Working Hard in India

Living in India can be very difficult.  Many people in India don't have enough money to send their children to school.  Even if schools are free, many kids your age have to stay at home and help their parents make money so the family can afford food and shelter.

While wandering along the beach, I met Tina.  She was a very nice lady, with a beautiful smile, who was trying to sell me some shirts.  I told her that I didn't need any new shirts, but she kept walking with me.  I told her that I was a teacher who was travelling around the world looking for new lessons to share with my students and she gave me a lesson to share.  "Learn how to read and write!"  She explained that she never went to school so she can't read and write, "so that means I can only learn by listening and talking.  Reading means you can learn so much more."  That's a great lesson Tina.


My friend Tina shows you her beautiful smile.

Tina is working very hard.  She leaves her home at 6:30 every morning and sits on a crowded bus for an hour until she arrives in Goa.  She spends her day talking to tourists and trying to sell them clothing, hoping to make enough money so that her two daughters can go to school.

Tina isn't the only hardworking person in India.  There are hardworking men and women all over the country.  You can see them in the rice paddies, bent over harvesting the rice into big heavy bags.  You can see them carry baskets full or bread, fruit or fish on their heads, all ready to be sold at the market.  Even though they are all working hard, they are always smiling.  Handing you some happiness so that one day it will come back to them!

Women carrying baskets and bags of fish on their heads to be sold at market.