Many people have sent me emails wanting to know how the visit to Amma's orphanage went. As I mentioned very briefly, it was by far one of the most positive experiences I've had while here. Before getting to the details of the visit itself, I should say a little about the 1 1/2 drive there. First, even though up high views show so much jungle, driving through the jungle on the small village roads is a whole other story. It's amazing how many people have carved out living spaces in the jungle and from there spring up these little outdoor "convenience" stores to service them. A village may consist of maybe a handful of homes, an outdoor temple, a few small cow or goat pastures, and a convenience store. These dot the road ways amongst the relentless jungle growth. The homes range from huts made of the native plants to simple cinder block construction with no visible wiring or plumbing or glass in the windows to very elaborate beautiful modern homes. Most are painted with very bright tropical colors. For any constructed house, the roof is always flat with obvious use as the laundry facility--clothes drying in the sun and breeze.
We drove through one really big city, Kollam, which is the Cashew Capital of the world! Felt a bit of kindred spirit since my home town of Firebaugh is the Cantaloupe Capital of the world. The traffic and noise was wild. We drove home in a terrible rain storm which made the drive even more harrowing as Indians don't really have traffic lanes, you just drive in the free space of the road in front of you. You have cars, trucks, buses, vans,bicyclist, motorbikes, rickshaws, etc all competing for that same space. At any given time, the road could be a two to 6 lane thoroughfare but with no change in the width of it! The main point of driving in India seems to be to go as fast as you can, honk your horn as often as you can, and avoid oncoming traffic which is also using whatever free space it has in front of it. It's impressive how few accidents they have and the horn honking seems to be critical in alerting people your intentions of passing. Really crazy! Best not to look out the front window and hope you have a very experienced driver.
Now for the details of the orphanage visit..........First, there is a clear stigma attached to calling these children "orphans" and we were told that it can increase their bad karma so we were asked to just call them "the children." The orphanage cares for between 400 to 500 children ages 10 to 15 years old. Apparently in the state of Kerela, there are very strict laws about guardianship of a child under the age of 10. While Amma would like to have these children come as early as age three, there are many prohibitions to being able to do that. How children get here is varied. Many have horrendous family situations such as witnessing their father kill their mother, being seriously malnourished, horribly neglected, victims of sexual and physical abuse, or families just do not have the resources to feed one more child. Someone either brings the child to Amma's orphanage or they bring them to her when she is doing her tour program around various parts of India. Obviously there is a great need for so many more children but for whatever reason (karma I suspect) these are the chosen few. And chosen they are because once they come to Amma's orphanage, their lives change dramatically from being terribly cursed to be tremendously blessed. I just can not fully describe how innocent, sweet, playful, curious, joyful, loving, inviting, engaged, and inspiring these children are. They all seemed incredibly attractive and physically beautiful. The girls just love to hold your hand and have you sit near them. They are so welcoming (at least the ones that are not so shy they just peek down from their rooms to the courtyard we were visiting in). When we arrived we were served the traditional Indian Chai tea and feted to the boys playing traditional temple music and the girls performing both temple spiritual dances and tribal dances. We also sang devotional songs with them. The children are provided a top rate academic education as well as training in traditional temple rituals and spiritual practices, especially the girls, as many temple traditions have been the sole domain of men and Amma is all about women's rights. They are also trained in their tribal songs and dances as well as Sanskrit and learning the sacred texts of the Hindu religion. They are very healthy and well groomed and exude a genuine happiness. Some do look like their growth may have been stunted due to early deprivation but overall they all looked really good. They are not at all exposed to any popular culture from what I could tell which may explain their innocence. Because we were largely a group of women going on this visit, we mainly spent time with about 60 of the girls. It was exam week at the school so many of the students were either in classes or studying. The boys joined us for the performances but then went back to their classrooms and dormitory. In India, there are very strict cultural rules about males and females not mixing (though boys and girls are very affectionate with each other amongst their own gender). I sat near the younger boys on the floor during the girl's dance performances and they were very curious about so many things. It's so adorable in that ALL the kids know at least one sentence in English "What is your name?" I must have said "My name is Rose." about 50 times. They gladly and proudly tell you their names which I needed to ask them to repeat at least twice or more as they are totally unfamiliar sounding to me. Some also know "What is your language?" After that, it's all about guessing, hand gestures, facial expressions, miming, etc.
