PRAY - News

Project Visit by Jennifer

In the month of December, I travelled for a few weeks through India. I made use of this opportunity to visit the PRAY India Project, the construction of the school.     

Because of the fact that it would be undoable for me to find the location of this school on my own, I was fortunate to be helped by the family Bhagirath to facilitate my visit. In the early morning we planned the trip from Delhi with departure time 6 a.m. Although it was an early start of the day, I was wide awake and excitedly sitting in the car. For me it was the first time that I would go out of the city Delhi since my arrival in India. I was so curious to see the surroundings, the landscape and the more rural areas. While the other passengers in the car were mainly sleeping, I tried to look around and see as much as I could, but there was one restricting factor….véry dense fog. I could not see more than a few steps ahead. Luckily for me, the road trip was long enough, approximately 3h, to see the sun do her job and to make the landscapes visible for me. Also the chaos in traffic became more clear to me during the trip.

Finally arriving at the location of our project, I was really touched by what I saw. In a remote area, close to a railway and in the middle of cereal fields, there was the base of the school building, with a building of a temple next to it. The disposition of the ground floor was finished and I could already see what it would look like when everything will be finished. It’s looking promising….

After that I went to the first floor, currently also the roof, with a ladder that could use some extra stability. The view was nice but the thoughts that this building and the whole programme what is attached to it, gives more future prospective to these children in the neighbourhood, gave the view an additional value.
 

During the road trip I was able to briefly see/estimate in which circumstances the people are living here and I could see that the education facilities are poor, not even start talking about the healthcare facilities.

Coming back to the ground floor, several men from the area started the preparations for the ‘soup kitchen’, which is regularly organised by the PRAY foundation. Of course I have been asked to help, what I was more than pleased to do. But this was the opportunity for everybody to laugh at me. Normally women are the ones with a good reputation in the kitchen and in my kitchen I do quite well, but this ‘cuisine’ was definitely not in my range of skills. I did an attempt to roll out some balls of dough into rounds and then fried them, but it was not a success story. However I did enjoy it to be part of it. Everybody was so friendly. Afterwards, the food would be distributed through the area to people who require it.
 

In the mean while, the ‘chiefs’ talked about the plans for the further construction of the school and the cost attached to it. When everything was settled, it was time to go back. With all the impressions I just gained, the 3 hour ride back went by very fast. Certainly also because I still was impressed by what I was seeing around me: villages, shops, people and traffic. It was clear to me that I was in another (part of the) world that could use some help…
I am looking forward too come back one day and to visit the school project. And maybe the beginning of the building for a healthcare centre.
 

Jennifer