Sandal full of soy beans

It's hard to update the blog about everything that happens here. It seems like something new and challenging happens everyday and I'm always scatter-brained when I come home. I have a hard time collecting my thoughts.

I am however very aware that at least half my thoughts are other places than here. With my family, my love and the friends I haven't heard from since I got here. I think about them often, and always feel like I owe it to them and to myself to explain the situation here, explain my purpose with being here.

But some days that purpose evades me. I meditate in the jeep or bus every morning to find myself strengthened by inner peace when I enter the silent chaos that is their lives. I watch as we take our morning stroll around the village to gather the children, how they struggle to find a peaceful spot to comb their hair, how they apologise for having obligations towards their family and not able to come to school. I watch as they shield themselves from the stick of their teacher who wants the best for them, and yet treat them as if it was their own choice to live this life.

I know that we have already made a difference here. Maybe not in the long run but we've given these children three weeks of our lives (so far) where our main purpose has been to sustain their interest through games and fun - in something as rudimentary as going to school. More than once, the day has ended with me feeling awful and my initiative completely burned out by failed efforts, and more than once the children and India end up saving my day.

The children can save by their endless farewell greetings. "Saradidi, namaste! Namaste, Nanadid! Mortin, bye bye!" echoes all the way to the bus stop and it always reminds of their innocence. The reason why we're here. Their innocence.

Wednesday's ride home from Jarel was also a mood saver. I had my first thrilling experience of riding home on top of this year's wheat harvest with my friends and some workers from the fields. For the first time, I had a laughing fit (or whatever it's called when you can't stop), unable to speak and unable to think of anything at all but the feeling of the wind through my hair and the wheat grain between my toes. The success was repeated yesterday when we caught a soy bean tractor. The image that stuck in my mind after this trip was one of 10 men in a passing tractor, all wearing turbans in different colours. I'll be sure to post it when it has been resized for upload :-)