Shishur Sevay

HEATHER DIDI AND ANDREI DADA WERE BACK AT SHISHUR SEVAY

 

 

Heather didi and Andrei dada came to visit us in June.  Now it is mid August.  They came at a time of major crisis.  I have far less pictures than usual.  We had far less time together than we had anticipated.  This is a post that has been waiting to be blogged, and now I have a chance to reflect back on the visit, re-enjoy the pictures, and write.  Heather is my older daughter, and Andrei her husband.  We are a very small family, Heather, her husband, and my younger daughter Cici.  The four of us are close.  The three of them are close.  I miss them.

Heather and Andrei first came to Kolkata in August 2007 to visit me.  Heather explained that she was ONLY coming to see me as she didn't really expect to enjoy any other part of the trip. However, I know my daughter well, and I know her warmth and big heart, and comfort with  children.  She has always loved being with children, and she has always been amazingly funny, energetic, and reassuring with them.  She was/is always a great big sister.  As for Andrei, I knew he would have a great time here.  So these are some pictures from their first visit, in August 2007:

At Home

 

 

 

At School

 At Pizza Hut

And then the next year, Summer 2008, they brought Cici didi too!  Here we are in a rare photo of us all. (That's me in the sari.)

 

 

So this year was their third trip and by now we had all sorts of "family rituals" with the girls. We went to Aquatica again.

 

An exhausting day for all

This year we went to MacDonald's instead of Pizza Hut

 

But the best is always hanging out at Shishur Sevay, time of just being together.

 

 

This year Andrei and Heather celebrated 11 years of marriage -- flowers, superb chocolate cake, and an evening out in Kolkata.  Two places were closed, and the other was about to have a private party, but we had fun.

 

 

 

Eleven years and as much in love with each other as the day they married.  I am also a very fortunate mother-in-law, which holds a lot of sway in India! It is one thing to have my daughters visit, but quite another, and admirable, to have my son-in-law come.  In the last two days we have decided that he will come and help me with some matters here.  We are a small family, my two daughters and son-in-law, and we have our conflicts, but we are family.  Cici calls us a "Funny Family" on Facebook.  Heather used to be the older of two, and now I have twelve more children.  Cici used to be the baby of the family and now she is second of the 14.  These are not easy adjustments.  In fact, having a mother go off to another continent to become mother to 12 orphans may be admirable, but not easy for those who are far away.   My children are very proud of me, but they wish I were closer, and they wish most of all that I was not faced with crisis after crisis in trying to care for the children here.

Here are my kids in Vancouver last year.  They will be going again soon.  I wish I could go with them one year.  I wish things would settle down here and be easier.  I love my life here, but I miss my kids in America and wish I could be more a part of their lives too.  I am under siege here and it wears on me.

My kids in Vancouver last year

 

I miss them.

 

 

 

Ganga Goes Digital

Our Ordinary Miracle continues.

OMG, It works!!!!

Anjali has been my unofficial but essential long distance consultant in communication with our girls with disabilities.  She has sent articles about swallowing problems, and taken my concerns to her professors.  She just couldn't get here sooner.  Almost a year ago I determined to have computer communication training for Ganga, Bornali, Rani, and Sonali -- first in line because their communication abilities are so limited by their disabilities.  My main goal is to be able to understand what they are trying to tell us, to break the barriers between us and them regarding how they feel, what they think, what they most want us to know.  So in the last year I gathered adaptive switches and software, and we even played with it a bit.  A big obstacle was the lack of a computer lab and I had originally planned for two desktops and specially built tables.  But one day I tried out the software with the kids using my laptop, and realized this was even better.  I now have four laptops to use for teaching (I'm grabbing up entry level laptops because they come with Windows XP, not Vista).

In these pictures Ganga is actually STANDING in her standing box!  She has wraps around her legs and pillows around her to help hold her up, but the time standing strengthens her legs, and is energizing. 

The large round red switch is made so touching it anywhere acts like a mouse click.  She can use it with her hands (Anjali is demonstrating), 

or her elbow,

 

 

or even with her head.

They are making up a story together and later Ganga will tell the story to her Didis.  It must be a funny story.

 

That's Bornali behind them in her standing box, sometimes watching, sometimes turning around.  She will have her time later. 

Uh Oh!  Someone has just made the mistake of thinking Ganga will share her computer time, But Ganga, whose eyes speak as loudly and clearly as anyone's voice establishes the computer as hers! 

 

 

But, Didi's are different.  They are always welcome (well as long as they look but don't touch the computer). 

Ganga is working hard at the computer to show her story to her didis.

 

Clearly Didi is impressed and proud. Ganga is very happy.  Ganga's joy, and our joy is all the more miraculous when we remember her two and a half years ago, February 2007.  She was 4-5 years old and could not hold her head up or move her arms or legs.  I keep wondering how she survived mentally/emotionally, given how expressive she is and how much she is so totally with us.

Here is a picture from the day we first saw them in the institution, the day we could not say no to any child who was given to us:

 

From left to right: Ganga, Rani, Sonalil, and Bornali

Photos of Shishur Sevay, Ganga and Anjali et al by Benjamin Melancon, with gratitude.

 

 

 

 

JANMASHTAMI -- THE BIRTH OF KRISHNA

You have to look closely into the swing seat to see a decorated Gopal.  He is Krishna as a little boy, known for being naughty. In our Pooja for Janmashtami, I told him that if he were too naughty he would have to go in Rani's crib.  My humor was appreciated. 

 

 

Seriously though, this is the first Jamnashtami we have celebrated at Shishur Sevay.  At least where we are, Indian celebrations occur within the family, within the homes.  So, sometimes we are really alone, and this year I happened to hear what actually goes on and decided we would do what we could.  One of the teachers gave Bijoy a list of what to buy, and then late in the morning she and he started decorating the wooden swing in which Gopal would sit.  We had special clothes for him, and a crown, all of which was easliy bought as a package.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, as work went on, Ian struck up some conversations with Ganga and Sonali:

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Sonali was more interested in thumb-rest time.  Ian was far more successful with Ganga.

 

 

 

 

In fact she was very interested:

 

 

 

But work continued for Gopal's swing and Ganga made sure the camera caught her too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally

 

 

 

 

Now for the bare outline of the meaning, a quote from an unidentified web site (oops):

 

"Janmashtami legends relates to the different interesting stories of Shri Krishna. Beginning from his birth till the days of his later years, people know Shri Krishna as a Protector of human beings. They still remember and commemorate his birth to honor Him for what He did for humankind. On the day of Janmashtami, people pray to Him to destroy all the evil from this earth and make it the best place to live in. they ask forgiveness for their misdeeds and also thank him for His benevolence. They know that he will always be there for their help.

The different Janmashtami legends that gave rise to the celebration of the Janmashtami is very interesting to know. The most famous legendary episode of Janmashtami is the killing of King Kansa who was the maternal uncle of Lord Krishna. According to Hindu mythology, there was a prophecy that declared that the child of Devaki would kill Kansa. And Lord Krishna was that child who was born to Devaki but was brought up by Yashoda and Nand at Gokul"

******************

So, in this year of 2009, we finally learned about the meaning and procedures, the making of the swing, which they loved to make go back and forth with the string of marigolds.  None of the girls knew of Janmashtami, nor had they seen Gopal in the swing.  At prayer time, Gopal was with us, and that's when I issued the warning to him about Rani's crib. 

 

 

Just a note about Rani's Crib... Rani used to be unmanageable at times so she was kept in a crib -- a crib I had built just for her.  Now she is rarely in it, but it's become the symbolic "time out" place if a big girl's behavior is out of control or like Rani used to be.  When Ian hurt his sister's feelings and she put it on Facebook, I threatened to put Ian in Rani's crib, but I think it was mostly a misunderstanding so he didn't have to go in Rani's crib.

 

We didn't have to buy Gopal because some time ago I bought each girl a Gopal for her locker.  The girls have slowly collected Gods to put in their lockers, except with Gopal they decided to keep them all together on the Pandal.  So one went on the swing, and another went home with Ian, as a little gift from Shishur Sevay.

 

 

A Happening Place

 This has been a rough few months as I try to focus on the program and hum a happy tune while making my way over the obstacles.  Back in December someone said to me, "You are in conflict with your environment."  These words were helpful.  They put a name to my experience with words that could dance around or bounce around in my head.  And since I am not likely to change and my environment is not likely to change, this is what it will always be, but hopefully with periods of respite.

The volunteers from Spain are group who come every August to Kolkata to volunteer at various places including Mother Teresa's many Homes.  This year they asked to volunteer also at Shishur Sevay.  Some wanted to scrape and paint walls; some offered to help computerize many of the functions here; and some said they would work on the educational programs for our four with disabilities.   When they came back the next day they were stunned to see how wired we are.

 

I have a principle that keeps me going... that the work must go on, that Shishur Sevay must never get bogged down by the obstacles - parallel paths with the most important one being what we give to the children, and the most bothersome being what it takes to do that.

Shishur Sevay is and has been a "happening place" for a while now.

*****************************
The volunteers from Spain... They come every August to Kolkata to volunteer at various places including Mother Teresa's many Homes.  This year they asked to volunteer also at Shishur Sevay.  Some wanted to scrape and paint walls; some offered to help computerize many of the functions here; and some said they would work on the educational programs for our four with disabilities.   When they came back the next day they were stunned to see how wired we are.

 

 

Anjali and I are meeting with the volunteers

 

 Wire brushes even!!!!

 

Ben and Anjali -- and one of the volunteers -- we are all wired.

 
 Unwired teaching about Spain. Javier addressed differences in social services and medical care, as well as talking and showing pictures (downloaded from the web and printed on our laser printer) of ordinary life in Spain.

O.K. now wired again!

 

 

The student interns from China stayed a week.   The group had not been prepared well for another culture, and they were asked to leave the residence where they were staying. I think they went back to China.  Below, they are helping make Rakhis.  This is a custom in which decorated bracelets are put on the wrists of brothers (a loosely used term for this occasion by sisters.  Here the big and small kids are making rakhis.  This year the school added another interpretation to the ceremony.  Rakhi was framed as an occasion in which the freedom fighters used it to say we are all one and so girls received rakhis at the school too.   

