Nov 14th is Children's day in India. The universal date is actually Nov 20th, but in honor of Pandit Jawaharial Nehru, India's first prime minister who was very fond of children, the holiday is celebrated on his birthday.

For this special day the program I work within, Cheyutha, which is a program that is for people living with HIV/AIDS had a picnic for all the affected and infected children. I had the opportunity to invite 4 of my other friends from Hyderabad, knowing that the love kids and expecting the kids would be very excited by new, foreign faces.

The first 15 minutes of the picnic was beyond awkward. As lunch was being served to all of us all we could do was sit quietly, eating our yellow rice, slowly recalling the reality that communication with these children would be difficult, as most of them only speak Telegu, no Hindi or English. Though the first few minutes felt as if it were an eternity we progressively started to remember that with young children language is not a barrier. Within minutes we were all being enclosed by the kids dragging us to play games. The next thing we knew we ended up knee deep in the water fountain in the middle of the park. Everyone was splashing each other, and all the kids were colluding against my friends to somehow push them into the water. To add to my happiness, I got the opportunity to bond with my co workers, who are normally reserved with me because of the communication barrier. However that day they put barriers behind them and grabbed my hand, dragging me in the fountain up to my chest!
(Lola this made me think of you and how you desperately wanted to play in a fountain before we left Barcelona and how we had to do the ocean instead at 4:30 in the morning!)
As the afternoon grew hotter, but we remained cool from our new bath we continued on to very unorganized but tremendously fun series of games such as cricket, tug of war, 3 legged race which became a six legged race with me, tag, and other Telegu games that I progressively learned. As Jason (one of the friends who joined us) put it, these children were the most polite and caring children I have ever seen in such a large group. They were all concerned about each other and acknowledged each other’s needs.

Playing with the kids really brought all of us join. In particular it brought me joy to see my friends remember the constant battle these children have, they are all either HIV positive, or their parents are. I see the reality of these situations every day at work, whether it be in San Francisco or India. I often feel I live in two different worlds. The world of my work that brings social issues directly to my attention, and my friends and family, who are not surrounded by these issues and who work in a sector that these issues aren’t obvious. In San Francisco it often saddened me after I spoke about my work for a minute or two my friends would often ask me to stop, saying it was too sad for them to listen to; telling me I was being depressing. This always confused me as this is a reality people should be aware of. Just as people feel it is important to stay abreast of world issues and politics, these social issues are also a very strong part of reality. Yet I feel a large amount of people feel it overwhelming and chose to ignore it. It was such a pleasant change for me to be around people who were excited to have this unique experience, had more questions and really appreciated the knowledge, no matter how sad it may be.