changing her clothes that she peed on my bed. I remember running out of the room with her little naked body in my arms yelling, 'She peed! She peed!' and everyone ran in to see the little puddle on my bed. The first few months she slept in a suitcase in her new parent's room, and in a drawer from the bureau in my room. We padded them with pillows and hot water bottles to keep her warm. It was impossible to find a crib anywhere in Mussoorie or Dehradun at that time, so we had to make due. And the medication -- there was so much -- seven different tablets to give to Asha throughout the day, at different times. The doctors suspected that her horrific, and persistent cough was tuberculosis. The could not be certain because the tests would have killed her. As a precaution she was given the medication for six month. Every day we ground the tablets with water and gave fed them to Asha with an eye dropper. Joy kept a record of what was given and when. And slowly Asha improved, but it was probably Joy who saved her. You see Joy had still been breast feeding Celia at the time, who was only a year and a half. So she had milk for Asha -- the magic of mother's milk -- the gift of life. Asha began to gain weight and slowly those little hands stopped clenching and she began to smile, even laugh. And when she was hungry, oh how she would scream. We all would jump into action! She grew and she blossomed. Her smile would light up a room, and she always has a twinkle in her eye. Everyone in Mussoorie came to know Asha and her new family. Every time we would take a trip down to the bazaar shop owners would welcome her and her big sister Celia. Asha would be propped up on counters and shop employees would coo to her and feed both children toffees. I remember how difficult it was at first to find clothes to fit Asha. Everything was miles too big. And then one day one of the local tailors showed up at the guest house with tiny little dresses he had stitched especially for Asha.  It was like that -- everyone pitching in and helping this wondrous little infant. Everyday Asha accompanied Joy, Kyle and Celia to the language school where she would be held and coddled by the loving arms of the teachers and students who were studying Hindi. Habib, the teacher who gave Asha her name would swing her back and forth, 'Mooya, mooya, mooya' he would coo. We all would laugh. And Asha thrived. 

Joy and Kyle chose to stay in touch with Asha's family, as did I. On a few occasions Asha's sisters even came to stay with Asha's new family. Almost immediately after Joy and Kyle took Asha into their carethey began the adoption process which has proven difficult as India has very strict adoption laws which require the child in question to be placed in an orphanage. Families are chosen from a list of nationals first, and then internationals are considered when the national list is exhausted. But Asha's family wanted Joy and Kyle to have her, and so Joy and Kyle have been pursuing the case through private means, which takes much longer. In the mean time there have been several visits to Tarkhanna, several reunions with her papa and her siblings. 

Today Asha is well under her birth weight and height, but she is bright and funny, and so full of life. Joy took Asha to one specialist after another to see if there was anything wrong with her. She is so very small. Finally one doctor looked at Joy and after running a gauntlet of tests said, 'Well there is nothing we can find that is wrong with her. So she is small. She certainly is bright. There is nothing wrong with her motor skill development, or her brain. So she is small -- nothing wrong with being small.' When I think back to the condition Asha was in when I first met her I think, 'Yes, she was a miracle -- a very small bright and alert miracle, a little spark that called to us.' 

Recently Joy, Asha and Celia have suffered a terrible loss. Kyle had gone to the US to try to find work to help their adoption case for Asha. In February he returned for Valentine's day to surprise his girls and new baby son. But he had not been feeling well, and had ignored all the symptoms of diabetes he had been experiencing. Three days after his arrival in Delhi Kyle was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. His organs were shutting down and with Joy at his side he quietly passed away. I rushed to Delhi as quickly as I could to be with Joy and the girls. All I could think about was the first time Kyle came down the stairs at Rokeby carrying his new baby daughter. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. 