After the performances, there was a Q and A session and I asked what happens after the age of the 15. The response was that if it safe by then for children to return to their homes or villages then they are sent back with some kind of employable skill. Amma has several projects in the city of this orphanage so the kids can learn various trades (the Amrita Hospital is a major site for vocational training as the kids can be trained from anything as varied as construction, maintenance, plumbing, electrician, patient care, cooking, office work, etc). If it is not safe for them to go home, then they will be employed at the one of Amma's projects and suitable housing will be found for them in the community. If the child shows good academic capabilities and is desirous of attending college and graduate school then Amma will fully support all the expenses for them to do so. It's pretty amazing what Amma is willing to do for these children to turn their lives around. As is traditional in Indian culture, marriages are arranged by the parents for their children. Since many of these children do not have parents, Amma will be the one to arrange their marriages and provide their dowries. The girls are quite giggly when talking about that. After the Q and A session and one more dance we were then served lunch by some of the older girls. After lunch we had a little over an hour to just hang out with the girls in the big courtyard between the dormitory and the new school being constructed. I had hoped that we would have gotten to see their dorms and the actual classrooms but that didn't happen.
When Amma was approached about taking over the orphanage over 20 years ago, it was at a time that the Ashram was just starting to attract more people and had outgrown its very small original space for holding meditation and darshan. Amma's devotees had raised some funds to begin building a larger temple space but when Amma was asked to take over the orphanage, she gave all the money that had been raised for expanding the ashram to the children to make sure they had enough to eat, proper shelter and care, and schooling--apparently all of that had been severely lacking which is why she was asked to take it over in the first place. She put one of her long time bramacharinis, who loved children, in charge. She has remained there for over 20 years. It's such an amazing story but classic for Amma caring about "her" children first and foremost. It's very sweet how the children call all of their adult female caretakers and even the female cook by their name followed by the word amma which means Mother. So if I worked with them, they would call me "Rose Amma." I think out of respect for the children and the need to be fluent in Malayalam, the native language, they don't place any Westerners to work at the orphanage. It's all Indian bramacharis and bramacharinis and a few local people (like the cook).
There is construction going on of a HUGE new school building because this school is one of the top rated schools in Kerela for Sanskrit and over 4000 day students come here to study as well. The director was saying that as soon as it is built, it will already be too small as the number of enrollees continues to grow.
