Sixintheworld.com

When we set out on this trip almost nine months ago, Tom and I knew that we wanted not just to see the world but also to participate in it. By finding opportunities to help, even in small ways, we hoped to increase our family’s appreciation for what we have at home and prove to ourselves that even though there are only six of us, we can make a difference. As we’ve traveled through some of the world’s most impoverished regions, we’ve been discouraged by how much work there is to be done but also heartened that everywhere there are courageous, selfless people trying to do it. Last week we discovered a Romanian woman who through tireless work and unwavering devotion is trying to improve the lives of Romanians one child at a time.

One of the first associations for Americans when they think of Romania is orphans. Many of us have friends or family members who have adopted children from the country. Before arriving, I had never given much thought to why these orphans existed. I offhandedly assumed they were casualties of the revolution, but then I realized it happened in 1989 over the course of a few weeks and only a few thousand people died. So how is it that a country of only 22 million people could continue to produce parentless children for almost two decades following this traumatic event? The answer is tragic and yet another legacy of one of the world’s most ignominious leaders.

After assuming the helm of his country in 1965, Nicolae Caecescu implemented a Hitler-like policy of forced fertility. Hoping to build his own empire, Caecescu required Romanian women by law to have four and later five children and outlawed birth control for women under 45. For a people already struggling with economic deprivation the results were devastating. Parents neither wanted nor could afford children and simply began abandoning them in nation’s hospitals. State-run orphanages, bleak loveless institutions, were built to house the thousands of homeless children and simply kicked them out when they turned 18. Following the revolution, Western nations swooped in and began adopting these abandoned children, a practice that ironically only served to perpetuate the orphan crisis. Mothers saw that abandonment provided not just their children but potentially themselves with an opportunity for a better life. Giving children up to private groups provided a healthy income for some otherwise destitute women. Prior to Romania’s January 1 entree into the EU, it’s “orphan” (child abandonment) rate stood at 1.5%, a staggering figure.

Even with legions of eager foreigners hoping to adopt, the reality for Romanian babies was grim. Until their placement, whether at home or abroad, they were left to languish without love or proper nutrition in state hospitals, spending 24 hours each day in steel cribs. This was something Simona Stewart could not abide. WIth the support of her American husband and an American adoption group, she founded House of Angels, a facility dedicated to the nurturing of abandoned infants. The city of Gaesti gave her a long term lease on an abandoned school and she singlehandedly transformed it into a place where each and every newborn orphan in her county would receive all the necessities of life plus a healthy dose of the warmth and affection babies need to thrive. She had no grand visions of placing all the babies in foreign homes; in fact, very few ever ended up overseas. She focused only on the very real and immediate need of protecting and nurturing them through their critical first few months of life. Some were able to stay up to three years in the facility depending on the government’s success in placing them in foster or adoptive homes.

Simona was overjoyed by the work House of Angels performed and felt she was fulfilling her life’s calling. She had steady funding to cover the babies’ expenses, over $1000/month in diapers alone, a caring, competent staff, and boundless love for the scores of children that entered her care. Then the laws in Romania changed. The EU demanded that in order for the country to join the union it had to do something to fix its orphan problem. Rather than doing anything to actually help the children, officials simply changed the legal definition of an orphan and mandated that no child under 2 could be housed in a private facility. This way all abandoned children (still over 1% of all Romanian newborns) could be hidden within the system. In addition, international adoption was outlawed, in theory to prevent Romanian women from purposely conceiving unwanted children for money. Abandoned children were now required to go into permanent foster care or back to the families of their parents. Since their families often could not be found and rarely wanted them, they usually ended up with poor, rural families who were eager for the 100+ euros/month stipend the government paid.

These changes were like the rug being pulled from under Simona’s feet. No longer would she be able to care for her babies. Newborns would once again be relegated to a cold, sterile existence in hospital wards and state run facilities. She was bereft at the loss of the babies and furious at the government’s willingness to sacrifice them. She testified before international commissions in Washington and Brussels and pleaded with the world to protect Romania’s still numerous orphans.

