Small Things

January, 2011: Back in India to check on the progress of the two new jewelry programs in Calcutta and Mumbai, our school- sponsored kids from the Kidderpore red light area and the WIF shelter home, the boarding school sponsored kids, and our partner programs in Calcutta.  We have also brought a small group of volunteers to do therapeutic arts projects with rescued survivors and born into brothels children. It's a lot to do in two weekd.

And as usual we’ve had a grueling schedule. Much of Calcutta is crumbling and chaotic - 20 million people doing the best they can with inadequate infrastructure.  Thus far, I've spent an awful lot of time in cars, stuck in traffic, and not enough time with the survivors. For this reason, and maybe just because I'm jet-lagged and human, I was feeling low yesterday. I was in need of some inspiration.

Inspiration doesn't always come all at once, with brilliant breakthroughs and light-bulb moments. It came to me this time in a series of small things: the growing confidence and technical skill of the jewelry girls, the spontaneous hug from a survivor who was so guarded the last time I visited, the three boarding school-sponsored kids who stood first (top of their class) in final exams last week, and perhaps most of all the realization that my visits, our staff presence here, has become so...normal.

My trips to India used to feel more dramatic, like "OMIGOSH, I can't believe I'm in INDIA!! "We're starting a program in a SHELTER HOME!", "These kids are rescued from SLAVERY!!"," How are we going to do this?!" I realize that part of the ebb I was feeling yesterday was the absence of that intensity. I am used to being here now. The city, the shelters, the red light areas neither shock nor amaze me. They are more like an extension of my office. The jewelry center and the shelters feel like home. And while the survivors are as delighted to see me as I am to see them, it is not such a big deal as it once was because they have come to trust that our team keeps coming back, that we are here for them day in and day out, as long as it takes to ensure that they remain free, empowered and educated.

And the very ordinariness of what was once so remarkable, the fact that dreams are becoming daily reality, turned out to be all the inspiration I needed.

"We cannot do great things, only small things with great love" Mother Teresa of Calcutta