So now Joy, Asha, Celia and Ephrem must move on with their story, without Kyle. They were with Kunwar and I for a few days in Sainji and once again we all made the trip over to Tarhkanna to see Asha's sisters and her papa. They still live in their two room cow shed. And I feel guilty for not having been more present in Asha's sisters' lives. Our school has taken up so much of our time and resources so I have had little to give to these girls. Lalita is very bright and has won scholarships to continue her high school education. She is in class 12 now, and has dreams of becoming a nurse. For Asha's sake, for Lalita's, their sisters', their mother's sake, I need to find a way for this to happen. But it is not easy. Her village is so far from the bigger centers. It is not just a question of money, but of means, of accommodation, of transportation, of ensuring her father has help with the household and chores for supporting the rest of the family. It is complicated. It requires a lot of thought and planning.... 

For now, Asha is becoming who she is intended to be. What that is yet, we don't know. But for all who have come into her life so far, they will all agree that she is beautiful and special, inside and out. 

                                

Mina

We walked through the dimly lit corridors of one of Dehradun's finest charitable hospitals, peeking in doors of ward after ward, beds full of sick and poor people from all over Uttarakhand. After asking several nurses we, Kunwar and I finally located Mina's ward. We almost didn't see her, but there she was at the end of a row of ten beds, curled on her side, her beautiful waist long hair gone, her head shaven to reveal newly sprouted black fuzz. She jumped when she saw us and struggled to pull herself up. "No," we said, "Take rest, don't exert yourself." But to no avail. Mina pulled herself upright. I could see she was in pain. A long thin scar  traveled from the middle of her hairline at the top of her forehead to just behind her right ear. "Are you in pain?" I asked. "Yes, I have so much pain in my head," was her answer as her hand shook and touched the area behind her right eye. We had learned that the doctors were able to remove only part of Mina's tumour. If they were to remove all of it, they would have had to remove her eye as well, and possibly would have sent her into a coma. "Well," I wondered, "why didn't they remove her eye then?" At least they would have gotten all the cancer. "Because," Kunwar answered me, "her family would not have understood. They sent her to the hospital with a pain in her head to be fixed, and had they removed her eye, the family would have questioned, 'Why when we sent her  with two good eyes to these doctors is she now coming home with only one?"  Yes, I know this does not make sense -- for someone who is educated. But these things must all be considered from the perspective of an uneducated person. Another scenario is going on right now as I type. A man in another village has cancer of the throat. The doctors say they can remove the tumor  but it would mean the man can never speak again. Kunwar met the man's son two days ago, and the son said, "Not be able to speak? What kind of doctors are these? No, my father will not have that operation. These doctors are fools!" 

I took Mina's hand. We learned that she would be going for chemotherapy in another hospital in another city far from Sainji. Her husband was at home trying to raise funds to make this happen. Chemotherapy, the remedy for so many cancer sufferers. But in my mind I was thinking, 'chemotherapy kills the body's immune system. A person going through chemo has to manage a good diet, and good hygiene and protect themselves from germs.' I pictured Mina's house, the rough boards and the open fire pit in the corner of the room, the mattress she and her family slept on -- infested with bed bugs. Every summer Mina would bring her children to me, covered in bites and always it was the same instructions; 'Pull the mattress and all of your blankets out into the sun,  and boil all of your clothes and sheets. Bath the children every day with soap Mina, and I will provide the medicine to take care of their bites.'  So now Mina will return to her home after each session of chemo, feeling the nausea, feeling like she will die, with no comforts, no nutritious diet so necessary for a good recovery.  How will she manage? How can I help? Before we said goodbye to Mina I tried to offer her some hope, "You will get better Mina. You are strong, and you can fight this disease."  Yes, she said as she looked away and laid her head back on the pillow. A tear slid down her cheek. 

