Just as I thought that we had done enough traveling, I found
out that we had another 8 hour bus ride upcoming that evening. We left most of
the squad in Ongole that evening, leaving around 11PM which put us in the city
of ÂÂÂÂKadapa at about 7AM that morning. We took an “autoâ€� another hour or so
that dropped us off in Kamalapurma (our village) at about 8AM. All ten of the
children there were boys and were ecstatic to see us! All of the boys had their
school uniforms on as they were just getting ready to leave for school. They
shook all of our hands and were all smiles as I walked them to where the bus
would pick them up that morning for school. We took the rest of the day to rest
and familiarize ourselves with the village.
Kamalapurma is a village with a booming population of about
100 people and two very small shacks to buy knick-knacks such as Tide and
Sprite. There was no school. No night clubs. No bus station. Internet? Keep
dreaming. What did Kamalapurma have despite what they lacked? Friendly people
that’s for sure. Every day, I drank chai tea with at least four different
neighbors. I ate weird Indian snacks and learned to always take my sandals off
at the door to show respect for their 15 square foot home that they were so
proud of. These amazing villagers taught me what it means to share literally
everything you have.
We arrived in Kamalapurma on February 4 and left February 8.
During this time we were able to paint the orphanage- inside and out. We
painted the outside a dazzling orange and blue- my idea. We painted the inside
flat white and had enough time to decorate with scripture. The boys were so
enthusiastic about their house being painted and couldn’t thank us enough. We
usually wrapped up painting around mid afternoon and were able to clean up our
mess and ourselves, rest, and refresh ourselves before the boys came home from
school around 5PM.
We had homework parties everyday for about an hour and then
were able to play games and do activities with the kids. We SPOILED them with
Thumbs Up (off brand of Coca-Cola) and biscuits one afternoon. We had FUN with
them, SO MUCH FUN! Whether it was me riding a bicycle with four other kids on
it, doing chin-ups with them off somebody’s house, or making them laugh by
sweeping a grandma’s sidewalk with an Indian style broom- smiling and laughing
together brought our team so close with those boys. They didn’t seem to
struggle with learning or remembering our names, but I couldn’t remember their
names to save my life.
It was sad to leave this village and the people there that
we had gotten close to despite only being there for four days. We said bye to
the boys that morning and then packed and headed out. We drove about an hour
and then stopped to have lunch. After lunch we drove another three hours before
arriving at our next village…. Konduvaripalli!
