Village Life Sarnath, India

As part of our trip, we were invited to do homestays in the local villages. For many of these families, including mine, this was the first time that any one not related to the family has stayed in their home, and certainly the first Westerner that any of them had spent any time with. Nandal, the young man in the photo, is one of the teachers in the primary school in Dr. Jain's project. He teaches math and speaks some English. He lives with his mother, father and four sisters. In the same compound his mother's sister and husband and her father and mother also live. I slept in a small room with his sisters, and we communicated through the pictures I had brought from my home. The pictures of Macail, my 'nati' gave me some special cache. Being a grandmother is a big deal and respected.

Their home is very simple. Adobe walls and tile roof. Cooking is done over a little wood fire and this picture shows one of Nandal's sisters with the grinding wheel for the grain. No toilet facilities. The local field is the bathroom, and the water is from a local pump.

The family was so welcoming and warm, although the mother was quite nervous to have such an important person (a professor has very high status here) in her home. She didn't want her son to go to the Temple in the morning and leave her alone with me. So he stayed and fed me a papaya before we went to visit the schools.

It's humbling to see the simplicity of their lives and their pleasure in the simple gathering with each other in the morning in the dirt square between the homes. Much laughter while they were brushing their teeth with twigs from the Neem tree or washing at the pump. The little nephew, maybe four years old, running back and forth between his mother and Nandal, and peeking at me.

M