Having a cup of tea in a marati village and distributing HIV awareness pamphlets at the junction was not the kind of break I expected after my return from hyderabad to trivandrum.But it turned out to be one of the most beautiful experince in my life,witnessing the stuggles and poignance of life as i travelled through miraj,talsandhe & kodoli in maharashtra.
The program was initiated by the JY National Campus Team named as Social outreach camp from Apr 21-27 '09 with 20 participants from the mumbai campus ministry.I was called into help the program team to guide the camp.Counting the 6days it took for me to travel to n fro,it was a journey of over 2 weeks through kerala,karnataka & Maharastra.En route I got opportunity to spend time with my best friend sandeep on his bday and also with his mom after 3 long yrs.Local boy from plamoodu- Varun was my host in Bang!
The program was designed in such a way that it inculdes 3 components- Spiritual,Missionary & Personal.Spiritual component includes sessions,grp study etc on bible,sacraments etc.Missionary component includes Village Visits,Skits in parishes,Street play etc.Personal includes helping out the needs of the place where we stay in this case being amala ashram for 4 days & dilasa for 3days.
We spent the first 4 days in amala ashram in talsandhe which is founded and run by Fr.Benny MST.In the first day we spent for our own spiritual preparation through introduction,confessions & Holy Mass.The second day onwards Fr.Benny was conducting a retreat for a group of 50 people from mumbai which inculdes both young as well as grown up people and even kids!We were conducting the praise & worship,action songs everyday morning.In between we did many skits,some in the group took sessions for the retreatants while outside few of us were helping in the kitchen,garden work etc.At the end of each day after the retreat is over,Fr.Benny will take us for village visits.Its been a gud experience to see their homes,talk to them through translators(some of us in the grp knew marati) and to pray for them.Even in their poor conditions they were very happy and praising God for all the blessings.It was really an eye opener for me to thank God always in all circumstances of my life and also to realize how blessed I am!On the final day we introduced JY to the grp,we had developed a bond with the young people in the grp that they spent lot of time with us after the retreat is over before leaving.I took a showel in my hand mayb after 8-10 years and worked in the garden for laying pipe!Oouch..i still have the cramps!
On 5th day bidding farewell to amala ashram we started for dilasa- the care centre for HIV +ve patients at Miraj.We were staying with Fr.Sabu there at his residence while girls stayed at dilasa.We conducted some action songs for them and also interacted with them.The kids were always with us so much joyful and fascinated by our group.The kids as you can see in the pics in the sidebar at the left of the blog are all oprhans by now as their parents succumbed to death by AIDS.Looking at their faces the same question came to my mind as the disciples asked Jesus-For whose sins are they suffering like this???Jesus replied-"Its not because of anyones sins but for the plan of God to be made perfect".The patients come their to take ART to improve their resitance and to back to their normal life once they recover.After sometime again they get affected by some infection and come back.This cycle continues until their death!Depending on their individual strenght,food they take etc their life span may vary from 30-40 yrs.The sangli region where this place is situated is one of the most affected places in India.They have identified around 10000 adults and 3000 children who are HIV+ve in this region.On the 6th day we conducted an HIV awareness street play at busstand and Gandhichowk with the help of dilasa field workers.It was the first time experience for most of us to come out to the open area and too in a different culture and atmosphere to conduct something of this sort.At the end of the first play,we got a strong critic in the form of a drunken doctor tried to question our wisdom of challenging the attitude of society towards aids patients.We quickly left for the next place:)
We spent the final day evaluatiing and collating in charts our experinces of the past 6 days and then for some funtime in ambedhkar park at miraj.Looking back I feel so much blessed by God to have got this opportunity to reach out to people even in a very meagre scale and thereby to appreciate more about my life-for it happens when you travel a lot!!!