A year and a half later, she’s made little progress. Change can only occur at the presidential level, and her president is not inclined to act. In the meantime, the cribs at House of Angels lie empty, much of the staff has been laid off, and Simona’s heart aches for the babies she is prevented from helping.

The changes in the law could have been the end for the House of Angels. Simona could have packed her bags and headed back to Atlanta for a life of comfort and privilege, but instead she began searching for new ways to help Romania’s children. She redirected her focus toward a group she was allowed to serve–the poor. She visited local schools, got names of families on the government welfare rolls, and searched for those too poor to even register. She kept a core staff of dieticians, teachers, and cleaners to maintain the House of Angels facility and transformed it into an afterschool center where children could come for hot meals, hot showers, help with homework, and organized play time–all luxuries they did not have at home. In addition, she hired a pair of physical therapists to work with handicapped children. She sought out those children needing therapy and in some cases, made arrangements for her onsite director to shuttle them back and forth to the House multiple times each week for treatment.

We visited House of Angels and spent the day with Simona, her staff, and her kids. Our presence, as always, proved a great curiosity to the children, who couldn’t get enough of the Andrus kids. Like many young people we’ve encountered in our travels, they equate America with the WWF and were eager to wrestle not just with the boys, but with Asher as well. They tried to teach us to dance, eagerly tested their limited English on us, and begged us to join their handball match outside. Tom and I visited a therapy session of a little boy named Vlad who though severely handicapped had one of the sweetest spirits we’ve ever encountered. The smile that spread over his face as his therapist whispered tenderly in his ear was enough to melt even the most cynical heart and one I will never forget.

The children at House of Angels are no different than those we’ve spent time with in India, China, and Cambodia. They are full of life, enthusiasm, love, and magically hope. They do not seem to know that the world expects them to be full of sorrow and suffering, nor that their opportunities might be limited. Instead they reflect the confidence of children who are cared for and from whom much is expected. This is Simona’s effect.

When it came time for us to leave, the kids all put on sad faces and handed us a card they had made earlier in the day. Yet again, we felt we had done little for them, while they had done much more for us.

Simona and her uncle drove us back to the station in Bucharest where we boarded an overnight train for Budapest. As we parted, Tom and I could not believe the sheer will and resourcefulness of this amazing woman. Unwilling to give up, even when her chosen mission was banned, she has committed her life to finding and helping the needy children of her country. I asked her what her focus will be in coming years and she explained she will try to build up the center’s physical therapy program in order to reach a larger group of needy, handicapped children. As for how the rest of us can help, she welcomes one week visits from volunteers and will undoubtedly put any donated funds to good use. For more information and inspiration, please visit the House of Angels website.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, House of Angels, International adoption, Caecescu, Romania, Romanian orphans, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, service, Volunteering

McKane decided to make his final post from Chennai a movie telling people about Rising Star Outreach and encouraging them to help. He wrote, shot, and edited the following movie. He woke up early, filmed most of the day’s activities, and kept the camera rolling until the kids went to sleep at night. He missed a few things like snacktime and afternoon school largely because he was so busy playing with the kids he forgot to film. Otherwise, it is a good depiction of an average day for the children of RSO’s preschool/kindergarten. If we had thought about it, a similar movie about a day in the lives of the kids who are on the waiting list to get into the school would have been a compelling contrast. Maybe next time.

The video is now up but India is my least favorite place to find good Internet. (Tom)

One month ago we arrived in India not knowing what to expect. We would be volunteering at a children’s home, an experience very few people we know had embarked on. Our three and a half weeks at RSO have shown us a little of what we had expected and a lot of what we hadn’t. We didn’t know the country would be so traditional or that there would be so much trash everywhere. We didn’t know that life was so cheap or that we would be spending our time with such incredible children.

We started off our time with the children just teaching them. They were very quick learners and impressed us with their previously acquired knowledge. They knew many songs in English, even some that we had never heard! They knew many words and some could speak in complete sentences to us. Soon we became more than teachers and befriended the children too. Although some were more hesitant to come out of their shell than others, they all eventually became our little buddies. We loved to play games with them at recess everyday and always looked forward to a chance to read them a story or take a photo with them on the computer. We enjoyed taking them swimming and teaching them how to dive and swim in the pool.

