BILL MOSHER PRETEND DONOR
No special program has been arranged for us here at Samvedana Ashram and we wouldn’t want to interrupt the work of the Ashram to entertain foreigners who decided to drop in. But we have been drawn into the regular activities of the Ashram such as the celebration of Republic Day and the chance to photograph the Medical Camp.
While we have been here several rich Indian donors have visited the Ashram, wanting to give major gifts to support the work of the Ashram and during each of these visits we have been drawn in and honored for nothing at all that we have done. We will leave a little donation ourselves, really a very small payment for meals and a comfortable room and rides to projects. Hasmukh won’t let us pay for anything unless it is done as a donation. So while we are essentially covering some of our expenses with our donation these real donors are making major gifts.
I will describe one of these donations. Someone decided to give the Ashram 100 heavy wool blankets which are certainly welcome for people for whom a heavy wool blanket on these cold nights is a big expense. The donor dropped the hundred blankets off, but I was deputized to actually hand them over to about a dozen women who work at the Ashram, cleaning and cooking for the 150 children who board there. This has happened again and again to me in Sri Lanka and India over the years when I am honored for or given credit for something that I had nothing to do with. I don’t shrink away in modesty although I know I deserve no credit, I just do what I am asked to do because for some reason it seems to please someone else. So here I am giving away the blankets in a kind of laughing way what draws good photographs out of the women and removes some of the irony of my being chosen to do this.
So here are the photographs of the women whom I was honored to give blankets to and to laugh with at the same time.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 