Visit to Amaravathi

What brings my husband and I to India, besides visiting family and friends, is a commitment to accompanying and encouraging an underserved minority group, recently moved into makeshift neighborhoods, in developing family and community life. Over the last ten years, the project has pretty much settled on the mutually agreed-upon priority of supplementing the education of their children.

The latest addition to the project is a group of about sixty families living just half a block from a museum of local and Buddhist history in the village of Amaravathi.  (Amaravathi is the name chosen from a trio of cities/towns rapidly being developed as the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. Andhra
was divided in two, two years ago, with this, the east side of the 'old' state, retaining the name while the western portion, now named Telangana, retains the 'old' capital,Hyderabad.) Here, however, when I say Amaravathi,  I'll just be talking about the neighborhood we're working with.

My husband was asked to consider working with this group, and made a visit or two last year to assess the situation. He was impressed with the need, and agreed with a few elders that we would provide a teacher to supervise and coach their youngsters in the evening.  Then the search for a willing, educated person in a nearby neighborhood began..  We made  one visit before one was found.

Visit number one: December    , Visit to Amaravati Franklin and Shirley walked about a block from car to the church building where the evening school is to be held, just a few blocks from the bus stand, museum, and historic Buddhist sites which are being developed for tourism purposes.  We sat on picnic chairs brought from homes nearby...homes ranging from sticks and rags to sticks and palm leafs to concrete block structures of one or more rooms, amidst piles of rock and sand for ongoing construction. Aside from the single concrete road on which we walked, there were no roads. People watched us, smiled if we made eye contact. Children gathered for the evening school—Franklin started interviewing them right away...many were unkempt, and in charge of a toddler or two.  Children literally tumbled in and out the door whose threshold was four concrete steps and a high wooden lintel?) 

Small Pleasures

Saturday, November 25, 2017 10:07:28 AM                                 (Actually, January 23, 2018)
Subject: Thanksgiving Greetings are always current
Dear Friends,

‘Giving thanks for you all, and your part in our lives. Reading Ps 100 in The Message Bible, ‘found appropriate verses for you all: “Bring the gift of laughter, “ and “Know the password: ‘thank you.’” And you do, and so we do. God bless you all w health, healing, family laughter and spiritual enrichment.

Who knew that 'season's greeting' message to friends, sent just before our annual trip to India, would figure in a blog nearly two months overdue. The Psalm verse jumped out of my  devotional reading that morning, and laughter and thanks have been on my mind ever since.

Humor is important for our health because of the endorphinine warm fuzzies it brings and for our relationships because it's a sharing of friendship, a bonding experience. But laughter based on words can be elusive in a foreign language. Linguists say it's the enth degree of foreign language learning-- and I'm not there yet.  Whether in a small group or large gathering, a foreigner can feel a bit (understatement) left out of camaraderie in a foreign language, even lonely, when she doesn't get the point about which everyone else is laughing. Even more so when you are evidently involved in the meaning, but have to ask what it's about, and the moment for joining in the laughter, thus allowing the possibility that you are, after all, a good sport, has passed.

All the same, there's no use crying in the soup (see, that one could take a bit of interpretation--even to a younger generation of English speakers), because life is short, and there's so much to be thankful for, including humorous, dear, or striking observations and occurrences that simply cause a person to smile.

Some of this season's smiles:

Pushpa (our household helper)'s  joyful nature and smile, despite language differences.

Narrowly escaping the angry flutter of a pigeon which often  rests on top of the air conditioner unit on our laundry verandah.

The laughter of half a dozen little children who live with their  (six or eight) families in two lines of connected rooms under corrugated rooftops, just under our back window. I can hear little voices calling to each other and their mothers in the slate lane between their homes;
small twins fighting over a low stool where the winner squats only briefly while the 'loser' feigning nonchalance, wanders away, probably already planning her own adventures, the laughing of childish voices, little ones playing around a mother washing clothes or dishes at the common tap in the corner of the lane.

Realizing( for the enth time) that the daily, early morning pounding sound in the neighborhood is not the sound of construction, but of the mother slapping twists of wet laundry against the slate before rinsing them--an early version of the washing machine.

The absence of construction sounds (think truck motors dumping sand and other materials in the night, scraping of hand-mixed cement, pounding, workers calling back and forth) which the neighborhood has had in the last couple of years.

Blooming aedeneum and miniature orchid plants in pots, one by our front door and one on the coffee table, courtesy of a sisterinlaw.

Glancing out our fourth floor  window and noticing youth playing badminton (here, aka shuttle cock) on a ROOFTOP (?!) across the street.

When you really do get the joke, no matter who it's about.

Warm, crisp dosais for breakfast.

Stunning tv  performances of song (classical Indian music) and modern dance by children

A security guard, bystander, our driver's hand offered to help lest I falter on the commonly uneven ground and un-protected stairs outside many homes and public buildings.

Remembering to be thankful for (most) everything, even the awkwardness. It's all part of the mix.