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India
will dissolve your ideas about what it is to be a human being, what it is
to be compassionate, what it is to be spiritual or conscious.
Its people give new meaning to perseverance, courage, ingenuity,
and friendship.”
James
O’Reilley and Larry Habeggar
At
2:00am weary eyed and sweaty from the long journey I tentatively push my
cart through the sliding glass doors as I exit arrivals in Chennai, India.
The heat, noise and fumes immediately batter an already uneasy
state. Scanning the sea of
faces a wave of relief comes over me as I spot a man with a beaming warm
smile clutching a small sign bearing “Global Volunteers” in simple
scrawl.
“Welcome to India,
Lydia,” he shouts over the din. “You
are the last to arrive,” he says as we pile ourselves and my bags into a
tired mini van.
Stephen Raj,
a gracious and overwhelmingly affable native of Chennai will lead 5 of us
volunteers through Global
Volunteer’s India program charged with assisting a local orphanage teach
English, serve food, and provide basic love and care to 100 children
either orphaned, abandoned or left victim by families unable to provide
for them. Standing there that
minute amidst the whirlwind of sights and sounds only found in India,
intimidation seeps into my very being.
I suddenly become fully conscious of where I am what I am about to
embark on.
Our
taxi swerves in and out of the dark streets of Porur, a crowded suburb of
Chennai, India’s fourth largest city and “home” to 6 million people.
We stop at the end of a quiet road in front of what is the team’s
guest house, a non-descript 3 story concrete building. Placed
next to the entrance gate I notice a small shrine with the Hindu elephant
God Ganesh. Lord of success and destroyer of evils, god of education,
knowledge, wisdom and wealth, sitting proudly inside. Great heaping
masses of dirt, garbage and a sleeping cow
line the sidewalk to the house. We climb a narrow staircase in the dark
and enter the house. Steven gropes around in the dark for lights and
whispering, gives me a quick tour of our spartan quarters. We walk through
a small room smelling strongly of spices, onions and garlic. A chipped and
worn counter top houses a tattered 2 burner gas stove. A couple of baskets
expose bunches of coriander, curry leaves, a few potatoes and eggplants.
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He
leads me by boxes of drinking water stacked along a wall to the conference
room surrounded with posters of flags from all over the world, the Global
Volunteers logo and poster paper with Team Goals scratched out in sloppy
handwriting. I quickly scan
the words written, love the
children, serve, help others-- |
| basic statements fundamental to why
volunteers have come. Apparently there is no need for fluffy semantics.
“From the last team,” Steven explains. |
Centered in the room is a big brown table bordered by red plastic
chairs where we will eat, hold team meetings, read, generally live.
Lonely Planet Guides to India, phonics flash cards, and
children’s books are heaped on a counter in the corner of the room.
The bathroom consists of a bare concrete floor with walls of
faded and dirty chipped paint. A
small baby blue plastic mirror hangs delicately over an old sink where a
line of ants busily heads towards the cracked window. A single tap mounted
high, cold water only, serves as a shower.
Steven advises me not to use any of the electrical outlets.
He
mumbles something about a morning meeting only a few short hours away,
bids me a quick farewell and points to a room will be sharing with a woman named Charlotte. I rummage in the dark through
my bags in search of my sheet and pillow and collapse onto a hard cot
stalked by mosquitoes. I fall
into a fit-full sleep with great startling claps of thunder and lightning
outside, brief flashes of light exposing a bare bones room and the
snoozing lump of my fellow volunteer.
Sizzling
sounds and potent curried aromas wake us in the morning.
Over breakfast of tiny short noodles, spicy tomato chutney and ruby
red pomegranates I acquaint myself with the rest of the team. There is
Nelson, a young energetic Canadian banker and Rick, a warm and reflective
single man his later 40s is also a banker.
Marshall, sweet and innocently kind is a border-control officer and
has been on several Global Volunteer projects around the world. My
roommate Charlotte is a divorced woman in her 60s with two daughters my
age. A free spirit at heart with an infectious laugh she reveals a
deep wisdom enhanced by years of travel.
Each one of them, including myself has heard some sort of calling
to serve and all have succumbed to its force.
“Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.”
--Mother Teresa
My
fascination and subsequent love affair with India began most likely from
the Indian take-out food we invariably ordered when my parents took us
back to their homes and families in England.
