Meet the Family, Part 2 of 3 (or 4 or 5 or 9)

When I wrote the first post in this series, I thought I would only be writing about my eight girls in Grace Purple.  However, keep in mind that the Purple apartment is on the first floor of Grace, and my room is in the Yellow apartment on the third floor.  

When Jenny, Yellow’s foster mom, left at the beginning of December, I kinda took over them, too. Initially, it was just making sure they didn’t fight or get on the ayah’s nerves too much, but it’s evolved since then. Now, I pretty much divide my time and energy between the apartments.  This is a conversation I had with Honor, one of Jenny’s girls a few weeks ago:

“Marla, are just your girls your children?”

“What do you mean, Honor?”

“Are we your children, too?”

“Do you want to be my children, Honor?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Then you are my children, too.”

The ayahs have been working with Grace Purple on calling me “Marla Mummy” instead of “Marlakka,” which means big sister.  I love it, but I don’t require it—although the ayahs often scold Angel if she calls me sister!  So I started calling my girls “[Name]-Kuthuru” or daughter.  

Walking with me to get chapatti and curry the other night, Honor got onto me for saying something was for “my girls.”  I had to explain that it’s easier to separate the apartments by “my” and “Jenny’s” girls, even though Jenny is gone, and even though I love them just as much.  She paused and then thought this seemed reasonable enough, but didn’t necessarily like it.  

I asked her, “Honor, do you want me to call you Honor-chelli (little sister), or Honor-Kuthuru?”

She thought about it, and then said “Honor Kuthuru.” 

Something so simple as being called “mine,” being called “my daughter,” means so much to this girl.  I am honored that she loves me and can see my heart for her even through all the stressful moments and crazed instances where I deserve her asking, “What’s your prrrroblem?!”  But it also saddens me that she has such a need to belong, such a desire to be someone’s.  She shouldn’t have to feel that way at her age. But right now, I’m glad I can be here, glad I can let her belong to me.

The next girl I’ll talk about is Phoebe, who just amazes me.  Phoebe is a brilliant girl who happens to be completely blind.  It doesn’t stop her from doing much of anything though, thankfully!  She never ceases to impress me:  last summer, she learned how to type all her letters, AND how to write the entire alphabet.  She now writes her name in second grade-ish scribble, but does it without any help AND in a straight horizontal line.  She styles my hair in braids, translates rules and punishments to the little kids for me, and can navigate the building better than anyone else! Phoebe is starting to use her creative juices and type stories when I have her practice on my laptop, and it’s always a treat to see what she comes up with—or know when she needs to backspace.  Most recently, she received a bicycle (per her request) for Christmas.  She can't see, but the training wheels allow me to run alongside her and steer.  Sometimes I have to full on sprint to keep up! In short, I love watching this girl tackle new ground and can't wait to see what her future holds! 

A Letter from a Former Grinch

Dear friends and family,

When it comes to "traditional" and commercialized Christmas in Missouri, I'm a lot of a grinch:  I groan when I have to hear Christmas music EVERYWHERE for 45 days or more, and I am purely disgusted at the holiday aisles' arrival in September.  I have never seen "It's a Wonderful Life," although my mother tried to force our family to watch it at one point.  (Thankfully the library's version was a little too well worn.)
I will do nearly anything to escape being stuck in the back of a cold minivan after the Christmas eve service, when our family drives through all of Lebanon to look at all three well-lit houses.  I have only ever owned one Christmas CD, although making fun of Aaron Neville's "Silent Night" does provide me with great joy.  And I find singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus to be a little overkill, tradition-wise--when it's just my parents and me sitting around the plastic tree with "reindeer" ornaments I made in preschool.
I am happy for and maybe even slightly jealous of everyone who feels otherwise; but to me, the amount of "Christmas" spewed on me from Thanksgiving week til New Year's is only slightly more appealing than vomit.  Even on Christmas morning, hearing Luke's account of the birth of Christ (for the 20th time since December 1st) has either 1- my sister and I playing the "how much can you quote" game as Dad reads it, or 2- me giggling hysterically at the narrator's accent when Dad Youtube's the verses.

