Sahara House, New Delhi, India
In response to your challenge about posting ‘moreponderings’ Age, and Darrens worries about me being in rehab (lol), here’s a post that’s been circling, like a goldfish in my head for a little while.’It’s long, but i hope you enjoy!
I call it, ‘some ponderings from the foot of the tree that was once a mustard seed??’ (hehe)
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O.K. for those of you who are followers of the life and career of Dave Andrews (Christianarchy) Sahara House in New Delhi, India probably rings a few bells.
It’s ‘therapeutic community’ for intravenous drug users and individuals with HIV / AIDS. It started out with a group of Christians, 30 years ago, inviting a handful of IV drug users to their home for a family dinner.
They got personally involved with marganilised people, and everything changed.
What evolved became known as ?Sahara House? and is now run almost entirely by ex (and current!) drug users who have found rehabilitation through the Sahara community.
The center doesn?t emphasize getting off drugs to go back to a nice peaceful life or secure job – it emphasizes getting off drugs to take your part in changing the world!Likewise, Sahara doesn?t run dry, public-health-MA-designed programs, it runs stuff thought up by users themselves.
And this is where the stories of inspiration start flowing.
Take for instance the band. Sahara is arguably the only rehab center in India with it’s own rock band! The Doors, Roses, Beatles, U2, Nirvana ? you can find it all next week at a united nations convention on HIV/AIDS where the band has regular gigs.
On the aids awareness front, they have just cut their first cd featuring a love song they wrote about ‘Jane and ‘John’ and the need to use condoms, to be distributed at a gig they had at a New Delhi University.
They are also the only rehab center with their own semi-professional soccer team who have taken out national titles in their category and play in a league that promotes aids awareness.
In house, there are the Friday night rooftop coffee nights to ?sweat out? the drugs (through dancing) and the house tradition of entrusting the daily money for food and provisions to a current rehab patient to go out and get the supplies of for the day. A friend who is now Sahara ?program co-coordinator? describes the moment when he was trusted with Rs.400 to go and buy vegetables and rice for lunch for everyone at the center, as a breakthrough moment in his rehab and his life.
Of course some days, the community members have gone hungry, but it’s a risk deemed worth taking.
Then there are the programs to help those in the community outside the rehab doors.
One of the most touching mornings recently, was rocking up at the front door of the rehab center, only to see one of the current ?patients? I knew well, walking out.
He was carrying a plastic bag with some clothes in it and I was worried he had given up.
In reality, he had been drafted to be on the Sahara ?drama team? performing street theatre that educates people who don’t understand basic health concepts about HIV/AIDS and safe injecting practices in the outside community.
The plastic bag contained his costume.
His first morning out of rehab and this guy was back on the streets with the outreach workers!
The last anecdote I will share is a personal story that has kept me awake at night and given Christ a new face for me.
Recently (monday) one of the guys who is just completing his (3 month) rehab, started working as a care worker encouraging and supporting other addicts. He had originally intended to look for a job in the outside community (this is a professional, guy from a rich family, etc) but chose, instead to work for Sahara as a way of paying back some of the money spent on him.
You see he is HIV positive and the drugs that he needs to prolong his life (Anti retro-viral drugs or ARV?s) are fucking expensive. The Indian government has promised to provide them free (and been given grants to do so) but hasn?t as yet, come through on that promise, and so, other than the ultra rich, most positive Indians suffer and die of AIDS, long before their time.
Through his family, connections, etc, this guy probably could have afforded ARV, but as, as he explained to me, majority of HIV positive India do not have access to these drugs, and until the government changes the situation, he is forfeiting his right to take them.
Forfeiting his right?..!
He has been positive for 9 years and most of the people who contracted HIV in the same year as him in India, are dead.
Friends and family have been pleading with him for years to take ARV, but he has refused, up until now, at which point he has found out that his physical condition has deteriorated to such an extent that he needs a different type of ARV which are stronger (and of course more expensive) to live.
He has decided to start taking the stronger drugs and Sahara has offered to sponsor him for as long as he needs to be on them (until he dies).
And so, after refusing treatment to stand in solidarity with those who don?t have a choice, now in the worst physical condition he has ever been in, he is ?going back to work? full time, with addicts and other positive guys, to pay off his own treatment.
?Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend???
