Sorry it’s been awhile…those first two weeks were pretty
nuts, but way fun. So here’s the update!
We visited the special needs school, Lebenshilfe, where
Christian and I will be volunteering and conducting most of our research and it
was AMAZING! The woman who started it, Saraswathi Devi is a really dynamic lady
who has a very “go get ‘em” attitude. She went to Boston for college on a
Rotary scholarship to study special education, then did more practicum type
things at a university in Germany. A few years later, she started Lebenshilfe
as an NGO in a few thatched huts on the outskirts of Vizag. Throughout the
years, she received multiple grants and donations from individuals and charity
organizations so she could pay the staff, provide meals and housing, etc. She
was given a bunch of buildings a few years ago and she’s done an amazing job in
helping the school to grow and run well. When we met with Saraswathi Devi, the
first thing she said was that she believes very strongly in the power of love
and affection as a means of teaching children and helping them to reach their
potential.
Done. I’m sold. I love this woman already.
She took us around and showed us the classrooms on the
ground floor where one teacher sits in the center of a long, u-shaped table,
with children with varying types of disabilities sit around her, practicing things
like hand-eye coordination and concentration (by threading beads onto a string,
etc), numbers, colors, and the like. The older children are upstairs in the
vocational and academic classrooms…. Saraswathi Devi explained that their focus
is largely on social and life skills, with the end goal of helping the student
develop enough skills so that they can obtain jobs. As such, they have a
carpentry classroom (they practice sanding and painting household decorations),
a sewing room, crochet and knitting, cleaning (so that they might be hired as
maids or washermen, etc)….all very culture-appropriate. The outlying buildings
have all of the different therapy rooms: raga (classical Indian music) therapy,
dance therapy (they performed a tiger dance as well as a dance telling a story
from the life of Krishna), yoga therapy, and meditation therapy. They had a
sensory room as well, where the walls were covered with different colors and
textures, there were lots of stuffed animals, even a fish tank…. They even had
a table that they called a “vibration table”…..they had one of those vibrating
tone bowls that you hit with a mallet and let it ring....she had me lay down on
it and she placed the bowl on the table next to me, making the whole thing
vibrate underneath me….it was surprisingly relaxing and thought it was a really
cool addition for a sensory room.
SUPER cool. I’m so excited to work there. We went today to
start officially volunteering and I think it will be really interesting to
examine their methods for assessment and evaluation….The school psychologist
does all of the initial assessment and he told me that they place students in
classrooms according to their behaviors first, then all of the teachers and
therapists meet together with him to discuss the child’s progress and their
apparent cognitive ability. India is pretty much the definition of organized
chaos, so it’ll be an interesting challenge to turn my observations into a
structured analysis, but everyone I’ve met so far is SO ready and willing to
help.
Indians in general are just so kind. So helpful. I love
them!
We visited a bunch of other temples with Dr. Nuckolls and
Dr. Krishnayya, performing a pujas (religious rituals to show respect for the
deity) at each one. Normally the pujas involve telling your name to the priest,
having him pray for you to the deity, receiving a blessed flower from the priest,
briefly holding your fingers to a flame that he hold out and touching your eyes
3 times, then receiving holy water in your hand….you’re supposed to drink it
and put any residue on your head, but I’m never quite sure where the water has
come from…..giardia doesn’t quite appeal to me, so I usually put it all on my
head….which can result in a very soggy Allison if we visit multiple temples in
a day….one day, we visited 3 different temples (Indra, the sun god, a tortoise
incarnation of a god, and Hanuman, the monkey general), so my hair was pretty
damp all day….but the Hanuman temple was tricky because they apparently use
coconut water instead of normal water…I felt pretty sticky all the way home. It
also takes a bit of skill to get all of the water on your head….the first time
I did it, I tipped my hand too early and had puja water all over my face....They
will also sometimes give you a handful of rice that they call “tiger rice”…it’s
really good, but pretty spicy and kicks me in the throat on the first bite….every
time!
The temples were really beautiful and really amazing! We are
SO blessed that we get to visit so many!