Christmas Extravaganza Beginnings

If I don't write now, while my 8 girls are sleeping and 6 of the 12 upstairs girls are mesmerized by Om Shanti Om (the other six fell asleep in extremely awkward  positions during it), I'll never write about what's been going on.  So, here are my scatterbrained thoughts: 

Lately, I have children not going to school because of local strikes & Christmas program preparations, a room nearly stuffed full of Christmas gifts (and laundry, if I'm being honest) and a thousand things running through my head. 

Sarah Rose, the music teacher and English/Telugu translator that lives upstairs with me, went to Chennai with me Tuesday to meet some really cool guys who brought Christmas from America to India.  We were absolutely blown away by both their generosity and hospitality. AND it was fantastic to be around men who are actually taller than me ;)  --Okay, and now the four year old fell from her awkward position off the couch, woke up, and is sleeping on my lap. Let's see if I can type while not knocking her in the face with my elbow....  I digress--  So, as soon as we arrived to the Chennai train station, I got a huge smile and remembered how much I loved being in Indian cities.  It's weird, I know, but something about the crowds and noise and having everything everywhere is just fantastic, and makes me feel at home.  The pungent fishy smell on the platform, not so much--but the rest just made me so dang happy.  We had a South Indian lunch, talked a bunch (Dr. Seuss-alert), and watched a Bollywood movie.  Ahhh, Hindi.  I forgot how I missed that, too.  There was a crazy, gaudy 2-3 story Christmas tree and scenery, which led to the first time in a decade that I felt really glad to see.  (Kendra & Hicham, I think we only pretended to be excited about that Charlie-Brown-esque tree in the Meknes mall!) 

Sarah Rose and I got the gifts from our Santa Clauses, and boarded the non a/c train back to Ongole, where we would reach around midnight.  I am planning a train ride to/from Delhi at some point, so wanted to check out the non a/c cars, just in case I decide to go against my friends' recommendations and travel cheaper. Well, when it was time for us to de-board, there was either a VERY large lizard or a small rat running across the aisles, I decided I will officially stick to A/C after all.  You see, rats are the one thing that can terrify me.  Even if someone (Barkha!) just says "OH! Rat!" to petrify me. 

I'm so getting off topic here... Uh, so I spent 18 hours separating and dividing and organizing gifts (and assembling the LEGO cars for the little boys) yesterday.  It shouldn't take so long, but remember I'm dealing with 80ish kids, and I'm trying my best not to show favorites by giving all the cutest things to certain kids. 

The kids are all practicing their dances for the "semi-Christmas" function.  Which means the public one, I guess the "real" Christmas function happens at home on the 25th... As time goes on with so much busy-ness and less interaction with Americans, I am increasingly more Indian.  I said "ground floor" today in an email.  My thoughts sound like "Office going," and "lunch finished" in Indian broken English.  And while waiting with the kids for their ride to school, I totally walked down the street in my bare feet to get dosa.  It's frightening. 

I am going to try to keep you all updated on the Christmas happenings, but as a lot of people have asked for videos of the kids getting gift, I am putting them on Youtube.  I'm just gonna give you the first 2 links, but other videos I post will be in the same playlist, so if you wanna see, just keep checking it out: http://youtu.be/kcixqsHvkUc  http://youtu.be/ua4FEhNTccI Keep in mind life is crazy here, and that I have no videography skills.

Meet the Family, Part 1 of 3

I realized I sometimes tend to write random pieces of info about my girls, forgetting that you really don't know much about them.  So, here is my attempt at brevity in introducing them, while still letting you see who they are (as I see them).

