Posted February 1, 2001
Additional photos added February 4, 2001

Dr. Stephanie Gilbertson, Ed.D. a disciple from the Cincinnati Church of Christ, was in New Delhi, India for a month working with other disciples and representatives of HOPE worldwide providing a brief teacher education course to HOPE staff who teach in the Village of HOPE, a leper colony, and in the Asharan Orphanage. Ten days after her arrival, India was struck with one of the most severe earthquakes in decades. This series of articles chronicle her thoughts and activities from her life changing experience. January 22, 2001 Thanks for all the messages I've received. Your encouragement really helps. This is a lot more challenging than I had expected. Some things are extremely gratifying, though. The Delhi people tend to get wrapped around my heart very quickly. It is not dangerous. Though poor, they are not violent. Even the millions of tent dwellers seem content to work out their lives from within the confines of their circumstances. There is not the "victim mentality" that is so prevalent in the States. Chris, the pictures were great! Send more. The folks here enjoy looking at my photos from home. The food is good. I have only eaten four meals, though. I've been sick. But what I have had has been delicious. All vegetarian. Lots of curry, or chili powder. Today, I visited the Tralokpuri slum school. I didn't realize how nice the area around the orphanage is until I compared it to a real slum. You may have seen a picture of an Indian slum in National Geographic, and, like me, thought that picture didn't represent a large population. It represents millions. Worst of all the kids are bright, interested, craving knowledge. They laughed like crazy when I taught them how to blow a bubble with the gumballs from mom and dad. There were 3 rooms full of kids. I took candy into two of the rooms and gumballs into the third. I had given out many of the superballs at the orphanage and at church. We are going shopping tomorrow to buy sheets for the infants' cribs and more diapers. I have been working with the teachers to improve their instructional effectiveness. Each idea I throw out is taken with such incredible gratitude and immediate application, it blows me away! Love Stef January 23, 2001 Dear Mom and all, The kids here all chant "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in unison, almost every time they see me. Last night I let each of the ten little kids in the orphanage choose a color of construction paper and I traced a star on each sheet. They used the scissors brought from Cincinnati - four of them had definitely never used a scissors before. When we wrote their names on the stars the kids started beaming. I'm going to put their photographs on the stars and hang them on the walls of their classroom. We painted the classroom today so the new decorations will be lovely on the freshly painted walls. After dinner I made a paper football and taught them the table-top game we used to play. After I demonstrated the game with the oldest boy, I sat a girl in my chair and a boy in the other, then rotated again after a few "kicks," "passes" and "field goals." Little did I know that I had transgressed a serious taboo. I soon learned that even at this young age, boys are strictly separated from girls. Today was the first day I began to feel better since before I left Cincinnati. I started the antibiotics a few days after I got here and my ears and throat are still pretty bad. Sometimes I sit and read books to the kids; after their breakfast, before dinner and at bed time. Even though they really don't know much English they seem to understand [or they act like they do just so I'll continue to sit with them :-)  ] At meal time the boys sit at the table and the girls sit on a mat on the floor. When the cook calls a name, that child gets up and goes to the kitchen for a plate. The boys get served first. They all wait until everyone at the table has a plate. They pray a rote prayer in English and eat in silence. The girls do the same. They file into the kitchen afterward and then come to see what I might have for them to do. This morning we went shopping for crib sheets and bed sheets and some other necessities. You should see the traffic! Imagine you are in Bumper cars on I-75, but there is no specific direction you should go or lane you should use. Add a few cycle rickshaws, camels, elephants and pedestrians and you'll begin to get the picture. If a driver sees a couple of inches of pavement or daylight in the general direction he (I have yet to see a woman driver) wants to go, then he beeps loudly and floors it. Sometimes they bump but they never stop to talk about it. They just keep on pressing forward. Sometimes as an oncoming car was almost in my lap, I just snapped picture to keep from screaming inappropriately. :-)   [I'm trying hard to seem much less shocked and amazed than I really am and we laugh about it all the time.] Now, about the shopping! Some things must be common to many women all over the world. As we were leaving for our much-awaited shopping trip, my friend went through all of her children's names before she got to the one she wanted. :-) Anyway, I thought we were going to a department store or some place like a WalMart, because we had a list that included quite a variety of items. Oh, my! was I ever surprised to see that the nice "shopping" was almost as nice as the flea market at Farmers Retreat! I bought sheets for all of the kids' beds; well the material, actually. You have to have them "stitched." Well, that's all for now. Love, Stef January 24, 2001 I stepped outside to take a picture of the orphanage. I thought I'd get a better shot if I stepped away from the building just few feet. All of the sudden young children, adolescents and adults appeared out of nowhere. All of them pushing to get attention from me, all of them wanting their picture taken. The orphanage security guard was worried but I was really OK. They are not mean or violent. Just extremely needy. All I could give them was some attention. So I stayed and took their pictures until I ran out of disk space. Yesterday we went to the market and bought 15 meters of sheet material for bed sheets. (They don't have a WalMart or anywhere to buy ready-made sheets). They said we would have to have them "stitched." This morning three men arrived carrying an old pedal style sewing machine, a table and all of the accessories. The Stitchers set up on the rooftop outside my room and after arguing for a few minutes about exactly where to place the work station, set to stitching. They reupholstered 6 kitchen chairs, made bumpers and fitted sheets for the four cribs and two bassinets, and fitted sheets for four single beds. They were gone by 2 PM. Stef <=== trying not to seem too foreign January 26, 2001 I was lying in bed thinking about the sounds I'm growing accustomed to, at the end of a full week in Delhi. Piercing the din of normal traffic and animal noises, around 10:00 each night, comes the sound of a loud whistle followed by even louder thumping. It's the night watchman, blowing the whistle to alert any would be evildoers that the watchman is here. And thumping his big mallet to remind them what will become of their heads if he catches them at mischief. There are train sounds and often one can hear chanting in the background. The chanting is the Hindu Priest calling everyone to prayer. It's heard quite frequently. Of course in the day time there are the drums. Traditional Indian welcome is a beating of some drums and we hear them often. Here in the orphanage, during the day there are the normal sounds of children in class or at play and cook in the kitchen. By the way, our preemie was fine for a day then got respiratory failure and went to the hospital. now she is back and growing stronger. the doctors said she was born at 7 months, and dropped in our night basket the first day. maybe because she was a girl and girls are not valued in some families. 'Til next time (don't worry if it is a few days we have a lot going on right now.) Stef <=== feeling great and loving Delhi PS if you talk to Chris before he has a chance to get his email from me please tell him I asked for Desitin (or generic diaper rash ointment), Waterless hand sanitizer, LEGOS, and infant-sized pampers (here we use a rag for a diaper and tie plastic around it very tightly and it leaks a lot). January 28, 2001 Hi all, Things here are going great. No disciples were hurt in the earthquake but some have extended family members who were killed or injured. About 500 people died from what we heard way up here near Delhi. Around 20,000 were killed (in less than 30 seconds) a few hours to the southwest. We heard about Brian Gaukel's message about worshiping God and today a brother quoted Henry Kriete's book about the same subject during our communion message. Today was a big HOPE worldwide conference here in Delhi. All of the HOPE VPs are in town and tomorrow they will come to the orphanage. We have been sprucing up for the visit. We have painted and stitched and cleaned, hung pictures, created bulletin boards, and planted flowers. The kids have learned a dance and we had costumes made for them and they all got hair cuts. They are looking so good.They are a really bright bunch. They are picking up reading skills very quickly and many will be reading, I'm sure, before I leave. Love, Stef Go to Part 2   Go to Part 3    Go to Part 4   Go to Part 5