On Thursday we went back to the women's centre, eagerly and with much joy in our hearts. The women were going to be in their normal class sessions (three 1 1/2-hour "batches," as they called them), and we had the opportunity to participate with them and to also lead some parts of the classes.
We took turns enacting (and then having the students repeat back) some basic conversation scenarios that Megan wrote up beforehand, for the spoken English classes. Angela and Kaitlyn went around together to the different classes, Angela speaking a bit about arthritis and joint problems (how they are caused and how to help prevent/treat them), and Kaitlyn demonstrating some yoga poses and explaining the benefits of stretching exercises. (I got to witness their first presentation, to a spoken English class, and it went over great-- once the floodgates were open, almost all the women wanted to try the poses and have Kaitlyn help them with them. Me-- my salwar pants were a bit too tight to do them well!) Otherwise, people just went around to the different classes and observed or participated-- I know Jo tried her hand at embroidery, and Brad had a question-and-answer time with a computer class during a power outage.
As soon as the first session ended, Karrie and I were enlisted to apply mehndi designs to the women's hands before they left for the day. (We'd picked up henna during our shopping trip with Sheba & Tabitha the afternoon before.) I have to say that our first attempts were somewhat less than noteworthy (well, and so were my second, and third... Karrie gave up after one) but the girls were very gracious. As one of the staff members told us as we were starting off, "they love you, so they will love whatever you do." One woman toward the end of the day, Banu, even asked me to write my name ("in your language," she made sure to specify) on her wrist (she did remember my name then). Another teenage girl brought out a small memo pad and asked for my "autograph" to show her friends (she then got Karrie's and Megan's as well). It's a little strange to feel like such a celebrity, when all you did was show up. We ended up doing mehndi with each group of women as they finished their classes for the day (and of course some of them put their much greater skills to good use on our hands, as well).
It was really wonderful to be able to sit and talk with the women and girls, as girlfriends (by the end of the day we'd given up on chairs, and were all sprawled out all over the floor)-- turns out we're pretty much the same, despite our different languages or accents, different styles of dress (though, not so different that day), different countries and cultures. They still love their children, and have dreams for their future, and the younger girls were absolutely an inspiration. For instance, Kavya, at 17, is paying for her own tuition. She doesn't want to rely on anyone else or take their money. She wants to become a banker, and plans to get married only "after 10 years." We told the girls that American girls could definitely learn some things from them. They taught us a few phrases in Tamil, and after much giggling answered Karrie's inquiries as to how to use the toilet in a sari (just hike it up), and they all asked when we were coming back. We all wished we could say "tomorrow" or "next week," and truly I made friends I will not soon forget.Another part of our second day at the women's centre was to start doing some video interviews. The plan is to edit together a video to show the church leadership, so they can see the amazing and life-altering work occurring over there. We interviewed 3 of the students-- Kattie and I did one of these interviews, and even though we'd already sat down with our interviewee beforehand and heard her story, we were both struggling to keep from tears during the interview itself. (Again, I won't share the details of her personal story here, but it is a powerful and heartbreaking tale of struggle and resiliency.)
After the interview, James (who had been videotaping the interview) left the room, and Karrie, the woman we interviewed, Josie (who translated) and I all prayed together. When we were getting ready to leave the room, Karrie apologized to Josie for crying, saying that she knew our tears didn't help the woman, who'd already been crying during the interview-- to which Josie replied something to the effect that it was ok, and that was what women did together (share and cry and support each other), and it showed her that we cared. And I thought of how true that was-- more than once during this trip already we ladies had been gathered around one bed or another, supporting and praying over whoever may have been struggling at that particular moment-- and I shared that with Josie, too. It is interesting and touching to see how much more we are all the same, than different.
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