1. The baby, Angel.  She is 3 1/2 and adorable with her black ringlets and big brown eyes.  Her smile and giggles will light up the room, and it's often due to some mischievous act.  She is extremely cuddly--but it takes a long time for her to become attached enough to do this. If music is on, Angel is beebopping (spelling?) her way around somewhere!  Her curiosity and eagerness to see new things leads to her tiny self dragging me down the stairs and street, if I tell her to get her shoes because we're going for a walk.  Lately, she's also become quite the Telugu chatterbox, reminding me that I need to learn some more vocabulary.

2. Heidi.  Heidi is a little mama at age 4, and she will scold you with the pouty face, wagging finger, and a gentle slap (tap) if you do something she doesn't want.  On some kids, it would be annoying, but on her, it's the cutest thing you've ever seen, and it wins over pretty much everyone--especially as she giggles endlessly afterwards.  She loves to play with my hair, and tries to do hers as well, so we both have a lot of tangles quite frequently!  Heidi often plays alone, but when she decides to play with someone, it's a blast.

Although a  year older, Heidi has been with Angel since the time they were in the government orphanage.  They are sisters in the deepest sense of the word!  Haha, if one has something (be it a piece of paper or an actual toy or a section of my hair), the other one demands it within 3 seconds.  They sleep together, eat next to each other, go to playschool together, get in trouble together, and help each other carry their dresses to the laundry basket.  I guess Indian girls "have" to walk to the bathroom together, too, and these girls have that concept down to a tee! If these pictures and descriptions aren't enough to make you think that they're adorable, they get free fruit and cookies from random shopkeepers anytime we go for a walk--they're just that cute.

Apologies for not a fantastic individual picture of Heidi--she's not a smiler for the camera, and if she's doing something, it's always with Angel! :)

When Momma Ain't Happy...

You know the rest of the phrase.

This afternoon, I noticed I've been a bit snappy with the girls--wanting to hide in my room for longer than normal and disregard the constant knocking and shouting of "Sistaaaaar! Maaarlaaaaa, Open please!" 
Why was I so irritated? Had the girls been more disobedient than normal? Was the staff not doing what they were supposed to be doing?

No, the morning was really good, actually.  I mean, the driver showed up late and all kids were 30 minutes late to school--whatever.  That's normal by now.  The girls who don't go to school were amazingly cooperative in sharing their computer for games.  (The hope is to familiarize them with computers for potential job opportunities down the road.)  Then I gave bike riding lessons to 2 kiddos, whose foster mom gave them their own bicycles for Christmas.  The lessons were good, but also really intriguing.  Whereas most "poor" kids in Ongole have their first bike ride at 2 months old (being cradled by their mom on the back, while the dad pedals) these kids probably had their first bicycle rides only a few months ago.  They struggle with the balance thing, even with training wheels; they don't understand how to pedal when I remove my hands from their feet; the concept of steering alone is a huge challenge for them.  So, today, we had steering lessons. It was both fun and funny; it was a good morning.

So what was it with me? Why, when I answered the door to the knocking and "Sistaaar!", did I have to take a deep breath and give the child/teenager a hug and remind them (and myself) that I loved them before I listened to what they had to say? 

I decided to just sit in my room, pray, breathe, and think about what was wrong with me. And then I knew.  For the first time since age 6, I am homesick. I'm guessing that watching most of the volunteers go home for the holidays has something to do with it, as does the stress of attempting to fill another foster mom's shoes.  But I suppose being away for 6 months could be the reason in itself.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Bureau

Day 2 of Living with My Kiddos:

I think I've mentioned that I usually look in a mirror once a week or so, and otherwise, I use my webcam.  (Not entirely reliable when you are looking at bug bites on your face, but it works for the most part). Well, it doesn't take much imagination to think that kids in orphanages get even less time looking at themselves.  There was no mirror in our apartment, until today. 

See, I've spent most of the money donated for my children's Christmas on both them and their other "siblings" who live in other apartments and don't have foster mothers.  There are toys galore that we purchased from the local toy shop.  There is a shipment from my online shopping spree headed this way.  And there are loads of toys and girly things currently being packed in suitcases to come with my friends from India.  

