Before I go into my overall thoughts about my summer in India, I would like to thank you all with utmost gratitude for the support you’ve shown me throughout. From the very beginning when I started fundraising to caring emails during the trip to offering a listening ear as I share here back at home, I have never before experienced this kind of love and support from such a wide range of people. So, thank you, with all my heart!
I would like to give you all my most honest and truthful summary of my time spent in Chennai, which includes many valuable lessons, yet contains some of the harder truths that comes with working under a NGO.
After spending two months of my summer in India, I’ve come to appreciate the absolute beauty of this country. Despite adapting to the ear-blaring honks of cars in the streets, the unexpected spices in my foods, and having to hand wash my own laundry—adjustments pushed aside—India has become to me much more than just a good Slumdog Millionaire movie on the television screen. I now know a little more about a people who are content with much less materially and who pride themselves in age-old techniques for daily life needs. I’ve tasted homemade masala tea, mastered a few Tamil phrases, and learned how to bargain down prices at the market.
My most valuable lessoned learned was to step slowly in making judgments, and to learn to wait and observe before making conclusions. Though I have not overcome making fast judgments, I’ve seen the difficult consequences when I rely solely on my knowledge to evaluate the people I meet or the new culture I live in. But because Indian lifestyle stands in such stark contrast with the one I live here in America, I’ve also recognized the difficulties that come with serving in a foreign country.
Before embarking on this trip, the idea of volunteering internationally served as the pinnacle model for “helping others in need.” I believed that America’s abundant resources should be directed toward other places where disparities were greater. I see now that though this conception was not at all in the wrong, and indeed one of this country’s moral obligations, that my vision for helping others was far simpler than the reality. Though much was contributed through the donated glasses and funds raised, I became very frustrated that those two resources were the only resources I felt I could offer. The program that I participated in idealized the mark of difference that volunteers could make on this trip and provided menial cultural learning for Western volunteers. Because of the language barrier and the required weeks for adjustment, most volunteers including myself, felt that our presence in India was much less needed than anticipated.
The source of disappointment stems from a very conditioned image that we, as Americans, can save the world. I’ve seen that this image could be a reality in Chennai; if I was willing to spend committed time and energy to live among the Indian people, learn their culture, before I dared to really help. Two months, though a long time in my consideration, only allowed me to scratch the surface of knowing India. The conviction for me is that, Americans can help, to a great extent, but we must realize that in order to save the world, we must understand the world…and understanding is a far more difficult task than most “quick-fixing” Americans would like to admit.
The issue of “saving the world” using human hands also brought to light the limitedness of pure humanitarian work. I chose to work with a non-profit this summer because in the past I had always served along side a Christian-based organization. I wanted to see firsthand, how the rest of the world loves others. I saw great effectiveness because with the combined services of the volunteer’s funds, the local clinic’s outreach camps, and skill of doctors, 450 patients underwent free cataract surgery and 2739 people received free reading glasses just in the month of June. I am amazed at those numbers, and am grateful for what non-profits can offer. Yet, even after two months, I still felt very detached from the Indian people. Language barrier and the confounds of the NGO’s main purpose would never allow me to know their needs, their joys, their life stories. True, many patients received new physical sight, but I wondered all the time, whether their hearts were still spiritually in need of healing.
As a Christian, my time in India provided a contrast to how I am used to seeing love-in-action—where God played the main role in the story. And as usual, contrasts provide a greater understanding of the two concepts being compared. Though I saw how humans could love with great efficiency, I saw that efficiency does equal the depth or wholeness of love. I learned that love offered from human hands is limited, no matter the integrity or motivation behind such an endeavor. And if humans are really more than just flesh and bones, than a love that only heals physically, has not reached its full potential.
With all this learning, I wonder where that places me now, here in San Diego, California and now going into my third year at UC Berkeley. I believe I want to embrace all that I am right now, and not have to travel far distance to help others, but instead understand that I am where I am because it is here that I can serve and be served most freely. This doesn’t mean that I will toss away India to the corners of my memory. In fact, I’m hoping to keep this experience in the forefront of my thoughts. But perhaps, in the future I would have the time and energy to really know and love people of an almost opposite culture. I also believe more than ever now, that the God I’ve been getting to know all my life, is offering a love that trumps any human effort and that reaches to places…nothing else I’ve seen, could possibly reach.
Though this summary is longer than I expected, it is still not comprehensive. If you would like to know more about this trip, feel free to ask me personally. I will talk as long as you would like to listen :) Plus, talking helps me process! As I said in the beginning, you all have been very dear to me for the entire trip. Hoping that this reflection has blessed you in the many ways you’ve blessed me.
As for the continuation of this blog? *Shrug. I'll see :) Take care everyone
wow. great insight, Sarah.
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