the beginning
Saying goodbye to my parents and boarding the plane from LAX to Chennai, India seems like forever ago. Because of this, it took me quite some time to collect my thoughts enough to write a second blog post. Since so much has occurs in a week’s time here, instead of summarizing everything, I have decided to share my most valuable takeaways.
Weeks 1 & 2: If everything in life went according to plan, there would be minimal opportunity for growth.
While in the moment, opportunities for growth that arise from divergence from a plan may seem like unnecessary obstacles, in the long run, they always teach you something and every once in a while, they can be life transformational.
When I arrived at the Chennai Airport, I was stopped and questioned by immigration officers for almost an hour and could not believe that after months of planning, there was a possibility that I would not be let into the country. Shortly after that, I could not get reach the person who was supposed to pick me up because my phone did not have any service; I ended up waiting in the airport for over four hours. Even though I thought I had made a foolproof plan and coordinated with all the right people to ensure a non-chaotic arrival, things went wrong. In hindsight, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but at the time, I was panicked and not sure of what to do. I will spare you all the details, and skip to the conclusion: in the end, it all worked out and I am confident that in the future, I will be able to handle similar situations much better.
A second example demonstrating the futility of planning occurred when I arrived in Kadapa to find that our housing situation was different than expected due to renovations taking longer than anticipated. So, instead of living with the children in Aarti Village, the Stanford students and I are living in a community about ten minutes away and we have people drive us over each day. In addition, while initially we were teaching English classes (which is what we prepared for in the months before arriving in India), a few days in, we were asked to implement Khan Academy in all the math classes and dedicate most of our time to updating the website of the organization instead. While things obviously did not go according to plan, I have found our new work to be extremely rewarding. We have learned to laugh when things go wrong and spend our time finding a solution, rather than dwelling on things that are out of our control. And, seeing the children’s smiles when they come to class and the even bigger smiles when they understand a challenging concept makes everything worthwhile. It is also rewarding to know that the projects that we are now working on will continue to have an impact on the children’s growth and the advancement of the organization long after we are gone.
A third, and much less trivial, example exhibiting the importance of not always following a plan is the story behind the organization that brought me to India. The founder of Aarti Home, Sandhya, had no grand plans of starting an organization that would make such an impact within her community. One day, a woman came up to her with a two year old girl child who had been abandoned and begged Sandhya to take the child. Sandhya, influenced by all the injustices toward women she had seen in her lifetime, took the child into her own home. At this time, Sandhya had no grand visions of social change, just a simple goal: to care for, educate, and teach this young girl that she was valuable. In the three decades since, her unplanned action of taking in one girl child turned into an organization that includes Aarti Home for abandoned girls, Aarti School for abandoned girls and other impoverished children in the community, vocational training programs for destitute women, and the Mana Bidda Project, a EU sponsored project that educates and advocates for girl children in the larger Kadapa area. Whenever we ask Sandhya what her plans are for the future, she smiles and reminds us of the origins of the organization, simply referring to her overarching goal of working with and empowering women to be independent and write their own stories. The organization has, and always will, respond when it is called upon and work to address societal issues. However, in the same fashion that the organization began, future growth will be organic and will not be restricted by excessive planning.
To my very observant readers (i.e. my dad), I know what you are wondering at this point of my post: Why was your Weeks 1 & 2 post not published until the end of Week 3? Excellent question. My answer will perfectly sum up my major takeaway from this week. Although I planned to post weekly, I have not had access to a computer until now and the power frequently goes out at night, making it difficult to connect to the Internet and post. But in light of my aforementioned examples, I have learned to not stress about such a minor obstacle and instead, do my best to go with the flow. :)
