Chai, Chai, Chai!

"Chai, chai, chai!"
This basically sums up what I have been hearing for the past few days, as we have spent a considerable amount of time on a train. To start off, I got to India about 12:30 AM and was picked up by a representative of the company at the airport where we drove to the hotel. This, my friend, is where I received my, almost literal, crash course introduction into the driving habits in India. This understood chaos is filled with horns and but inches passing between other cars. Ha, any driver wouldn't stand a chance here. Anyways, Ben Mesch showed up at the crack of 430 in Delhi and woke me and Magnus (a fellow volunteer from Iceland, he is very cool). Then, the three of us were given the rare opportunity to share a bed. Great, ha ha. After this we took a bus to Jaipur in Rajasthan where the IDEX (the company i'm volunteering with)'s main office. We find out that there are 31 girls also volunteering from Europe! Great day, right? Sadly, ALL are working a different project site. So, it is just the three guys. Yep....

Now, I am in Jhalaraptan which is only 8km from our project site in Jhalawar. Jhalaraptan is a small city yet the people are amazing. The openness and sincerity is baffling.. So many smiles! These people are going to change me! Ah! ha ha... We start work on Monday and visit the project site tomorrow. There we will see the slums (just like Slumdog Millionaire, possibly worse) where the Kanjar live. Let me explain their situation, the Kanjar are labeled criminals by birth because of certain British policies (that are now nonexistent) but still are very much ingrained the people's minds. Basically, if there is a crime, the first people the poilce blame are the Kanjar. This starts a cycle--- The men get arrested and the only way to get them out of jail is to bribe the police. The wives, then, tell the sons to go and make illegal liquor to sell (many of which get caught), perform petty stealing crimes for people, or the wives will sell their daughters into prostitution (many, many girls have the terrible fate). The men are out now, yes, but a cycle emerges because of the idea that the Kanjar are alraedy criminals which makes them perform crimes because of this ingrained idea. Does that make sense? I hope so.. Either way, children are sometimes left all alone after the age of 6 months because parents flee the police into forests. Children, and parents alike, know nothing of the importance of education. This leads to the terrible situation not improving because of lack of education. Ok, this is gettign long.. In the end, we plan to teach them A LOT of things including, English, math, Hindi, cleanliness, importance of schools (including parents).

We start on Monday.... a very scary thought actually. Knowing that I will be up in front of classroom of 20-30 kids alone, most likely, is kinda scary. Also, things like lack of sleep and gettign used to food add to these feelings of uneasiness. Essentially, culture shock. Lots of anxiety...

But, this should soon pass. Then, I will have the wonderful opportunity to get some much, much needed healing in. I know that if I work at it, I can really change my spirituality for good. Being immersed in a culture where things that I want (calmness, peace of mind) are generally second nature, will be the catalyst. But, will I put forth the work? We shall see.

Thanks for reading
Namaste