Mina and My Relationship

When I married Kunwar we moved into his grandfather's house, and I quickly became acquainted with our neighbours. They were a joint family composed of four brothers, their two wives (one brother was not married, and the older brother lived up the mountain in a cow shed), and their children. In the first week that we had settled into the house I heard a tap tap at the door. There stood Sagar, five years of age, holding a dirty bottle filled with water. "Auntie, my mother wants you to put this in your refrigerator please," he asked politely, his big brown eyes looking up at me. "Ok," I said. It was no problem I thought. I put the bottle in the fridge and went about my business, and then ten minutes later there was another tap tap at the door. There stood Sagar once again, "Auntie, can you please give me that bottle of water now," Sagar implored. "Ok," I answered, confused as to why they now wanted the bottle back. I handed Sagar the bottle, and then a few minutes later Mina was at my door, "Auntie, why didn't you put this in your refrigerator?  "But I did!" I replied. "No, it is still warm." "But Mina, it doesn't get cold instantly. You have to leave it for some time." Oh, well put it back in then. I will come back later," she answered and turned and left. I told this story to Kunwar later that day, and he laughed, "Oh if you start doing these things for these people, then the whole village will be asking to use our refrigerator. Don't do this. They can get cold water from the spring." 

A few days later, Sagar was at my door again. "Auntie my mother wants some tomatoes." "Oh, ok, and I gave four or five tomatoes to Sagar. 'Just being neighbourly,' I thought. But soon a pattern began. One day it was onions, another day it was potatoes, and then it was requested that I give some vegetables so they could have that with their lunch. 'Wait a minute!' I thought. 'Enough is enough!' Then one day Mina asked me to start giving breakfast and lunch to her children because, 'we made such nice things to eat'. At the same time I took care of numerous cuts and burns, infections, and gave out medicine for skin infections, fever and intestinal disorders. We even drove Mina and her children to the hospital a few times and paid the bill to boot! Finally one day I put my foot down when once again Sagar came to my door asking for some eggs. "Mina, I am not a FREE shop!" I called over to her. "Oh ho," she laughed. "Ok Auntie."  And that was the end of it, or so I thought. Rather there was a cooling off period and slowly the requests started to come again. I soon learned to give what was reasonable (medicine for fever, bandages for cuts, and the odd onion or potato here and there). 

One day Mina came with her youngest son, Abu. He was running a high fever. I gave him paracetamol and told Mina that he should see the doctor. She left without comment. A few hours later her sister-in-law was banging at my door. "Auntie, come quick! Abu is dead!" I raced into the house only to see Abu laying on the floor, Mina wailing, and a group of women huddled on the bed looking terrified. I felt for a pulse on Abu and found it. He had passed out. His temperature was high. I immediately asked for a basin of water and a cloth and began bathing him down. Abu rallied around and began to cry. I began to strip the layers of clothing which village people pile on a child whenever they have a fever and immersed him in the tepid water. "The child is dying and she is giving him a bath!" said one of the women, "Westerners have strange ways." "Now let's get him to the hospital Mina." I said.  Abu was treated at the hospital by a lovely and compassionate doctor who explained to Mina and I that Abu had a brain seizure due to his high fever. When a child's fever is quickly on the rise paracetamol  often has no effect, instead the body's defense mechanism kicks into gear and shuts the brain down, causing the child to pass out. It is the body's natural way of dealing with infection and fever. the doctor went on to tell Mina that I had done the right thing in cooling Abu down with a cool sponge bath. So Mina and I both learned something that day. A few weeks later when I was about to turn in for the night I heard Abu crying, and the splashing of water. "Mina" I called out, "Does Abu have a fever?" "Yes, Auntie," came her reply, "But I have medicine for him and I am giving him a bath." I smiled to know that Mina was putting into practice a new method she had learned to care for her child. There were many times after this that Mina's children became ill for one reason or another, and many times that I helped her. 

