I want to tell you a story that happened last week as we were visiting a slum village here in Bangalore. One of those times that in the moment throws you off, ten minutes later its so ridiculous that your laughing about it with your teammate and 3 hours later you can’t stop thinking about the reality of it…
Let me set the scene..
Every week we spend a couple of afternoons visiting the children that live in the slums. There’s this incredible lady who spends every afternoon with them teaching them lots of different things. It ranges from the basics of good hygiene, to safe drinking water, Child labor, child marriage, what “Good touch, Bad touch” is, all the way to spending hours working with them in their school studies and sharing encouraging messages with them. These kids have little to no structure so what seems like things that are basic knowledge that you would assume their parents would teach them, she pretty much covers it. She has about 50 kids gather around her each afternoon to hear her share her wisdom. And we have been given the privilege to join her when we have the time. It usually goes something like us showing up, singing a bunch of songs with them, acting out or sharing a story from the Bible with them, sharing an encouraging message about Love, or Hope and then we split them off into different age groups to spend some quality time with them and help them with their school work. So as our other things wrapped up it was time to separate them by ages and get to teaching/tutoring. That’s where this story really begins.
Now this little remote village is located directly behind a mall. Kind of strange I know. You are walking in front of a mall filled and surrounded by shoppers and people dressed nicely and a quick corner and down an alley and its like you’ve entered a new world. Small wooden huts created by spare wood and old tarps, everyone is in older worn out clothing, peoples expressions go from “dont bother me” to “Oh my gosh look we have visitors!!!”. On your right is a large group of children gathered as “Auntie” talks to them and to your left there is a small cemetery.. The area couldn’t be bigger than the average backyard in America. We sing, share stories and then it’s time to tutor. Now most of these children don’t speak any English other then the basic hello, how are you, and i am fine. So communication is spotty to say the least. We separate into groups organized by age. Me and my teammate Taylor take the oldest kids which are about 12 years old. We find a small patch of dirt to begin our class. But the students didn’t follow us.. We waved at them and motioned to come sit down, yet they didn’t come closer. All whispering to each other they pointed and began to giggle. Confused me and Taylor asked what they were talking about. They said a few words in their local language which gave us zero clarity. They were shaking their hands No, and were pointing at the ground. Then one student says in his hard to understand accent “Not there”. We looked at each other more confused, as if one dirt patch was more qualified then the next to hold our class. We said “It’s fine just come”. The next child pieces together the words and says “No, Uncle and Auntie not there, Grave, Grave, Dead Body….” they all continue to laugh and point. We then realized we were standing where someone was just recently buried and not only were we standing there but we were trying to turn their resting area into a classroom…. I felt pretty dumb in the moment but luckily the kids found our ignorance comical. We went to a new spot and went over our ABC’s..
Now it’s little moments like this that actually happen a lot more on the race then you would think. Yes being laughed at for not truly understanding anything, the race is the best place to practice humility. But what I’m talking about is the ignorance to the reality of other people’s situations, and just simply assuming things. Simple things like “If someone is buried here there will be a tombstone..” Things like “They wouldn’t bury someone so close to where these children live and play each day”. It didn’t really hit me till later that night the reality of it. These kids are so use to this that not only did it not freak them out or surprise them, it was actually funny to them that it wasn’t common to us… Think about that for a second. They thought it was funny, that we thought it was strange, that they have people buried all around their “yard”….