 

 

 

Rakhis were saved for Ian Dada's visit.

 

Oops!, no one remembered to clean up!!!!

Moments of respite...You can see it was fun!

I've Missed Blogging

WHAT I WROTE TEN DAYS AGO......

Reasons I haven't been blogging:

1. Twelve kids to take care of

2. Twelve kids to take care of

3 Twelve kids to take care of

I could go on, but it would be more of the same.  In addition I have other problems:

1. The government

2. The government

3. The government.

I could go on.....

But there is also the joy of the twelve children and joy takes time.   I have to hunt for the camera, take the pciture, download it, and then wait and wait, and try again another day.  I have to change my provider.

It's noon and I'm reporting on the day so far.  Seema took the girls to school today, as she usually does, but I usually go too.  On Saturdays though I don't send Ganga and Bornali as the time is used for testing, and there is no real activity in the classroom.  I woke with a headache -- went to bed with a headache -- took my homeopathic med which I believe keeps the headache from developing into a full blown migraine.  So I luxuraited in bed (my mat) while Shanti Devi gave me a head massage and used her magic oils and then I was fine.  Then she went to work massaging the four little ones.

Seema came back from school to tell me that math-sir was upset with our girls and felt they had too many deficiencies.  I agree.  I have battled with teachers since we started because I felt the standards were lowered, expectations were lowered and even the term "mercy for the orphans" has been used.  We went to the school together at 10 because I wanted to meet with math-sir.  I brought all the reports, pages and pages, lists of rememdial programs, and at least showed the school I was aware and concerned and doing everything I could.  I pointed out to them that their giving easy marks made it more difficult as the girls had confronted me with the fact that the school thought they were fine so why was I not happy with their perfomance.  Actually today he had marked hard, which is great.  He gave one girl a "0" because her work was technically correct but illegible and in all directions.   I thanked him.  We went over the evaluations I've had done.  I think we are working better now and I will have our math teachers meet with him.

The new LD consultant is finding the same things though she feels we have the infrastructure to provide the remedial help.  So I feel that at last I am beginning to get genuine support for my educational ideas andprograms.  This is a very tough challenge.  I did not find any other places doing intense education of older girls, and older is really after about 7 or 8 when they have not been educated at all before.  This is an experiment which also means I learn as I go.  And it means I don't know how it will turn out.

An example of what I've struggled with:  Two years ago the teacher told me the girls knew up to 50 (in Bengali).  I knew they didn't understand any of it, but they could count as rote, as prayer, as monologue.  I made a game with candies.  We sat on the floor and I gave each a handful to count -- tell me how many, and you stay in the game.  I was handing out between 4 and 12.  About half got it.  They didn't equate the numbers with quantity.  I also tried writing 1-50 (in Bengali) and would point to one number.  None could get it without starting from the beginning.  No, they didn't know their numbers. 

Bengali math books do not have word problems so I got some English ones and tried working it out... But I have little time to teach, consumed mostly by one government induced crisis or another.  I remember our first summre vacation and I'd bought some English activity books that I thought we could do together.  But the first day of vacation I leaned of a new government problem when they tried to force us to take more children and then threatened to close us if we didn't.  We survived but they held to their threat about our license and it took another year to get the renewal.  Teaching was lost.  It's not just the loss of time, but of sapped energy.  The same is true today -- battles for survival of Shishur Sevay, battles over protection of the children.  We just got our license renewal again but it again required complomises over my time.

When we picked up the girls, one came running with a young sparrow in her hand.  They had found it in a classroom and it couldn't fly.  So we brought it home and I put it in one of the rooms of the rabbit cage (rabbits doubled up at the moment).  A few minutes later the pillow maker man came on his bicycle and I decided to have him fill up the huge stuffed teddy bear that someone had cut and taken stuffing from -- our own lilttle vandalism.  I have pictures of the bear getting re-stuffed, and even his bowtie back on.  Then I had four more small pillows made as our original ones were really grimy. 

Then I went back to dealing with math.  I met with the girls and the teacher -- actually the Bengalli teacher is here today but I asked her to do math, given the problems.  I had a heart to heart with the girls.  I said I was not upset with them specifically, but they had to work harder at getting the information into their heads.  I said these were battles I'd had with all their teachers and reminded them of the candy game when they didn't know numbers.

I often use the metaphor of cancer.  In fact I once wrote CANCER on the board to shake up the teachers!  Illiteracy for these children is a cancer.  it will kill them.  You don't ask a child with cancer if they want chemo -- even if they are orphans and have suffered.  Or, at least I don't.  I told this to the kids.  I told them I really knew how terrible their lives had been and what they had been through -- that if I didn't really understand that, I wouldn't be here.  But learning is their survival now.  It is their chemo.  They know about my chemo.  If I hadn't had chemo I wouldn't be here with them.  "Mercy" is not letting them die of illiteracy.  I told them they were each very strong or they would not have survived, and that each had don'e things to protect themselves, had acted strongly.  Several looked reflective and tearful.

Can girls at this age -- probably about 8-12 when they came two years ago, be educated if they have had no prior education?  I think of this question also in relation to Interntional adoption, particularly when the language is different.  If it is this hard for them catching up, learning concepts, what must it be like if they also had to do all of this in a new language, with not substantive assistance in their own language?  How do you learn math concepts when you don't understand the words being used to explain?  How do you learn grammar when you do not know grammar in your mother tongue?  The girls' Bengali is improving dramatically (I am told) but it is not yet what it should be for them to integrate into a community of educated people.  This is NOT like the situations of immigrant families with children who suddenly change languages, but often do extrememly well, because of their foundations.  How do you build when the foundation is so weak?  Where do you start?

I am comfortable with where we started, the basics, colors, shapes, alphabets, numbers.  I think some of our early teachers were rigid and stayed only with the methods used in the schools,   These are methods Indians complain about, rote memory with passing grade being 40%.  As I write this I know it is hard for anyone today to realize how deficient they were.  When I look back, as I write this, I am actually thrilled they have come so far.

But, they do not understand that multiplication is a short form of addition.

They do not understand the concept of borrowing in subtraction, so sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong.

See, I"m still worrying.  But in spite of my worries, this IS Saturday night and so they will stay up until midnight watching movies.  I KNOW they need down time.  I read somewhere that watching funny movies before sleep makes sleep better so sometimes in the evening I let them watch a funny movie before sleep time. 

As the day ends, the girls have turned on TV, and will be up long after I've fallen asleep.  The baby sparrow is doing fine, but calling out, pacing in front of the cage.  I put a potted plant in the cage but the bird shows no interest in this mini tree and has instead gone to sleep in the corner.

Tomorrow is Sunday.  The girls will sleep in, and then work on a drama they are doing -- learning scripts.  I want to get them to a play.  They didn't really understand that in drama the actors repeat the written script.  It's not improv, but rather another form of disciplined learning.  They are really enjoying the process.  With them, everything is new.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."

This is from Macbeth(Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

I have not written for a while... will bring matters up to date.  I'm sitting here with Chris Futia who has returned to help, and to enjoy the children.  We were speaking about getting things done, or not done, here in Kolkata and she spoke those words, "tomorrow...." and I googled the words and found Macbeth's soliloquy upon the death of his wife.  It is full of despair and my first thought was, "Well, he didn't have these children to love."  Those are always my thoughts -- these children whom I love so much and want to protect so much.  They are my antidote to "... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

 

How are we all?  The children are wonderful.  They have been on school vacation, a big reason I had little opportunity to write.  I have greatly strengthened the teaching program at Shishur Sevay, while the girls also continue at the government school.  I have an extra teacher for homework now until 8:30 in the evening.  The basic schedule for the big girls is:

6:30 am to 10:30 am    Sahapur Sabitri Balika Vidyalaya -- School

AT SHISHUR SEVAY:

11 am to 1 pm:   English

2:30 to 4:30        Bengali

4:30 to 6:30        Math

5:30 to 8:30        Homework teacher

We break at 6:30 for evening prayers,

For our girls with disabilities:

6:30 am to 8:45     Sahapur Sabitri Balika Vidyalaya -- School for Ganga and Bornali

8 am to 2 pm     Special educator at Shishur Sevay for classes for all four girls.

4 pm to 8 pm    Combination of cognitive education and physical therapy.

One afternoon a week a special workshop for children with cerebral palsy.

Speech therapy twice a week.

Massage six days a week in morning

Physiotherapy - formal, once a week

Special teachers seven days a week

Learning disabilities expert once a week for big girls, working on strengths and weaknesses so goals and expectations can be identified and measures.

Adaptive communication expert once a week.

Expert in language and communication once a month workshop and supervision once a week.

Dance has been cut to once a week, on Saturday evening, because the school work load is too heavy in the week.

Drawing class is once a week with a rising star local artist.

 

We have also hired a House Supervisor to take over many of the responsibilities I was carrying -- of the hair ribbon, check cleaning, laundry, etc realm.  She hasn't yet mastered the digital washing machine so Bijoy and I still run the machine.  It's a grounding experience.

 

The crisis upon us is that I may have to be out of the country for a short while.  I don't even like to talk about it... but we will do what we have to as best as we can.  Chris is prepared to take charge.  I want to strengthen the back up as much as I can.  The girls are worried but OK.  The little ones will have a hard time... For Ganga I am the center of her universe.  And to be honest, she is pretty close to the center of mine.

 

A funny story but it tells something about life here, or my life with the girls.  A teacher came to me a few days ago and said that four girls had just announced they intended to be naughty in class.  Yes, this was odd... and she said she would have to come and tell me and they said fine.  As I walked up the stairs I really didn't know what I would do... I walked in the door and saw them sitting at their little desks, and then I turned away from them, to the wall and began to wail and wail!  "MY BACHHAS (my children) NAUGHTY!  MY BACHHAS NAUGHTY!"  I threw my hands up over my head wailing and wailing.  Then I paused momentarily and looked to see if they were watching and wailed again.  it's just what they do when they are crying for effect, check to see if anyone is watching....  Well, by then they were rolling on the floor with laughter.  It was fun... I told them I love them, even when they glare at me on the way to school, which they had done that morning.  (Of course they were amazed I'd noticed). Like I said, I often don't know how I'll deal with a situation until I get there....

