Sandipani Muni School - How We Met Brijlata

From the one primary school where the children gather for assembly, we walked with the students heading to the other school.  The younger children (kindegartners) took the "bus."

 That's right... a bull powered school bus!

As we were watching the little ones load onto the cart, we saw a small girl with her father and she was obviously having a hard time parting with him.  And in turn, he appeared very concerned about the situation as well.  I asked our "guide" (a lovely Italian woman) about the girl and her father and she told me that the girl's mother died a few weeks ago of malaria.  The father had been very ill as well and lost his job because of it.  He now had to go look for work but it was difficult because of having his small daughter at home with no mother to care for her.  Brijlata didn't have a sponsor yet, but they were taking her in hopes of finding one soon.  Today was her first day at Sandipani Muni.  My heart broke listening to this story.

I snapped a photo of Brijlata before I heard the story about her situation:

Chris took this photo of G and me walking with the Italian woman to the next school.  She was full of information, including the story of Brijlata, and I greatly appreciated the time I had with her.

I think this was the moment of "Chris, I have something to tell you, it's terribly depressing, but I think we've been given a sign..."

And if the story of Brijlata wasn't enough of a sign, our child handing her biscuits was.

I cried the entire time I watched my 6 year old daughter hand out biscuits to children who otherwise would have had no meal if it weren't for this school.

As G continued to distribute the breakfast we sponsored, Chris and I cried together.

I wanted to hug all of these children!  So cute, so innocent, and their lot in life so not fair. 

It took us about a heart beat to decide that we needed to find out more about Brijlata.  We saw her father watching through the classroom door, making sure everything was okay on her first day.  Call us crazy, or emotional, but we just felt that this was meant to be - we were meant to sponsor Brijlata.

Sandipani Muni School - About

Food for Life Vrindavan runs the Sandipani Muni School in Vrindavan.  The school provides not only an education to children living in poverty, but also 2 meals a day, school supplies, medical care, school uniform and clothing.  If it weren't for this school these children would go without meals, clothing and education.  The school is open 6 days a week.

This was the most eye opening - and heart wrenching - part of our trip.  As I write this almost a year later I still get emotional thinking about this experience.

We've made donations to Food for Life's backpack and school supply fundraising efforts in the past.  And we know people who sponsor children to attend the school.  In fact, one family here in the U.S. gave us a note and small gift to take with us to give to the girl they sponsor.  We had talked about sponsoring a child, but never followed through on it.  However, we decided that we wanted to sponsor a meal while we were there and arranged everything in advance.

There are 3 schools and we arrived first at the Primary school where the children gather for assembly.

The backpacks - consider making a donation towards the annual backpack campaign!

The children loved having their picture taken and being able to see it right away.  As soon as I started snapping photos I was mobbed by children!

Links:
Food for Life Vrindavan

It never rains in November

That's what everyone kept telling us.  "It never rains in November in Vrindavan."  But yet it did.  Non-stop.  What a mess rain creates!  Dirt roads turn to mud a few inches deep.  Animal excrement mixes into the mud.  Sewers along the road overflow.  It becomes one big muddy poopy mess.

Bare feet on marble in the rain when it's chilly isn't overly pleasant.  Below is G and Chris walking in the Temple grounds:

Rain didn't stop anyone from viewing the deities (they just didn't stand out in the open courtyard!).

The rain started the day we visited the Taj Mahal and it continued after we departed India.  The rain was very tough to take.

Indradyumna Swami Maharaja

We returned to Vrindavan from Agra (Taj Mahal) and were told that Indradyumna Swami had heard about a beautiful gopi visiting and invited us to his home to meet with him.  Such an invitation is a privilege, and honestly, we were quite honored, especially knowing that many devotees would love a private meeting with him.  Of course, we knew such an invitation was extended only because of our beautiful gopi daughter!

Indradyumna Swami's home in Vrindavan is quite lovely, very spacious and lots of gorgeous marble.  I didn't know anything about him really, except what Chris told me the night before when we attended an evening program where he gave a lecture to a packed house (or in this case, a packed courtyard).  My initial impression of Maharaja was that he was a very kind man, and the more he spoke with G the more impressed I became.

He told G he had a very special gift for her, and presented her with a necklace that his personal Radha deity wore for the past 20 years.  Chris and I were floored, as this is an unbelievably generous gift.  The necklace is absolutely beautiful and G treasures it.  

Before we left, we were allowed to visit the deities, which are on the roof, but the altar has a roof over it.  Which was good because it was pouring rain when we were there! 

 

Indradyumna Swami has a website called The Traveling Monk, where he keeps an online diary.  Each year his diary is published as a book, which he was kind enough to give G a few.  Maharaja has some very interesting things happen to him, definitely worth reading a few entries online.