Happy Pongal!
January 14th, 2008
This morning, I awoke to an ashy, burnt smell.
I assumed it to be remnants from the incense we burned last night to freshen up our musty guesthouse. I had forgotten that today is the start of a three-day harvest festival here, called Pongal. It began last night with a ritual burning of all the old materials from the home. Clothes, brooms, linens, whatever needed discarding was burning in small piles in the streets — a ritual cleansing to start anew. I find myself really attracted to the concept, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. Because, I suspect every one of us volunteers has something old we’d like to burn off, some pattern or hurt or way of thinking we’d like to leave behind here in India, so that we might create more space to invite something better and new into our lives when we return home.
And in the spirit of inviting something new into our lives, I had my first day of work at Assissi Illam. It was quite a change, going from painting with Ravi and Gree, to tending to children under the watchful eye of Sister Rose. The facility is beautiful compared to some of the others we’ve seen, built only three years ago and run by a Sister who so clearly loves these children as if they were her own. And, really, I suppose they are.
We arrived at Assissi later in the day on account of our morning stop at St. Joseph’s Catholic School. They put on a wonderful dance performance in honor of Pongal, and served us a wonderful, warm sweet rice treat that’s traditionally eaten during the festival.
At Assissi, with most of the daycare children at home for the holiday, we three volunteers had about 8 orphaned children of varying ages to preoccupy — from babies to early teens. Now, I think I’m pretty okay with kids. I have four wonderful nephews who (I hope) will attest to the fact that my sister and I mount pretty good Easter egg hunts, and the like. But I have to say, this was challenging for me. With these kids at such varying ages and levels of English, with each of their attention spans running very short, I was at a loss for how to keep them engaged — and to keep up with them — for four hours! We played every game you can conceive of that can involve a tiny tossing ball. We read books, sang songs and counted numbers and the alphabet more times than I’d like to remember. But still, the clock moved slowly. I just hope I can be of some use to these children…but I have to remember what Stephen told us — that a lot of these children simply need our love and attention. And I have to say, I think I’m pretty good at love and attention.
With the festival going on, it’ll be the same drill until Thursday. So I’ll have to use tonight to get really creative and plan some activities with my fellow volunteers there, Roma and Anne, and get a good night’s sleep so I’ll be raring to go for a longer day tomorrow.
Happy Pongal!
