Week One in India

I just finished my second week in India and have one remaining. It has been wonderful and full of adventure. I hope to summarize my first week in this update and another of the second week soon. As you may recall my initial interest in this trip was to see some of the sites where FCN (Foundation for Children in Need)is supporting some of their 2,000 children here in south central India. My sister and I just became sponsors of children last June.
I joined three other Americans in Hyderabad on Jan 27th. We met the founder (Tom Chitta) and his wife (Dr Geetha)and were shown around an orphanage and a primary school the first two days. My sister's sponsored child (age 7) was at this orphanage which had about 25 young boys. They were all charming. Tom was a formerly a priest and Dr Geetha was formerly a nun, both for 20 yrs. The founded this organization 10 yrs ago.
The city of Hyderbad is very large with 10 million people. It is 5th largest in this country of 1.3 billion. The first thing you notice is people and villages everywhere. Fortunately 60% of the land is farmable compared to 20% in the US and 5% in Tanzania. Hyderabad is a mixture of rich and poor, young and old, modern and ancient. The most shocking was probably the silicon-valley type city on the edge of town, where very large high rise office parks are everywhere, with names like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and many, many more. It is nick named Cyberbad.
We visited several schools each day and were given charming dance performances at each school. Most of these school were around the village south of Hyderabad where Tom and Geetha have their home and main office. It is also Tom's home town of about 30,000. We all stayed at their house which is a new 3 story , 5 bedroom home. It was very comfortable. There were no hotels there. We arrived there by night train and stayed 4 days.
Besides the schools we visited a "tribal village" which was almost like going into an aboriginal village about an hour from Tom's village. These people live on the edge of the forest and spend the week collecting tree gum for sale to the government at the end of each week. Their homes or like tents made of sticks and the children go with them into the forests. Tom's brother is a social worker and tries working with these people to provide schooling for the children (maybe 15 total). FCN is trying to get them to clear a spot to build a car-port type structure so they can get a government teacher to work there out of the elements.
Following that we drove on into the forest where a new Hindu temple is being built with local donations. It was really amazing how much the stone work looked just like the much older temples all around India. They still have 3 or 4 years of work left. They have pilgrimages there already for up to 50,000 people at a time and provide food for all of them at no charge from local donations.
At the end of the week we all drove 7 hours with Tom and his driver to Madras on the East coast (Bay of Bengal). We stayed there overnight and separated, me to go south and the other three to finish there tour near Delhi in the north. Our last day in Madras (now called Chennai) we toured the cathedral of St Thomas the Apostle and his tomb, then the beach and finally St Thomas Mount where he was killed. That evening we went shopping. The following is my thank you letter to Tom and Geetha.
LETTER
Dear Tom and Dr Geetha,
My visit to India and your sponsored projects in Andra Pradesh has been the experience of a life time. I was so thrilled to meet Devendra, my sponsored child at the St Mary school in ______________. Even though he is only 8 yrs old and has no father he seems to be doing extremely well and is already writing me letters in good English. I think he will even be speaking it in a few years. I look forward to sponsoring him for many years to come and probably visiting him again, God willing.
I was especially impressed with the way the sponsorship programs are set up for those not attending the FCN school, which is most of your 2000 sponsored children. You have documented and organized things extremely well and at the same time are teaching the children good accounting practices, organization and communication skills. These skills will all be extremely beneficial to them as they mature and is not something they would normally get in school.
I was also very surprised at the variety of projects FCN is supporting, all of which are dear to my heart. These include an orphanage for HIV positive children, a home for the elderly, a school for sewing classes of young and middle aged women, and housing for handicapped children next to a good school they attend. The dancing and singing performances at each school we visited were very impressive, but the one at the handicapped home was truly amazing. And the joy of the performers and the children in the audience was very obvious on their faces. I cannot say enough about how valuable these lessons in dance in each school will be having on their confidence and joy for living. Very impressive.
The one week tour allowed us to get to know you and your family and staff very personally and I am very appreciative of that. Your hospitality is beyond reproach and is an example to us all. I think we Americans have a lot to learn in that area from other cultures like India. I have seen it on a much smaller scale in Tanzania where I have worked in mission. They, like you, truly believe that any guest is a real blessing to the household.
I look forward to many years of support of FCN both financially, spiritually and through volunteer projects back in the US. Congratulations on a wonderful tour and thank you for introducing me to the other Americans who have similar mission support interests. They were charming.
Tom Scott