Soon we were inseparable from the kids. They shouted our names every time we walked into the room and asked us to play ball or flip them over our shoulders. We grew close to every last one of them, and during our time learned some valuable lessons. Through the creation of charities like this, these children are getting chances that would have been impossible otherwise. RSO has taught us a few people can make a difference and any amount of service you can give is worthwhile. So with heavy hearts and fond memories we leave these amazing kids. Until next time RSO…

Technorati Tags: Chennai, India, Rising Star Outreach, Round the world, RTW

I got lice in second grade when I lived in suburban Maryland. The school administration claimed the outbreak, which hit a large percentage of the student body, resulted from an infestation in the tumbling mats. Since I had long hair, the delousing process took over a week: a hard core shampooing followed by intensive sessions of nitpicking. My experience left an enduring distaste for the nasty little critters and a vow to avoid them throughout the remainder of my life.

The second week we were in Chennai, lice hit RSO, the school we’re volunteering with. We returned on McKane’s birthday from a long day of attempted merrymaking with a birthday cake to share with all of the kids. We were shocked when we found that seven of the little girls had somehow lost their hair over the course of the day. They were bald. My gut response was, “Oh no, lice,” a diagnosis confirmed by the school director, Gopi. “I found over 1,000 of the lice on these girls. Tomorrow I shave them all–boys and girls.” We were shocked by the sight of hairless girls–it seemed such a drastic measure–but not by the prevalence of the bugs. The children sleep side by side on floor mats and what one gets, all get.

Once my initial concern for the newly shorn girls passed, I immediately started worrying about the security of my own scalp. I had been letting these same girls hug me, fawn over me, and play with my hair for the past week. I turned to Gopi. “I must have lice too. Does that mean you have to shave my head as well?” “No, no, no,” he assured me, but his response raised a curious point. If the dreaded cooties can be combated with shampoo and nit combs on me, why did the girls have to lose their raven locks? Fortunately, between our shock and the sage advice of a senior teacher at the other school (the one where we stay), Gopi was dissuaded from any further shaving and embarked on a shock and awe attack against the lice.

Despite my concerns, my head was unaffected by the plague and I spent the next week mourning the loss of the little girls’ hair. I shared in their parents’ grief when they arrived for Family Day ready to adorn their daughters’ heads with flowers and found no hair to which to pin the flowers. I marveled at the girls’ resilience as they smiled and laughed, unwilling to let their new hairstyles interfere with their fun. We joked with Gopi about his victims, who we named the “Gopi 7,” but sympathized with the daunting task of managing the health and safety of 65 kids round the clock.

The day we left the girls had already grown enough new hair to cast a nice shadow on their cute heads. I called these four over to pose with their follicly-challenged Uncle, with whom they share a newfound bond.

When we arrived in Delhi the next morning, I wondered why Dax and I had gotten such bad dry scalp that we were frequently scratching. That night I called him under the lights to do a quick scan of his scalp. Sure enough, I found about 5 egg-laden lice wandering his head looking for the perfect shafts of hair on which to deposit their future offspring. I called McKane in as well, though he had not complained of any itching. One mega-louse, three baby lice, and about 100 eggs later I pronounced him clean…for the moment. I then assigned Tom the duty of searching my head. He found only one bug, but it was enough to confirm what he had suspected all along: if you have hair and sleep and cuddle and play with kids who have hair, whatever is on their heads ends up on yours.

