Guest blog by Melinda Little
I am homesick today. After being in India less than a week I am missing my life in Houston.
• I am tired from jet-lag, which has been tremendous this trip: I miss my time zone.
• I am missing my favorite work meeting of the year this week: I miss being there with all my friends.
• I am especially missing the variety of food I am used to getting in Houston — the most diverse city in the United States, with its equally diverse variety of food choices (a diversity of which Russell and I partake frequently). The food here has been good, but it’s mostly limited to spicy Indian flavors. I would give my left arm for a Whataburger right about now.
Poverty in Your Face
My homesickness is also due to some of the more troubling issues in India. India is a beautiful country, and her people are wonderful, but the country reminds me how many privileges we have as Americans that much of the world does not.
India has significant poverty because there are more people than there are jobs and low literacy rates. The poverty is often in your face. I am certainly not wealthy by Indian standards (some of the richest people in the world live here), but the difference between “the haves” and “the have-nots” is even more striking than it is in the U.S.
Seeing so much poverty brings into perspective how much I do have: as I write this there is boy beating on the window of our tour bus as we wait to go through the tollbooth. It is heart breaking.
To reduce poverty and increase literacy, in about 1992 the Indian government began providing free food in the schools for children who attend. They hoped by this to encourage children to attend school in rural areas.
As part of the plan, local village women are employed to prepare lunches on the site of the school. Because their children get lunch, this encourages farming families to send their children to school after they help with farming duties in the morning. It took a while to get the formula right so that all the kids come, including girls (who families kept home at first), but the government kept trying. This program has helped significantly decrease the illiteracy rate in India since 1992 by over 10% — from 64% down to 52%.
Visiting a School
Earlier today we visited one such school that our tour company’s foundation has adopted. It is in a rural town, and educates some of the country’s poorest children. The school charges tuition that is the equivalent of about $3 a month — yet some of the families still cannot afford to send their children to the school. Donations like those from the tour company’s foundation provide additional support to allow more children to attend, and that has helped the school expand its program and add more space and classrooms.
The kids were delightful. They swarmed around us asking for us to photograph them. (The camera is a great way to overcome the language barrier). One of the boys took my camera from me and took my picture with some of his friends.
As part of our visit we brought with us some soccer balls for the boys and badminton rackets for the girls, since those types of supplies are not covered by tuition. It was one of the best stops we made on our tour.
Tomorrow we see the other side of the coin as we visit the Taj Mahal.
