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Reflections of IndiaGeorge Foster — Hamilton, ON This being my first trip to India I was unprepared for the scene as we landed in Mumbai: crowds of people awaiting flights, baggage porters, street peddlers, beggars, taxis, buses, and rickshaws. It was the middle of the night but it seemed more like rush hour back in Toronto — a proverbial sea of humanity.
It was a scene that could have happened hundreds of years ago: women washing and beating their clothes on rocks in a river, water buffalo wading in a pond formed by the stream, women carrying water jugs on their heads, and a farmer plowing his field with oxen. When a SCAW team arrives at a location it is like Christmas, Festival Day, and New Year’s all rolled into one. The children are dressed in their new clothes waiting patiently in lines. The parents and overseas volunteers are milling around the site. As the team moves through the location it is not hard to break the discipline that the teachers have instilled in the children by reaching out to touch their hands. The lines can easily become disorganized. One distribution was at a stone quarry and gravel pit and many of the children’s parents worked there. As we approached the distribution area there seemed to be a layer of dust covering the site. We were to learn later that the children had arrived in huge trucks used in the stone and gravel business. As the children filed in to be photographed what a chore it was to get them to look up and smile as they sat down in front of a bedkit arranged on the ground in front of them. I could not imagine their thoughts as they stared down at the shiny new school supplies, clothes, and bedding — things they likely had never seen before. After the photo as they came to the location to personally receive their bedkit from the SCAW team member the smiles broke out. What a delight it was to place this bundle in their arms. Some of the older children were helpers in the distribution and these children were overjoyed at seeing their less fortunate classmates receiving a bedkit and school supplies.
Alexander Papaderos in his book, The Meaning of Life, talked about when he was a small child during the Second World War. He lived in a remote village on the island of Crete. One day Alexander found broken pieces of a mirror from a motorcycle on the road. He tried to find all the pieces and put them together but it was not possible, so he only kept the largest piece which he scratched on a stone to make it round. As he played with his new toy he became fascinated by the fact that he could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine — in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for him to get light into the most inaccessible places he could find. As he grew up he would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of his childhood game. Eventually he grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what he might do with his life: he was not the source of light but a reflector of light. Light — truth, understanding, and knowledge — can only shine in many dark places if it is reflected. Perhaps this could also be a metaphor for our lives. As we reflect light into the dark places in the lives of these children by bringing them bedkits we are trying to bring them truth, understanding, and knowledge. At one of our later distributions, a small group of physically challenged children came through the line and a label came up that said: Making Life Better, One Child at a Time. Our team felt that this was the message we were all carrying on our trip and we chose this label to be displayed in our team photo. |
On our first distribution we drove down a busy highway with trucks, motorcycles, buses, and scooters all with horns blaring and turned onto a rural concession and immediately took a step back in time.
As the day wore on I watched as photos were taken and labels changed naming different cities and towns in Canada, the US, and the UK. How proud I was to think that donors cared to make a difference in a child’s life. When some of the overseas volunteers questioned me about the meaning on the labels, I explained that some donors had given multiple donations of three, five, ten, or more bedkits. I think some of them could not comprehend the generosity of our donors. I felt honoured to be representing SCAW and all our generous donors.