Meeting My Heroes

Throughout my life, I have met a handful of people I consider my personal heroes.  Among them are my parents, my brother-in-law (haha, just kidding, he's from Oklahoma), and now, the people of the Ekal Vidhalaya program and the villagers of India.  Ekal Vidhalaya runs schools (grades K-3) for children in rural areas all across India ranging in age from 6-14. Generally, these children live too far away from the government schools, or need the better part of the day to help out their families. So the Ekal Vidhalaya program trains rural teachers to educate the children of the village either early in the morning (6-9am) or in the evening (6-9pm).  The cost of a single school you might wonder?  A mere dollar a day.

The children of the Ekal Vidhalaya program in the village of Rehi

When I first heard about this program, I thought that I was overpaid at least a dollar a day, and decided to donate.  The last few days, I went to visit a school that I sponsor, and it very well may have changed the way I view the world.

As soon as we arrived at the village, the village elders greeted me with malas (flower necklaces) and had a look of extreme gratitude in their eyes that is completely indescribable.  I immediately started to get choked up and felt very unworthy.  Then, the village teacher gave the students a lesson so that I could see what a typical class session was like.  It was a nice interactive session where the students would go up to a blackboard and solve math problems or write their ABC's.  I might have expected the children to be able to add and subtract, but I was pleasantly impressed that they could also multiply, divide, and write the English alphabet!  I started to think how when I was that age, many kids in my school couldn't do some of this stuff.  This is especially impressive when you consider that most of their parents can't read or write.

This kid is all over these math problems

After the class was over (which included play time!!), the people running the Ekal Vidhalaya program told the villagers how none of this would be possible without my donation, and then the children all ran over to me and touched my feet (a gesture of respect in Indian culture).  Talk about feeling SUPER undeserving.  To them, I was a hero since this school would not be here without my donation.  I then told them (as best I could, and mostly using hand gestures since they speak Bhojpuri, a local dialect of Hindi) that what I do is very small, and what they do is huge.  The people of the Ekal Vidhalaya program have devoted their lives to creating these schools in the villages and making sure they are meeting the high standards set by the program. Despite my best efforts, I think they still thought I was the hero.

Some of the heroes of the Ekal Vidhalaya program.  The teacher Arti (girl standing in back) along with the Ekal Vidhalaya staff members.

The next day, I went back to the village where I gave a lesson on space, which was really, really fun.  Due to a miscommunication, I was introduced as someone who frequently travels to the moon, which I thought it best to go ahead and let them believe. Then the lesson. Explaining space stuff is hard enough when I'm in front of children in American schools (usually with the awesome Sara Hatch and Joey Brown!), but nothing could have prepared me to explain planets and the solar system to villagers in India.  I wasn't sure what they knew, so I started off with us living in India and India being a part of a bigger thing we call Planet Earth.  Oh, and by the way, the Earth is round.  I think the translator and I were successful in getting the idea of the solar system across, but failed when I was trying to explain that the solar system is just a small piece of a galaxy, which is a small piece of the universe.

"Hooray for space and NASA!"...is what these kids would say if they knew English

That night, I stayed in the village where one of the Ekal Vidhalaya members resides, which in itself was very fun!  Instead of occasional electricity outages like in many parts in India, they seemed to occasionally get electricity.  But of course, they don't have the benefit of having a backup generator like every other place I've visited.  I was then shown the bathroom (that field over there!) and slept on a wooden table where they put their best blankets out for me.  The next day, the highlight of my day was when it was time to shower.  Since there are no bathrooms in villages, the villagers take a bath at the local (government installed) water pump.  You just take off your clothes (keeping under garments on), and take a bath.  For convenience (or maximum embarrassment?), the water pump is placed in the middle of the village.  Everyone knew that I was new to this, so they all enjoyed watching me struggle with operating the hand pump and bathing while squatting.  As if I didn't feel weird enough, I noticed a group of girls watching me and giggling. Oy...

I eventually got the hang of this water pump thing!

While living like a villager for a few days was "fun" for me, it's definitely a simpler life that involves a lot more work for everyday things.  Here, there are no beggars, for they have no one to beg to.  But even if they did, it was easy to tell that they were too full of pride and wouldn't dare ask anyone for anything.  I kept getting treated like royalty (they kept reminding me of the Hindu saying, the guest is God), and they made sure I was as comfortable as possible.  I felt bad since I didn't want any special treatment, but there was no way around it.  Because of all of this, they are my heroes too.

Thanks to Ekal Vidhalaya, there is no shortage of smiling faces in the village of Rehi

Hopefully, with the help of those devoting their time to Ekal Vidhalaya, villagers all across India can overcome poverty through education.  In a day where I saw an impatient driver run over a dog that wouldn't move out from the middle of the road, and a train captain accept a bribe to allow someone without a ticket on the train, I had a renewed sense of hope for India. With everyday heroes like those in the Ekal Vidhalaya program and the villagers of India, anything is possible.

For more information about Ekal Vidhalaya or to make a donation (!!), please visit http://www.ekalindia.org/ekal_new/index.php