Somehow Asher, Kieran, and Tom escaped the lice: Tom because he has no hair, and the little ones probably because they were too small to carry the kids or give them piggyback rides and never tucked them in at night. Now as we travel through Rajasthan (we’ll update you on that soon), we are using anti-lice shampoo, picking nits at night, scratching our scalps by day, and thanking our lucky stars that we had the chance to share three and 1/2 weeks with such beautiful little people, lice and all.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, India, Lice, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Volunteering, Voluntourism

Last week Dax and I accompanied a few RSO executives to deliver rice and beans to some of the leprosy-affected colonies. It is about as far from our normal life as we have been, and it was going to be a long, hard day. We started by driving an hour and half south of Chennai to visit the construction site where RSO is building their new school, known to the staff and kids as “the land.” The drive took us through small towns and villages and gave us a good view of rural India. “The land” is about 5 kilometers off a main road and sits next to one of India’s 700,000 villages. The village is a standard mix of grass shacks and small government-built-concrete homes.

When we arrived, children were playing and the elderly were sitting on the dirt patches in front of their homes or walking through town. The able-bodied individuals must have been out in the local rice or sugar cane fields. As we pulled into the land, we saw men and women digging. They were digging as couples; presumably they are a family unit. We knew this would be different than an American construction site. When Anne asked the construction consultant how they would get their heavy equipment in without a real road, he chuckled and said there wouldn’t be any heavy equipment. All the digging and moving of earth would be done by hand.

What I was not prepared for was the number of workers, the high quality of their work, and the speed with which they were digging holes. These hardy people live tough lives. They work most of the day (with an hour or two break for lunch), live on site, and travel from job to job, setting up housekeeping wherever they can earn a decent wage. Of necessity, their children travel with them. These kids do not attend school and will have few options when they grow up to progress beyond the lot of their parents. Life is good for the moment, however, since the enlightened company in charge of the construction pays more than the average daily wage of 120 rupees for men and 80 rupees for women ($2.60 and $1.80 respectively).

The plight of migrant workers in India is lamentable but some are trying to change it. One is Padma Venkataraman, RSO board member. By virtue of both caste and political pedigree, Padma wields considerable influence, but she exercises it quietly outside the bounds of India’s raucous political spectrum. It was impressive to watch her grill the foreman about what he was paying the laborers and offer to make arrangements for teaching the children. After watching Padma I knew that this would be a memorable day. We had 6-8 hours of driving left and she would be a perfect traveling companion to help me make sense of India.
After leaving “The Land” Padma explained to us that early in her father’s career he a minister of labor. Her father’s experience left her with a soft spot for the country’s migrant laborers. She explained to Dax and I that she is part of a group that has already gathered 100,000+ signatures on behalf of the children of migrant workers in an attempt to get a law passed allowing them to attend public schools wherever their parents are working. Her concern for the laborer is likely a legacy of her father’s first public office, but her concern for all of India stems from his lifetime of service. Sri R. Venkatarman spent 60 years in public service, with the last 10 being split between the offices of Vice President and President of India. During much of his time, Padma lived abroad. On her trips back to India she began to focus her concern on the poorest of the poor–the lepers (the politically correct term is leprosy-affected).

These were the people we were on our way to meet. During our drive Padma explained to us, “Those with leprosy could live in government housing but many chose not to. If they live in a home provided by the government, it is the property of the government. The government kicks out family members when they reach adulthood and the edifice returns to the government when the occupant dies.” For these people there is an option B. India still has homesteading laws. Padma continued, “If after 20 years the government hasn’t kicked you off the land it is yours.” For those with nothing, a 20 year wait for a homestead is a great deal. These people would rather live independently on the fringes of society with the hope of leaving their family an inheritance rather than living off government assistance and leaving them homeless. The problem with leaving the government housing is they also lose all support: no medical care, no pension, no assistance of any kind. It’s a difficult existence. Most are forced to leave their homes for two to three weeks each month in search of money. They board busses to the cities where they beg by day and sleep on the streets by night. Once they have enough money in their pockets for return bus fare and a small supply of food, they return to their homestead only to repeat the cycle the following month. With few options for employment or education, many people’s children and grandchildren get caught up in the cycle as well. With this intro, we arrived at our first leper colony.

