Delhi airport – 8 hour stopover. May 31st, 2010, 3AM.
Alone. Empty. Heavy. I carried my two check-ins to the counter. After a long flight from Canada to Belgium, and a 4 hour delay, I have finally made it to India. New Delhi.

It’s early in the morning, only handful of people are walking around. It was the most familiar strange place to be – standing in front of the KFC fast food joint I once stood before the year before, all by myself. I looked around, took some pictures…and deleted it.

I am not a tourist. I’m in India – with a purpose. I am here to be a part of the rich culture.

India has one of the longest history in the world. The culture is a testimony to it – so full of life, death, happiness, purpose, sorrow, sadness, joy, colours, smiles, violence, chaos, peace…there are no words, perhaps not enough words in the English language, to descrbe this clash of thousands of different worlds into one beautiful land.

I close my eyes saturated by the quietness of my first sleep in India – at the airport.

———————
When do you feel at home? When a family member greets you? When a friend gives you a hug? When you pull out your favourite cereal into your familiar bowl and pull out your worn out spoon?

I leave the airport into the open air – into the sunlight -after many hours of traveling. (To you travellers, you know that sunbathing feeling after a long flight…)

I am greeted by my supervisor, and the student that was working with him for about a year.  I have no choice – I am home now, for the next 90 days.

I step into the hospital with no proper sleep for the last 30 hours of my life – trying to memorize unfamiliar faces and names.

——————————

There are often misconceptions about India. It is a beautiful country, land flowing with culture and history, and many different viewpoints about life.

I don’t have a job here. I am not here to volunter. I am not working. I am not changing. I am not developing. I am not helping. I am not being a hero. I am not enduring pain and suffering to help others. So I was wrong before – I AM here as a tourist.

I am here to be me. To be just one indvidual – part of the many individuals who are helping to shape the world into a better place for at least one child.

I am here to breathe the air that they are breathing – what I am passionate about – I am here as a visitor, leaving just a small footprint in the amazing work that is already being done by these doctors.

There are estimated about 14 million children blind in the world – I am here to see if I can help to put a cap on that number.  It took me a month of working on this project to finaly realize what it is that I spent the last 3 months preparing for…

————————–

This may be the most unorganized blog I have written. I open up my laptop  to write yet another entry in the reflection I have started months ago.

www.whatdoesittaketosavelives.tumblr.com

I will blog again. For tonight, I finally enter my first blog – because tonight (after getting over a nasty cold and fever for the last 4 days) I have realized  my time here wasn’t for school, a development agency, a hosptial in Toronto, a hospital in Bangalore – but for a child who will open his or her eyes in the morning to a pitch black sun.

——————————————

What is your purpose.

Categorie : Inde, Durant le stage // Faire un commentaire »