Zurich, 22.12.08

In some countries, one could think Christmas is all about money. Switzerland is sure one of them. That’s why Amma’s children thought to make the best out of it an offered people to shop gifts for charities.

Hot Chai, steaming Chestnuts, glittering Jewelry and colorful flags with the Amma-Logo… It was impossible to oversea the market-stall at the Christmas fair in the Swiss town Affoltern, which is close to Zurich.

Who didn’t stop because of the scent of spiced chai or delicious wafers, sure stopped because of Anatole’s music? The 8-year-old boy amazed each and everyone with his accordion-play. As if he would have done the job a life long, the little Amma-Devotee sat in front of the stalls and played one tune after the other. A cool teenager was so impressed by the child’s performance that he immediately put a ten francs bill in the hat in front of Anatole. Money the teenager could easily spend on energy-drinks or for downloading hip-hop songs.

“Children help children” was one of the claims of the two Amma-stalls. Young girls and boys baked cookies and storybooks with beautiful illustrations. “If you buy one, a poor child in India can eat for a whole week”, they told their costumers with a big smile.

To sell things for charities has become a tradition amongst Amma-children in Switzerland. Every year they are organizing in at the lake of Zurich a colorful Indian Bazaar. The marked not only sells delicious pakoras or doshas made by Amma’s Indian Devotees living in Switzerland, or tasty homemade cakes and bread. Amma’s talented children offer also cultural performances like Bollywood or belly dance. For those the visitors who were busy, very busy during the week the hairdesser with his little saloon on the green meadow came just in time. Others wanted to know more about themselves. For those Amma-children offered a hand reading or Vedic astrology.

Each year Amma’s people in Switzerland generate more ideas how to make money to support the numerous projects fort he poor and needy in India. This year they even had a stall at the main Zurich train station, with great success. “Oh, is this that woman from India?” many visitors asked. “I saw her on TV, she is very impressive”, they said. After explaining, that already more then 750’000 patient have been treaded for free at Amma’s hospital AIMS or that more then 35’000 houses for the poor have been built in India, many people said, they didn’t’ know Amma and her Organization was doing so much fort he poor. It seemed, that the thought, that the money with which they just bought a crystal-bracelet, helped to finance those projects, made them quite happy.

– Vishnavi