I would savor the explosion of flavors, the burning hot all over my
mouth coupled with sweet and tangy relishes lighting up far beyond just my
sense of taste. As a young
adult India came to me through idolization of Ghandi and Mother Teresa and
their unfathomable composed strength.
Later with nursing babies draped on my arm, I would flip through
pages of a glossy coffee table book, ablaze with images of brilliantly
dressed women in saris, deep brown wrinkled sadhus, and hazy sunset views
of the Taj.
For
our 10th wedding anniversary my husband offered me a real taste
of India, something to affix to my magical, mysterious, imagined India.
For 7 days we meandered through the outrageous living streets of
New Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. We
gazed at temples from the backs of intricately painted elephants, slept in
ornate palace rooms of past powerful maharajas, sipped Darjeeling tea at
the Imperial Hotel. It was a
surreal and exotic trip akin to a soft sweet delicate curry. This
time though, I come in search of the other side of this staggeringly
diverse and complex country, for to know only a part of India is to not
know her at all. I have come
to learn of her pungent and perhaps bitter profile, the India that bestows
unforgiving challenges on man. I
need to see it upfront, hold it, be apart of it, serve within it.
India now calls me from the very depths of who I am.
We
set off for the orphanage crammed into a jeep blaring new age Indian pop
music, sandlewood incense burning on the dash next to the Hindu statue of
Shiva. Trips in the car
would, over the course of our stay, have each one of us gasping and crying
out in fear as every split second we were swerving violently to avoid
obstacles in the road—masses of people on bikes and scooters, sacred
cows sauntering wherever they pleased, ubiquitous yellow dump trucks
taking up the entire road driving a million miles an hour. If we managed to
gain any speed at all, it would be suddenly halted by a massive pothole
jerking us forward sending bags of school supplies and water bottles
flying. Earsplitting honking of horns and music, dust caking our sweaty
skin combined with everything coming HEAD ON make any distance in the car
a feared event.
On
the first day the jeep is held up by what looked like a fantastic colorful
parade. Throngs of young men
are singing and banging on drums around a donkey driven wooden cart
entirely covered in a dazzling display of fresh flowers.
“Is it a wedding Steven or a religious festival?” I ask. “No, this is a funeral,” he yells over the noise.
It is then that I notice the small brown toe of the corpse on its
way to the crematorium. One quickly realizes that there is no insulation to the
realities of life here. It is
all to be seen on the streets—birth, daily ablutions, celebrations, and
death.
“You
cannot view her [India] through the eyes of the flesh, or if you do you
will want to shut them.
Her real life burns in the Unconscious.”
F. Yeats Brown
By
the time we reach the orphanage we are exhausted and filthy.
But what we experience there in the coming days is a brutal
reminder of the insignificance of our personal comfort.
Past the busy village set in the lush countryside surrounded by
green rice fields and banana trees sits Dazzling Stone Orphanage, a
roughly built unfinished cinder block building.
We meet Deva and Joy, the Indian couple who 5 years ago founded the
organization and decided to devote the rest of their lives to needy
children in Chennai.
With limited English, Joy describes its humble beginnings as she
gives a tour of the building and its surrounding flower and vegetable
gardens. The
couple had been made aware a few years ago of the plight of a handful of
orphaned children in a nearby village and decided to take them into to the
fold of their family.
Word spread quickly of their generous efforts and soon the
floodgates opened and children drifted in from all over the area.
Only 3 years ago, Deva and Joy were housing the beginnings of a
significant orphanage on the veranda of an old building.
They had then and still have now, no funding whatsoever from the
Indian government..
Global Volunteers became aware of their plight and as of 2 years
ago were able to assist in the building that stands today. The
program is now almost fully funded by Global Volunteers.
| Joy
guides us through a rough empty building with dark rooms, no doors, no
toilets, no beds.
The walls are stacked cinder blocks and the floors on the ground
level where the children sleep are packed dirt.
There are lights only in the downstairs wearily coming from one or
two fluorescent bulbs.
By day the building becomes a school for the children yet there are
no desks. |
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We
pass a dingy corner with two cots where she explains they have taken in an
old homeless man and another disabled person who had nobody to care for
him.
