A few years ago we (as in me and the wife) took our 3 kids to India.
My wife is Indian and we were going to visit where she was born and spent the first few years of her life before moving to the UK as well as some of the touristy bits as well.
My kids at that time were 8,10 and 11 and this was a good chance to show them a completely different side of life.
The village we went to was out of an old film.
It had a big lake where the women would do their washing while the water buffalos would wee and poo in the same big washing machine! We didn’t get our clothes washed in there.
Now being the only honky in a remote Indian village is different. The number of double takes I got and the look of disbelief as this white man walked round the corner was brilliant. The problem was I had no way of communicating with the entire village except for smiling at people.
They probably still talk about the simple white man who visited their village and walked round with a gormless grin on his face.
One thing stands out though and I still talk about it with my kids.
We got invited to one my wife relative houses for a meal – don’t ask me which relative I couldn’t tell you. There’s a separate name for each and every one. It was an aunty once removed or whatever.
Anyway this aunty lived in a hut not a house with a mud floor and walls. The husband had been out catching fish in the local river to feed us with and they’d laid on what looked like a banquet – they’d even got a bottle of coke for us so we didn’t have to drink the local water.
These people had so little but what they did have they gladly shared with us.
A very humbling experience and a real example of generosity.
Generosity isn’t about giving some of what you have loads of – it’s sharing the one thing that is in real short supply.