Question: what was the first time in india like??
Leoni nelkenstock: the first five months i was in chetput in the state of tamil in sudinia. This is a village with about 14,000 people living in its surroundings. The population is very poor, the people live together in very simple huts, sometimes only in shabby houses in a small space. I lived there in a community of missionary helpers, which currently consists of 13 sisters, four of whom are novices. My place of work was the st. Thomas hospital& leprosy center in chetput. Most of the nurses work in the hospital. Only one sister and one novice are involved in the sponsorship program for schoolchildren from poor families and the "holy family home" for former leprosy patients, responsible, in which I also participated.
What was the work like there?
In the mornings i studied english with the children of the sponsorship program from 7 to 8 a.M. I was assigned to the students between first and eighth grade. I had to make them spell english words or dictate them, which is not very effective in my opinion. Even if the children can spell and write the words without mistakes, they usually do not know their meaning and are not able to form or understand even simple sentences. But learning here in india is a little different from learning here in india. At least in the free governmentschools, children are expected only to memorize, not to apply what they have learned to novel situations. At 8 o'clock i went to the holy-family-home, where i mostly worked alone. Here i brought the residents breakfast from the hospital kitchen and drinking water from a well on the hospital grounds. Then i fed a blind resident who has only one eye left. I then made the beds and took residents to the hospital when necessary. If there was still time before the break at ten o'clock, I knitted headdresses and scarves for them. For the rest of the day my tasks were very different. I accompanied the nurses on the things that needed to be done, for example home visits.
