Indian Village Homestay

I awoke to our rooster (I am sleeping with ear plugs but with his bed four feet from my own they make little difference) in time to watch the early sunlight peak over the mountain from my sleeping bag. Yesterday, after we arrived, I laughed when a couple of goats walked right through the door into the house; little did I realize that the house was the goats’ living space while the family lives, eats, and sleeps out on the porch. So I lie here on the porch, the family of eight lying around me, the hen eight feet away tucked into a cubby in the adobe wall, the rooster four feet away in the corner, the goats in the house, the water buffalo in front of the porch enclosed by our small fence,, and the mountains and sunrise beyond the fields in the distance. Yeah, this is India.
As I take the morning in from the warm comfort of my sleeping bag, I stare down a water buffalo, watch the rooster’s breath in the crisp morning air (this is dessert) and watch the baby goats that have now emerged from the house prance about, jump on the late sleepers, and every once in a while loose their feet from beneath them in their spastic morning revelry.
After our city homestay in Jaipur, we are now in a homestay in the village of Galder, a village of about twenty families in the dessert of Northeast India. There is no electricity and no running water. By the looks of it, I have more in my backpack than this family of eight has in its entire home. Everyone seems to have roughly one outfit, and the dress of the youngest seems to have been reached her hand-me-down style only after her five sisters wore it before her. Bathrooms there are none, and any bathing and washing takes place at the river, a fifteen minute walk, and little more than a glorified dribble in this season of drought. We must daily walk to the watering hole and collect water to carry home—Jungle Book style, balancing pots on our heads. My twelve year old host sister puts me to shame: as I’m sloshing water down my face she’s balancing two pots stacked with no hands.
After our mornings of family chores, we help teach English at the local schools. Or attempt to control chaos. “Teach English” sounds nobler. The children are roughly aged 3-9, and at our school there are about 50 of them, four of us, and only occasionally a teacher. When you picture a village of 20 families, you may not picture a particularly large number of children. But if you imagine a village of 20 families, all with families of eight like my host family, there will be kids every where you turn. We spend our time on the basics: the alphabet, numbers, colors, head, shoulders, knees and toes, and then a few games to channel their energy. The highlight for me by far has been watching them play musical rocks. The teacher had them all find large stones and then blindfolded one and gave him a stick and a pan. Each child stood on a rock, and when the blindfolded kid began banging, the rest ran in a circle while the teacher removed a stone. When the banging ended, they all had to find a stone to stand on. Musical chairs of the developing world!
Our second night in Galder was Halloween at home and we felt it necessary to celebrate. So after our evening of masonry (we are building a stone and cement fence around the community center) and dinner with our families we reconvened at the community center for what can only be described as a pagan ritual. We found some pumpkins, candles, and musical instruments and danced around a lantern on the roof with all of the village children under the starlight. There is nothing quite like letting loose to a drum beat, guitar, harmonica, and chanting with a bunch of six year old Indians on Halloween. Hopefully they gained half as much on this cultural exchange as we did!