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| Dear Friends |
March 2004 UK News
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| March 2004
OUR VISIT TO BROTHER JAMES KIMPTON AND
REACHING THE UNREACHED
We have recently returned from our sixth visit to Brother James and Reaching the Unreached in India, with our minds reeling from all the sights we have seen and experiences we have had. From our arrival at Chennai airport where, having finally made our way through the interminable Indian immigration control and baggage retrieval, even at 2.30 in the morning, Brother James was waiting patiently for us to appear. We then spent two days in the noisy, bustling city of Chennai, (Madras) taking our lives in our hands by trusting to the local auto rickshaws, to take us round and treating Brother James to purchases in the shops there. The less we say about the new sanctuary lamp and the can of fuel that he bought and got David to pack in his suitcase the better! (Brother James will understand!) Just don’t take him to an airport, he is a liability.! We did have a brief time of quiet in Chennai when we visited the Presentation Convent there and renewed our acquaintance with a dear Sister Basil who has been in India for years.
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| Two days later we flew down to Madurai where we were met by a car and a jeep and then had a two hour drive to Reaching the Unreached. On the way it was extremely distressing to see coconut plantations and fields of crops dead and dying, after the period of prolonged drought in the area, whereas on our last visit three years ago, everything was lush and green, the coconuts were flourishing and the tanks (reservoirs) were full of water as the drought had not yet begun to bite. Now those reservoirs were empty and covered in weeds.
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| When we arrived at Reaching the Unreached we received the first of the many welcomes we were to experience over the next 10 days. Going back to Anbu Ilam (the Children’s Village at Reaching the Unreached) is like going back home. We were soon settled in our own little house but this time we were delighted to share the guest area with eight delightful young postulants to the Presentation Sisters who were there with Sister Vanitha their Superior. Going to mass at 5.15 a.m. with 13 of us squeezed into the jeep was very cosy, to say the least! |
| Within a day, we were joined by Gordon Heald, Chairman of Trustees, RTU UK, and also by Richard Adams, Trustee, for his first visit in 20 years.
As we said earlier, our visit this time was very hectic, with so many events crammed into the 10 days we were there. We were at the re-opening of the De La Salle Open school, which is a school for slow learners and those pupils who have dropped out of full-time education, and where they also receive two meals a day, provided by Reaching the Unreached. Following this re-opening there was the inauguration of Sports Day where we hoisted the flags and took the salute at the march past by the Red Cross Brigade and Scout Group, the formation of which was a new initiative since we were last there three years ago.
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| During the following days we visited the new high school at Silvarpatti (the building of which was paid for by RTU UK), the local villagers having paid for the land. The setting is really beautiful and the building itself is magnificent. We also visited a village school in Pullakkapatti which has been completely renovated and new buildings added. We were pleased to be able to go back to both these schools later in the week for the inauguration ceremonies. The opening of the village school in particular was so memorable. We were met at the beginning of the village by a noisy band of Indian drummers, where garlands of sandalwood beads were placed round our necks. We proceeded to light lamps and cut ribbons in various buildings and were then escorted to a rather rickety looking platform on which we then sat for the duration of the proceedings. The whole of the village had turned out for the occasion and Brother James was very moved when he was presented with a bank draft for 500 rupees (approximately £6) which had been collected at the rate of either 1 or 2 rupees from every family in the village as a token of their appreciation for what Brother had done for them.
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| We also attended the dedication of a Mobile Science Laboratory at the local Government school in Batlagundu. This is a new innovation and it is intended that the vehicle will visit 40 local schools in the area, enabling the children to develop practical scientific skills rather than just relying on reading about them. While we were sitting in the shade of the awning listening to the dedication speeches we watched two village women pass by, each with enormous loads of firewood on their heads, which for us would be impossible to lift, let alone put on our heads, and we were struck by the complete contrast between these two women in their desperate poverty and the pupils who were about to experience a new exciting phase in their young lives.
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| Our visit also coincided with Republic Day, which again meant more march-pasts and also presentation of prizes to the winners of events at the Sports Day.
We were pleased to be able to meet Brother Stephen Touhy from SECOLI, who was visiting RTU with Brother John Fernando, during the time we were there.
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| We visited the other two Children’s Villages during the course of our stay and at each received a tremendous welcome. At Nirmala Children’s Village, when we arrived, all the children were gathered in their family groups, behind tables on which were celebration cakes, which were all duly cut and eagerly consumed by the children. We also had cakes, one for each of us! |
| At Miriam Children’s Village, each family had assembled outside their own house and waited patiently as we visited each in turn, asking all the children their names, and then, much to their amusement trying to repeat them in our best Tamil, which is practically non-existent! |
| Of course because we were staying in Anbu Illam, we saw all the children there every evening at prayer time, although now there is a new innovation whereby each family takes it in turn to present a short cultural programme every night. But in addition, on the Sunday before we left, together with a group of children from each of the other two villages, they had arranged a special display of all their craft work, including a model children’s village which we were invited to inspect, whilst sipping milk straight from coconuts and being plied with spicy Indian titbits. After that we went outside and much to all the children’s amusement we were asked to raise balloons which had been strung up on string and when pulled up would burst on a branch of thorn bush suspended above them. David was the first to do this, fully expecting to be showered with water, but instead was showered with pieces of brightly coloured paper which had been painstakingly inserted inside each balloon. |
| Not every experience we had was happy however. In particular we visited a hospice for AIDS patients run by a wonderful Presentation Sister, Sister Anastatia. A beautiful building, again designed and built by Brother James, and paid for by the Miriam Dean Trust in England. A place of infinite peace and tranquillity where patients can spend their last days in comfort, and between our first visit there and our second the following week, four of those patients had already died. |
| Another very sad occasion was on our visit to Miriam Children’s Village where we were given cards and a home-made friendship bracelet by four small children who were all HIV+ and who would be unlikely to live for very long. It was at Miriam Village on our visit 3 years ago that we saw our very first HIV+ child, a dear little girl called Swathi, and who now has sadly died. Then, she was the only child affected by AIDS but now 3 years later, Brother James has some 50 plus children in his care who are either HIV+ or who are orphans because both parents have died from AIDS. Unfortunately this is becoming an ever increasing problem in the area where Brother works. |
| On the day before we left, we were pleased to be able to present certificates to the senior students who had taken courses in computer studies, tailoring and crafts, and in the afternoon we were invited to the Arulmalar School just down the road from RTU where the Education team had arranged a cultural programme by all the local schools and which was held in the newly built auditorium, fittingly dedicated to the memory of Swathi. |
| A new direction into which Brother James is leading RTU is in taking education into the villages which have been failed by the Indian Government. In many villages the children will not go to school as they are used for work, when there is any, or childminding while their parents work. In order to ensure that these children can go to school, RTU is now sponsoring some of the poorest families, enabling the children to go to school. This ensures that the parents can afford to feed the children and the children will get an education which in time will lift them from their present state of poverty, so RTU in this way continues to reach out to the unreached. |
| Finally, an appeal to all who read these notes to remember Brother James and all De La Salle missionary Brothers in your prayers. As the taxi left for the airport, we looked back through the rear window to see what we already knew we would see, that Brother James had already turned his back to get on with the job.
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David and Jo Cassidy
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| Cordially yours, |
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| Brother James
Kimpton |
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