The Real India

The power just came back on here in the BCT office. A moment ago Michael was giving a lesson on the internet in the dark, but his audience of junior college students and instructors remains just as interested and engaged with or without light. We’ve been here since Sunday and continue to be amazed and inspired by the things going on here and the dedication of both staff and students. But first let me get caught up…

Our train left Mumbai right on time last Friday afternoon, and we settled in for the long haul. The ride wasn’t too bad (except for the guy trying to grope me in the middle of the night). We read our books about India and drank lots of Chai. BCT staff members were there to meet us when we arrived in Visakhapatnam on Saturday evening and took us to the city office where we spent the night. The next morning Krishna, the driver, took us on a little tour of the city before driving us to the main BCT site called Haripuram, about 60 kilometers away. Right from the beginning we could sense a positive and peaceful feeling of well-being and hope here. We unpacked our stuff in our cozy little room, ate lunch and then began to learn what BCT is all about.

Later that afternoon we drove to a nearby BCT school that was celebrating its seventh year anniversary. The children sang devotional songs and performed dances and skits. Speeches were given by school committee members, village leaders and BCT’s director of education. Then it was our turn up on stage. We never knew that this trip would give us so much practice in public speaking—our first time was in Uganda when we stumbled upon a village meeting with their member of parliament and were immediately called up to the front and asked to say a few words. We’re still working on our speed and annunciation, but at the school anniversary Michael was able to throw in a Gandhi quote about education—I was very impressed!

This past week we’ve been getting to know the wonderful people who live and work here—the students, teachers, scientists, training facilitators and other staff—and have been absorbing and learning all about BCT’s history, philosophy and day-to-day operations. Without going into lots of detail this time, BCT is basically an organization that works with local villagers to find ways of alleviating all kinds of poverty (not just economic but intellectual, physical, social, spiritual, etc.) by providing quality education and vocational training, conducting research to improve farming methods, facilitating savings and loan programs, and other community outreach and empowerment programs. Their main goal is self-reliance and sustainability for the villagers. BCT currently operates about 40 primary schools in surrounding villages, as well as a residential high school here where we’re staying and a training center for disabled youth nearby. There’s a lot more to say about BCT and our main project while we’re here is to compile everything into a website. Tomorrow I’m going out into the villages to begin doing interviews with people who have participated in BCT programs—I’m really excited for that.

Everyone here has been so welcoming and genuinely kind, we were even invited to a wedding last night. Like most marriages in India, this one was an arranged marriage. The priest is consulted in advance to reveal the most auspicious date and time (down to the minute) for the marriage to take place. This one happened to be set for 1:01 AM and we stayed until then, when the bride and groom placed a special paste on each other’s head. Before this we enjoyed a delicious meal and a live band singing Tollywood movie songs (Hollywood movies are in English, Bollywood movies are in Hindi and Tollywood movies are in Telugu, the local language). The little kids loved dancing to these songs and knew all the moves.

We’ve extended our stay here until next Saturday, and then we’ll make our way to Delhi. We have to cut out Dharamsala, but we’ll still get to Varanasi and Agra. We felt a little disappointed initially, but quickly realized that our desire to stay here greatly outweighs any feeling of disappointment. As Sreenivasa, secretary of BCT and our ‘guardian’ while we’re here says, it is in the villages that one can experience the real India.