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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 ( 11:26 PM ) shut up christine crap it's May! almost June! there are times when i take a deep breath, step back, and FREAK OUT trust can be terrifying. i should (henna) tattoo "dude, you can do it" on my inner forearm i wish i had a little earpiece that whispered things to me at appropriate moments, like 'come on keep going!' 'O my gad that was awesome,' or 'eff yeah you crazy bitch' Friday, May 23, 2008 ( 8:54 AM ) shut up christine i couldn't make this stuff up... This is Rohan's story, from Nirali's blog(it will also give you an idea of the kind of people Sunil and Nirali are) When we met It was the first week of September at the Ahmedabad Gandhi Ashram when one could see the Sabarmati river in its fullness dancing away with the gentle wind. At some distance were two small little boys, just sitting in silence next to each other. They were not playing. Nor were they watching the river. They were mostly gazing into the white space. Yet a sense of sweetness completely ensconced them. They were insufficiently dressed, un-bathed and perhaps hungry. I watched them for a while. I asked around, but no guardians were in sight. I went up to interact with them and realized that the older boy was blind, deaf and mute. He must be eight years old; and the younger boy - maybe four years in age. I went to get food for them. They wiped off the entire plate of rice, dal and gulab jamuns within minutes. After sometime the older sister of the blind boy, Rohan, came with her husband. This woman Chaku (around 23 years old) is also deaf and mute and the younger boy is her son. Chaku lives with her husband, who is generally drunk, on the streets near Gandhi Ashram. They seem to have migrated from a village about 7 to 8 months ago. They have no belongings. Not even a basic chulha to cook food everyday. They survive on fish from the river and whatever leftovers they can find from the streets. The story unfolds After feeding the children I went into Manav Sadhna (an ngo that works inside the Gandhi Ashram) and asked them to take a look at the boys. They right away sent someone with a medical kit to clean up their wounds on their scalp (a common skin disease due to poor hygiene and nutrition). A few weeks later, one night, the family was sleeping on the footpath when some animal attacked Rohan. Rohan does not even know what bit him, but the animal chewed away a large chunk of muscle off his left arm. Sunil and some folks from Manav Sadhna took him to the hospital where he underwent a surgery. After the surgery, we thought of taking him to an eye hospital to see if there was a possibility for him to regain his vision. The Big Day The last few weeks have been nothing less than eventful. We have gone to several hospitals, and many eye specialists have examined him. Every kind of test has been conducted to make sure that he is fit for an operation. There were some doctors who have quoted upto Rs. 22,000 for Rohan’s eye surgery. We were prepared to pay the money and also had faith that everything would work out like it always does. However, this week we met up with the best eye surgeon of Gujarat, who also happens to be my cousin’s husband. He agreed to do the entire eye surgery for free. This has simply strengthened my faith in the kindness and generosity that abundantly exists all around us. Rohan's update, that I received in an email yesterday: This month again, Rohan went through another surgery in his right eye for his Glaucoma. On Monday, Dr. Ashish Nagpal put him under anesthesia once again to review. He is surely doing better. Rohan is now our brother, our son, our friend and an inspiration for Shvaas volunteers. However, none of this long term care and follow-up was possible without mentioning two very important people: 1) My cousin, Dr. Ashish Nagpal (who has never charged a penny for all surgeries and medicines & 2) Sunil, from Manav Sadhna (who has tirelessly taken care of Rohan throughout these months). Currently Rohan has vacations in school. He lives at the community center at Manav Sadhna, in an environment of love and attention. There are also many children his age in who visit the center daily. Most Importantly: Thank you everyone for your faith. For your love. For your prayers. -Nirali Shah # Thursday, May 22, 2008 ( 10:13 AM ) shut up christine 
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Saturday, May 17, 2008 ( 5:47 AM ) shut up christine  i love this picture # Friday, May 16, 2008 ( 3:09 PM ) shut up christine from The World According to Mr. Rogers You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are. The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society that support those values, command our love. I'm proud of you for the times you came in second, or third, or fourth, but what you did was the best you had ever done. What makes the difference between wishing and realizing our wishes? Lots of things, and it may take months or years for a wish to come true, but its far more likely to happen when you care so much about a wish that you'll do all you can to make it happen. It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other. If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. # Tuesday, May 13, 2008 ( 2:49 PM ) shut up christine acquiesce: (verb) to give consent by keeping silent they smashed *'s fingers, then made him scrub the floor with his hands in other jails, pregnant women receive some kind of marking, like a different colored uniform. here they don't. they beat a pregnant woman until she lost her baby an obese man couldn't fit thru the door of his cell so they pretzeled him (tied his arms behind his back, and then cuffed his feet to his hands). they left him like this for a couple hours, then dragged him thru the cell door, ripping the skin on his sides this jail has a reputation for being ridiculously and unnecessarily severe. granted, the accounts i've heard are one sided because i never interact with the jail officers, only with the people who've been released. i'm sure the officers have their reasons. they have a difficult job and i can't imagine the kinds of things they have to deal with. but killing a pregnant woman? what could she have done that would in any way justify what happened? for over a year i haven't said anything my excuse: what could I possibly do? such a convenient question to hide behind this is not some far-away international torture camp. this is my backyard, this person is standing next to me what could i possibly do # Monday, May 12, 2008 ( 1:26 PM ) shut up christine relevant work experience  i am laughing to myself as i work on my resume 2 yrs ago i was a pinata maker in Nicaragua # Wednesday, May 07, 2008 ( 12:43 PM ) shut up christine i understand that choices i am making now will drastically shape the kind of future i will have. i am choosing this you lead a mediocre life, someone told me yesterday you're 24, you live in your parents' home, you're not working, and you're satisfied with that? this is the part in my training that is a crash course in humility # Saturday, May 03, 2008 ( 4:55 PM ) shut up christine Life: A Walker's Guide. How to honor and care for the path you're on. by Paulo Coelho # Thursday, May 01, 2008 ( 1:02 AM ) shut up christine in the first 3 seconds of this clip you can see brian standing to the right of ryan seacrest... can you find my forehead? haha brian knows i don't really know how to put on makeup (one time i asked my sister to teach me how to do smokey eyes. she told me to go to sleep with mascara on and i'll have smokey eyes when i wake up. thanks nanet. jerko) when we were getting ready at his house, he kept popping his head into the bathroom to check if i was doing my eyeliner right p.s. he is also a certified Mary Kay consultant i <3 brian what more could i ask for # |
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