A
small simple separate structure reveals showers but for toilets all 100
children use the field some few yards away.
Joy walks us proudly around the back to their outdoor kitchen.
A turkey and several chickens run madly around the perimeter.
A thatched open air structure covers a wood fire where all the
meals are cooked.
Their diet consists of an assortment mainly of fruit, vegetables,
rice, beans, and lentils. To eat, the children are seated in lines
outdoors and due to a shortage of plates, the first round hurries to eat
and rinse their plates to hand off to the next. A water pump sits next to
an aluminum container holding drinking water.
The two cups dangling from the side are shared by all.
Joy’s
pride is evident as she gives the tour.
We all silently gasp.
In the background we hear the giggles of children and I feel a
surmounting excitement, and sudden impatience to get on with what it is we
came here to do.
We are ushered into one of the dark rooms on the main floor and are
told to seat ourselves on the two benches at the front of the room.
In lines of two, one for the girls and one for the boys, the
children file in, some bearing wide toothy grins, others hiding shy
smiles. They
sit down in perfectly neat rows and stare at us with open expecting eyes.
The heat of the room is suddenly extreme and we sweat profusely,
trying discreetly to swat away the hovering flies and mosquitoes.
The children appear oblivious to the heat and bugs.
After a short introduction given by Joy followed by a prayer in our
honor, one by one the children come up and shake our hands individually
introducing themselves.
It’s an overwhelming experience and a quick glance at my
teammates reveals they are as choked up as I am.
The children are so welcoming and so beautiful that touching each
of their warm little hands is an honor in itself.
From
aged 2 to 16 some proudly sport their introductions in English, some eek
out their hellos in Tamil, the Indian language native to the southern
state of Tamil Nadu.
Some say nothing at all simply holding out their dusty hands,
staring wide-eyed.
While they appear relatively well groomed and healthy at the
outset, some even wearing black shoes and pulled up socks to match their
tattered school uniform, upon later inspection I notice so many of them
had open oozing sores on their heads, arms and legs.
Most scratch incessantly at heads full of lice.
Their clothes, especially the young ones fall off their bony bodies
with gaping holes here and there.
The girls’ backs are bare as all of the dresses lack working
zippers. They
all hack, snuffle and sniff, especially the little ones who toddle around
noses streaming, diaperless and dirty. Holding
each of their hands I feel the importance and significance of each one of
them and I long to have the time to know each and every one of them, to
hear of their dreams and fears, their pains and wishes. The crushing
reality of such an impossibility slices through me.
The enormity of those before me was grander than I could have ever
prepared myself for. How
can I make a difference in such a short time?
What is it that they need most?
Why such inequity?
What is my Purpose?
Simple yet haunting questions that creep into the back corners of
consciousness.
The experience at the orphanage would be series of highs and lows
strung together along a path that I hope would lead to some answers.
“Whatever
you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
Ghandi
We
arrive each day after the children complete morning lessons in Tamil.
Our jobs in the afternoons and early evenings are to teach English
classes to small groups of 4th and 5th graders.
They are already starting out in the world with major
disadvantages and life obstacles, raised in poverty, many without parents.
At least if they are sent off into Indian life with a proficiency
in English they will have one leg up from the bottom.
A chance.
While
teaching English seems a relatively simple task to perform at the outset,
it quickly proves incredibly challenging.
Some speak, read, and write easily, while others have trouble
expressing their names and sounding out simple English sounds.
Reaching them at their individual proficiencies will take planning
and coordination.
But they are all ravenous to learn, so eager to come and set up my
red plastic chair before them.
“scuse me miss, scuse me miss,” they shout as they rush around
fussing about, brushing off my chair before the lesson.
With
Pondichurai, Sureth, Sancheth, my bright eyed and animated 4th
graders sitting before me, I begin by pulling out three long sharpened
pencils. Eyes
widening they tentatively reach out and take the cherished items like
prized Christmas gifts. With
their papers delicately balancing on knobby knees they carefully print out
words and eagerly repeat phrases.
They learn quickly and passionately. My
two fifth graders however are not as fervent about their studies.
Vijayacumar struggles to get through the writing of his name,
discouraged each time as he can go no further than the “c.”
And Rajethswari, either overly tired, or very bored rolls her yes
back in her head in blatant statements of apathy.
