We are welcomed with much fanfare at the Sujata Children Welfare Trust school in Sujata. After their beginning prayers, the students break off into classes. The little ones sit on a mat outside and recite the English alphabet and numbers before coming up and showing us their notebooks with practice writing out the characters inside. We correct and congratulate them. A small older kid in silver jacket runs around helping, he has fantastic English. There is a tiny child leading the recitation of numbers and letters who is probably no more than three feet tall. He is a stick of a boy and has the proportions of a somewhat lanky young man, just shrunken down. He speaks in a shrill elfish voice and has a red and green scarf wrapped around his head which increases his elvishness.

After taking group pictures with the kids we donate to the school and leave the stupa for the bus. There were several beggars who I photographed and gave money to. I kept asking them if I could take their picture and they wouldn’t respond in any way. After telling them I would give them money if I could take their photo, they stayed in the same position, hand outstretched, waiting. They were all happy to get money, almost snatching it from my hand as if reaching for the first morsel of bread in days. Perhaps that’s what that money meant to them.