Sydney Smith said, �It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little � do what you can�. That�s where it all began for us.
As an ordinary middle aged couple we seized the moment. John had taken early retirement and Deborah was given a career break. We had time, energy and love to give and wanted to help communities in India and Sri Lanka on a voluntary basis. We had been lucky enough to travel in both countries as tourists and had seen the help that was needed. But seeing was not connecting nor contributing.
To help realise our dream, we chose i-to-i an international volunteer organisation. In 2004 we planned, fundraised and completed our TEFL course and then, with over 111 years of experience between us, our adventure began.
In India we were based in Bangalore and travelled for an hour across the hugely polluted, traffic clogged city in a trishaw every day to teach children in two slum schools. The children here live in poverty, some having being rescued from the streets, others having parents who are alcoholics, prostitutes or drug addicts and do not value learning. Many of the children often come to school hungry and with untold stories of neglect. The schools do not have adequate toilets, no resources, not even chairs and corporal punishment is practised. Yet the children were bright, eager to learn English and interact with us and, despite over-exuberance at times, seemed to enjoy the active, participative learning that we introduced as a change to the learning by rote that they were used to. One of our greatest, pleasant surprises was the realisation that a notoriously badly behaved boy from another class had sneaked daily into our class. He so wanted to learn and was one of our star pupils. It was also amazing to see 16 and 17 year old boys enjoying our arts and crafts lessons using glitter, glue and coloured paper. They had never had an opportunity to do this before.
We rapidly got used to doing without western comforts, washing ourselves in cold water and our clothes in a bucket. The heat at times was stifling and the dirt and dust constant. However, the people and children we met made it all worthwhile.
The physical and emotional rollercoaster we were on got bigger when we went to Sri Lanka. Of course, we had planned to go there before the tsunami struck but this added an extra dimension to our work. We gave lessons in pre- and after-school clubs in the shanty communities of Colombo, Sri Lanka�s capital city. The poverty here was staggering, whole families of 6 or 7 living in no more than what would amount to a leaky, tumble-down garden shed in the UK. We also went to the tsunami camps to play games and sports with the children. Many were undernourished and we were involved in a nutritional programme of weighing children who often had scabies, infected mosquito bites and lice. We distributed food supplements to them. Once a week we helped to build new houses for families who had lost theirs in the disaster. We felt each shovel-full of rubble we removed or brick we laid was some help and that�s where perspective is important. It was easy to think we had achieved little, especially as there were amazing people dedicating their whole lives to others in both India and Sri Lanka. But every smile we helped to make or the time we took to listen to a story of personal tragedy was, we hoped a small contribution.
Our breaks in both Australia and New Zealand between and at the end of our projects helped restore our energies. They also served to bring into focus the extreme contrasts between developing countries and our lives in the west where we seldom appreciate our benefits.
We believe that voluntary work is always two way but we certainly gained more than we gave. We achieved our aims of living in and learning about other cultures, a greater understanding of our limits, rising to challenges, using our initiative, being creative and flexible under difficult circumstances, as well as giving our help and love. What we gained was a lifetime of experiences in 6 months. We now have shared, unique moments to cherish as we went confidently in the direction of our dream. Thank you to all who supported us so much.