Smirking, she passes her time playing with the lice that falls on
her paper. She
reveals early on however that she is bright and I know she is farther
along in English than the others yet I fight and toil each day to spark
her attention.
Then Nelson suggests that perhaps she is more of a kinesthetic
learner. “Get
her up and moving,” he says.
“She is probably just bored.”
The result is astonishing. A
simple game of Simon Says has her keyed up, screeching with joy, rattling
off entire sentences in English.
Most
frustrating by far are my attempts at teaching certain pronunciations of
letters. Curiously
the letter “f” invariably comes out as a “p.”
“There is no P sound in an F,” I say.
Vijayacumar looks at me with puzzled glassy eyes.
I point to the image of a feather on a flash card.
“Feather,” I say.
“Peather,” they repeat sharply.
“No, fffffeather,” I say louder.
“PPPPeather,” they shout back.
The exchange continues for several minutes.
I rummage in the pile for another flash card.
“Fish,” I say.
“Fish,” they repeat nonchalantly.
I jump up with joy startling the rest of the volunteers and their
groups. “Yes,
that’s it!” I exclaim offering pats on the back and pinches on the
cheek. In
fear of losing our foothold on our achievement I opt for reinforcement and
pull out the feather flashcard once again.
“PPPPPeather!!!!!” they scream expecting my continued
excitement. Well,
at least they were engaged I tell myself.
Our achievements are small and at times I feel I go backwards but I
can only hope that the cumulative efforts of the hundreds of volunteers
that visit the orphanage would overtime surmount to something.
At
the end of our lessons I let them draw, dream and imagine with colored
pencils and crayons.
There is such little opportunity within the orphanage for the
luxuries of expressing themselves individually and they impatiently await
the handing out of the white paper when our class is over.
I begin to question which part of our class is more important, the
learning or the dreaming.
Despite their sheltered existence and limited occasion for new
experiences their creations radiate joy and hope, worlds full of oceans,
ice creams, planes on which to discover the world and homes filled with
families, food and good fortune.
At
the sound of the 4 o’clock bell, they are ushered out of their uniforms
and into play clothes.
For the girls this means a combination of dresses both western and
Indian styles all in a questionable state, zipperless, torn and graying at
the hem. Even
so, there are girls with an obvious flair for fashion who manage to find
style in the rags, swishing a brightly colored scarf around their necks.
Complimented with a proud strut, off they go to the snack line,
ready to take on the world.
But for many it means grabbing whatever was available, almost
always several sizes too large.
One boy walks around permanently clutching at his waist in attempts
to keep up his shorts.
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Once
changed and having been out to the field to use “the facilities” the
children line up on the ground outside for a snack of assorted fruit
combined with either chick peas or lentils.
Then until six in the afternoon we have free rein to play with them
however we want.
The younger ones could be taken upstairs separately to the open air
top floor. |
| There
they anxiously await the up ending of a huge bucket of broken
plastic pieces that have long since seen better playful days.
|
I silently wonder what on earth the kids could do with such a
motley collection of bits.
Within minutes however, broken airplane wings become swords,
legless babies are propped up, anything with even one working wheel
becomes varied racing modes of transport, and small pieces of plastic are
with the swish of a small hand at once magnificent arrays of fruits and
cakes.
"We
can only learn to love by loving." Irish Murdoch
I
was tentative the first day at free time, more comfortable with the
structure of my organized classroom with measurable accomplishments.
I carefully inch my way into a gathering of little girls.
“Scuse me miss, scuse me.
Have some TEA,”
I am beckoned as an upside down hat is lovingly shoved into my
hand. “And
some CAKE,” another says boisterously, forcing a make believe plate in
my hand. I
quickly become a welcomed guest at an intimate tea party with fellow
girlfriends each with a baby tucked under their arm.
Others join our party, with their babies on their laps, all
tenderly primped and poked, fed and put to bed every other minute.
Out of the corner of my eye a little girl no more than 3 years old,
creeps closer and closer to me.
I ask her name and she just turns her head coyly and leans into my
arm. The
heat of her touch is alarming--clearly a full blown fever.
