George Orwell's birthplace

 

George Orwell was born in the town of Motihari, just about two hours south of Little Flower. It was on the way to the airport in Patna, and we stopped on my way there. 

I had only pretty recently read Animal Farm and Down and out in Paris and London, and I'm a fan.  

Poor Gopal the driver had a very hard time finding the site, and we first bypassed it and then walked down a few wrong alleys. The house isn't well maintained or open to the public, but it was fun to envision the beautiful villa it must have been in 1903.

Goodbye, Little Flower!

Thank you! It was another experience of a lifetime!

This is what happened every time I brought my camera to school. One child asked for me to take a picture, and by the time I had pulled out the camera, this is what I was up against...

My bed, complete with mosquito net.

In the cow pen. My room was on the second floor, the first window at left. 

Village children go to get milk for their mothers, every day at 3 pm. 

Last day at Little Flower

With the housekeepers...

 

We actually had conversations every day in Hindi. I learned that when push comes to shove, you don't need verbs, just mostly a few pronouns  and adjectives. "Namaste!" "Me good! You good?" And they would answer, "No! It's very, very hot! And I have to work all day in the sun!" (They spend hours and hours sweeping outside). And I would answer, "Oh, no! Bad! Very bad! You tired?"

 

I was amazed at how far you can get with 30-40 words.

 

With Jitendra and other children.

Food, glorious food!

This is the kitchen where food is prepared for those, like me, who eat in the dining room. This only includes a handful of people. There's a separate, larger kitchen where they prepare food for the hostel children and the leprosy clinic. 

Here are Nagibunesa and Sakiran, making roti. 

This is breakfast. A mango ("am"), an egg ("anda"), a roti ("roti"), and potatoes ("aloo"). Every day it's the same except for the potatoes which can be replaced by cauliflower or okra. 

I pay extra for my food (6,000 rupees per month = 90 dollars). The others eating around the table pay 2,500 rupees per month (36 dollars) but don't get fruit or eggs. 

This is lunch. It's always rice and watery dahl, plus variable vegetables. When they saw how crazy I was about the mangoes, they only bought mangoes for my fruit. 

I pay extra for brown rice. It seems very rare for anyone to eat that. I was surprised they found it in Raxaul. 

There aren't any utensils except for your fingers.

At lunch with the accountant Anil and his assistant Pinku. Nagibunesa gets bored in the kitchen and comes to join us. 

This is mango season and they are to die for. The cooks laughed at how much I loved the mangoes. 

My last day at Little Flower. The cooks are sad and a little clingy, which can make it hard to eat!

During my last days, I am joined by another paleface. And so I now finally have a few pictures of  myself. 

Ashley is a high school art teacher from D.C. She is at Little Flower for a few weeks during her summer vacation. The kids LOVE her art classes since they normally have no exposure to paper or art supplies and school is not supposed to be fun or enjoyable.

I am back in the United States now, but have just a few more blogs to wrap up from my final days in India.

I started noticing that some children in Little Flower village weren't going to school. In particular, there were two brothers, aged about 5 and 7, who just roamed around in the street. I found that they were neglected and left to themselves most of the time. 

They were sometimes doing dangerous things, like playing in a deep swamp or dangling their feet from the roof of my building. 

I tracked down their mother, who has a very difficult life. She spends all day carrying manure out of the cow stalls. She balances it in a big metal container on her head. She said that her kids had tried to go to school, but that other kids had chased them off. So I had them properly enrolled. Both boys are starting out in preschool. 

After a few days, I saw that the big boy wasn't at morning assembly. I couldn't find him anywhere. I asked the cook Sakiran to show me where they lived. 

Seeing their home made me cry.

You walk into a teeny tiny trash-strewn hallway kitchen, which opens into a filthy, dark bedroom. That's it. That's where two parents, two children, and two grandparents live. The one window is covered with black cloth. It's impossible to take a step without getting goat dung all over your feet. The bed has no mattress or bedding, just a few dirty rags.

I went out and found the boy gathering grass for the goat, holding a little scythe in one hand and wearing only a shirt. He ran away when I called to him. I followed him home, where his grandfather was yelling at him. He must have sent him out for the grass instead of to school. His poor grandfather is severely disabled by leprosy, missing fingers, toes, and most of his nose and eyelids. 

I took these pictures and tried to find his pants, to no avail. I was getting anxious because I couldn't take him to school as he was. The grandfather came in from the porch and took a swing at the boy's head. He missed, and the boy and I ran out. 

Finally, I recruited a neighbor to help me find his one pair of pants. She helped me get him cleaned up at the outdoor water pump that several families share. 

I couldn't do very much, but to keep from despair I tried to focus on the little ways in which I could help. 

I made sure they were in school as long as I was at Little Flower. I had someone translate for me when I spoke to the mother a few times. I asked her to stop hitting the kids (I can see her hitting them when I look into the cow pen from just outside my room). I thanked her again and again for sending the kids to school in the morning. 

That part I could do on my own in Hindi: "Thank you! Two son school! Good! Very good! Me happy! Thank you!"

I emailed the next volunteer who's coming soon and asked her to watch out for them and to bring a few pairs of shorts. We can't give too much to one family because everyone is poor, and it can create resentment from neighbors or an environment of expecting handouts from foreigners. 

The hallway kitchen.

Strolling through Little Flower

Motorcycling it in Raxaul

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of me on the back of Motilal's motorcycle! I needed to run errands a few times in Raxaul, and that was about the only way it was going to happen...

It was fun once I got over being frightened about not having a helmet or any protective gear and worried that I would get knocked off by other traffic or gored by an ox. 

Most of the roads are not paved...

...and the air quality can be pretty bad. They produce both coal and cement here.

Potholes can provide a challenge, especially when filled with water.

Yes, we are riding the motorcycle down the sidewalk, and yes, sharing it with oncoming oxen! They are gigantic!