Rajahmundry..

I’m staying with my dad’s cousin Deborah Sunitha and her husband Pratap here in Rajahmundry.  Pratap is a bishop now and he and Sunitha have a very large mission program, school, and orphanage they run, based out of Rajahmundry.  Moses, their son, just finished his masters and is looking for a position, possibly abroad, so he was around during my visit, which was cool.  He’s near my sister Jayanthi’s age, so we got along well.

Although I had visited the orphanage and school in the past (maybe 10 years ago?) I hadn’t had a chance to see the changes they’ve been making in recent years – and there have been many!  They finished building the housing at the girls home.  They are expanding their programs at the school.  Another big project is their work in starting dedicated vocational training for girls and women. This is of great interest to me, as I am passionate about women’s issues and gender equality.

Unfortunately, India has a big problem with human trafficking.  Many factors play a role, but because of society’s view of women, the remnants of the dowry system, neglect of girls’ education, etc. etc.,  girls in villages and tribal areas are at a much higher risk of being trafficked.  The program my cousins are implementing at their school for lower income children and orphans opens a way for girls to learn a vocation (such as sewing or typing).  This way, when they finish school, they are employable and able to earn a wage, and therefore more valuable (and less likely to become victims of sex trade or trafficking).

The morning after I arrived in Rajahmundry, Sunitha took me to the school they run, where she is basically the principal.  After showing me her office and the records books for the school, she took me around to see some of the classrooms.  They have kids from lower kindergarten all the way through 10^th class.  In addition to the regular classes, they have a small computer lab in the school with half a dozen or so computers.  When we got there, we found a group of the older boys working on the computers, learning their way around some of the basic programs.  Many children in this class do not have computer access in school at all.  This program is wonderful – for children to have computer skills these days is a vital asset in acquiring a decent job.

Also, there is a program at the school to teach sewing and tailoring skills.  This program is not only for the schoolchildren.  Local women are able to enroll as well.   The ladies learn machine work as well as hand stitching, embroidery, cross-stitch, etc.  They make bags and blouses and all sorts of items to practice so that they are able to acquire jobs in tailor shops or take in mending jobs.  Although some of the classroom had been disrupted and moved around due to final exams that week, I was able to see some of the girls’ projects and they gifted me with a lovely drawstring handbag.  The beautiful girl in the picture holding the bag is the one who actually made it!  And the lady to her right is the instructor.

After I had been given a full tour of the school, all of the students assembled in the schoolyard where they had a full presentation they had prepared for me, complete with singing and dancing! I was quite surprised and very touched.  They even presented me with a garland of flowers (an Indian tradition, similar to getting a lei in Hawaii).

After Sunitha talked for a moment to the children, she asked me to tell them a bit about myself.  (Luckily, she had warned me this was coming!)  I told them a little bit about myself and my home, and what I was doing in India while Sunitha translated.

After returning to the house for lunch and a bit of a rest during the hottest part of the day, Sunitha took me to the girl’s residential home.  When I last came to Rajahmundry, these homes were still being built, but the full complex was finished now.  When we arrived, the girls had gathered in the yard.  I recognized many of them from that morning at the school.  There are six houses arranged around a compound.  Each one has a house mother and girls of various ages in it.  I was taken (literally taken by the hand and bodily led) into a couple of the houses for a tour by a gaggle of girls.  The walls in each house were decorated with hand drawn pictures that different girls in the houses had drawn, and little else. There was a small table and bible in the entrance to each house. At the back of the homes were toilets and showers. The girls were all so eager and proud to show me their home and belongings. I felt humbled and saddened to think how happy and lucky they felt to have so little. They showed me their beds (bunk beds that most of us in the US would consider substandard summer camp cots) and their cupboards with their belongings (each girl had a shelf that was perhaps 2 foot squared.  In addition to the clothing she was currently wearing, most of the girls had two or three other items of clothing at most.  The house mother had a few shelves for her belongings in her area, but those were also pitifully bare.

Flowers and some vegetables (eggplant, my favorite!) grew in small gardens between the homes.  In the center of the yard was a tree with a big fruit I did not recognize.  Sunitha told me it was a jackfruit.  The fruit was only just beginning to grow, apparently.  I didn’t understand how the thing doesn’t fall out of the tree and hit someone on the head, and I was assured that that never happens (If it’s going to happen to anyone, it would be just my luck…)

Just as we were leaving the compound, Sunitha was also pointing out some of the other vegetation and showed me a cashew tree.  In Goa, they make an alcohol called Feni, from the Cashew nut or fruit.  I tried it while I was there.  Apparently it tastes bad, but I had mine mixed with sugar cane juice and pineapple juice, so it tasted pretty good to me!  I have a memory, though of someone telling a story about picking cashews and that you had to pick them with gloves on because something about them was poisonous to your skin (i.e. you’d break out into a rash or something).  She pointed out the fruit to me.  The nut grows at the bottom of the fruit.  Apparently, when you separate the two, some liquid comes out and it is, in fact, unkind to your skin.  She also told me that the fruit is bitter tasting and makes you cough and have a sore throat…

I was curious and wanted to try one.  One of the gatemen picked a couple for me to take home to try.  We’ll see how I feel about it once the poisonous milk comes out.