Letter from the President
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

“What are your goals for your trip to India?”  “How will you spend your time at Sambhali Trust?”

I get well-meaning questions like this every year as I’m packing to come back to India to spend time at Sambhali Trust.

 “I don’t know” seems like a pretty frivolous response, so I try to avoid it.

Yes, I have a “To-Do” list. It’s long and includes gathering photos and interviews to use in our communications throughout the year; visiting all the centers and projects in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Setrawa; getting to know new staff; working on ways we can improve processes we have built together; discussing how Sambhali U.S. can best provide technical support to Sambhali Trust programs; thinking through potential grants and other fundraising ideas—to name some of the bigger items on the list. There is a lot that—in the end—will get done.

Yet, although each morning I have a list of things to accomplish that day, the reality is most of what’s on that list won’t happen before I go to bed that night.

What happens instead is richer, more meaningful, and more at the heart of Sambhali.

A few examples…

My first day here, I meet Janet Marstine and Mark Polishook, two Americans beginning a five-year project working with the LGBTQIA+ community and self-defense respectively. We’ve had many video meetings, so it almost seems strange that this is the first time we’re meeting in person. Then I plan to rest a bit, but there is a group of new volunteers going to the Sheerni Boarding Home and, along with Janet and Mark, I am swept up into the van, and soon into the arms of these amazing girls—to hugs and dancing and sharing the chocolate-chip cookies that my husband Brian made and are, after many batches over many years, pretty darn famous at Sambhali.

I’m too overwhelmed and jet lagged to take photos but luckily someone takes my phone to snap this one of me with the three girls who are now the eldest at Sheerni:  Amena, who is now in 12th grade, her sister Nura, and Nitya, both of whom are in 11th grade.*

I met them six years ago, before there was a Sambhali U.S., when I was a daily volunteer at the boarding home. Here are the Valentines Amena and Nura made that year:

I’ll never forget Amena was one of two girls who seemed to keep interrupting me when I gave workshops. It turned out they were just translating for the girls whose English wasn’t as good as theirs.

When I met Amena, Nura, and Nitya, none of them even dreamed of going to college. Now all three look forward to being at Sambhali’s Abahyasthali Boarding Home for college and graduate school students, established when the first boarding home girls graduated from high school and asked to go to college.

I head to the Sambhali office on Tuesday morning for a meeting and suddenly I’m surrounded by the teachers from the Empowerment Centers and Primary Education Centers and other key staff, many of whom are there for a workshop on teaching math. While we catch up, I think of all the staff development that has happened at Sambhali Trust over the last few months, helping these great and dedicated teachers to be even better.  I can feel the power of all these women: nurse Saraswati Nair; Rajshree Rathore, who leads Donor and Volunteer Relations; Empowerment and Primary Education Center teachers Anju Sharma, Laxmi Lahara, Manju Solanki, and Asha Bhati; and Sheerni Boarding Home tutor Kailash Kanwar.

Tuesday takes another detour when one of the former boarding home students facing a serious medical issue travels from the village where she is now living back to Jodhpur and to the knowledgeable and compassionate arms of her Sambhali family.  For the past year, that family has included Saraswati, a retired government nurse who leads the Sathi health project. Saraswati greets the young woman, and I can see her begin to relax as they come up with a plan to visit the hospital together when the best specialist would be there.

On Wednesday, I spoke at Sambhali’s conference “Towards Inclusive Justice: Gender Minority Sensitization for Viksit Bharat @2047”, having been asked to provide some international perspective. The two-day conference brought together members of the LGBTQIA+ community with experts in psychology, law, and government. As I waited for the program to begin, I read in the New York Times that the Pride flag had just been removed from the Stonewall National Monument, the symbolic heart of the U.S. gay rights movement, and I was, yet again, filled with sorrow and anger over what is happening at home. I spoke of that but also of my joy in seeing all that was being accomplished here in Jodhpur through the leadership of Sambhali Trust. It is still extraordinarily difficult to be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community here, but the feeling of forward momentum is palpable and immensely reassuring in these hard times at home.

The next day, there is a carnival taking place in the guesthouse next to the Sambhali office, and beautiful items made by graduates of Sambhali Trust Empowerment Centers are on sale, as are pieces by other local artisans.

After touring the carnival (and buying some hand-made bangles), I get a message from Nisha that she is in town. Nisha attended the Sheerni Boarding Home until her family moved to another state. She came back as a college student and then opened her own beauty parlor in her village. She is now back at the college boarding home working on an advanced cosmetology degree that will allow her to teach. Nisha travels 2 ½ hours back and forth frequently, attending classes and keeping her shop going, a shop that provides vital income for her family. She offers to do mehndi (henna) on my hand which gives us a chance to catch up on all she is doing and how she manages it all (with a smile).

All the while, I continue to meet with staff, and, four days later I see that, indeed, chunks of that to-do list have begun to be checked off.

Between those chunks are the other parts, the unexpected bits, the richest parts—the relationships, the camaraderie, the witnessing.  Something that India and Sambhali have taught me, slowly and patiently, to savor.

And in case you were wondering what was on the top of the to-do list for the last four days…it was writing this article.

All my best from Jodhpur,

Shereen Arent
President, Sambhali U.S.