At the colony we were greeted by smiling faces. People made their way out of their houses; some walked, some crawled, and one man came out in his hand pump bicycle. Padma was obviously their hero. They set up plastic chairs and gathered to hold a village council. The visitors sat on the chairs while the residents sat cross-legged on the ground. I noticed most of them had bandages around stumps where once there had been feet. Some had missing fingers and a few had sunken faces or blind eyes, complications of the later stages of leprosy. At this point everything was in Tamil, so the conversation was lost to me. I wandered around and took pictures (all of which unfortunately disappeared thanks to an iPhoto bug!). Dax sat in on the whole council and wondered why two of the men were trying to be louder than the other in getting their point across. I explained that there is no reason a council in a village of leprosy-affected people would be any different than a high-powered board meeting or a subdivision homeowners’ meeting in the US. Men will be men, and some think strength comes from being louder, faster, or even crueler than the rest. The “boss” at this colony was just such a man. Padma told us later that he would need to “go” because his desire to rule the others would prevent them from progressing. After the council we toured the village peanut and lentil farm. We walked and listened to them speak Tamil. My curiosity was peaked, and I was eager to get a translation from Padma.

Back in the van, she explained her efforts to transform leprosy-affected communities such as this one through microcredit. With the help of Padma’s microloans, the colony set a goal of eradicating begging and becoming self-sufficient. The peanut farm is their second attempt. The villagers used their first set of loans to buy cows, whose milk they expected to sell for a profit. The colony proved too far from potential customers, however, and the venture failed. By specializing in a less perishable and more profitable crop, they believe the peanut venture will succeed. The hope is to provide each family 2000 rupees (less than $40) each month from the profits of the farm. This will be enough for them to stay at home. I asked Padma if they would still have to repay the loans for the cows, and she said they would. Many microlenders boast 98-100% repayment rates, but she explained that working with the colonies requires a little more patience. Given their physical and social limitations, the leprosy-affected require leniency on some of their monthly payments, but they will eventually repay the full amount. She then told us about other colonies that are further down the road to self-sufficiency. One colony sells cows and goats; another specializes in art; others, in states with more water, farm fish. Some of the colonies are now indistinguishable from normal villages. Perhaps a year or two from now the peanut farmers will be another success story.
Before we got to the next colony, we made a quick stop to purchase bags of rice and beans. (A rice shortage ended up preventing us from getting the 75 kilo bag for this colony, but we did order it to be delivered to them in 3 or 4 days’ time). The second colony was much smaller and its inhabitants older and more frail. However, their lives are much better. Each lives in a concrete building donated by a church and receives about 400 rupees ($9) in assistance. Rising Star Outreach periodically provides rice and beans as well. Earlier in the year, the plan had been for this colony to lift itself up by its bootstraps like the others, but something went wrong. The inhabitants received loans to purchase goats, but they either didn’t have the initiative or were unable to take care of their goats. The abundance of charity has made their lives comfortable and they are content with things as they are. WIth this relatively well off population, Padma explained, they will probably not try to set up another venture. As the people age and “expire,” this colony will probably just fade away.

The hope is that leprosy will fade away as well. India has reduced the number of leprosy-affected people from 500,000 30 years ago to about 250,000 people today. The disease is easily curable for a ridiculously low price (less than $3 per person) but the ravaging effects it has on the body if not treated in the early stages cannot be reversed: fingers, feet, and noses cannot be reattached and eyesight cannot be restored. For those who catch it early, it leaves no more damage than the chicken pox. Some of the kids we are working with have had it, but you’d never know which ones.

Leprosy is no longer a death sentence or a ticket to a lifetime of dependence. People like Padma provide the leprosy-affected with the boost they need to take control of their lives and become productive members of a still shunning society. I am glad Dax and I had the chance to watch Padma in action. She is a powerful example that when one person turns a life of privilege into a life of service they can benefit thousands of people and impact society for generations.

Padma is on the far right.

Technorati Tags: charity, India, Leprosy, micro-credit, microloans, puppy, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Many of you have been begging for more details on what our life is like here in India, especially after we voiced our uncertainty about what to expect. I have a list of about 8 posts I’m working on to explain it all, but we’ve been spending so much time with the kids of RSO, I haven’t had time to complete them. In a nutshell, this place is intense. It’s everything we worried it would be and more: trash everywhere, cows wandering the city streets, people who walk up and stare intensely at our foreign faces, nary a restaurant we feel confident patronizing, poop–human, bovine, and canine–filling the fields and flanking the roadsides, and the worst driving we’ve encountered in our travels at home and abroad.

