We have just had our first lesson in Indian style movie dancing this afternoon. This serves as our entertainment after our day of work here. Speaking of which, I will share a typical day now that I am finishing my first week here.

Our days begins with a traditional Yoga class at 7am, breakfast at 8:30 and preparing for our day’s work from then until our 10am departure by van along a narrow, windy and extremely bumpy road.  We reach the Sheela Chowk Daycare Center by 10:15am and stand outside to greet the 15 children as they come.

The school is a 12 x 20 cement slab with four concrete walls (sadly I still cannot get my laptop to work and that inhibits me from uploading pictures but I am still trying to get this solved!), a door and one 3 x 3 opening with steel bars to serve as a window. Thankfully, volunteers before me have painted colorful murals inside and out to make it more cheery. There is one table that serves as the teacher’s desk, her chair and 10 plastic chairs for 15 children. There is no electricity and no running water. They run outside to go to the bathroom and when they run back we pour cold water from buckets over their hands to wash them. There is one gas burner where the teacher’s helper cooks lunch for the children each day. Each of these Preschools is funded by the Government of India and their main goal is to track the growth and provide immunizations and supplements for the malnourished. Melissa (my partner volunteer, a very sweet 19 year old college student from Northern California) and I are assigned to the poorest of these Preschools here in Dharamsala so many of the children arrive hungry and when the burlap bags are layed evenly across the floor for lunch at 12:20pm, they excitedly take their seats there and hold out their steel bowls that some have brought from home in a sack. This is the only time that silence permeates this little cement room as they hungrily cup their small fingers into human spoons and shovel the rice mixture with precision into their mouths. Not one grain of rice drops to the ground. We were informed by the Staff that takes care of us here that all these children come from homes that can at least give them two meals a day.  This time of day is both saddening and gratifying at the same time. On one hand they are so happy and we have helped fill the past 2 1/2 hours with happy learning and play, and on the other hand the sadness just creeps in as we get ready to leave for the day.  I guess it is the mere helplessness one feels at the mercy of this   poverty .  But I am quickly snapped out of my sad thoughts when we wave goodbye.  I throw big kisses and I hear a cheery chorus of “good bye DeeDee” (which means older sister in Hindi), followed by a few advanced students who yell in English, “see you tomorrow”!  As we drive off in our van, a few children run to the front door to wave us off until we have driven completely out of sight.  Ah, another day…pause…we decompress from the physical and emotional toll it takes on both of us on our 15 minute drive home.

So, an afternoon of the fun and fantasy of Bollywood surely lifts us all to a happier place…even if it is just an afternoon.

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