Pandemic time is time to relive wonderful moments from the past.
Today, I am remembering the year Malka and I went to Jaipur. We had collected funds from ten friends or groups of friends in Kingston in order to have ten rickshaws built and distributed to men who earned their living transporting passengers for a few dollars a day. These men would normally rent the rickshaws they used. The yearly rent they paid was almost equivalent to the cost of a rickshaw.
A couple of years before, I had bought a rickshaw for a man I had hired in Jaipour for a whole week. He told me that he could not read or write but if I wrote down my name and my husband's, he would have them painted on the back of the rickshaw.
When my sister Marie heard my story, she gave me funds to purchase two. One would be a Christmas present for her five grandsons, and the other, from money she had collected selling her beautiful jewellery, would be for anyone who could use one.
A big hug to take home for my sister from the wife of the
rickshaw puller
Marie and Scott' grandsons' Christmas present
When I was there, with Malka, my friend Laxman's brother took me on his motorcycle to visit families who would receive the rickshaws. Unfortunately, we only had time to find 7 families to receive the rickshaws.
Our rickshaw builders
Three of our donors agreed to donate their funds for the purchase of blankets for the residents of a leprosy clinic instead. Those residents all wanted their photo taken with Malka and me. It was wonderful to see how happily they lived together, and with such dignity. It was not at all what some imagine a leprosy colony to be.
Malka and I so enjoyed meeting them. It is one of our best memories of that trip.
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