I stroke her hair and attempt to pull her into our girlie play. Gingerly
she sits her almost weightless self in the center of my folded legs and
then, comfortable with her perch, drifts in and out of sleep as I stroke
her cheeks. So
I find myself among my new girlfriends at a tea party sipping the best tea
India has to offer, eating plate loads of cakes and candies.
What more could a girl want?
With the girls with their stuffed babies and mine, as real as the
day’s sunlight curled up in my lap, I get a glimpse of heaven.
One
morning at the guest house I sit fiddling with pieces of string.
Out of the depths of a dusty closet in my brain I remember the knot
used to make friendship bracelets.
Gripped with girlish excitement I whip off a sweet twirling
bracelet with a red bead nicely placed in the middle.
The men stand over my shoulder bemused and silent.
Thrilled at the prospect of teaching a group of older girls the
simple knot, I stuff the string and beads into my bag and we set off for
our afternoon classes.
When free time arrives I pull out my example bracelet and within
split seconds I have a throng of children, older and younger, boys and
girls all wanting string to make their own. Dozens
of them crowding around me yelling “scuse me string, scuse me string.”
With hordes of children pushing to see our demonstration Charlotte and I
carefully walk through the steps of the knot.
There is complete silence.
“Make a four with the string, Pinch, Take the right side and go
over and under, Pull with the left and right.”
Charlotte
and I madly cut string quickly realizing we wouldn’t have enough for
all. The
following day we come armed with more, but this time different colored
strings and matching beads.
It is all out mayhem with the whole orphanage involved.
One could hear the hum of,
“make a four, over under, pull left and right…” from dozens
of bodies hunched over with the strings tied to their toes, metal bars,
chairs. The
smallest children too young to do their own are forced into holding the
strings while the older ones tie the knots furiously.
Delighted at having made something pretty, they proudly tie their
treasures around their own wrists and those of their friends. I
could feel the power of their energy in the air—like racehorses let out
of the box.
Silently, I hope and pray that they have ample chance in their
lives to contribute, create and accomplish, for the opportunity alone
brings about such joy.
But
if there was one activity that the children prize more than anything else
we offer them, it is the simple act of handing out books.
The most favored by far is Beauty and the Beast.
“Beast, Beast!” They yell as we place the stack of books down
on the gravel where they are hungrily grabbed at and dispersed within
seconds. It’s
sheer panic to get to them and then off they go forming little groups
huddled around someone who can read.
The glossy photos of iced cakes and round chocolates had them
lurching at the pictures with fists clenched as though stuffing the food
into their faces.
They relax into a contented trance taking in the melodic sounds of
the stories, lounging on each other’s laps.
Was it the pictures, the fairy-tales, the happy endings?
On
Earth there is no heaven, only glimpses of it.
One
afternoon out of nowhere the skies open up, thunder and lightning only
minutes away from shaking its angry fists.
I glance quickly around the yard and worry how we are going to
possible gather up the hundreds of flash cards and dozens of books that
have been distributed.
In the time that it takes me to find the bag that we store
everything in, I am greeted with little hands bearing tidy stack of cards,
books ordered properly and placed in the bag.
“Thank you miss, here you are miss,” they say.
I am amazed at their appreciation and sense of propriety even in a
hurried situation.
Western children could learn a thing or two from their book of
manners. We all run for cover as the rain begins to pour and the sky
illuminates with lightning. All one hundred of us cram into the three tiny
upstairs rooms, almost pitch black without electricity or sunlight.
It’s a panic of bodies, movement, jumping, shoving, kids groping
for my bag. “Bag
miss, scuse me miss, books miss, books miss.”
We
are a sac of moving snakes.
It is utter chaos.
Where one body ends and twists another begins.
I see only whites of eyes, hear shrieks of joy and fear as thunder
bolts down and rains beats on the roof in a deafening roar.
Kids continue to play as they would have outdoors yet in a
microscopic space.
A dented ball is kicked around, book huddles form, pairs of friends
search for lice in each other’s hair.
But many are scared and while terror rolls across their innocent
faces most know better than to search for comfort.
I put my arms around whoever I can reach.
The wind picks up whipping rain through the doorless entryway
sending the whole moving mass to the back of the room.
I feel a hand forced into mine and then another on the other side
tugging at me, pulling me back into the pushing heap of bodies.
