Pune, formerly Puna and Poona, home in the swinging 60's & 70's to Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi and the Orange People, now a fast growing manufacturing and service city 560 metres above sea level in the Deccan region of Maharashtra state. Yesterday we drove for just over an hour from www.shiksangram.com where we had stayed for 11 nights in fairly spartan surroundings up in the Western Ghats; washing from a bucket, eating vegetarian rice & chapattis with the kids, trying to make ourselves understood in a Maharati community of 120 children and a dozen or so adults.
Various kids from the most basic of upbringings- garbage sorting, orphans, alcoholic & mentally damaged parents, living on the streets, on railways platforms, with severe growth deficiencies now given an opportunity to have a roof over their heads, three meals a day and an education. Amazing, friendly, resilient boys and girls from the ages of 6 to 18 who wrung the cynicism and Western world-weariness from us, whose love of living and learning has made our journey worth it. We've promised to go back and we will with a better grasp of what we can assist with. Fundraising can also be done now we have lived amongst the kids and we better understand their needs.
Tomorrow we head back to the coast, to Goa, formerly a Portuguese colony for 5 nights before Sri Lanka beckons.
Pune is a typical indian city with noise everywhere, duelling tuctucs, rubbled strewn pavements under large poster ads for luxury goods. It is such a contrast to our time at the childrens shelter where possessions are few, kids go to school in shifts and spend much time doing homework afterwards. Some of the classes in their schools have sixty kids, and numbers are growing fast. A good sign in rural area that families value what education can give their children, especially the girls. It is difficult to even think about what the shelter kids have gone through in their short lives before they came to Shiksangram and then to see them as the confident young people they are becoming, happy to stand in front of a large group and speak in English, perform traditional dances and martial arts. We have been very privileged to have had this insight and in so doing, reviewing how we live, are much of the trappings of modern life really vital to living fulfilled lives?
Various kids from the most basic of upbringings- garbage sorting, orphans, alcoholic & mentally damaged parents, living on the streets, on railways platforms, with severe growth deficiencies now given an opportunity to have a roof over their heads, three meals a day and an education. Amazing, friendly, resilient boys and girls from the ages of 6 to 18 who wrung the cynicism and Western world-weariness from us, whose love of living and learning has made our journey worth it. We've promised to go back and we will with a better grasp of what we can assist with. Fundraising can also be done now we have lived amongst the kids and we better understand their needs.
Tomorrow we head back to the coast, to Goa, formerly a Portuguese colony for 5 nights before Sri Lanka beckons.
Pune is a typical indian city with noise everywhere, duelling tuctucs, rubbled strewn pavements under large poster ads for luxury goods. It is such a contrast to our time at the childrens shelter where possessions are few, kids go to school in shifts and spend much time doing homework afterwards. Some of the classes in their schools have sixty kids, and numbers are growing fast. A good sign in rural area that families value what education can give their children, especially the girls. It is difficult to even think about what the shelter kids have gone through in their short lives before they came to Shiksangram and then to see them as the confident young people they are becoming, happy to stand in front of a large group and speak in English, perform traditional dances and martial arts. We have been very privileged to have had this insight and in so doing, reviewing how we live, are much of the trappings of modern life really vital to living fulfilled lives?
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