With respect to what song or game or dance I shared with the kids, I was saved from having to do any of those things and got to do what I do best! Talk to teenage girls!!! As it turns out, there was a shifting group of about 4 to 6 of the older girls (with a core of two girls) who really wanted to try to speak English. So that was perfect. One of the girls actually had a relatively reasonable grasp of the English language and was able to help with basic interpreting with the other girls who were joining in off and on. I felt my sign language skills came in very handy in our attempts to bridge the communication gap as many of the signs are iconic and offer a shared visual symbol. We actually covered a lot of territory. One girl wants to be a computer engineer, another a police officer, and another a district manager. They all want to get married but each only wanted one child. Two wanted a girl because they would be fun to dress up and the other wanted a boy because there is no fuss to dressing them. They don't have a lot of desire for visiting America even though they are studying the US map now in school. They love India. We laughed when I told them my daughter is 25 because they thought maybe I was thirty and then I confessed that I dye my hair. They were excited that Kelly wants to be a doctor and thought she had a beautiful name.....I think because it sounds so close to a very high profile female Hindu Goddess, Kali. They asked about my husband's name and when I told them his Amma's Hindu given name,Vanamali, they were all very impressed and it just rolled off their tongue when they repeated it. When I told them his American name, Bob, they tried to say it several times and just never quite got it. When they asked me about my job, I tried to explain about being a psychologist and working with deaf children and teens with anorexia. Not really sure what they took away from that attempt. By the end of our conversation, they were inviting me to stay and live and work at the orphanage. A couple of the girls were passing around a notebook and asking us to sign it. Athira, the girl with the best English, took a page and wrote me note with all the girls names I had been talking with and then wrote "Rose is the children's mother." It was really sweet. When we had to say goodbye, there was so much hugging, kissing of cheeks, waving and being escorted by the whole group back to our bus. The goodbyes took at least 15 minutes to get through. So I totally lucked out and connected with the girls in a way that was very satisfying to all of us. I will say that several of the other women came well prepared with simple games like hand string games or art supplies. The girls also loved seeing pictures and videos people were taking of them with their phones or cameras. We had one 8 year Spanish girl on the tour with her mother and grandmother. When she stepped off the bus, she was just swooped up by the girls, it was like she was in the middle of a beehive. They all wanted to touch her and play with her hair and see her doll and backpack. She handled it really well. They included her in everything they did and just loved her to no end. The boys were also very curious about her but had to limit their enthusiasm, which was kind of sad. It would have been fun to interact with them as well.
So the visit was so joyful and uplifting and sweet, an exact reflection of the children's personas and Amma's ever flowing love. I would recommend it to anyone coming to visit the Ashram. It will remain THE high point of my time here.
On the way back, I had a great conversation with a woman who has been traveling about the world and hasn't been home to Czechoslovakia for 3 years. She is touring India on her own after she leaves the ashram then is off to New Zealand to work and make some money on a communal farm then on to Australia ("since it is so close to New Zealand") then off to South America after that to study with Shamans. I told her I could never do what she is doing. She said she thought that same thing at one time in her life but then she just decided she wanted to see the world and now she is doing just that--she did say it was scary at times but more times very rewarding for all the people she has met and places she has spent time. I so admire that sense of openness to adventure and experience but I am way too anxious for anything like that. She also spent four months in Bellingham (a town about 60 miles from Seattle) and a week in NYC, so we could definitely share experiences of those places.
Even though we missed Hurricane Irene in NYC, we had tremendous monsoon rains for several hours on Tuesday--totally cancelled our backwater boat tour (as did the rain again the next day). This was by far the most intense rain we've experienced in the four weeks of being here. Just a constant downpour for over a couple of hours with majorly gusty winds. Big puddles and rivulets forming everywhere. What we missed in NYC with the hurricane, we got a good taste of here with a major monsoon rain. Supposedly during the peak of the monsoon season, it's like what it was for these few hours today, all day every day for several weeks in a row. I don't know how people manage.
Just a little update about the elephant we visited. Turns our this elephant, Lakshmi, is a rescued elephant given to Amma that has a history of abuse. So I think the habitual head nodding up and down may be a long time behavior. Anyway, I was so happy to see that Lakshmi was brought over to the ashram to be fed by Amma after she finished with her devotional singing. We were able to get close enough in the crowd of people to watch her feed Lakshmi these huge biscuits (the size of someone's head) and bananas. She would play with her and Lakshmi trumpeted several times with joy, almost like she was laughing. Amma gave her a bucket of water to which Lakshmi promptly showered herself and everyone at the front of the crowd with sprays of water. It just made me so happy to see Amma shower so much attention on this sweet elephant after having seen it so seemingly isolated last week. It was interesting in that we went to a talk later that night given by Amma's main female swamini and she was saying we should all be like Lakshmi, continually saying "yes" to everything that Amma offers us. It was a very sweet analogy.
I want to thank everyone for being so sweet and engaged with these emails/posts I send out. It's been so joyful for me to share my experiences (the good and the less good) and feel connected while being half way around the world.
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