As much as Mina cared for her children however, she had an angry streak in her. On many occasions I witnessed her beating the children. One day I watched horrified from my window as she boxed Sagar's ears with her shoes, first one ear and then the other. Sagar's head bounced back and forth with the force of the blows. I called out, "Mina!" She stopped, "Oh children Auntie, they can be very naughty." One morning four year old Saniya was pushed down the cement stairs by an angry Mina. This time Mina's husband witnessed the abuse, "If you ever do that to one of my children again woman, I will push you down the stairs." I tended to Soniya's cuts and bruises that time. The little girl sobbed silently. And then there are the burn scars on Soniyas neck. The children in the village tell me those were inflicted by Mina with a hot poker from the fire. So many times I heard Mina raging at the children, hitting, kicking, punching. The wails that came from that house sent shivers up my spine. Yet there was little to be done. The whole village was aware of her anger, but few could do much -- "You can't interfere in these matters", Kunwar would say to me. "This is for their family to handle." And so it went, but there were also times when I saw Mina playing with her children, having so much fun, real belly laughs. One day I poked my head out the window to see what all the laughing was about, only to see Mina and the children having a water fight. I laughed too, because I couldn't tell who was having more fun, Mina or the children. 

One day Mina came to me with Abu. "Auntie he is having these big soars all over his body." I pulled up Abu's shirt to see an ugly boil festering on his stomach, another on his back and two more emerging on his legs. "Oh Mina, these are boils and they are caused by an infection in his body. He needs to see a doctor right away." I gave him medicine for the fever and showed Mina how to use hot compresses for the boils. "Will you take him to the doctor now?" I asked. "Yes, we will go when my husband comes home." After two days passed I thought I had not heard from Mina. We were living in a different house now, and I couldn't stop thinking of Abu. I was in the middle of making dinner, and for some reason I felt compelled to drop what I was doing and go check on Abu. I found him and his mother in their kitchen. Abu was lying curled in the corner, and Mina was hunched over the kitchen chulla (stove). Mina looked up at me when I came in. "He is sleeping." I went to Abu and laid my hand on his head. He was burning up. I had brought my thermometer with me. I guess I had a premonition that he would not be well. His temperature was 105.5 F. I began pulling his clothes off and asked for a basin of water. Mina began bathing him while I ran home for some medicine. I gave Abu the fever medication and I said to Mina, "Mina has he been to see the doctor?" She began to cry, "No, my husband said it was not necessary. I know he needs to see the doctor, but I can't take him alone." Well, we need to go now," I replied. I called Kunwar and he arranged for our nephew to come with the van to take us to Mussoorie, the closest hospital an hour's drive away. Mina called her husband and he said he would meet us on the road. "Oh, well if your husband is going Mina, then I don't need to go," I reasoned. But Mina was adamant. "Oh yes, you need to come. My husband will not listen to me. But he will listen to you. You have to come. I need you there."  I looked at Mina and her face was intent. "Ok Mina, but you know I can't pay the hospital bill this time. I have no money." She shook her head, "No Auntie, I have money. Look $1,000 rupees. My sister-in-law has given me this. And we are to take her son, Aman too, because he also has fever." So off we went, Mina, myself, Abu, and Aman along with our nephew, Sunil and Mina's husband. And all along the way, I listened to Mina's husband scold me, saying 'I was wasting his time, that Abu was fine now (the fever medicine doing its work), and I was just wasting his money. On the way to the hospital the lights died on the van. We had to hold torches out the window to see, and the fog was thick. In the back seat of the van, Mina and I held hands -- both so frightened of what could happen on the way to the hospital. But we arrived and the doctor confirmed what I was trying to convey to Mina's husband, that the fever is only a symptom of the infection that was wracking Abu's little body. Abu was hospitalized that evening, and he is better today. What I learned that night, the insight I gained into Mina's life, her situation shed so much light on the lives of most women living in these villages. Uneducated, powerless, yet intelligent women trying with all their might to raise children, to survive, to hang on to their sanity, in a world where womens' only value seems to be in producing and rearing children and working the land. On that day I saw a different Mina. I saw a scared and helpless girl just trying to manage her life to the best of her ability, and yet I also saw a strong, tough woman who would walk through fire for her children. I liked and appreciated Mina more than ever that day. 

And now, today she comes home a sick woman, a broken person. Does she have a thread of hope? I don't know. This story is not finished. I will keep you posted. 

Three Years Later...

