For the past week I’ve been visiting another organization called Asha Deep.  Asha Deep provides shelter and schooling to what they call differently abled children.  In the West we call them disabled, but I really like the term differently abled.  They care for and educate deaf, blind, mentally challenged and physically challenged children along with running a school for kids from the local village. The differently abled children are integrated into the school and receive additional classes in sign language, braille etc. Asha Deep is run by the Catholic church.  There are 4 Father’s, 1 Brother, and about 13 Sisters who live there full time and run the home and school (along with many teachers who come from surrounding villages).

I was introduced to Asha Deep by a friend I met here in India at a meditation retreat I attended in February. I came here with her and a friend of hers who has been fundraising for Asha Deep through her church in Canada.  To be honest I didn’t know what to expect when I was invited along.  It just happened to be my first free week of travel and I was interested in checking out a different kind of charity work. I had prepared myself for a week of sadness.  To my amazement it wasn’t sad at all but one of the most peaceful, happy and loving places I’ve ever been. The Fathers are the coolest, most open minded, hardest working priests I’ve ever met. The Sisters are sweet, caring, patient and truly mothers and caregivers to so many children.   And then there’s the kids… well…they are incredible!  They are beautiful, compassionate to one another and incredibly loving and willing to learn and try new things despite their physical limitations.  They made us feel welcome, taught us so many things and made it very difficult to say goodbye.

It’s a beautiful place that gives opportunities to kids despite being born different.

Some of my favorite moments:

• Playing a video to a blind girl of her singing so she could hear herself.  All the kids love having their picture taken and looking at it on the screen but the blind kids couldn’t do that so instead I recorded them and played it back.  I wish I could have videotaped them listening to themselves.  It was pure joy!

 

• Teaching songs like row, row, row your boat and itsy bitsy spider (with the hand motions of course!) to the kids.  They love to learn English songs so they didn’t even realize that I can’t carry a tune!

 

• Learning sign language from the deaf children.  I’m so inspired to take a sign language class when I return to the US.  The kids were great teachers and it made it so easy to communicate since I didn’t need to know Hindi.

 

• Putting away all inhibitions and dancing with all the differently abled kids.  If they could do it, and many of them couldn’t even hear the music, then so could I!

 

• Holding a deaf girls hand to my neck so she could feel me say words while watching my lips move so that she could try to pronounce the words. Her desire to learn and try to speak English despite being deaf was so inspiring!

 

• Making a Western style dinner for the Fathers.  We made enough food to feed an army, took 5 hours preparing and cooking and finally ate at 10pm!

 

• Watching my friend Sawil (a dental hygienist) check aprox 140 kids teeth. They were so excited to get a toothbrush and show us how to brush using the new techniques Sawil showed them

 

• Making a new friend Madison who arranged the entire trip.  I’m eternally grateful for the experience!

Worst moment…saying goodbye to the children.  I promised them that I would be back and I will.