Small Miracles Happen

Today we arrived at the Indian Institute for Health Management and Research, in Jaipur, the Pink City (in the state of Rajasthan). IIHMR is quite posh (a long way from Bapu Nature Cure!) and I can already tell it's going to be a great week staying here! It's going to be hot, because this is the desert (it's about 110 during the daytime), but I'm so excited. There's even been talk about a mini-safari! I want to ride an elephant. We'll see.

Anyway, since today's Saturday, we didn't do any public health-related work. But I want to blog about small miracles, like the title suggests. Because even in a country like India, where you'll see tribal riots, armed conflict, religious friction, and EXTREME poverty as inextraordinary things, there ARE small miracles happening here, and we've seen them during our trip.

Take all the staff we've seen who have beaten their drug addictions and come back to Sahara to help other sufferers rebuild their lives. Nicolla, for instance, was a drug user from Calcutta. She has slash marks up and down her left forearm, and what could be a healed abscess from former drug use on her right. She had some sort of an accident a few years back, and needed a hip replacement. Twice, she didn't have enough money for a permanent replacement, and had to go for the cement kind. Because of all her activity doing outreach for battered and marginalized women, the cement has been cracking. She needs a few thousand dollars to get a permanent hip replacement. She has found someone to help her pay what her savings cannot cover. Small miracles do happen.

Take Auntie Jennie, with her two daughters who fell into drug use. She still doesn't know why it happened. Her granddaughter was born going through withdrawal symptoms, because of her mother's drug use during the pregnancy. She showed us pictures of her granddaughter now, posing like a supermodel. Auntie Jennie is so humble and so happy in her new job as a counselor for HIV clients and drug users. She says she's also raising her granddaughter herself. A small miracle. I cannot imagine what she went through, with two daughters using drugs for over a decade. When she told us that addiction is hardest on the user's family, she knew what she was talking about.

I know this post sounds trite. But I've spent a little time here now, and from an American perspective, I'm learning a little bit what it's all about. What the differences are between my home country, and my parents' country. I still can't put my finger on it...there are so many things to love about the US, the land of hope and the American dream and all that. But small miracles do happen here, and amidst all the poverty, filth, corruption, and hobbling along that I see on the streets of Delhi, I see that there are people working quietly to make a difference.

Which makes me think that all those years ago, fighting for freedom in his own patented way in this very country, Gandhi struggled to find his way and came up with this:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

In my life, this advice has yet to take on all the nuances and details I need to figure out my place in the world. But it's simple advice, and I think we have to believe that if we work hard and well, with our eyes and our minds wide open, we will find out how to do our part to make things better. I've seen small miracles happen, and they're really not so small at all.