Well it has been a long time since I began writing this blog. At that time, Kunwar and I had not even been married a year. So much has happened since then. I have so much to say, so many stories to tell. I want, need to write a book. Suffice to say I aim to tell my story here on this blog with the intent of eventually publishing the stories in a book one day. So I would appreciate feed back and comments from everyone who reads this. Since that last post Kunwar and I opened a school for the children in our area, and so my PhD was put on hold so we could focus on this project. I will speak of this more in the blogs to come because it has been quite a journey to say the least. Our reasons for opening a school were based on the low quality of education we saw in our area. For many years Kunwar had focused his efforts on bringing education to our area. He was solely responsible for bringing the government school to Sainji in the early 1980s. But that was a time when teachers would live in the village and were able to provide consistent education. After a few years however, things changed and teachers won the right not to have to live in the villages. As our area is in the hills teacher absenteeism became the norm. Teachers only had to pay bribes to officials who could not be bothered to even visit the area to check on teacher's attendance. Resources never reached the village schools, and the quality of education quickly dissipated. So Kunwar invited a group of missionaries to open a school in the village. At least the teachers were living in the village and providing daily education, but again their funds were limited and the teachers who were hired were poorly educated themselves. In India a passing grade is thirty three percent. This is the strategy of the government to counter the high drop out rate experienced throughout India. In order to pass into the eleventh standard children must write a board exam. In our village some children had to write the exam three and four times just to pass. One evening children were coming to our home to ask Kunwar to check their test results via the internet. I watched as they scanned the lists for their name and was surprised when they broke out into smiles having marks of thirty five percent. "Why?" I asked. "Thirty five percent is a terrible grade." "But it means they passed," Kunwar explained. I shook my head. I had set up a small library in our home and was encouraging the children to read. I had offered volumes of Harry Potter to children in ninth and tenth grade thinking they would really enjoy the books, but with each child they would return the book to me the next day, saying it was too difficult for them to read, and would end up settling for a book intended for a second or third grade level of reading. That night after the students had left with their results Kunwar and I talked and that is when we decided to open an English Medium School. We sent word out that we were considering this project and wanted to find out if there would be any families interested in sending their children to our school. The response was immediate. Families of eight children said they wanted to enroll their children and when the local missionary school got word of this they immediately expelled those children from their school. We had to open our school the very next week. Having no time to prepare we began teaching in a room in our house. Two weeks later we had secured an empty hospital building and began our classes. Our niece, Neelum was my only teacher at the time. Together we worked as best we could. Kunwar taught too, but while he has many wonderful attributes, teaching is not one of them. I still smile when I recall the time I checked in on his kindergarten class and saw him holding a long wire (trying to hook up a new light for the classroom, while four year old Mukhul stood at the blackboard, pointer in hand, directing the rest of the kindergartens in reciting the alphabet. After three months we were asked to leave the medical building and had to find another location. We resorted to our cow shed, a few meters down the road. I cried when I saw it the first time. The cows were still inside. But the fathers of the children came and they worked night and day transforming an ugly stone building into a beautiful little school. Our rooms were lovely, all different colours and we painstakingly painted sums and words, and rhymes all over the walls, benches, and tables. The children were so happy with their new school, and took such pride in keeping it nice. Everyone would help to keep it clean, even the littlest ones would pick up brooms to sweep the classrooms and pick up garbage. Soon after we hired another teacher and the number of students began to increase. By our first summer there were twenty one students, classes kindergarten to class 3. By the following year we had eighty students, and before the year was finished we had 125 little GEMS enrolled. It was time to move to a new location, and in April of 2012 we shifted to our present location where on the first day of opening we expanded to 230 children, offering classes from Lower Kindergarten to class 7. We now employ eleven teachers, three teaching assistants, two bus drivers, one cook, three guards and one caretaker. There was so much that happened in this time, and I want to tell the stories so I will relay them over time, one by one. This is only the beginning of a very long tale. For more information about our school you can visit our website at www.gems-school.org.
www.gems-school.org