We also visited a goddess temple which was quite a trip…there
are dozens of statues of goddesses (or, according to Dr. Nuckolls---who we now
refer to affectionately at Chuckles ….Charles Nuckolls…..get it?—one man’s
vision of what the goddesses should look like) that were all depicted doing different things…taking care
of children, riding cobras, being protected by cobras, praying while riding
dolphins, etc. Most of the statues were pretty graphic, so we wanted to steer
Christian clear of most of them….but we did get to go up to the inner sanctum
of that temple compound and watch a priestess teach some foreigners to perform
the puja to the goddess. There was lots of incense and flower petals involved….it
was a really interesting experience. The Hanuman temple was crazy though,
because we went on the biggest holiday of the year, so EVERYONE was there…it
was super crowded and WAY hot inside… we didn’t get to see very much because we
were rushed to the front to perform the puja and then rushed back to the car so
we wouldn’t get mobbed…but my friend mysteriously lost a toe ring anyway….I’m
glad that was our only casualty! 
Being a foreigner here is a pretty big deal. We constantly
have people asking us if they can “take a snap” with us, shaking hands or
saying “sister! How are you? I’m fine! Happy birthday!” We have received very
strict instructions to limit our interaction with the opposite sex because our
interpretation of friendliness is seen very differently in Indian culture, so
it’s hard because we feel very rude for brushing off so many seemingly innocent
advances….but I trust Dr. Nuckolls’ and Dr. Krishnayya’s wisdom, especially in
this area. Flirting in other countries has only brought trouble in the past,
anyway. We make up for our rudeness to the men by being extra friendly to women
and children, though.
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| people hand us their babies so they can take a picture of them with us. |
And they’re so stinkin’ cute!
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| Dutch/British cemetery...reportedly, ghosts of foreigners are really aggressive, so there are plenty of ghost stories about this place. |
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| Madhu (one of our translators), Dr. Nuckolls, and Dr. Krishnayya |
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| Ninos! |
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| Christian, Me, Eva (baldy), Kelly, Mackenzie, Lauren |
We walked around old Visakhapatnam one day and some little
kids took us to the roof of their apartment building to overlook the old Dutch
(it’s actually British) graveyard.
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| marketplace and clocktower |
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| Queen Victoria statue....behind the chilluns |
They were so sweet and taught us how to say
brother and sister in Telugu…..heck if I can remember now. We also visited a
few catholic churches, a statue of Queen Victoria, and the old marketplace
clocktower. All of it was really cool and it was so fun to be in someplace that
just screams India….That happened to be the
first day that I wore a sari so we kept getting comments about how nice
it is that we are trying to adopt customs and respect the culture….one old man
was just telling us as much when two teenage Indian girls walked by in jeans
and t-shirts (not a very common sight in Vizag) and the old man started
chastising them for abandoning the traditions that we foreigners were trying to
keep alive. Incidentally, our Telugu teacher had taught us a traditional
hymn/poem to the goddess of wisdom (named Saraswathi….go figure) the day
before, so Dr. Krishnayya had Eva sing it for him. He was so delighted and kept
smiling and bowing to us with his hands together in the customary “Namaste”
greeting position as we left. So cool J.
I had kind of hoped to get a picture with the girls to show the funny
juxtaposition (I didn’t understand at the time that the man was scolding them
for just that), but they gave a pretty intense stink-eye, so it was a no-go……understandable,
I guess.
One day we visited a local Ayurvedic doctor out in the
countryside (which is SO beautiful, BTW) and he told us a bit about the family
business of ayurvedic medicine…I still don’t really understand it, but he did
show us some really amazing records and recipes that were written on palm
leaves and bound into books in bamboo covers . He said that they have been in
his family for at least 4 generations. Dr. Nuckolls was almost beside himself
with joy and amazement; he said that the doctor’s collection is worth millions
of dollars. The doctor still uses them every day for his patients. It was
really cool to see the old Telugu etched into the leaves. 