 

It's sort of like my life, unfolding.... page at a time.  I'm always scared when the page turns that I will lose something, someone -- but over my life the pages, the people, the spirit of love is stronger and stronger.

 

I love the page I'm on.  I love the life I have.  I love. 

I think I've included this before, but here is a poem:

One

Worse than unloved is

To be unable to love,

The stars will not sing,

The trees will not bud,

The moon will not smile,

The earth will not thaw,

The wheat will not grow,

The sails will not fill,

The mind will not think,

The heart will not feel,

The night will not end,

The cradle will fall.

 

mh

 

 

 

 

 

Ganga Scolds the Dentist

This is the story I told to Ganga in preparation for her trip to the dentist today.  It is a story told in pictures.  It is part of a process or form of communication called AAC or Augmentative and Alternative Communication.  We are late in getting this started.  The children initially attended a school known for this expertise but for many reasons, mostly ones I do not understand, this was not being taught at their level. 

Ganga had to go to the dentist.  We had been there the week before and set this appt to actually do some work.  She had two blackened teeth, milk teeth, but they were in danger of infecting her gums too.  She has other work to be done, but this was a start.  So I told her this morning:

Ganga has a toothache  so Ganga goes to dentist

Ganga is afraid but she does not cry.

Ganga is happy, and Mummy is very proud.

 

 

 

Ganga loved the story.  I took this sheet to the dentist and reminded her, and showed it to the dentist.  She was truly wonderful.  So was the dentist.  He worked on her with her on my lap.  I held her head still and she kept her eyes on me.  When it hurt, she yelled at the dentist!  She didn't cry.  When he'd stop she would scold him, tell him how it felt.  Then she was good again when he worked on her.

 

I have begun a serious program in communication for all the children with disabilities, and the older girls are also enjoying talking through pictures.  Soon we will have posters all over the walls with different illustrations, simple line drawings, symbols we will all use.  I understand the process now.  I work at cutting and pasting on the computer to get the pictures done... and we now have books of pictures, of emotions, of getting ready for the day, of school, the park, clothing, playing, books, drawing, and of course food and water.

 

We are a happening place, with teachers all day long, working together, working with the older and younger kids.  The gov schools are closed until 15th June, so we also take time to go to the park, to play in the sand in the yard.  About a year ago I gave up on getting grass to grow so now it's a big sand pit.  I brought in 40 bags of sand.  The kids love playing in it, sifting it to clean it, tumbling in it.... Rani loves patting it, and running it through her fingers while she sings.  Here is the latest picture of me:

PROUD

The Washing of my Feet

This picture/post is not for the orthodox politically correct reader.  Those are my white feet and those are my brown Indian girls who are washing them, with loving care as you see, and as I felt. Race and skin color cannot be the single identities that define our relationships.  The children don't see it that way and the rest of us shouldn't.  But I am aware of those PC opinions and judgments of what I do here, which is why I address the issue.  From the beginning I have talked about what it is like being white in an Indian world.  Sometimes it is irrelevant.  This is good.

 

The girls love to massage my head with coconut oil and to wash my feet and then massage with coconut oil.  They do this sometimes as I write at the computer.  We had just spent the morning cleaning the garden.  So what happens when they scrub my feet and my legs?  They remember their families, their mothers, fathers, siblings.... and they talk.  I heard more stories yesterday morning.  As they scrubbed I heard more about violence, about drinking, and about beatings.  A couple of times they stopped to show me scars, places where knives had cut, nails had been poked -- and of course I already knew of the burns.  When we shaved their hair two years ago, we saw so many burns and scars...

 

I learned about villages where they had been... and they talked each repeating what the other said, as Greek chorus, in case I had missed it.  These girls love to nurture!  They are constantly alert to any scratches I might have, my scars, how I got them.  They want to take care of me.  This reminds me of another poem I wrote:

 

 

One

Worse than unloved is

To be unable to love,

The stars will not sing,

The trees will not bud,

The moon will not smile,

The earth will not thaw,

The wheat will not grow,

The sails will not fill,

The mind will not think,

The heart will not feel,

The night will not end,

The cradle will fall.

Ganga and Bornali are seven years old.

I took Ganga and Bornali to the dentist this afternoon.   I'd taken Rani two weeks before.  Her teeth are unaligned and she sometimes bites her tongue.  Ganga has two blackened teeth, still milk teeth, but I wanted to know if they posed a problem.  She also has one badly decayed tooth with gum swelling around it.  The dentist will try to do this in the office but it may be necessary to do the procedure in the hospital under general anesthesia.  Given my experiences with the health care system here, that is a frightening prospect. 

The children were seen elsewhere last year but no one offered a dental age.  Today I learned that according to their teeth development they are seven years old.  It is hard to describe how horrible that feels, because when they came, two years, three months, and one day ago, they looked like babies.  Here is a picture of when we first saw them at the institution.  I took the picture and wrote their names on the palm of my hand because I knew we wouldn't get records that would identify them... I at least wanted to know their correct names, or their names on record.

   

Many thoughts go through my mind at once.  The most repetitive is, "where was Ganga for the first five years of her life?  How can a child so social, so engaging, so curious, so aware of everything around her, so dependent on me -- how could she have arrived with no motion, no expression, no relatedness, just passively being moved, changed, fed -- a rag doll that could be left in any position, arms that just hung, hands that did not close.  Where was she for those five years?  How could no one have noticed, for if they had she would have come with some of the vitality she has now? 

Ganga had her eyes, the eyes that begged me to take her upstairs to the classroom, the eyes that watched the Bengali movie Damu, about a father who was able to get an elephant for his daughter.  So I wonder about her past.  Did she spend all those years in a hospital?  Was she hidden away in a room with a TV?  Did she have people she loved, grew attached to, lost?  Was she loved at all?  When we meet old people, especially when they are dressed in white cloth, she tries to talk to them, as if to take up where life left off.    She looks to them with a sense of familiarity and with expectation that they will know her.   

Bornali's ears are pierced so she had to have had a family at one time, a family that abandoned her.  A child with no mobility cannot run away, or get lost somewhere in a train station or on a road.  She had to have been left, given up -- ties broken.  Someone had to have said, "We don't want you."  Bornali showed no emotion for a long time.  She bit anyone who came near -- not aggressively really.  She was like a little alligator squirming on her belly, mouth open, ready to clamp onto any flesh she came near.  I had a separate crib built for her because we couldn't leave her near the others.  Bornali didn't laugh and she didn't cry.

 My first goal with Bornali was to stop the biting, which I did by offering my arm, and really yelling when she started to bite.  She either had to learn not to bite or she was doomed to a life of isolation.  She learned; I took apart the crib.  She has blossomed into the child in the pictures in my last post.   She is a sweet little girl, but on the shy side.  She is smart, and learns quickly.    She is exceedingly vulnerable to loss and separation.  She has her favorite care-giver, and especially her favorite Didis.  And of course, I am mummy to all of them.  How should she be seven?  How could she have been five when she came?  Who did this to her?

 

Rani of course we know about as we found her mother.  She too has changed incredibly, now being present among us.    She has left her isolation.  We welcome her.  In her case there was no way her family could have kept her, and no facilities that would have taken her.  So she was left somewhere, to be taken by police to Sukanya home, where we found her and brought her to us.  For a long time she required one full time caregiver just to manage her.  She is funny and silly.  She has incredible rhythm sense and she and I tap surfaces together or she takes my hands in hers and claps them together.  When she came she only spun around in circles.  The girls love her and one of the older girls taught her to stand.  Now she stands on her own.  Her mother has peace of mind.  This is nice for all of us.

Sonali is our youngest and the only one with medical records.  She is visually impaired and microcephalic -- but we really don't know yet what is ahead for her.  She has had severe seizures.  Her latest effort is to put food right up against her left eye and then taste it with her tongue.  She is trying to coordinate visual and taste.  She has also begun to seek more social contact.  Much of the time she was in her own (seemingly delightful) world, climbing and swinging on anything her hands could find.  One of our teachers is determined that she will be a gymnast.

 

 

 

This is not just about India, for children all over the world are abandoned, particularly children with disabilities.  My mind goes to cold hearts, to people who only love those whose protoplasm is formed according to certain social conventions.

 

I love these children.  That's the bottom line, and it hurts that they have had such loss, isolation, hunger in their lives.  Because I love them I will continue to to everything in my power to provide those experiences that make life meaningful and allow any of us to grow.  But it still hurts that Ganga and Bornali are seven, and that so many years have been lost.

 

 

*********************************

I am up at 3 am, thinking about this post, what is still unsaid.  Looking back, the children look like pictures we sometimes see in the news of children who have been locked in closets, basements, never taken out, poorly fed... a seventeen year old who looks like seven.  And what we are seeing at Shishur Sevay is that our children somehow preserved a sense of self, identity, even throughout their earlier years of neglect.  How does this happen? Ganga and Bornali are normal children.  If they had normal motor function, speech, and early care, they would easily blend in with any other group of children.  Ganga would be outgoing; Bornali would be shy.

So the question on my mind when I woke at 3 am was,  How does the human spirit survive intact when there is no reason, or does it live like a hidden spore, ready to grow when/if it is touched by human warmth and love.  For both of these girls there was some hidden protected place.  I'm reminded of a poem I wrote, about a protected place...

 

There are Cobwebs in my Heart

There are cobwebs in my heart

Where mama used to be,

A room preserved…

Frozen in the moment of her

Leavetaking.

The growing strands of thin floating filaments

Encroach,

From the corners of

Her room,

And gather over time to mark the emptiness.

Enshrouded,

An alter of love remains,

Built long ago to call for God,

-- Just in case he was listening –

A dainty layette,

Delicately embroidered

White on white

Awaits the newborn,

Booties, hand sewn in some distant land,

Where women feed their own

Knitting for the children they’ll never know.

A lullaby plays, the needle jammed --

The cradle will fall.

The cobwebs soften the harsh notes of the broken music,

They blur the searing loss,

And comfort the dying infant

Like gentle shrouds of lingering memory.

Oh mama, if only you had stayed.