Yesterday, in my diary I wrote;
?…sometimes i am so overwhelmed by the strength and courage and inspiration that surrounds me that i forget i am in a drug rehab center, then i go to the toilet and realise someone has stolen the taps……..?
pretty much sums it up really!!!
In answer to your question Age, I?m not here to nurse or help or anything, just to build relationships and share experiences and get involved (in the spirit, I hope, of those who started Sahara).
And Darren, your question about rehab.
Yeah, I’m in rehab. All those around me are getting rehabilitated from heroin and deep rooted feelings of loveless ness and worthlessness. I am being rehabilitated from cynicism, bitterness and a line of thinking that says God gave up around the same time that Hillsongs opened their new convention center.
I was wrong.??
Hope this blog isn’t too massive, love to hear your thoughts. Signing out for now!!
Inspired Young Thing!
d91488e
Caz,
Keep the stories coming!
Perhaps we can have a MoreAngryYoungThing category…
Thanks for the pondering.
I think I have read it four times and I’m still not sure what to say other than – thanks for sharing and wow.
I loved the “taps” quote – keep on pondering.
Another day in rehab, another day of stories and struggles….
In the smoky office with early monsoon tearing round outside, the daily 5.30am bible study group meets.
We sit on uncomfortable plastic chairs, smoke local binni cigarettes and pass round a shared cup or two of sweet chai as someone reads from the book of Exodus.
Then Carlton, (jokingly ?pastor Carlton?) leads us in a discussion derived from our homework task and some sharing of our life experiences in relation to the stories we have read that day.
Our homework for today is ?Am I living or just existing? What it the purpose in my life??
Not bad for 5.30am.
For the last week or so, one of the rehab guys has been writing a song about our morning meetings. It?s called ?The 12 Apostles? as our group consists of 11 rehab guys + me (hey the DaVinci code was right!) however he is having to rethink the whole concept as one of our members ran out on Sunday (taking with him 10,000 rupees as well as some ?appropriated? clothes, a watch, etc.) and is now back on the streets using smack.
The police (who would only track him down and beat him anyway) have not been informed and the Sahara door remains open. It is not the first time this has happened and will not be the last.
Still, the bible study continues and even the guy who?s cash had been stolen joined others in informal words of prayer for their friend who was back out on the street.
Also in our prayers, the guy who I mentioned in my original post, with HIV. He started his ARV on Monday. The next few weeks he is expecting some pretty horrible side effects as he adjusts to the treatment. Still he?s working hard and a constant encouragement to others.
The soccer team practiced in the rain yesterday (early monsoon and lightning storms most afternoons here). A few of the guys with HIV had to sit this one out (as they are afraid of getting sick if they get too wet) but were still there to support their team mates.
Back in the house, one of the current rehab guys, Naresh, (an architect in his life before rehab) has motivated a team of others to spruce up the ?care room? and surrounding common space.
As well as laundering the curtains and sorting out the bed linen to get some matching sheets happening on the beds, I spotted them on Sunday (their day off) collectively cleaning the walls of the stairwell!
A small ?seating area? (old mattress on the floor with 2 old pillows against the wall) has also appeared in a little cozy enclave and I noticed Naresh has started twice daily changing the pillow slips on the beds (white ?display? pillow slips for day time use and old cotton pillow slips for sleeping on at night!). 10 points to the changing rooms team!
I could go on??.
Thanks heaps for your comments to my original post, (means a lot!) and to all those who are reading about Sahara, keep us in your thoughts.
Signing off for now,
Angry Young Thing
Dear Morepraxis,
It’s a year and a bit on and Angry Young Thing is back at Sahara.
We all need your prayers and support over here in India. Here’s a little glimpse of the situation as it stands. Many Blessings, Cara
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It?s Monday afternoon and I am under a flyover, balancing on the curb of one of the busiest intersections in Old Delhi. In the short space between the base of the flyover and previously mentioned curb, is a dusty gulf on which some 20 blanketed bodies lie.
They could be dead but for something in the mosquito spotted air above their heads that aches out ?life?
Beside the bodies, touching evidence of shared humanness. A single cup, a plastic jug, razor blades, medicine ampoules and match ends. A shoe.
To breathe in is to inhale toxic emissions and crystallized urine.
To loose balance is to fall headlong into oncoming traffic.