We are however, deliriously happy and most days forget that much of this exists. This is because we are safely and comfortably ensconced in our life with the children and the staff and have little desire to venture beyond the confines of our immediate environment. The children delight us and sometimes overwhelm us with their affection, while the staff members answer our questions about life in India, take us to crazy Tamil movies, hang out with us in the kitchen at night, and accompany us to church on Sundays. Our days are a blur of activities that can include anything from tutoring the kids in English and the teachers in pronunciation, teaching 20 or so kids how to swim in a nearby pool, playing Simon Says, taking a yoga class with the big kids, and singing good night songs to the little ones with whom we share the house. We’ve visited the faraway site they call “the land” where construction has just begun on the new school buildings, and Tom and Dax went on an even longer trip to take rice and beans to a few of the leper colonies that provide the school’s students. Tom has become the unofficial RSO photographer and is working on a series of staff and student portraits for the school walls.

I should qualify the “comfortable” statement lest you think this is a cakewalk. We still face many challenges in our day-to-day routine. Though it took us more than a week, we finally figured out how to get warm water to the shower (Kieran actually did even when the maintenance people couldn’t). The air conditioning in our room gave out the second day we were here and shows no signs of being repaired. This means we’ve had to learn how to sleep under a ceiling fan in sometimes stifling heat and figured out ways to combat the pervasive and voracious mosquitos who have a penchant for our fair, well-nourished flesh. After about a week of sweating and scratching through the nights and subsequently struggling to stay awake during the days, we hit a groove. We’ve now become accustomed to heat-filled nights and aren’t particularly concerned about the a/c. The irony is the staff here have access to cooled air in their rooms, but choose not to use it. They simply don’t like air conditioning. After so many years of living in the heat, they say it makes them cold. So they keep it turned off at home and bundle up in warm clothing when going to the theater or church where the a/c runs at moderate levels.

Eating, which we usually try to do multiple times each day, presents a particular problem. Normally volunteers come to RSO in large groups, have the kitchen to themselves for breakfast and lunch, and are attended by a cook proficient in Western cuisine in the evenings. We are the only volunteers here and share the kitchen with the school cook who is happy to make extra for us but cannot temper down the spice factor for a few Americans when feeding almost 30 Tamil children. You see the Tamil people like their food hot. Everything contains chile pepper and children here are brought up on fiery hot fare. We tried a few times to share meals with the kids and staff, but quickly learned that Tom is the only one who can stand the heat. It’s become a joke that with each meal we ask, “Spicy?” and the teachers respond, “Not spicy.” One bite is all we need to realize “not spicy” for them is three alarm for us. As a result, we’ve found a few former volunteer-approved restaurants. Traveling to restaurants is such a production, however, (a lot of walking, waiting, and/or trying to flag down auto-rickshaws) that we prefer to eat in. We’ve discovered that the grocery store, which is about 20 minutes away, delivers as does Domino’s and the local fried chicken chain. Even so, unless we cook for ourselves with the limited fare the supermarket stocks, we continue to battle the spicy factor. India it seems is the one place we’ve been that isn’t concerned with Westernizing their culture and this includes their cuisine. KFC and Domino’s are here but they change their menus to suit Indians rather than vice versa. KFC’s drumsticks blow Popeye’s spiciest Cajun offerings away and most pizzas include masala, curry, or some form of subcontinental spices. Spice-subdued northern Indian food remains my favorite cuisine of all, but I readily admit that this southern Indian stuff is kicking my bland American butt.

Working with the students is also a challenge, especially for Kieran and Asher. These kids are so excited about our presence that they literally maul us from the second we enter a room. The four older among us can stay above the fray if we want, but the two little ones are right at ground level and can’t escape the hugs, tugs, and grabbing. After two weeks of our presence, the RSO kids have calmed down a little and we can now manage their affection…slightly. Trying to teach them means channeling all this enthusiasm toward productive ends. They jump up and down and shout “English speaking, English speaking” when it’s their turn to work with us, but quickly lose focus when my hair is there to be braided or Tom and the boys are there to be climbed.