 

The New School Year

From DAY ONE:

 

 

Bornali in School

 Today is DAY TWO of the new school year.   I'm sitting on a bench in the hallway of Sahapur Sabitri Balika Vidyalaya, on call if I am needed.  Two of our handicapped children are here.  It is all new and the school is worried about how to take care of them, but they have truly reached out to make them comfortable.   I have promised to wait, to be available.  Three months ago this was a dream, to have the government open to handicapped children.  This is a beginning.  I chose to enroll only two of the girls, Ganga and Bornali.  As yet there is no "program" here and they are content to just be present and watch, to be a part of the school.  They were admitted because of Indian law calling for education for all children.

Ganga has settled in fine.  This school is where she wanted to be all along, in school with her Didis.  I used to carry Ganga in the backpack when I walked the girls to school.  Bornali is frightened of new places. She cried the first day and I was able to soothe her.  Today she screamed when we entered the classroom.  She settled down after a while and I left for the hallway.

DAY THREE and I'm back on the bench in the hallway.  Bornali only cried for a little while and then I could leave.  Today they are staying longer.  At 9 am there is a book ceremony when books for the school year are given out.  The Headmistress asked if I could attend so I asked if Ganga and Bornali could stay so I didn't have to take them home and come back.  She agreed. I hold the post of President of the Mother-Teacher Association.  I know Ganga will be happy as yesterday she was aware that she was leaving before the others. 

 

Seema, our Board Secretary has been a wonderful advocate. This morning she had a chance to talk to the children seated around Ganga and explained that God had not given Ganga arms and legs and speech like the others, but she understood everything.  She had three children each say their names to Ganga and Ganga reached out with her hand.  She is so happy in school.  She wants so much to be like the others.  When she sees another child/adult with CP she immediately recognizes that they share this condition. 

There is a huge learning curve ahead for the teachers here.  But this is true everywhere.  They are afraid of the children, unsure how to talk to them, worried about saying/doing the right thing, feeling unprepared and inadequate.  The government is required to give a resource teacher but has not done this yet.  We are in the midst of elections and many things are put off.  I really am grateful just to be in the door.  The rest will follow.  For my children, I have a full teaching program at home.  This is for socialization until it can be more.

DAY FOUR

This has become my only time to write.  Yesterday's book ceremony was a dream come true.  Ganga and Bornali stayed for it all.  This is a ceremony when books are distributed for the new year.  It is also a time when prizes are given out for the past year.  The ceremony is held in the huge meeting hall. All the classes were there today, which meant my ten girls in school were all together.  Shanti Devi came to help.  We wheeled Ganga and Bornali in, and they joined the others.  Seven of our big girls danced - unexpectedly!  So Ganga and Bornali got to see their Didi's dancing. 

The local councilor was there and we chatted.  He too has been very supportive.  He said that after elections we would do more.    Then prizes were given out.  Our "first in class" received hers, and then another of our girls won a prize in drawing, and two others in running.  Bornali is a very quiet girl, but when applause broke out, she screamed and kicked her legs and everyone in the room heard and saw her and enjoyed her happy kicking.  Later I was also asked to present some of the prizes.

There was a moment though when I just walked over to a window on the side of the room, and truly basked in my happiness.  I  basked in my success in keeping the girls in this school.  It is a haven for them, for girls who have had few if any havens in their lives.  I did fight off pressure to put them in "better" schools.  This day I basked in having Ganga and Bornali here, what had seemed just a mad dream, and now was reality.  I imagined a big puff of air above my head, holding off all the constant problems and pressures and I had a happy time in my bubble.

We are in the midst of a major crisis with the government!  Some things have HAPPENED  in spite of our diligence about accuracy -- things out of our control, but which I can't talk about specifically.  I am  consumed with trying to straighten it out, while also attending to hair clips and socks at 5 am.  I get worn out.  

Yesterday I got home to major battles going on among the massis, and then the accountant came and then I had lunch and napped and then I tried to do a little work,but didn't get the paprs done, and then I had emails regarding business cards I need and then we went to visit a board member and friend whose mother just died and then I came home and went to bed and then discovered the rabbits hadn't been cared for, and when I went to check the rabbits I saw the plants were all drying up so at 11 pm one of the girls cleaned the rabbit cage, which was smelling and I watered the plants and then went to bed to get up at 4 am to start this day.  In between though, I chatted online with Cici and then talked on the phone with Heather.  We are a very small family.  We are in touch almost daily, including on Facebook.  I have been "friended" on Facebook by my daughters and son in law. This is precious.

I have had to take charge of the hairclips and school badges, as I did last year.  They are easily lost and the school only allows red clips and garters.  This is one of those areas I really try to comply -- a gesture that I respect their rules  (And, I get scolded if the girls arent neat and combed, and I let it get to me, which just proves I'm still a child at heart!) Hunting for red clips in the market is not always easy and I hate having to buy them.  So, I have a lock box for the red clips and garters and school badges.  I have separate plastic bags for each girl, with her name.  I sleep with the box next to me.  In the morning I give out the clips and badges.  When I get up to go to my computer I take the box with me.  When the girls come home from school all the clips and badges go back into the plastic bags and the tin box.  In truth though, the girls love the system.  They love coming to me in the morning for their badges and clips.  It's a ritual.   It's their way of keeping me attentive.  I am Keeper of the Hair Clips and School Badges.  I am Mother.

DAY FIVE

It becomes a routine.  Ganga is fine and loves being in school.  Bornali cries for the first ten minutes.  She is just overwhelmed and she "dissolves" into tears.   I tell her she is a big girl now.  We are closer.  Ganga, who used to be glued to me, is more on her own.  it's good.  I write again from the school bench, children wandering by, and I shoo them back to class.  The Headmistress just stopped by and handed me Ganga and Bornali's diaries with their class schedules.  When we get home our teacher will go through what was covered in class.  I'm having new chair/table tops made to fit better in the classrooms.  Eventually the school will have attendants so the children can follow in class.  But what they have now is wonderful.  They get up in the morning and we all walk to school together, Ganga and Bornali in their strollers.  We reach before prayer time, so Ganga and Bornali join the line, next to their big sisters.  Bornali is solemn.  Ganga glances around to see who she can make eye contact with, who will be her next friend.  All this is normal.  The have a life.

 

I have a life too, a very very good one.

The Hall where I wait and blog, while the children are in class. 

First in Class

One of our girls was first in class.  24 April was "results" day and we walked to school to receive the year-end report cards.  Everyone was tense (except me).  I knew they had all done well.  They were well prepared.  I have a very good team of teachers right now.  They have given their all, and the girls have worked hard. 

One by one the girls are called, and handed their results.  It is done inside the classroom while all the parents line up outside along the windows straining to hear, whispering among each other.  We heard names, and then we heard lots of praise.  One of our girls was first in her class.  She truly deserved this as she worked and worked, staying with her books long after the others were at play.  She has dreams.  She wants to be a doctor.  Her dreams are our dreams.

Everyone did well.  Two others were also right near the top of the class.  It was truly a day of celebration.  We had another reason to celebrate as the gov. school had agreed to admit two of our handicapped children!  We will work with the school on the best way to do this, but the acceptance is incredible.  So we celebrated!!!!  Big time!!!.  We waited for the afternoon teacher to come and then whisked her off, all of us, including friend Chris Futia visiting from the US, Gibi and her kids, and we went to Crosswords Bookstore.  The girls had never been there before and we bought a collection that truly reflects our children.  In the Bengali section we bought some collections of poetry, stories, and recitations -- and some comic books in Bengali.  Then we went to the children's section and bought some simple English books.  And of course, a few of the girls really wanted the Cinderella coloring books.  After consultation with my internal "Nay sayer." I said yes.  We took Ganga with us.  She liked a book with horses -- and I liked the picture of the gray mare and the brown colt.  The girls also picked out a book for Bornali, vegetable pictures and names.

Chris Aunty wanted to add to the celebration with ice cream so we went to South City Mall food court and had ice cream.  It was just a very happy day, just a normal day of celebration.

 

We are a Normal Household

Now Saturday morning, the morning after Friday night "Snake Pit" and the kids are watching cartoons.  I just want everyone to know how normal we are and how guilty I feel as a mother that my kids are watching TV while I write and have some quiet time.  Their teacher won't come until ten am.  This is between school terms.  The new school year will start 2 May.  Their last year's results will be out 24th April.  We have been to Science City, and to visit Bubbi in her village, which was a typical very hot day in the village.  I hung out with Bubbi and the kids watched TV -- more normalness.

I must clean my room which really is about putting away papers and "stuff" but I feel like I've been putting away, or trying to put away the same collection of stuff and papers for most of my life.  It's not one of my better skills.  I'd rather be blogging.

"SNAKE PIT"

Things are getting a bit easier these days.  I found a graphics designer and printer for the Annual Report (last year's) and I've started on this year's, but i'm no longer trying to do it all myself.  It's a relief.  I have a new consultant who is working with me, a woman with years of experience in disability... and we seem to get along.  Her task is to organize the admin within six months.  The financials are done for the year and the audit will be done shortly.  I'm still being harassed by the government official who has been a problem for so long, but i've hired someone just to deal with that paperwork and negotiations.  Sometimes I can actually ask myself, what do I want to do now,

So, I get to hang out more with the kids, what I enjoy... a good movie.  I've learned that they have rummaged through my collection, some I hadn't put out for them.  They found Snake Pit, (a 1948 movie with Olivia de Haviland) and asked to see it.  So we sat and watched Snake Pit.  It will be one of their favorites, as is Three Faces of Eve.  They don't understand a lot of it, but they "get it" about mental illness and they care, look for who is good, who is bad, and we talk about "bababa" in the head.  I think they each understand and have experienced some chaos of the mind.

It's just a surprise to me, a few dvds I brought along not even knowing why... just holding on to a piece of my past. 

Anyway i've just had a really peaceful evening watching Snake Pit with the girls, explaining what they didn't understand, looking to see who remained transfixed, six of the big girls, and Ganga of course.  I had to explain what electroshock was, and why they were doing this to her.  So of course there were memories.... I was a resident at Shephard and Enoch Prat Hospital when they were still doing electroshock.  I stopped it.  I'm not joking.  During my internship I had cared for a man I had known as a teenager -- I'd "broken" his horse for him, a horse he couldn't tame.  I wasn't a horse whisperer, but I seemed to have my personal touch.  Years later his wife brought him to the hospital with brain disorder, and he recognized me.  So the doc and I worked as hard as we could, including taking him for a consultation to Dr. Kalinowski, who had brought ECT to the US.

