Meet Prem and his family

I first met Prem in 1996 when he was the waiter at Mohamed's restaurant in Bodhgaya, he must have been  around 18 at that time Prem is always friendly, kind and help full and over the years me and a whole lot of other foreigners who frequent the restaurant have grown to love Prem. Here I should also mention that Prem means, Love in Hindi. Prem is one of the most patient, kind, honest, hard working person I know. He come from Mahakal village near the cave where Buddha practiced strict meditation and fasting before he became enlightened. So Prem's village sees bus loads of wealthy tourist every day during the tourist season and yet his village is literally dirt poor. All the houses are made of mud with thatch roofs and there is one water pump about at 30 minute walk from the village. Since the village is in a rocky area the water is deep underground and growing food can be difficult. Prem is saving to get a well drilled on his property but allowing access for the village with a private bathing area for the women. Prem is also the very proud owner of the village's only toilet. He says that since he became Christian he need to give his family that privacy out of respect. Prem laughed as he  told me that some of the tourist bus drivers and auto rickshaw drivers know he has the only toilet so sometimes bring over a bursting tourist in need of some privacy. There is no designated are in the village for toilet   and people just go anywhere; it is kind of stinky in the heat. On my visit we also went to the church which helped found. It is a small concrete building at the edge of the village, painted bright purple and sporting a cross and sign. The church was funded by some Koreans and the small community of Christians are so proud of there small, but very clean place of worship. It is so unusually to have Christianity in Bihar but the numbers of converts from Hinduism is growing. This is also true of Buddhism and I think it has alot to do with the fact that Buddhism and Christianity have no cast system and are big on teaching respect of self, others and the environment.

The Village Church

 Prem supports his family by working in Bodhgaya and since Mohamed built a new guest house Prem is the manager there and has retired from waiting tables. Prem has no education and is only now learning to read and write, in fact he says his children are teaching him more. He is quite amazing really as when he was waiting tables no-one knew he could not read. We would have to right down our orders and then also tell him what the order was as he looked at the paper. We never realized but he was memorizing the shape of letters to the order. Not even his boss Mohamed knew he could not read. Prem fool us all he has a great memory and could attended to 10 table and possibly 20 orders at a time. So over time a few of us foreigners have helped him out learning some letters and words and he is still happy to learn. He is also a great father in that he has put a lot of emphasis on getting his kids educated. He has 4 boys, (the oldest one of 14 is not in the picture) and has adopted  a girl. The girls father died and Prem adopted the baby girl so that her young mother could re-marry. I am guessing that a new husband would not want another mans baby! Anyway Prem tells the story that he asked his wife and children what to do about helping this young mother and his boys said that they would like a baby sister. So with his wife's agreement  the family adopted her and she is just a wee darling and the family call her a baby sent from God.
I had a great day with Prem and am just so inspired by his kind nature, service to other sand work within his community. I am also hoping that maybe next year we can work on getting that well dug.