Bal Ashram ... so far

November 4th - November 11th:

As we passed through Virat Nagar, a village about 2 kilometers from Bal Ashram, I began to see the poverty and low standard of living (monetary term) that I had read about in some of my classes while attending university ... children bathing in the muddy water running along side of the road 10 feet down from the 40 year old man pissing in that same water. As a result, my mind started to race wondering about my time at Bal Ashram and what it would prove to be like.
A few minutes later we pulled up to the compound; the ground dirt and gravel with rock/flower/small tree lined walkways leading from building to building with shrub decorated hills in the background.

After greeting the manager and a few other staff members I made my way to my dormitory where Indian Wasps were flying all around in what I can describe best as orderly chaos. They were surrounding the door to my room, the entrance to the restroom ... everywhere. After watching 3 boys just walk right into my room, I stepped up to the challenge and just walked through while Dane Cook's joke about bee's played in my head.

At first I was a bit uncomfortable being dirty, having wasps fly continuously around me (at least while going to my dormitory and the restroom) and being unable to shake the feeling that mosquito's were swarming around me like I and the other kids on my block would swarm around the Ice Cream Man as his jingle jangle played around our street. Little did I know that these daily obstacles (the mosquito thing I have yet to shake due to the random bites that keep popping up) would add to the flavor and my overall happiness with being here. This place has become my sanctuary ... my haven in India.

I cannot begin to describe the pleasure that I have taken from being here in just this short amount of time. These kids are amazing. They have such an appreciation for life and one could not guess, nor would one want to, that these children were beaten, starved and forced to work for minimal or no pay ... many of them simply sold to employers by con artists who convince their parents to give them up or sometimes by even their own family members.

As I said in an earlier blog, these kids have hearts of gold and smiles to go along with it. They are very smart and one of the older ones, someone I now call a friend and mean it, even won the 2006 International Children's Peace Prize (Nobel Peace Prize for kids). He, as the others, will go on to do great things in life at the rate he is going.

They all study hard and play even harder. It amazes me how people can be so resilient. Their warmth and desire to better themselves as well as those around them is something that I admire.

I am happy here. Truly happy. I cannot recall a time when I have consistently laughed as much as I have here. Everything these kids do, they do with a smile. The most mundane tasks all of a sudden become a new game or a dramatic battle between competing factions and then ending in hysterical laughter.

This is home.