So, when I was a resident, I was assigned on rotation to ECT.  The patients came in terrified and screaming.  The supervising doc was barbaric and I remember his holding my thumb on the button because I didn't want to do it.  They were doing it wrong.  It's similar to the battle over death penalty drugs.  They were giving the drug that paralyzed before the drug that sedated.  So patients were fully awake and in pain but unable to respond because they were paralyzed.  There was also no real resuscitation equipment, just a bag. 

After the session I got on the phone with Dr. Kalinowski's partner, who was available and I talked to him about what was going on.  I got from him the exact protocol of how it was to be done.  I then went directly to the director of the hospital, told him what I'd seen, and gave him the notes from my conversation with Dr. Kalinowski's partner.  The Director closed the program that day.  They decided that if they were to do it they would take patients to the general hospital nearby where the protocol would be followed and breathing equipment was available.

Years later I met a psychiatrist who told me she had gone to that hospital because they didn't do ECT.  I told her the story of why.

looking back, of course it was big.  Looking back from Shishur Sevay in Kolkata I'm impressed.  But to be honest, at the time I felt fear more than anything else.  I was afraid of taking on the Director, the supervisor, who hated me thereafter.  But I was driven by my thumb, by the promise that my thumb would never have to touch that button again.  I did what I had to.  I'm still like that.  People in India think I only make trouble here, or because I'm here.  I make trouble because of the bababa in my own head, the cries I hear, the pain I take in from others and I just do what I can, must, in spite of my fears.

It's good to be able to relax and watch these painful movies with the kids.  They "get it."

Ganga Turns a Page

Ganga turned a page today, literally.  We have been unable to find anything that motivates her enough to struggle to use her hands and arms.  She is quite willing to have us move her fingers to a button she presses to make a light go on, or to turn on the music from a toy.  But her heart isn't in it.   In my head I imagine her whispering to me, "Mom, this is so stupid!"

About a month ago a special ed teacher started. I watched as she tried to get Ganga to hold a spoon to feed a doll.  I thought to myself, "Ganga doesn't care about feeding a doll."  Actually she doesn't care about feeding herself.  She lacks the "I'll do it myself" drive. 

Ganga loves serious Bengali movies and Charlie Chaplin.  She hates Barney.  Last week I took her with me in the car for some errands.  She was fascinated by the vehicles, which I named for her, gharie (car), bus, taxi, lorry (truck).  At a traffic stop a hawker came by carrying balloons and toys with whirling lights, but she paid no attention to him.  She is too serious for toys.  She cries when we put on Barney for the other little ones.  But she has to learn to share too.

This morning I brought her to my office area in her chair, and I showed her a big picture book of India, and she was totally engrossed.  She reached out to touch the pictures.  She tried to stroke Buddha's face!  We went through the whole book, page by page, and then I just left it open in front of her, hoping now to get a few moments at the computer.  Then I saw Ganga struggle and struggle to get her fingers to grasp and turn the page of the book.  On the fourth try the page turned.  It was a beginning.

I know a young woman who competes in wheelchair racing internationally.  She said to me once that her mother made her work at what she wanted, and she is grateful for that.  But I also know her drive, what pushed her, and still pushes her to overcome obstacles.

When Ganga first came to us she could not hold her head up.  We had to support her as you do with a newborn.  Both her arms just hung down, with no tone, no finger grasp.  I used to wonder if she even KNEW that she had arms and hands.  Then one evening we had the barber come to trim hair.  Ganga hated this!  While I tried to hold her still she screamed and flung her arms! I cheered for her!  Ganga found her arms.  Today she found a reason to use them, aside from fighting off barbers.

It all happens in small steps, but the processes are really the same for each of us.  We fight harder against obstacles when we care the most.  Sometimes we find strength we didn't even know we had... like Ganga's arms and hands, and now her reason to use them.

"Be Kind to Teachers" Week

This is my creation, "Be Kind to Teachers Week"   The teachers here are in a state of high anxiety.  It is exam week.  The kids are relaxed but a bit baffled by the tension of their teachers, and this morning I begged them please to be kind this week as the teachers are having a hard time. 

My reference point of course is the US.  But I have been involved with education here for eight-plus years now so I know the drill. 

1. Within families the mother is held responsible for how the children do at exams. 

2. The other person(s) held responsible is the teacher, the private teacher or teachers who take the children before and after school to give further instruction and to supervise the homework given by the school.  Their bonuses and salary can depend on how the children do. I learned this after our first year when I was quietly told that the teacher was expecting a gift for how the children had done. 

Life often stops for exams.  Mothers and sometimes fathers take off from work with a simple explanation, "My son/daughter has exams."   This can go on for weeks.  As an American of course I wonder what these parents actually do.  They cook, make sure the environment is good, and make sure they study.  I'm talking about college age students too.  Then of course the parents take them for exams and wait for them outside.

As I write the girls are getting ready for an exam later this morning.  For Tuesday's exam I ended up screaming at the staff because with five staff and only six girls to get out the door they managed to still be combing hair when the girls had to leave.  (I forgot in the chaos to get out the megaphone Cici sent me because I told her no one listens unless I scream)

So, this morning we are more organized.  The girls are being great (kind to teachers) and cooperating.  Once in a while I catch their eyes and wink, in thanks.  I didn't go with them Tuesday.  I was hours from submitting our government renewal application and needed to work.  But the headmistress told the teacher she thought I would be there to bless the children.  (Truly, I never seem to get it right.)  In truth the girls and I already had our pep talk this morning and I said I only cared that they try their best and however they do, I'm fine and proud of them.  This is true.  I thought I'd go this morning, but then I looked at the teacher and I knew she wanted to take them.  So I blessed them and they left.

My special blessing for exams, sports events, dance performances -- is really funny and incongruous.  When I did my corporate stint at Johnson & Johnson, I wore the appropriate makeup.  It was expensive and made to look as if it was "natural" so sometimes I wondered why I did it.  But I came to think of it as warpaint -- what we put on when going to do battle.  It's as much about feeling protected as what it projects.  Well, the last time I was in Frankfurt Airport, having just spent three days with Cici, and waiting for my plane back to Kolkata, I found myself wandering through the duty free make up section.  I stood before Chanel and remembered more than 20 years ago when I wandered into Saks with Heather and we bought make-up, a crazy splurge.  So that day in Frankfurt I looked at some gold specked blush... and tried it and literally couldn't see the difference when I put it on, so I bought it.  That's what I use for my blessings... I brush the gold dust on their foreheads, nose, cheeks and they love it.  It's mom's sprinkle dust.

"Mom" is full of contradictions.  I love fancy things.  I love beautiful things.  I just can't afford them and the life I want here.  It's simple.  It's choices, but I'm not someone who doesn't care about those things.  I'm a failed ascetic. 

I was a foster mother to a teenaged girl in my late twenties.  I remember thinking about drapes for my apartment when I was a resident in Psychiatry.  I saw a beautiful Egyptian patterned cloth and I wanted drapes.  I went home and looked at the windows, imagining the drapes and how beautiful they would be.  Then I asked myself if this was really how I wanted to spend my money.  Then I made the call I'd been thinking about and applied to be a foster mother.  It's all about choices.  I can still see the cloth and still feel the epiphany of choice.

 

 

 

"The People Around Us"

The assignment from Sahapur Sabitri Balika Vidyalaya School, the government school the girls attend, was to learn about the different roles and professions of people around us, and to then dress accordingly and give a presentation.  I've posted a new photo album with more pictures, but these are the girls:

 

From left to right, Doctor, Politician, Psychologist, Tribal Dancer, Army Officer, Lawyer, Teacher. The dancer was assigned her role by the school teacher.  For the others we had a lottery.  The girl who is "doctor" wants to be a doctor.  After school she checked everyone's heart, including the dog's.

I posted yesterday and I'm posting today because even in the midst of all the trouble, life goes on in very fine ways.  School continues; we celebrate Holi; the girls learn about professions and get to dress up.  Our teachers go out with the girls shopping for an army uniform, a white coat for our doctor.  Bijoy cuts a piece of wood and the teacher helps make the sign, "Vote for me, and for upliftment of the poor."  The little ones have their classes too; Rani sways to music...

 

My work gets behind and I owe reports all over the place;  I get stressed and take refuge in the dental chair.  A new security company takes over.  The point is, as a Home for children, we do not miss a beat.  That's the priority, the children and they know it, and they thrive.

 

Holi, Festival of Colours

Yesterday was Holi, our second serious Holi celebration.  (see new photo album) The first year I was just too new to understand what we had to do.  The kids had just arrived.  It would have been fun.  But it's one of those days when people stay home, afraid of getting sprayed by the intensely colored water, so no one around me said anything, and it was one of those days I spent alone with the kids.  I wonder what they were thinking, in this new place with the white foreign lady who didn't speak Bengali and didn't celebrate Holi.  I guess after that it could only have gotten better.  By the next year I was braver, and wanted to know what we could do for Holi, how we could do it, and it was great.  I'm not sure if I blogged.  Some day I'll index the blog, when I have time...... And by next year maybe I'll even be up on the religious meaning of the holiday and we can add that too.

The security situation is improved.  The branch manager wasn't able to change things so I called the corporate office in Delhi.  I'd gotten one of those letters, "Welcome to our company..." with an invitation to call Customer Relations if I wanted -- so I did.  Actually their worldwide headquarters are in the UK -- which would have been my next call.  Delhi was wonderful and produced results.  The last 36 hours have been fine.

Enjoy the pics of Holi, and here is one I didn't have the courage to put in the album because this post will be followed by others, and people will forget, but on the album.... makes no sense but the album feels more public.  Enough said:

 

Mummy in Colours, Holi 2009

The Branch Manager Came at Midnight

The Branch Manager of the new security company came at midnight.  This followed three hours of phone calls to various supervisors of the company.  It followed a visit from one supervisor when I demanded that the guard leave the premises immediately.  I then told the company they were fired and I would sit out for the night and guard.  I was feeling distraught.  I am not nuts.  Here is what happened.

