The monkey made me do it

Memories of sand and orange peels

I was attempting to clean my bedroom last night, and stumbled upon the journal that I kept while traveling in India last year. It's a mishmash of stories, half-asleep airport writings, attempts to record drum patterns, lists of food and its approximate names, and one memorable page where I was being peeked at by a girl at the orphanage and took a section to write "Geeta is BAD. MEAN. A BULLY (and a spy)." I think she didn't like that, the page is a bit wrinkled.

The trip was 2 1/2 weeks of traveling all through mostly southeast India, holding medical clinics and visiting an orphanage. I have no medical training besides CPR and basic first aid, but I was one of the few who had gotten all of their shots and was not afraid of icky stuff so I was assigned blood sugar testing duties at the first clinic. The second clinic had a different crowd with fewer adults and elderly people, so I did a craft project with the 100+ kids (we made puppets out of paper bags and pipe cleaners)

But I really want to talk about the orphanage in Narsapur,

We got to the orphanage in the second week of the trip, and our small group was completely overwhelmed with all of the cultural differences we had seen. We had been the guests of a woman who owned a nursing school and elementary school, and spoiled like royalty by her servants and staff. We had been showered with garlands of fragrant flowers, met with elaborate sand paintings, greeted with multiple ceremonies involving town officials and performances and fireworks, and had been led everywhere by a three piece band (please don't ask me what the pieces were, the smallest musician looked to me like he was just playing a box). She hired a tailor for us that made us full traditional outfits for $2, took his shoes off in our presence and wouldn't meet our gaze. Her nursing students deferred to us in the clinics, even though I told them flat-out that I was really an artist and had learned how to use the blood sugar testing machine just that morning.

It was very strange. I found myself sneaking around to try and lift my bag before the porters grabbed it. Never worked, couldn't even pour my own tea.

Dew's Sweet Home was a welcome change, though they still cooked and cleaned for us and the children brought us up buckets of hot water to bathe with every morning. The children there are mostly abandoned by their families, which oddly enough can work out to be a great thing for them and offers them opportunities most families can't afford (though is of course difficult psychologically). The orphanage is incredibly self-sufficient and a very happy place where the children have chores every morning (sweeping the paths, boiling bath water, assisting the cook, tending the vegetables) and spend the rest of the day in school and playing. Their English is incredible, and many of them are at the top of their class at school. They are divided in small houses of 8-10 kids by age, with a house mother and father to take care of them, and come together for meals and playing. It's not a wealthy place, they have a few sponsors but support themselves with farming and whatever donations they can get. We brought them oranges (what we thought was a small, silly present) and the children were so excited - it turns out that oranges are a rare treat for them, something they only see once a year at Christmas! They ate them reverently, completely silent and tearing the peels carefully to avoid any waste.

Our big gift to them during the trip was taking the kids down to the beach. We borrowed a big bus and drove for hours, learning names and trying to get the shyer kids to interact with us (best quote from a child who kept staring at our pale skin: "Why are you that color? Are you sick?") The boys started singing Hindi songs. Soon I noticed a change in the music, they were singing nonsense words to a very familiar tune... "oh, oh-ohhhh"... yep, that "Barbie Girl" song from a few years ago had made it into the minds and mouths of orphan children in deepest darkest India. I became a hero because I knew almost all of the words. I became a guilty hero because I realized just how inappropriate many of the words were (yes, I practiced a little artistic license in passing along the lyrics). I sang "Barbie Girl" at least twenty times for those children. They developed choreography.

When we got to the beach, each of our team members was assigned five children to keep an eye on, and I discovered that my group of girls (ages 7 to 15) had never gone swimming before. Their culture is very modest in the area of women's dress, and they weren't allowed to wear swimsuits or shorts. Their dresses had to cover their knees (pants were suspect). So I decided to teach them to swim fully clothed. They were hesitant at first, but once Jaya the tomboy rode out on my back they all wanted a turn, and it was only a matter of time before I was explaining the dog paddle and telling poor Jaya that swallowing ocean water was a very bad idea and that she should close her eyes under the water as well. Around this time Sharon decided to adopt me. She carried my bag and camera all day and wouldn't let me touch them as we went from the bus to our lunch spot to the beach again. She sat silently by me at lunch, shyly peeking at me with her impossibly huge eyes and looking away when I tried to talk to her. Sharon opened up a little on the bus ride back and I taught her how to french braid her friend's hair. She told me about her classes and the names of the dogs running around the orphanage, and that she wanted to come and see my house and my dog.

A moment of humility: We were watching out the window, looking at the traffic whipping by, and the boys asked me if I had a bicycle of my own. "Yes." They were very impressed. Then they asked me if my family had a car. "Yes, we have our own cars. Most people in the U.S. have their own cars." This almost caused a riot. In an area where the only automobiles are taxis and government vehicles, the idea of personal cars was obscene. And to own a car AND a bike meant that I (even though I was a college student, in debt and fairly poor by U.S. standards) was one of the richest people they knew. I thought about trying to explain, to justify that I really didn't have that much money, but then realized that in comparison I was luckier than I could have ever realized. To live where I live, to have what I have... and I thought I was "poor"?

The day we left was incredibly hard. Even though we had only spent four days with them, the children had bonded with us and we with them. Sharon gave me a hair clip and a rose (both very valuable presents in their community), and cried hard. She made sure that I took pictures of every child, and a few of myself to send to her, and tried to give me her stuffed animal but I wouldn't take it. We had brought a suitcase full of toys to pass out to the children, and she was willing to part with hers even though toys came maybe twice a year. I still think about her at random times, I see things I know she would like, see children that share her characteristics. Such a shy, serious child that in a matter of days formed a bond with me that has lasted over a year! Even though she is in the well-run, supportive world of the orphanage, every time I read a bride-burning story or hear the latest Indian tragedy or natural disaster, I want to get on a plane immediately and rescue her (and all of the other children too). The only thing that stops me is the knowledge that our country has its own problems, and with our prosperity comes overindulgence and a culture where children are drugged into normalcy and questionably educated. The orphans are happy, they have creative and musical outlets as well as a good educational system, and they have a created family that is large and multi-layered and could probably not exist in the U.S. This is my mantra, someday it will work.

posted by LadyJay @ 10:39 AM