I'm so grateful that you all have blessed my children in such ways.  And I am SO excited to see the glee of the children who currently do not have foster mamas here to dote on them.  They normally miss out on "fun" and pampering.  This year, Christmas day is gonna be PHENOMENAL!!!

--**--Insert break to know I just started to yell at a child who smashed her doll into my laptop because I thought she was her little sister who does such things frequently.  Turns out it wasn't the little sister, but Phoebe, who is blind and had no idea I was sitting here, much less with my laptop. (Whoops!) Ohhhh the life of working and living with children with disabilities....--**--

Okay, so back to where I was:  Christmas in Ongole is going to be unbelievably awesome this year.  But, when you have all these toys and curious kids who have never seen so many toys in their lives, much less been able to touch and play with all of them, you do what I did:  You use some of that Christmas money to buy a bureau that has a lock so that nail polish and glitter doesn't mysteriously appear on every school uniform.  But I wanted even the bureau to be special for the girls.  I went to the market and wasn't too impressed with any in particular, but then I saw a large metal cabinet on the side of the road on my way home the other day.  I've seen this thousands of times by now, but have never actually stopped to realize it was a bureau shop and not a shop for tools or whatever I thought were in the bureaus.  But, voila! After returning with my Telugu-speaking ayah for bargaining purposes, we now have a bureau that is pretty and purple and has a full length mirror. 

Since they came home from school this afternoon, I have caught 5 of my 8 girls standing in front of that mirror when they thought no one else is looking.  (This is a very high statistic when 2 of the 8 are completely blind lol).  They make bug-eyed faces at their reflection, they move their shoulders up and down, they puff out their cheeks.  They are not yet to the point where they make every facial expression imaginable (like teenagers do when they get their first camera).  They simply open their eyes wide, squint, open eyes, squint, puff cheeks, smile, wrinkle nose, giggle, etc.  It has been adorable to watch from the doorway, and it is even cuter when they know they've been caught. They are discovering themselves.

They do this through music, too.  I keep music on in our apartment whenever I'm around.  Rap, Mozart, rock, pop, mariachi, opera, country, Bollywood, salsa, traditional Afghan tunes, poorly recorded Arabic worship music--basically anything that has ever been inserted into my laptop has now been played for my girls.  And they LOVE it. 

After a few months of me poorly performing my Punjabi dance moves and making kids dizzy by spinning them in circles while songs play, all girls are becoming more open and showing their love for music.  Stephanie, who shows very little initiation in anything, now requests to "sing a song, sister!" every time I sit near her.  Naomi has changed from the kid who giggles at my antics from her spot in the corner to the one who starts the dance party.  Jeanette has transformed from having me wave her arms to the beat to jumping around as soon as a good beat comes on.  It's fantastic to watch them all grow and continue to discover who they are.

Especially Paula.  This twelve year old is kind of hard for me to reach--she can communicate, she behaves well, etc. so it's not that.  She just is so independent and doesn't seem to "need" me or want affection ever.  Again, twelve year old girl.  :)  She will sit in front of the computer for hours, even though I have the screen turn off after a minute of inactivity.  She also loves looking at her reflection in the black screen, and from her kneeling position on the ground head-bops and shimmies and bounces her way through every song.  We have to beg her to come eat when it's time for dinner! 

Tonight, I got a special treat.  We had been listening to music through dinner, through the fingernail painting, and I was just sitting on the floor with her.  She asked me for a hug, which I gave.  But she didn't let go.  THEN I realized she was trying to change the songs on the laptop while I was facing the other way.  After laughing about that, she continued to hug me as we talked about music she did and didn't like.  I played the "fast songs" she wanted to hear, most willingly.  And then, I moved from our awkward, back-breaking position to pulling her in my lap.  If you know anything about pre-teenagers with spastic cerebral palsy, this wasn't the most comfortable position--but yet it was. We stayed that way for a good hour, her head against my shoulder, arms around me; my arms around her, my legs providing trunk support so she wouldn't just slide off my lap.

It was beautiful, and I'm glad that while she is discovering who she is, I get to be there to watch.