If you have been following the last two weeks, you know I hired a new company, a well known, international company, that guards embassies.  It's also very expensive.  But the embassy guarding types were not who they sent to Shishur Sevay.  It has been an ongoing nightmare, in the truest sense.  The final last night was that I went outside at 9 pm to lock the gate into the house and saw a NEW guard I'd not seen before.  Just hours before I'd met with the supervisor who assured me that the two guards that were behaving would be continuing.  Now, two hours later, a new face.  So I asked, "what is your name?"  There was silence as he just stared at me.  I asked again, with no response.  Then I saw the lanyard of an ID tag, with the tag tucked into his shirt.  I said, "Where is your ID?"  He points to his shirt.  I say, "let me see your ID" and he points to his shirt again.  I insisted and finally slowly he pulls out his ID and shows it to me.  It has a name and a picture... of another guard.  I ask his name and he tells me the same name as on the ID.  I tell him this is not his card or his name, and ask who the hell he is!  He hasn't even signed in to our register book, but he has signed in to his company's book, with his real name.  (I finally got him to produce his student ID card).  This was really the last straw, and he was strange, and I didn't want him here.  He had no deployment order and I hadn't screened him, which had been our agreement.  I learned later the supervisor didn't know he was coming, that another guard who was expected had called and asked him to cover, and then yet another guard had given him the ID and told him to keep it tucked in his shirt, that I wouldn't notice.

Maybe these are the people who guard the embassies -- even worse to think about.

Over the last two weeks with the new company, I have found them sleeping.  Last Sunday morning at 8 am I found a strange man and woman wandering through my office... the guard had simply taken their names and sent them in.  I still don't know why they really came, as their story did not ring true and I would not have let them through the gate, much less into the house.

Yet another guard caused a commotion with one of the Dadas, who accused him of taking his picture with his cell phone.  The guard insisted he was just taking a picture of the rabbits.  It was shift change and I didn't think fast enough to check, but I thought about it later and was angry that the guard was taking pictures at all!  Maybe the Dada was right, or maybe the pic was of rabbits, or maybe this guard was also taking pics of the girls.  All I know is that the guard was making trouble instead of easing trouble.

The Dadas have been quiet, maybe even amused at the trouble.  But they are not interfering, for which I am grateful.

The Branch Manager asked if he could visit so late, and came.  To all these people I am somehow "Mother" or in this case, "Mother Harrison."  I have talked with him on the phone many times and have sent him emails documenting all.  He is new and trying to get control of what is going on, and seemed grateful that I would talk.  He explained to the supervisor that "Mother Harrison is used to seeing our guards all over the world so she expects that kind of security guard."  I said I understood Shishur Sevay was very small and I totally understood if we were too small an account for them, but they needed to tell me so.  No, they are committed to guard Embassies and Shishur Sevay.  This morning's guard is good.  The Branch Manager also instructed that I have names and phone numbers of their officials all the way up.  Of course I am hopeful.   Before leaving, he looked around at my walls and said, "One thing is missing, a Cross."  I said I am not Christian, that I am Jewish, and that this is an Indian home where we celebrate all the pujas and the girls take care of the Gods.

For me it has sort of become a challenge, "Can I find good security in Kolkata?"  I am planning a cctv set up of the front gate, but the engineer didn't show yesterday...

I have so much work that isn't getting done.  I also have a cracked tooth with only low level chronic pain.  An earlier dentist wanted to pull it.  I found a new dental place and they said they could save it with root canal, post and crown.  So yesterday I started root canal.  I thought about how much work I had, and how much stress I have, and I decided that the dental chair was respite.  I wouldn't be able to relax at a spa.  If I tell the girls I'm going to the dentist they tend to be better behaved while I am away... So, there I was, relaxing in the dental chair, having my root canal.

The girls are fine, great really.  Next week they dress up in school in various professions.  This year we will do, lawyer, doctor, teacher, politician, woman army officer.  Next week also is Holi, and this year I promise pictures.  And Monday afternoon I get respite again in the dental chair.

 

 

Peace in the Neighborhood

We have peace in the neighborhood.  We have our new security guards.  The Dadas are quiet and we are back to our former polite and respectful behavior.  Maybe it will happen again, but of course in my persistent optimism I feel like the trouble is over.  In the quiet and not so quiet conflict I achieved two important goals.  I changed the security company in spite of the community agitation to prevent their transfer.  I also proved that the police would come if called.  When the police came they quieted the Dadas and said they would call everyone to the station to tell their "sides" but this never happened.  Everything went quiet instead.  I had more meetings with local officials and put the blame on my former security company who lost control of their guards leading to this agitation.  I am relieved.

Life goes on.  Two days ago, in the midst of all this I visited the State Archaeological Museum close by.  We visited there last year and it's a really beautiful quiet museum.  I have an idea to take the children out to one of the digs, so I went to discuss it.  My orphans love history.  It gives them a sense of rootedness.  So there I was, absorbed looking at First Century A.D. sculpture, an inner trip away from the neighborhood conflicts.  This has been my practice through many times of trouble, to once a day do something totally unrelated to the trouble, something that takes me away from the thoughts and emotions.  Looking at the model of a recently dug Buddhist Monetary, seeing the rooms of the students, the teachers, the common courtyard... a bit of travel away.  And yes, at some time we will visit the site.    I imagine some of our girls working at a dig.  They would be great at identifying artifact vs, stone as they rocked the strainers.

 

Today was a Bengali examination at school.  Seven girls went, including the home schooled (who are enrolled but who we teach at home).  The girls did exceptionally well, including the two being taught at home.  One of our girls is struggling so we will teach her at home for a while, and send one of the two home schooled back to school.  I love having that flexibility.  Last night was beautiful here as the girls read Bengali in preparation for the exam.  They each read out loud, making a hum of lyrical sounds through the house.  Bengali is a lyrical language.

I've made a lot of school changes for the children with disabilities, which I'll write about separately.  I'm actually trying to enter them into the government school that the big girls go to.  India in law has free education at primary level and must accept all children into the schools.  But that doesn't mean it will happen.

Things are quiet within Shishur Sevay too.  We seem to have a staff that gets along with each other and with me.  One of the massis is educated and so she has taken on more responsibility as an assistant teacher.  She also does well with the older girls in terms of discipline.  Other massis sometimes listen in to classes, which is also nice.  One of the night massis usually brings one of her two daughters with her.  On Sundays all staff has lunch, our main meal, and they can bring their children for the day.  Our girls love having the visitors -- my little mothers all love taking care of them.

 

I am terribly behind on work.  The trouble was consuming.  For now it is over, and this feels very good.

I Feel Like Knitting

I feel like knitting.  I want to pretend I'm sitting in a quiet garden, no maybe on a beach, with quiet little waves lapping on the shore... my children playing.... I feel like knitting as I sit here at my computer.  In one room the children are learning math, learning to tell time, with words in Bengali and English.  Circles, little hands, big hands, numbers, appear on the chalkboard.

In the other room the little ones are sleeping, afternoon nap time, and some of the staff are napping too.  I love the sounds, the teaching; i love the faces of the little ones sleeping, so much at peace.  I love this home and these children and what we have together.

Outside the new guards sit and I hear their voices too... everything so mellow as we wait for the police to arrive.  The trouble has not gone away.  It has gotten worse, but maybe now after all this time the police will really show up.  Last week I met with the head of the local police and he promised to visit, set a time and all, and didn't come... Earlier today when the mob was gathered outside I called him again and he said he would send someone right away -- maybe three hours ago.  In the meantime it has been awful, and maybe he won't even show.

Today my new security company started.  Immediately another political Dada came and this one I actually invited in to talk.  But maybe he will call a protest and block our road.  The issue is my changing the security company because the guards were now answering to the Dada's and not to me.  As I write, they are riding past our house on their bicycles, not part of the Dada's.

 

Few things have shocked me, but I am shocked by the absencee of any protection from the police or the political people.  I'm shocked as a woman (too many romantic movies) that when I call for help, when I make clear I am frightened, no one responds.  I try to identify what I am afraid of...  I am afraid of violence, and sexual violence.  I feel the anger.  I am alone, as are my twelve girls and our female staff.  One of the Dada's yelled at one of our teachers, 'You should walk with your head down."  They want me to walk with my head down, which actually I often do... but that's not the point.  I'm afraid they will invade our home.  The situation has become volatile.  Main Dada is not rational, even when he is sober.

 

I'm afraid because of how much this consumes of my time and energy.  I made a list of urgent things I had to do.  It's an important list involving our future, licenses, money, etc., but I have gotten to NONE of it today, or yesterday.  I blog because I have no yarn or knitting needles but this keeps my mind steady and passes the time as I wait for the police, who probably will not come.  It has been fifty minutes since they called and said half an hour.  I know that.  But still I can't get started on any work I have to do.

 

I used to knit a lot, at home, on airplanes, at meetings.... my last knitting was a pair of booties for the baby of the young woman who we thought was my daughter's birth sister... such tangled lies here.. she had the baby but I don't see them anymore.  That's another story altogether....

The local women gathered too, this time to make fun of me, to belittle me.  there is much jealousy about my girls, about how they live, the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and that they are being educated.

 

I interrupt my knitting/blogging to report that three police arrived, two in uniform and one detective I've met before when two kids ran from school and he is an angel!  I was so happy to see him, and he understood.  So, first, the police WILL come!!!  This is so incredibly meaningful.  He gave me his cell phone number.  I am relieved.  He tried to talk to the Dadas, and more screaming by the men and now a chorus of women.  He decided that we will all meet to discuss this at the police station in the next day or so.  He instructed the new security company to carry on as ordered by police.  I told him I'd talk but I wasn't changing companies.  He understood.  I found out he knew the political person who came, who is nephew to councilor.  I took the officer through Shishur Sevay and he met the kids.

 

So now I have no excuses not to get the work done that is waiting, but I'm exhausted.  I got a response.  I called for help and I got a response, not when I wanted it, but it came and that is wonderful.  It doesn't take much to put me back in my most optimistic frame of mind.  But I'm sad because I worked so hard to have a good relationship with our neighbors.  It's too big a divide, and they are obligated to be more angry than their men. They are given to screaming fights in the night, when instead of quiet it is more like bar brawls outside.

