Why?

I woke peacefully to the sound of our fan, gently blowing cool air in our faces. I slept well, and my face is not sticky, unlike most hours of the day. Our mornings are low key, and most of the girls are in class on the bottom floor of the three story orphanage. In the wee hours of the morning, you can hear them singing and rehearsing their ABC’s in English. They wear uniforms, and sit on the floor looking up at the teacher who gives them their daily lessons. As we walk past, they stare, wondering why on earth these white women here. I smile and wave practicing my broken Hindi.

In the afternoons, we play. What amazes me is how easily entertained the girls are. Be it coloring, rolling around in the grass, doing cartwheels, taking pictures, looking at pictures, playing snake on my cheap nokia, no matter what, they’re smiling, giggling and genuinely enjoying themselves.

In the early evenings, I help some of the girls with their English homework and teach English to girls who choose to listen. It seems that the girls are interested in me because I'm different, and that I have something unique to offer them, but it's extremely difficult to get their attention. Girls drift in and out of my room either listening, or not. There is no authority figure at this orphanage, and even though some older girls try to facilitate it through physical abuse, it simply doesn't work.

Zara, 4 years old

Every day, we run away to a small café at the market place for about half an hour. It has free wifi and air conditioning, a good enough reason to come back every day.

I walk through a park everyday to get there and today, I had an interesting encounter with someone.

In a thick Indian accent, an elderly man asks “I notice that you come through here every day. Where do you come from?”
“U.S.A.” I reply.
“And what is your purpose for being in India?” He asks.
“To volunteer at the Arya Kanya Sadan orphanage” I say.
“And what is your purpose?” He asks again. Now that was a question I could barely answer.
“Well, to help out, to get a different perspective.” I’ve never been to India before, let alone on this continent. I figured it was a good enough answer, even though I don’t think it really had too much depth. The language barrier has a lot to do with it, but it was a very vague answer and I was slightly disappointed with myself. I’d like to believe that I’m here for a greater reason than to make myself feel good about helping people less fortunate than myself.

“Thank you. That’s all”. He waves us away and nods his head. His sheer curiosity got me thinking. Why am I here? It’s hard for me to answer that question.  It sounds like a cliché when I say, “to help the children” or “to make a difference”. What difference have I made? So far, I’ve messed up about thirty names and gave an old copy I found of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” to a precocious fifteen year old girl suggesting it would better her English vocabulary. Not a very good idea, I realized later. I felt stupid.

Tomorrow I’m going to Jaipur, which is a few hours away from where I am in Faridibad, with a group of girls from my volunteering organization. Once again, I feel guilty because I’m excited to get away from the orphanage, but also because I’m missing about 99.9% of what India has to offer. I also feel guilty because I'll miss them a little..