Today we are going to East Bali to meet the children of Pengalusan and Cegi villages, they are supported through the East Bali Poverty Project who have done wonders here.
The villages don't have electricity or proper roads, but thanks to kind hearted donors they now have access to much needed medication, sanitation and education.
The Children in the two schools are not orphans, they just live in total poverty.
My heart lifts as I see the children who are lucky enough to be in the school program in their immaculately clean school uniforms, looking healthy and happy, then I turn to see a group of younger children huddled together with dirty faces and mangled hair who are not old enough to join the school yet, wearing dirty clothes with holes in their shirts, there is still poverty here, but there's hope, they will get their chance next year when they join the school.
It's a clear day and from high up in the village you can see the sea about 10 miles away, not one of the villagers has ever been there.
I spoke to one older man, he doesn't know how old he is, as there were no birth records kept in this village until now, but he tells me he has six sons, he doesn't know their ages either, just remembers what order they were born in. He said you can tell how old people here are by the number of children they have!
I remember on a previous trip watching a group of children doing a basic Balinese dance, not realizing the children had never seen any sort of Balinese dance before up until a few years ago, how could they, they had never been out of their village. They had all been taught Legong, Frog Dance and a variety of others all by the volunteer workers.
The development of the children is obvious to me as I remembered the children's art class a few years ago, all their drawings were either of Mount Agung or another familiar landscape surrounding their village, that's all they saw then. Thanks to schooling, the children now draw a variety of different subjects from their teachers and the books they have received from who the kids affectionately call ‘the strangers from another land'.
The power of knowledge, I heard that one child said the sun comes out of the ground each morning and sinks into the sea each night. What a perfect way to describe a day.
I look at the Children and see how happy they are with their simple life, a life made healthier by a stranger's generous donation.
The kids are just happy to see us and just want to give us high fives, the highlight of their day...and ours too!
Whenever I am there I can't help realizing how very materialistic I am, and I am fooling myself into thinking I am not. It certainly brings me down to earth each time I visit.
One small good looking boy stands out from the rest, sitting quietly on his own eating, I ask why is that kid on his own, the reply shocks me into silence, 'He was born a cretin, he cant think for himself or speak'.....I am stunned as I watch him sit there, I cant help but think what goes on in his mind, behind those lifeless eyes of his.
If you look up the word cretin in a dictionary it means brainless, stupid and child like. But I'm informed that Cretinism arises from a diet deficient in iodine. Iodine deficiency results in the impairments of physical and mental development which has affected many people worldwide and continues to be a major public health problem in many countries, one of those countries is Bali. And it is still happening here.
I think back a few years ago to a Cabaret the Kids of the village put on for us, and in English too. Two Children came on stage and said 'our parents are not sick because of you' a second child came up and said 'I can read and write because of you' and a third solitary child came on stage and said 'I am alive because of you' she had a life threatening illness and was saved by some of the medical supplies bought from donations from those wonderful ‘strangers from another land'.