I cleaned out the electric shed where the guards kept their things.  I found a bag of condoms... I don't know what really went on here at night.  We once had a guard who locked us in and went for tea while we were still asleep in the early morning.  Our two guards (who still have jobs with their company) are still outside pacing, hanging out with the Dadas, giving evidence as to why I had to fire them.

Our physiotherapist has come and I hear Bornali squealing in happiness as her calipers are put on so she can stand.  My kids are so happy -- me too.

Drunken Dadas at the Gates

Dada actually means brother in Bengali, older brother, as Didi is older sister.  But Dada is also the term for the men who rule over the neighborhoods.  Some rule by guns, others by political influence.  The two are linked.  It's been a long time since we had serious trouble with the Dadas.  I've paid a lot of protection money but I have refused to hire the people they want me to hire.  I paid extortion money just before the children came because the gov. official connected to us made it clear that we wouldn't get the kids if there was trouble.

 

Unknowlingly, I had hired the chief Dada as my building contractor for the renovations.  He and his men turned the house into a clubhouse of theirs and I had a major fight to get them out.  Then they wanted access to the home any time they wanted, even after the girls were here.  I've had threats against my life.  And I'm pretty much on my own in fighting them.  I've been told they own the police.  I don't know.  My single largest budget expense is security.  I may move to armed security which will cost even more.  I will also set up meetings with higher officials.

 

One of the dangers of having the Dadas living so close is that over time my security men become friends with them, and then cannot provide security I can trust.  Yesterday and then over the course of today I discovered that my two guards (two twelve hour shifts) we lying about how our pandal (the temporary temple for Saraswati Puja) got to be the insulation of a neighbor's ceiling.  We had put it together and decorated it and I'd planned to put it in our back garden for the kids to use as a playhouse.  Then I discovered it was gone, and then that it was the ceiling insulation of a neighbor's house.  The "big deal" of it was the evolving lies that made it clear I was not being told the truth.  I had three interpreters, teachers who speak English helping, so it was not a matter of translation.  One of the teachers came with me to the house of the neighbor to find out.  It's a great use for the woven and covered panels. The woman understood I was trying to find out how she got it....   Yes, this is how I spend my time.... but I have to know who I can trust and when my securit is lying.  In the process I also discovered they were faking the books of their times.  I called the boss and he said he had been remiss in not changing them earlier, as is policy.

 

I assume my guard let the Dadas know he might be moved and they came to his rescue and thus we had a screaming match at the gate.  Before I got outside, the girls had gone out and had heard one of the Dadas saying he would send me back to America, that I couldn't stay here.  So the girls were terrified and crying and I started yelling at the Dada for upsetting my girls and in the course he said he could do anything he wanted to me because he is Indian and I said the only way he was getting me out of here was by killing me and he said he could do what he wanted and no point to call the police because he owned them.  And I also threw in his stealing my money in the past and trying all this before and he accused me of misusing public money (really drunk and derranged) but I truly wanted to girls to see I was ready to fight him, and I did not back down. 

 

I made a call to the local councillor and he said he would come tomorrow and talk to them.  I called a couple of other people I thought would be helpful but they weren't.  I sat and talked with the kids about it all.  They are used to drunken men, or at least they were used to that in their lives.  We have talked about that before.  I laughed and made it clear I was fine, and that I was calling people because when men try to intimidate you, it's better to tell people, not to hide it, to fight back... not to slink away.

 

I will change the guards.... but I won't let them stay so long.  I used to have a hard time with getting guards, etc.  Our first security company (arranged for by a member of our Board) was a fake company.  If I have to bring in a new company I will... it's just draining.   I know what to do though.

 

Well, after all this trouble, now well after bedtime, Bijoy and his wife still here... I came up with the only logical solution.  I asked Bijoy if he felt safe going out (this was a joke) and suggested he bring back ice cream!  We had a great ice cream fest and I gave two pops to two of the local men still outside....  In the end the girls giggled about it all as we ate the ice cream and looked at pictures from a wedding reception we had all gone to yesterday.

 

I don't like this stuff.  I had started the day on a really happy note.  Yesterday I'd remembered a children's story I'd written in 1971, and realized the girls would love it... and I found it on my computer and read it, just a low key story from when I lived on a sailboat in the Bahamas and I wrote a story about two girls in a village not unlike villages here... and a kitten they found.  It's a peaceful story with about as much tension as I can manage to enjoy in a story, which is almost none.  It felt like I was living in this wonderful peaceful place.

 

The story, A Trip to Turtletown.... This is my Turtletown but today the harsh reality of violence, power, greed, anti foreigner, anti woman, came full force.  But that's why I'm here, creating a bit of Turtletown for my girls and teaching them how to be strong and careful in the face of drunken Dadas.

Tollygunge Circular Road

I travel Tollygunge Circular Road four times a day now.  It is the only way to get from Shishur Sevay in Sahapur to the school in Golf Green where the handicapped children now attend.  As with the earlier school, I will do drop off and pick up until all seems known to me, my staff, the school staff, and the kids.  (The kids are always the easiest.) We leave the Home at 8:15 to get the kids there before nine, and then to drop off our dyslexic child at her school, which is near the school for the handicapped.   We get home about ten.  AT 11:15 we start off again, to pick up the little ones, then the big girl, then home by one pm.

 

Tollygunge Circular Road is a two lane street, lined with sidewalk hawkers, and produce sellers.  It is a major thoroughfare so there are big trucks and buses squeezing through.  AT the other end of the Road is construction so before the major intersection traffic moves one lane at a time.minu The trip can take as little as 20 minutes or a long as and hour and a half. Sometimes I doze off.

 

Tollygunge Circular Road, its name reverberating in my head -- a name from the past... Tollygunge Circular Road, the address where my younger daughter spent the first two months of her life.  I pass the building every day, four times a day.  India is where so many threads of my life come together.  I am here doing what I wrote of wanting to do when I was in High School, namely taking care of orphans.  I am here picking up the pieces of some of the people left behind.  In some odd way, as my Indian daughter has written, we have changed lives.  I am here taking care of business, some business left over from adoption lies.  I'm here because my children are here and I won't leave them, but my roots are actually deep.

 

An old haiku of mine:

In nature's order

A tree grows as its roots grow

Not from stretching truth.

Test of the blog feed system

this is a test to see if anything shows up on Facebook, where it is supposed to feed into notes.

three last posts have not shown up on facebook listing

from the author who is not happy with typepad,

mh

Taking Rani to the Institute of Child Health

 

I took Rani to see a new doctor today, a specialist in pediatric neurology at the Institute of Child Health.  I had asked around as to who was the best and that's who I called.  Rani has continued to have occassional seizures, brief ones, and I wanted to find a specialist.  Rani has grown and improved immensely over the past (almost) two years.  She used to spin and spin all day, and scream.  She has learned to behave (mostly) and is generally happier.  She is more attached to individuals;  She and I have a special form of (funny) communication which consists of putting my hand on my mouth, on and off... she does it whenever she sees me and I reciprocate.  Then she waves her arms and I do too.  Sometimes she just laughs and laughs AT me!

This morning was generally chaotic as Uma, our regular night massi became ill after she arrived and the other massi was out because a mad dog had just bitten her daughter.  (the wild dogs here are horrible.)  I was up at 4:30 because the guard woke us for school (it's a holiday) and that woke Ganga, who wanted to get me up, and go to the potty, and start our day.  We did all that and then fell back to sleep... everyone here.  During the night I checked on Uma.  The girls slept close to her and really took care of her in the evening.

 

Bijoy and I got out the door with Rani.  I even had her medical records organized.  In the car, driving over a bridge, I suddenly realized  could easily have brought a massi with me.  I just don't think about that.  If my kid is going to doctor I just take her!    Bijoy dropped us off at the entrance, and I found myself in the midst of families, mothers with babies, and no one speaking English.  I went to the registration window but it was closed.  I sort of looked around hoping someone would realize how clueless I was about what to do.  But, no one did so I went into the hall in front of me.  It was like a train station, with rows and rows of people sitting, some with  sleep mats, food, towels, ready for the long stay on the ground floor when a child is admitted.  I went to the security guard but he had no English either.

 

I really didn't know what to do.  Rani is heavy, and was wiggling around.  It's hard when a child is big but can't stand.  I just sort of stood for a while and then I called the doctor.  He didn't answer his phone.   Then I called Bijoy, who had gone  park the car and hadn't returned.  I tried twice but he didn't answer.  Then I found a seat on the bench and I sat down with Rani, to think.  Moods are funny, like weather.  Some days this would have gotten me rattled.  But today I was fine.  It was not an emergency so the worst that would happen is that we wouldn't be seen.  I was also strangely comfortable.   I just kept thinking about the effort of people to take care of their children.  I thought about the journeys they had made to bring their children here.  I looked at babies and children, wondering why they were here.  I looked at the hovering of relatives,  the family cohesion at least for this task of getting care.  I was clearly a novelty there.  Mostly I got friendly smiles, along with clear curiosity.  I was glad to be reminded of what care is for the poor.  I was in my "everyone has to be somewhere" state of mind.

 

I called the doctor once again, and this time he answered.  He told me to get on the queue.  I told him there wasn't one.  He said to go look and it would become a queue after the office opened at 9 am.  Bijoy called while I was on the phone with the doc.  I called him back and said I needed for him to come and help me.  I went back to the window and saw people holding little slips of paper, and then saw an old man giving out these little slips with numbers.  Mine was #35, but would have been about #10 when I came, if I had known.

 

I could write many more paragraphs about getting through the process but this is the gist... And I kept my sense of humor throughout.  Eventually we met with the doctor and that was worth the wait!  Rani has been in the hospital twice, in Pediatric Intensive Care, but she was never thoroughly examined or weighed (the meds are prescribed by weight).  This doctor did both.  Rani has had two EEG's but each was different, and no one explained why, or the significance.  But this time the doctor went over them, read the tracings, not the reports.    Rani now has clearer foci of epileptic activity but she does not have as severe generalized slowing of her brainwaves.  She also has no evidence that the seizures are causing damage to her brain.  The increase of epileptic activity is to be expected as she gets older.  To me, all of this is very positive.  My own personal theory is that the stimulation, education, good food, and love she gets at Shishur Sevay has gotten to her head!

