Voluntary suffering never appealed to me. That changed one summer day in 2001 at an orphanage in southern India where I was volunteering with Global Volunteers (GV) (http://www.globalvolunteers.org)
One very hot day we walked maybe a quarter mile to a litter-strewn field, armed with tin plates for plate-balancing-on-your-head relay races and rope for three-legged races. Even for southern India it was hot. The kids who didn’t have shoes complained that their feet hurt when they walked in sand. Finally we made it to the field and started the relay races, pausing occasionally to clear it of glass, debris and cow presents.
We’d been out there less than an hour when the orphanage director asked us to stop. It was just too hot, he said. The kids were too hot to play and some of the toddlers were starting to cry.
And so we started the trek back. In the 45-minutes since we’d arrived at the field, it had gotten even hotter – and so had the sand. The kids without shoes were crying because the hot sand was burning their feet.
Michael, the lone guy on our GV team, and I each hoisted shoeless kids onto each shoulder and trudged back to the straw hut orphanage.
Suddenly the quarter mile hike seemed like a 100-mile marathon. It had been painful walking to the field in that heat – it was unbearable walking back carrying a five-year-old on each arm. Every time I took a step, sweat running down into my Goa shirt (think Hawaiian shirt but tackier) I was ready to – and secretly hoped I would – fall face down and pass out. And all the while my two little boys were jabbering to each other in their native Tamil, bare feet dangling around my waist, completely oblivious to my suffering.
Michael was just as miserable. The other volunteers carried one child or none at all, and I resented them for not – literally – carrying their weight. (To be fair, I’m tall, but not big. At least that’s what I tell myself).
Michael and I still talk occasionally about that awful day and how we both knew, no matter how far the journey or how heavy those kids got, that nothing would have stopped us from carrying those barefoot little kids over hot sand to save them from pain. It’s one of the clearest memories I have of my time in India.
So maybe it’s not a bad thing to hurt a little to save someone else from pain. It’s not something I’d recommend often – but try it once in awhile. You’ll never forget it.
Get out and give back.
I just stumbled across your blog “Get Out and Give Back” – Fun! And, I really enjoyed reading your article in the Gainesville Times. I think you did a great job of painting a picture of your experience. I felt like I was there but didn’t have to break a sweat