Orphanage in India Part 5 of 6

Mission Trip to Andhra Pradesh, India

Part 5: Mud Huts and Paella

By Elizabeth Dewhurst

Independence Day celebrations were barely over when a car adorned with Indian flags pulled up at the campus. Our Spanish guests, Rueben and Elena, had finally arrived. They had intended to be at the Independence Day Party but their gruelling 48 hour journey from the Spanish coast involved the incredible frustration of travelling with Air India. So we’re lucky they arrived at all! 

No matter how inexpensive the flights seem, travelling with Air India is not something anyone here would recommend. It’s a horrendously-run government enterprise, renowned for appalling service. Whilst the fortunate government employees are guaranteed a job for life, customers soon discover there is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to their flights. It is not uncommon for flights that you have booked even the day before not to exist once you arrive at the airport to check in. There’s absolutely no point in checking in on the internet – it means nothing. And don’t be surprised if a journey that’s advertised as having one stop, involves taking off and landing several times, to fly to cities in the opposite direction, before actually reaching the place where you need to disembark!

Reuben and Elena

It’s been good fun getting to know Reuben and Elena this week. They are an engaged couple, who, although a little older than David and I, are used to the way of life here, having visited the campus before. The children love them and remember them from last year. Elena has joined me in teaching the younger pupils at the school. Meanwhile Reuben, who is very practical, has turned his hand to buying wood and bricks to construct various essential items. He is currently knocking some desks together. None of the classrooms have desks at the moment and the children either work on the floor or on their laps. It’s been all hands on deck for the construction projects and the bewildered Bible college students have been learning how to mix cement and lay bricks. There’s no cement mixer – and even if one was available, no one would buy it because that sort of thing’s just too expensive.

Debate and Relax

Labour here is so cheap that it usually costs far less to pay people for many days work than to buy or hire a piece of machinery that could help you do it in a fraction of the time. What’s more, before doing anything, everyone has to give their opinion as to how it should be done, so you have to factor in plenty of discussion time too. The only way to survive in India is to relax and accept that everything is going to take ages. Luckily Reuben is a very patient guy and is making progress on the projects despite lengthy debates and misunderstandings at every turn. Building the outdoor bread oven is the only practical project I’ve been involved in. It was only supposed to take a couple of days to build but a week later only the base is finished!Indian Paella and Home Alone

Reuben is also a professionally trained chef. The other night he cooked a huge Spanish paella over an open fire for the whole campus. Well, strictly speaking it was the Indian version of paella because Samuel said the children wouldn’t be able to eat it bland. And by bland he means without stirring in a few tubs of hot chilli powder. Reuben obliged, squirming as he did so, knowing that it would probably taste nothing like paella. It was delicious and not surprisingly, the children loved it. We all ate outside together on the tarpaulin, followed by what the children call cinema. Cinema is an exciting treat here. Everyone sits on the floor whilst a film is projected onto a huge whitish sheet between two wooden poles. That night we watched ‘Home Alone’ which they had obviously seen before and found absolutely hilarious. They love the slapstick humour but given most of the children’s understanding of English I can’t imagine they appreciate much of the dialogue. Nonetheless, blonde haired star of the show, Kevin, who looks like an ‘alien' as far as they’re concerned, is a bit of a hero on the campus.

Mud Hut Church

We also visited Gudivada this week with a group of the children. Gudivada is the first village where Samuel and Nicky preached the Gospel. Two years later, Wasu, the tailor at the campus, is pastoring a small church there, where 20 people have since become believers and attend regularly. It was very exciting to see the mud hut church and the land where they plan to build a proper church building one day. We also heard that the day we went, two more people in the village were saved.

Crammed In The Boot

Gudivada was mercifully only a few kilometres away but it certainly seemed like longer to the 14 of us crammed into the campus jeep, which feels full with just 7 people inside. However, 8 of our group were small children who came along to sing, and crammed into the boot, they undoubtedly had the worst seats and felt the potholes even more acutely than I did sitting up front. We had to stop several times as the bumper kept falling off but the journey was otherwise pretty uneventful. The bumper problems were blamed solely on the 2 campus lambs whose days I fear are numbered as a result. I’m sure they will be very tasty though!

It is a treat for the children to be taken out on trips and those who had been chosen because they had been very well behaved also got out of doing homework that night. On the journey, they practised the songs they were going to sing in the village. Luckily, Samuel asked them to stop before anyone went deaf or hoarse from the sing-shouting that is so popular here. 

Village Church Service

We arrived in the tiny village to peanut and treacle snacks (some of the best I’ve had whilst in India) and refreshing lemon drinks. Despite a late start and no power for most of the service, the meeting in the village went well. The children sang very enthusiastically. Little KaliKumar, whose early growth was severely stunted due to rickets, was eager to shout into the microphone and lead the singing during the brief spurts of power. As with all Indian churches that I’ve been to, when there was electricity, the speakers were turned up to maximum volume so that everyone in the district could hear what was going on.

Don’t Change Your Shopping List

Nicky talked about the Bible story of the widow’s oil to demonstrate that when God says something, you must do it, even if it seems ridiculous. And then when God blesses you, you should be very careful what you use the blessing for. The widow had to use the money to pay her debts and because she did so, she always had plenty. One of Samuel’s sayings is, “When money comes, don’t change your shopping list.” A lot of people do, and get themselves in trouble. Suddenly they have money and want so much more than they did before. Yet they’d be far better off keeping the same shopping list and being happy. Samuel has a very simple way of putting things and repeats a lot of sayings like this which I hope I can remember in the future!

Indian Babies

After the preaching, Samuel prayed for everyone who came forward, which was basically the whole church. He prayed for a deaf and dumb man and then a couple with a baby. Seeing babies here is always shocking at first. There are almost always bald and if they aren’t you know they’re due for a shave pretty soon. This is of course so they will grow up to have thick hair. Apparently turmeric is constantly smeared over baby girls’ legs to stop hair growing although I haven’t seen too many orange legged children. However, what is most striking about Indian babies is that they look like they haven’t slept for weeks on account of the huge dark circles round their eyes. According to Nicky, smearing mascara, or whatever the equivalent is, thickly round the eyes of young children is thought to have a cooling effect. I can’t see it catching on in England and I can hardly think of any similarities between rural India and where I grew up! I can’t believe this coming week will be my last week here at the campus. I’m sure it will be as hectic as ever!