The rewards of spending so much time with these beautiful little people and their caregivers are immense and without a doubt overshadow any discomfort we’re encountering along the way. We’re having so much fun we’re considering staying an extra week and are already thinking about we might return in subsequent years. If we’re not careful and spend too much time soaking up three-year-old’s smiles, we may skip the rest of India altogether. After all, what’s the Taj Majal got to top this?

Technorati Tags: Family travel, India, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Volunteering, Voluntourism

On holidays and saturdays the kids of RSO get to go to the beach. It is a wonderful wide open beach, with just a few differences from your ordinary American beach.

Technorati Tags: Beach, Chennai, Comic, India, Rising Star Outreach, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Of all the places we are going to visit in our 11 months on the road, India is the one which inspires the greatest excitement and the greatest fear. We have visited with dozens of travelers who claim it to be both the best and worst of their lifetime travel experience. We know we love the food, but have been warned that if we value our health we can’t eat most of it. We know we love the exotic landmarks and vibrant landscapes, but realize we must brave horrific traffic, seething crowds, and scorching heat to visit them. We know we love the people, but are a little overwhelmed that there are more than a billion of them.

We decided to get our feet wet in the subcontinent by sitting still for three to four weeks in Chennai. This is the site of Rising Star Outreach, a fabulous NGO started by a friend from Atlanta that serves the leprosy-affected of Tamil Nadu. RSO started by administering mobile medical care to local leper colonies but expanded its efforts to include the children of those afflicted by the easily cured but debilitating disease. The prospects for children growing up in the colonies are bleak since they are still ostracized by much of Indian society and truly treated as “untouchables.” Their parents’ ability to feed, clothe, and educate them are limited, and this is where RSO steps in. Currently 66 fortunate children ranging in age from 3 through 10 live in two children’s homes where they are loved, nurtured, and educated by a highly competent, tireless group of devoted men and women.

We are currently sharing a house with 33 of these little cuties–the pre-K and kindergarten students. We had been warned but nothing really prepared us for them. From the second we drove we up, we were bombarded with hugs, squeals of delight, and urgent pleas to hold hands. These beautiful little souls are overflowing with love and eager to share everything they’ve ever learned with us. “Auntie, auntie, look.” “Uncle, watch me.” Language is no barrier. Those whose English is limited, expound in great detail in their native Tamil. The big boys are life-sized jungle gyms and are getting their best workout of the trip dispensing tosses into the air and airplane rides. Kieran and Asher are perfectly sized playmates, who except for their fair complexions, blend right in to this energetic group.

We spent our first morning at the upper school, where the children were feverishly working at clearing a patch of land on the grounds of the neighboring nursery. A British film crew was coming to shoot some footage for a commercial featuring Padma Venkataraman, daughter of a former Indian president, distinguished humanitarian, and dedicated RSO supporter. Because the current school site has no yard, the crew obtained permission from the business next door, a nursery specializing in small bedding plants, to use their lot. There were about 7,834,292 plants that had to be moved in order to accommodate the equipment, so 30 little soldiers went to work, each trying to prove him/herself a harder worker than the next. We wilted quickly in the stifling heat but the children seemed unaffected, racing back and forth, back and forth until the job was done. The only thing that slowed them down was the occasional millipede (or really big centipede…I’m not sure) which elicited screams of terror from the otherwise tireless workers. Apparently while not fatal, these critters deliver a nasty sting that none of the kids was eager to receive. Fortunately, the brave male staff, led by boss Gopi, protected us all by squashing the lightning fast menaces with a stick.

We’ve now been here four days and I’m afraid we’ve fallen in love 66 times over. After all, who could resist faces like these?

Technorati Tags: Chennai, Family travel, India, Leprosy, Rising Star Outreach, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, service, Volunteering, Voluntourism