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| The old palace |
Also, we visited the king!! He doesn’t actually rule
anymore, of course, and most the property and possessions his family did have
were given away by his socialist father….the traditional fort and palace have
been made into a children’s school and a women’s college, so the palace they
live in now looks more like an old beach cabana. Dr. Nuckolls described it as
someone just turned off the lights in 1949 and hasn’t bothered to keep it up…so
the walls of the fort and palaces are faded and cracking, and there are weeds
growing all over the fort and big palace grounds…the little palace (where the
king and his fam live) has really pretty
grounds and it’s full of really beautiful gifts that have been brought by
various
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| the fort |
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| With the queen, her sister, and the king's doctor's wife |
visiting dignitaries throughout the years (Chinese vases, ivory boxes…..
there’s even a letter from Queen Victoria to his great grandfather)…Anyway, the
king lives in a city about 2 hours away, called Vizianagram with his wife and
14 year old daughter. We visited with them for a while and mostly listened to
his conversation with Dr. Nuckolls and Krishnayya, and it was really cool to
hear his take on local politics and social dynamics. Nuckolls and Krishnayya
are currently working on a project, interviewing Burmese refugees (a bunch of
Indians had moved to Burma in the 1800s to work, but moved back in the
mid-1900s to escape political turmoil and such), so they asked the king a lot
of questions about the Burmese refugee population in Vizianagram. The king has
the most regal-sounding voice I’ve ever heard, so it made their conversation
much more intriguing. He love the gifts we brought him! I was a little bummed
that he didn’t look at the sand painting, but he seemed excited to hang it in
his office, nonetheless. There is a big emphasis on gift-giving in this
culture, it almost seems like “it’s the thought that counts” reigns supreme….and
re-gifting is totally kosher. So…..a part of me is a little nervous that he’ll
just re-gift it…..I hope he likes it well enough! Jo, thank you thank you thank
you for getting it. It really is a lovely sand painting! My roommate Lauren
brought a nice silver and coral ring for his wife, but we were to present all
of our gifts to the king first, and he liked it so much that it went straight
onto HIS pinky. A similar thing happened with the silver kokopelli pin I
brought for his daughter….he pinned it to his shirt right away. Well, at least
it will get some mileage! J
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| The king (left), Nuckolls, and the king's doctor (right) |
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| Letter from Queen Victoria |
Dr. Nuckolls left last Saturday, so our vacationing is over
for now and we’re starting to get into our research. We have Telugu classes
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 8-10, then starting Feb 1, we’ll
have a dance class from 10 to 11…Christian and I will work at Lebenshilfe in
the afternoon on those days, then all day Tuesday and Thursdays, with some time
in the afternoons to explore the town and go gift shopping for family and
friends at home. We have spring break at the end of February (right after a few
Indian weddings we’ve been invited to!!!! :)JJJ)
so we’re thinking about staying in an ashram outside of Kolkata for a few days,
then exploring Kolkata for the rest of the week.
Really, whatever we do will be awesome.
We’re in India, for crying out loud!!
A few more things: I seem to have been incredibly blessed
because mosquitoes 1)don’t like me very much 2) don’t affect me very severely.
I itch a bit when I first get a bite, but then it goes away really quickly. Whoever
has been praying for me in that regard, thank you!! Please keep it up J
Saris are SUPER comfortable but really complicated to put
on.
Church here is really cool…..they don’t have a building of
their own, so they meet in an office building with frequent power outages. The
members are 90% recent converts, so there are interesting remnants of Hindu,
Catholic, Pentecostal, and otherwise Protestant beliefs that manifest
themselves in comments during classes. Services are 50% English, 50% Telugu,
and they’ve already commandeered us to help teach primary and to sing at baptisms
and in sacrament meeting. It’s awesome! The primary president was begging
Mackenzie to help her learn how to be a better member in her calling….she said “Discipline
in Indian culture is sharp and sometimes hurtful, whereas the gospel teaches us
that we must lead by example, with love and gentleness. Will you help me know
how to discipline the children that way?” But man, all the members here are
AMAZING. They are SO faithful and they LOVE the Savior so so much. It’s really
beautiful to see how excited they are to learn more and to grow in their
relationships with a loving Heavenly Father.
Okay, I think that’s all for tonight.
Allison
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