The lightening affords me a brief look at the girls who have now
tucked themselves under my arms, one a 14 year old girl and the other my
little fevered friend from the 1st day.
Somehow she finds her way to my side everyday and like two lost
loves speaking only with our eyes we sink deep and comfortably into each
other’s souls.
Out
of the madness I hear the anxious scream of the 5 month old baby.
By now I know her cry and go frantically in search of it, weaving
in and of the craziness, stepping over bodies hoping that she is in the
safe arms of an older girl or staff helper.
I find her in the lap of a 5 year old who is madly rocking her in
attempts to stop the crying.
Relieved of the responsibility the girl quickly offers her up and
runs off to play.
The baby has gobs of mucous blocking her nose running into her
mouth. I
desperately look around for anything I could use to clear her nose.
As I pull out the end of my shirt to use as a rag a child comes by,
peers into the baby’s face and pinches the oozing mess from her face
with her fingers and then slips away as quick as she came.
Once again I am left astonished and speechless at how the children
naturally look after one another.
I find a slice of space to shield the baby from the shoving swarm
and resume a gentle rocking.
The baby soon settles down.
Taking
in the scene one might be horrified, even a little scared at the
closeness, the suffocating disorder of it all--a bit like India in
general. We
can see her as horridly crowded and messy. So many people crammed into
such small places doing so many things at once.
But sitting there in that crowded hot and dirty room with a sweet
baby in my arms amongst a frenzy of orphaned children I felt a warmth and
comfort I have never felt before.
India feels like a big warm and welcoming family.
Just imagine that with that many more people there will be that
much more of everything, that much more joy, that much more love.
The
storm settles down and children begin to curl up and sleep.
Some alone along a wall, others in the middle of the room with arms
cupped over their ears, others in little mountains, one draped on top of
the other, it’s as if the storm sucked away all of their remaining
energy for the day.
We
pile into the van and head back dripping with sweat now caked with layers
upon layers of dust drained physically and mentally.
We face the hair raising ride home yet sapped from the day’s
activities and emotions we barely react to all that is thrown in front of
our car. Silent
and reflective we battle our own internal wars of whys and what should bes.
The eternal, interminable unanswerable questions.
We eat our vegetable curries and naan, plan our next day’s
lessons and retreat to our beds and minds helplessly trying to find a
neat, sorted place to assimilate all that we are experiencing.
"It's
what each of us sows, and how, that gives to us character and prestige.
Seeds of kindness, goodwill, and human understanding, planted in fertile
soil, spring up into deathless friendships, big deeds of worth, and a
memory that will not soon fade.." George Matthew Adams
So
I find myself now, comfortable in my brown leather chair, a hot coffee at
my side, my children sleeping soundly tucked into warm beds, wondering
what it was I actually accomplished at the orphanage in India, wondering
if we can make any difference at all battling such vast, incalculable,
poverty and need in this world.
Friends and family ask what it is that I came away with?
How has it changed my life?
I can only think of the children and their lives and what they will
come away with.
The
big questions remain unanswered but I come away knowing a few things for
sure. I
am sure of how right it felt to love, hold, teach and play in a place
outside of my normal life.
It reminds us that we are connected to a greater whole, part of a
bigger family. I
know that simple acts of kindness, the stroke of a cheek, the warmth of a
smile, a pat of encouragement, are all significant acts.
I know serenity can be found in offering oneself up.
That once there, there is nowhere else to go, nothing else to do,
nothing else that takes priority.
I
know that there was no place for pity in that orphanage, only room for
hope and action.
By:
Lydia Dean
Email:deansrch@bellsouth.net
phone:
33-674213195
Note:
Nelson returns to Canada to quit his bank job and pursue teaching.
Rick returns to Portland wanting to be a foster parent.
Charlotte will gain a certificate in teaching English as a second
language and help with the immigrant population in the Twin Cities.
Global
Volunteers In 1984, Global Volunteers laid the foundation for what
became known a decade later as "volunteer vacations" short-term
service programs in host communities abroad. Today, as a non-governmental
organization (NGO) in special consultative status with the United Nations,
Global Volunteers mobilizes some 150 service-learning teams year-around to
work in 19 countries on six continents, and is the internationally
recognized leader in this field of work. Global Volunteers continues
to work to help lay a foundation for world peace through mutual
understanding.
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