This is not the sort of place a foreign tourist goes. It?s not the sort of place anyone willingly goes. It is, however, where many people marginalized by addictions, poverty and HIV/Aids live, and where Robert and the Sahara outreach team daily visit.
When I first met Robert in 2006, he looked much as he does now. Clean shaven, a pressed, if not somewhat worn shirt, polished, if not somewhat broken, shoes and tidy, if not somewhat graying hair. His appearance is that of a vacuum cleaner sales man, his demeanor, as with many of the Sahara staff, is of a person unable to rest until a great act of redemption is paid forward in full.
Robert completed rehabilitation for his own addiction to heroin in 2002. His legacy from that time is a deep aversion to rice (the staple food in Sahara house) and commitment to offering others an example of a new way of being. Daily for the past 6 years he has returned to places where he, and other members of the team, used to shoot up in order to see this commitment lived out.
And that brings us to where we are currently standing, under a bridge in old Delhi.
All morning the outreach team has been weaving around traffic through crematoriums, squats under bridges and abandoned parks.
Sahara?s needle exchange program, targets homeless, HIV positive injecting drug users who produce their old needles and syringes for waste management and are, daily, issued clean ones. As well as offering safer needles for injection, the outreach workers are trained to offer counseling, referrals for practical support, a link to rehab and hospice services as well as a daily ?How are you? or an ?I missed you yesterday, are you OK??
The main product they peddle is hope.
The bodies have begun stirring and from within hessian sacks, socks and concealed pouches used syringes and needles are produced. They know the outreach team well. Robert chats, offers counseling and referrals and documents names in a small notebook.
From a black satchel bag, the outer pockets of which no longer zip up, one of Roberts co-workers dispenses a syringe and 2 needles to each client. Recently released from rehab he too is neatly groomed but for hepatitis stained eyes and gaunt tuberculosis indented jaw. Throughout the day when not giving out needles, he has been subtly wedging himself between me and anyone suspected as having ungentlemanly intentions.
The outreach team look out for one another.
Better people in this world would be hard to find.
A square mail box-like tin with the word ?Sahara? hand painted on the front and a syringe-shaped hole punched into the roof is steadily filling. The blood splattered needles and cloudy syringes are shaken down to make more room in the tin for more.
The sleeping bodies now have names and unshaven toothless faces. Shamul greets me with ?Assalam Alaikum (Peace be Upon You)? and an offer of chai. Another man, uncapped needle in hand talks animatedly with Robert. Some of the traffic has slowed down to listen in on the unfolding dialogue. I watch the needle with an unblinking gaze.
Make no mistake, this work is as dangerous as it is thankless.
Late last year a member of their team, back at the outreach HQ, was performing a routing blood sugar test for a client when he was accidentally flicked with a needle in the back of his hand.
His blood was screened.
Test results came back HIV positive.
He was at work the next day. His colleagues back out on the street.
The sharps tin is latched shut and the team moves on. Without money for a rickshaw, Robert and the other outreach workers catch the public bus over the flyover and to the next injecting ?hot spot? to dispense clean needles and their enduring message of encouragement. This will be their 5th month without a salary.?
“You and I have been created for greater things. We have not been created to just pass through this life without aim. And that greater aim is to live and be loved and we cannot love unless we know. Knowledge always leads to love and love to service…” Mother Theresa
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PS: I have had several e-mails from people who are interested in Sahara and want to somehow support the work here.
Some things you can do are;
A. Learn more about HIV
HIVInSite.ucsf.edu
B. Write a letter of encouragement to the outreach team, a Sahara House resident or staff member. Contact details are found at;
http://www.saharahouse.org/contact_details.htm
C. Send funds to help Sahara continue to run
http://www.saharahouse.org/how_help.htm
D. Consider visiting / volunteering at Sahara
Phone in India : 011-91-11- 621 – 91473.
i need sahara rehab center address
we need to admit a drug abuser in a rehab which can help her get over her addiction.any help from u in this regard will be highly appreciated n we will be obliged.we are from mumbai,but are willing to come to delhi for this purpose.kindly revert asap.thanking u in anticipation.
The phone number for Sahara house above is the best place to start. 011-91-11- 621 – 91473.
Our partner churches near you are “The Church of South India” & “The Church of North India” They will have experience and local knowledge that we do not have here. All the best in your search & recovery.
A list of partner church http://www.unitingworld.org.au/partners/our-overseas-partners/