Just One: Shiva Ji Mission School 22 July

This morning, 22nd July, is bright and warm as the Just One team make their way to the Shiva Ji Mission school at Laxmanpur, Varanasi.  This week we again arrive at the school during the children’s play time and it is so delightful to enter and have all the children gather round. They are all so joyous and free, and some acknowledge our arrival with traditional Indian gestures of respect.
 
Once the children return to their classrooms and have settled into their lessons, the headmaster, Nanku, signals to the Just One team and the older students to begin distributing today’s fruit.  Today Just One are offering fresh, local mangoes which are currently in season and very delicious. 

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As usual we begin in the classroom of the youngest children, those who have just started school. Today they are very timid and quiet but there could be many reasons for this. The teachers feel it is because these young children are not yet familiar with being given fruit each Saturday by people they don’t know.  For some this is especially strange as they have little or no exposure to foreigners who look so different to themselves. Yet in today’s timidity they are so cute and innocent.  Some shyly receive their mangoes, barely reaching out their arms to receive it.
 
It's a very different story when we reach the rooms with the older students who are more familiar with the fruit distributions are, as usual, very loud and boisterous, but in a fabulous way. Eventually all 260 children have received a delicious mango just for themselves to eat.   Something that is a treat just for them to enjoy, with the added benefit of being imbued with the nurturing Shakti of Sai Maa.
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