This morning, riding my bicycle from my morning yoga practise with Sajee, I smiled a ‘good morning’ smile to one of his neighbours. “Good morning,” he said, “Yoga is finished for today?”
“Yoga is never finished”, I replied.
Sajee teaches a lot about selfless service. It is the same idea as tikkun olam. It is not enough to pray and commune with God. We benefit too from acting Godly. Selfless Service.
This afternoon, Sajee, Alicia, Paul and I took the local bus about 7 kilometres to the Shilpa Special School. Shilpa was a young energetic girl who suffered in her life with mental handicap. She also suffered from several attacks and diseases because she was born with a hole in her heart. Shilpa died at age 11 and her parents, (both of whom are doctors) established and created a school for mentally handicapped children to service this needy population in Kerela.
The children in the school number about 175. There are about 40 teachers all of whom have specific training in special education.
It was immediate energy as we entered the two-tiered building. There were children everywhere, some of whom could barely walk because of deformations in their legs. Many were completely non-verbal. Some had limited or no use of their upper body. Several had mongoloid characteristics. And all of them wore huge smiles and were animated in their desire to make contact with us and to play.
I had such a great time being with so many of the kids. I was able to sit with several during the hour or so we were there and just play. Making letters with clay, writing on paper together, colouring in the lines, reading books all made them happy. And it made me so happy too.
There was one large table where several special men were sitting. The school services them too. They come to school everyday and make paper bags from newspaper. I watched them for a while and then I asked one of them, Lenni, to teach me how to do it too. With Lenni’s help, I made a paper bag from newspaper. Lenni was so excited to be my teacher. I was thrilled to be his student. It just reinforces what I believe…. we are all teachers in this world because we are all learners.
I got to speak to many of the teachers and we spent quite a bit of time with the Principal. The Vice Principal invited us back. I told her if we come back to Fort Cochin for a month or so, I would love to volunteer at the school. She was so excited. I would certainly make that part of why I would come back here…..Yoga, Ayurveda, volunteering!
Paul and I are also going to arrange to purchase a bunch of tambourines, and shakers and drums to send to the school before we leave. It wouldn’t cost that much for us, and it would be such a wonderful gift for them!
We said good-bye to Sajee today. He is a special teacher and I have no doubt we will connect again. He just got an email account and he says he checks email daily so I’m sure we will be able to stay in touch. I have learned so much from him, and he has given us such a rich Yoga practise.
It’s Shabbat evening in Fort Cochin. Paul and I went to the synagogue, our second Shabbat experience since we’ve been in India. I have to say it was a better experience than the first, in Arombol. People were friendly. Mostly everyone there was a traveller. The fact is there are only 10 Jews left in Cochin and one of them invited us to dinner. That felt good. It was nice, but Paul and I decided we would decline and have a nice last dinner here on our own.
We have an early morning auto rickshaw booked for tomorrow to take us to the bus station in Ernakulum for our 6-hour ride to Thekkady. We’re going to ride elephants!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment