Shell-Shocked: Goodbye India

My last week at Rising Star flew by! The day I flew out, Saturday, they were having the dedication for the new wing of the school and the eating pavillion for the kids. Currently the kids eat all their meals outside. So the last week, we were busy with all the preparations. Lots of last minute cleaning, finishing up half done construction projects. I couldn't believe how much work the kids and staff put into beautifying the campus. They strung home made flags all over campus. They put up twine and then folded and glued thousands of individual flags of crepe paper onto the string. They also folded hundreds of bamboo leaves into hundreds of pretty decorations that we hung with the flags. With the festivities, a whole slew of people have come in. So our little group of 12 people has quickly become closer to thirty! The founder of RSO, Becky Douglas, and a bunch of the key people have been staying at the hostel and it's been really neat to hear their stories and get to know them.

I also got to go pay a visit to Bindu Art School, where the leprosy afflicted paint and sell their paintings. A few of them have gone to Europe for international exhibitions. Their paintings there sold for thousands of dollars. I ended picking up a small painting and got to talk to the artist and have my picture taken with her. My roommate, Sarah, was nice enough to pack it home for me since there's no way it would have survived the next part of my trip.

With the the artist and the picture I bought.

Saturday morning we were up early to help clean up the campus and sweep the road before all the guests arrived. The kids' families were invited too. Families are invited to Rising Star once a month, but many can't even come that often due to the cost involved in getting to campus. And if you can believe it, the leprosy afflicted aren't even allowed to ride buses. So, Rising Star sends a van to the train station to pick all the families up and bring them to campus. It still baffles me that India treats their own people like that. They are all cured of leprosy and are now just living with the results from it going untreated for so many years. Luckily, it does seem like attitudes are changing and I have no doubt that Rising Star is a big part of that.

We decided to wear saris for the big events since there would never be a another time in our lives we'd get to wear them. The hostel has a bunch of saris to choose from. I ended up getting a blue 60's print that was fun. The housemothers at the school helped us put them on with the help of many safety pins. Didn't want to take the change of anyone's yards and yards of carefully folded and tucked fabric, coming undone during the program!

The dedication has a whole of great speakers and dignitaries, including a $25,000 from the Marriott family! But the most exciting part was definitely the dances performed by the kids. They did a couple of traditional tamil dances that were so good. And then they performed to Michael Jackson's "Black or White" and they killed it. It was so cute to see the boys just rocking out. After the dancing and singing, all the families got lunch catered by the Marriott. We got to eat lunch with the kids and their families. It was so fun to meet their families and see how excited they were to have their parents there. It was so sweet to see how the families just spoil the kids. Many of them got new outfits to wear and candy. I think they were all thoroughly sick by the end of the day.

All the volunteer sessions get to paint a mural on a section of the wall surrounding the hostel. So we finished up our painting and then I left for the drive to Chennai and then onto Phnom Penh! It was sad to say goodbye to India, but I'm really exciting to meet up with Ryan and explore Cambodia.