Julia Nestler and Ben Landry in India. (Courtesy photo)

Two Harvard teens entered a world of “organized chaos” last summer and emerged after two weeks humbled, broken-hearted, and, most of all, gratified.

Julia Nestler, a senior at the Groton School, and Ben Landry, a Bromfield School senior, were teacher aides at the Jhalak School in West Baripur, India in July. The trip, which they organized as their senior projects, included teaching English, world geography, and math to children ages 5 through 12 in a rural area near Kolkata.

Jack Broadbent and Keiron Stoddart, both 2009 Bromfield graduates, organized a similar trip to India in 2008. Broadbent asked Landry to continue with the project, and Landry recruited Nestler. According to Landry, “Both Julia and I had intentions of being teacher aides. It was an integral part of our project.”

As Nestler puts it, they “hoped to spread a sense of hope and encouragement in India, and to show the children we worked with that there were people [they didn’t know] who… [wanted] to help them succeed with their education and… life.”

While in India, Nestler and Landry had no formal guide. They stayed with the family of Piali De, Stoddart’s mother. (De’s grandfather founded the Jhalak School.). They did have two translators, who assisted them when they traveled to and from the Jhalak School, without whom, Landry says, “we would have failed miserably.”

He adds, “Having no formal guide gave us a lot of independence, though.”

Says Nestler, “I found it intimidating as a white female; out in public I was stared at and followed … I never felt threatened—simply intimidated.”

Both Landry and Nestler found India to be a magnificent, exotic country. “India is one of the most beautiful countries I have visited,” says Nestler.

“It is a world of organized chaos,” Landry says. “To Westerners, the country seems like a disaster, but the people are creative and show unwavering hospitality. They love their country. The country has beauty, and the people’s character is unique.”

Nestler recalls that drivers ignored traffic lights at intersections, which gave her cause for concern in taxis. However, the accepted system in India is for drivers to simply honk their car horns when they come to intersections.

Nestler describes the Indian people as “incredibly curious, as well as curious about every aspect of Western culture.”

As Landry and Nestler helped students with English skills, they would read aloud in English. “The students really loved hearing us speak,” observes Landry.

“The students were keen to learn anything that we wanted to teach them,” Nestler says. “We read over and over and helped them with their English sentences and taught them correct pronunciation and different words.”

Nestler and Landry brought a large map to the Jhalak School to show the students the different countries of the world. They pointed out the United States and the distance between Harvard and Kolkata “to show how far we had traveled in order to visit and help them,” Nestler explains.

Nestler couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming poverty of the region. “The children we were teaching were coming to the school … in part because they got a free breakfast and uniform. Their families have so little … and the generosity of Piali’s family and the school makes a huge difference for them. Every day,” she adds, “we would see young children, around 8 years old, sitting on the side of the road where their families lived, taking care of their younger siblings or working. It was heartbreaking. We take our education, as well as so much more, for granted every day.”

One of the main obstacles Landry and Nestler faced was the language barrier. Landry said communicating was “difficult, but … knowledge is an unspoken language.”

The obstacle of language differences taught Nestler patience. “In order to communicate with them, which I really wanted to do, we had to have patience and really demonstrate our emotions and thoughts. In the end … we got through to the children … It was worth all the frustration of not being able to say what we wanted.

Both teens say the children and adults at the Jhalak School were extremely grateful for the help. Landry recalls that a woman who worked at the school kissed his feet in gratitude; he calls the moment “very humbling.”

Nestler emphasizes how rewarding the experience was, even just arriving at the school every morning. “The excitement on the children’s faces when they saw the car drive up was unforgettable,” she says. “They would wave ecstatically and wait anxiously by the door for us to come in and join them. They really appreciated us just being there.”

Landry says, “I would do another trip like this in a heartbeat.”

Nestler feels the same way. “I think that taking the time to make a difference in the lives of people who have so much less than you do, but have such amazing hearts, such generosity, and such a strong will to succeed makes a huge difference in their lives,” she says. “We showed them that there are people, all the way from America, who care about their education, and their lives. It helps them to believe in themselves when they have so many obstacles in front of them.”