So, it was a good visit to the doctor.  It was good knowing the level of care at that Institute, where they are trying to match the level of care in the corporate hospitals as much as they can, while providing care that is close to free.

 

Rani loves to ride in the car.  She watches out the window, waves her hands in the air sometimes, turns and makes sounds with her hands over her mouth...  She also loves the mela rides and has matured enough so we can actually let her ride.  This was a first for her.

 

 

Rejected for Adoption

The girls at Shishur Sevay were all rejected for adoption. Some describe being lined up along a wall and looked at -- and not being chosen.   The girls with disabilities didn't even make it to the line-up, as it true also for the older and darker girls.  In a sense, this is the real definition of an orphan, a child no one wants, a child who is legally free for adoption, but rejected.

 

Yesterday we had 25 visitors from the US, families with their Indian adopted children, returning to the places of their births and the culture of their heritage.  I always wanted Shishur Sevay to be a place where adoptees could come back and feel at home, and to feel good about what they saw.  My kids here were wonderful hosts, mixing easily with the visitors, helping in any way needed.  There was no tension and no fighting.  We were celebrating birthdays of three of our children, the ones with disabilities and no traces of their past.  I'd made 1 January the birthday for the three and decided to celebrate when our guests were here.  I found out that two of the children also had birthdays and quickly had their names added to the cake.

The main question asked by our girls yesterday was whether these children were born speaking English.   The girls are very familiar with adoption as some of the girls in the institution with them went for adoption.   I remember in raising Cici that some people would ask, "But how did she learn to speak English?"  The day we went to pick up our last group of children, a girl initially given to us was pulled away, screaming, because she had just been picked by the agency there to go for adoption.   We were told that as she was "fair and smart" she would be adopted, and we learned later she went to a "good, wealthy family."  

I'm the kind of person who is always wondering what is going on that I don't see.  When I adopted in 1984 I wondered about the children not adopted. These are the children I wanted to care for in opening this home.  These are the children I have.  My feelings about international adoption are mixed.   The first problem with all adoption is that it occurs within the context of a business, a basic exchange of money for a child.  And because the business is framed as "humanitarian" there is less or no oversight as to what actually goes on.   Further, because of "privacy" concerns, there is no way to authenticate papers.  When I buy a computer I have more information about where it comes from than I do in adopting a child.  For those in the US, remember the scandals of United Way, the pinnacle of ethical donations, created so there would be proper screening and controls --- while unfortunately providing a five star jet-set existence for its executives.  I'm not talking about "third world" or "poor" countries.  These problems are endemic.

A few years ago I came across an adoption orphanage where two of the toddlers were tied to their cribs, hands and feet, in cribs too small for them even to stretch out.  Another child was tied to the window pane with a rope to her foot.  The management were not embarrassed.  In fact I took pictures freely.  I have pictures of smiling staff while a child is in the background straining to see what was going on, limited by her tied hands and feet.  When this child was upset she would rock, and I was sure one day she would rock the crib over.  I held them each, promising I would do what I could to get them out of there.  I failed after many different avenues I tried, including taking the pictures to government officials, and also trying to negotiate "under the table."  I was threatened.  I made sure there were others who would release the pictures if anything happened to me.  When we opened Shishur Sevay I kept a place for two more little ones, just in case I could get them.   I still think about them.

I am aware of the enormous difficulties of children raised in counties not of their birth and heritage.  This is particularly true for dark skinned children raised in a primarily white environment.  I am in touch with adoptees who imagine their lives, their emotional lives, better if they had remained in their country of origin.  These were some of the questions I came here to answer for myself, or at least to understand the picture better.  There is no one answer, no easy answer, for a child born into a situation where the family and community of origin will not keep the child.  It is rarely simply a matter of money.  Among the poorest, children are rarely given up.  It takes an agent who will pay, and a level of disintegration or social status protection of the family, so the child is not absorbed.

 

So yesterday, over lunch, I had a chance to talk to the girls, ask them what they think about adoption, about the children visiting.  They are already familiar with Indian adoptees because of Cici Didi and others who visit and stay with us.  I asked my question very carefully, first making it clear that no one was leaving for adoption.  I asked, "If you were little, do you wish you would have been adopted?"  I knew from their grins, that the answer was yes.  The lone major dissenter was a girl we home-school but send to school for examinations because she acts so badly in school.  I've always believed she just needs to be home, enjoying what she didn't have before.

 

In India, as in most places in the world, there is a great demand for  healthy infants.  This is not true for older children or children with significant disabilities of any age.  Adoption of older children can be very difficult.  Children traumatized with violence and abandonment do not "melt" into a family already formed.  Loyalty to their families, alive or not, fantasized or not, will keep them from giving themselves fully to their "new" families.  They do not forget, nor should they.  The past must be built upon, not buried.  It must be a foundation, not a black hole.  Moishe Holtzberg, two year old who lost his parents in the Mumbai attacks will not be expected to forget them.  Someone or someones will parent him and love him as if he were their son, but he will be allowed to honor and love his martyred parents.  It would be strange if he didn't.  The same is true of adoptees who have known and lost their parents and families.

 

The adoptees visiting were surprised, and I think disappointed that these girls would not be going for adoption.  It says a lot about their adjustment and happiness, and ability to deal with duality, at least at this time in their lives.

 

I am often asked about adoption.  I simply could not imagine putting one of my girls on a plane to go to strangers, knowing I probably would NEVER see her, hear from her, be able to be there for her, or even know how she is.  No child should have to be torn in that way.  Most "preparation" is really indoctrination and threats.  The older adopted child is forced to turn to absolute strangers who do not know her language at a time when she is most in need of comfort, reassurance, and information as to what is going on. My girls here love and care for their Gods.  They take their strength from their prayers, pujas, rituals.  What happens when everything is changed, lost, and even your Gods are no longer there?  And there is no one to ask, no one to tell...

Sometimes I think if children must be moved, they should go in groups, and stay in groups, and have contact with "home" and be able to visit "home."  The natural questions for the Indian adoptee raised in the US, "Am I American or am I Indian?" would still be there but there would be context as to what "being Indian" means as well as what "being American" means.

 

I came to India with hope that there would one day be many Shishur Sevays, and maybe there will be, because this is a very good way for the unchosen to grow up in their country and culture of heritage.  Love, the ability to love, the fortune to be loved, are essential in our lives if we are to have any peace or satisfaction.  We cannot order it up, nor even predict where it will be found.  We are a family here, a funny family -- we each play our parts (me- several at once) -- and any child we might lose would create a great gap and give us great pain.  As I write I hear the girls upstairs in classical song class.  Today we visited the home of one of our massis to see her new grandson.  This is how I imagined it, a weaving together of connections, of people we know, of people we become attached to and who become attached to us.  We have love here.  That's a lot.

MURDER IN MUMBAI

Mumbai is on the West coast of India; India in the East.  But this Holy War is not about geography.  It is only about targets.  It can happen anywhere.  It has happened anywhere.

It feels risky even to write about the subject, about what I think and feel.  But for me, hiding is also a kind of poison, an added layer of isolation for someone who is generally alone anyway.  It's just how I am.  If this is a Holy War, then I am a target.  In fact I'm a few targets, wrapped up as one.

Why would anyone try to hurt me?  Why would I feel like prey?  My first level of fear is in being a woman.  I was raped at knife point when I was 18.  There are men who would hurt me simply because I am a woman.  It happened.

I am a white woman and therefore represent to some the historic injustices of white people as oppressors and colonizers.  I am white prey because I represent white .  Some years ago I was working with an orphanage in Kolkata, where I'd put in a septic system and toilets.  I discovered that girls were being tortured, and that they were being kept home from school to work as servants.  I tried to get the government to intervene, as all the school records were falsified.  I was driven out of the orphanage.  Later I heard that the Director told the children, "We drove out the British.  We will defeat Mummy!"  Indeed they did, as girls would be beaten if they were seen talking to me outside the orphanage.  I had to walk away.

Just before the children came I was denounced and threatened by the local political bosses who gathered with a mob outside out gate.  I refused to hire "party people" to work.  I was being extorted for a lot of money that I ended up having to pay as I didn't have the support I needed to fight them.  But in the midst of it all, in the midst of men on motorcycles brought to intimidate me, I was told, "This isn't America.  We own the police."  So I am target as an American, a particularly dangerous form of having white skin. 

I am a white Jewish woman.  In Kolkata my white skin leads to the assumption that I am Christian.  In the battles with the orphanage I mentioned, I was also accused of proselytizing.  A crowd was called to the gates of that orphanage and people were screaming at me, accusing me of spreading Christianity.  I was saved because it was visiting day and the parents there knew what I had done for their children.  I wondered that day if I would be a Jewish lady killed as a Christian martyr.

Religion, or my religion is not someting I talk about much.  I come from generations of non-religious, secular, socialist, athiest Jews.  I come with a culture, if not a God, as I seem to have developed my own personal relationship with a God or Gods,   But in Kolkata, partly to reassure people I wasn't here to convert anyone, I made it clear I was not Christian.   Few people knew what "Jewish" meant.  It didn't seem to matter.  Mother Teresa is  loved here.  I'm often referred to as "The Mother Teresa of Our Area."  They don't realize I'm the Jewish Mother Teresa of Our Area. 

The Murders in Mumbai, the assault on Chabad House, the slaughter of the five Jews, the young American Rabbi, his Israeli wife, and others, made it clear that this is not just about white skin or Western influence.   This is a Holy War, and Jews will be singled out, as we were in Germany, in the concentration camps.  I have pictures of my relatives who died in the camps, only in the pictures I have they are still children.  Last week in Frankfurt Cici and I visited The Jewish Museum.   It was sanitized, cleansed of words like torture, starvation, medical experimentation, gassings, trough graves, shoes, lampshades, gold teeth, mothers and children clinging to each other.... crying to be saved.  The museum simply described "deportations."

 

I studied at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in the summer of 1990.  I wanted to understand better the Holocaust as I was studying and writing on medical experimentation and new reproductive technologies.  In my private relationship with my God, I felt I had to answer to the question, "In your lifetime, did you think about the Holocaust?"  At Yad Vashem, images of how Jews were historically distorted, portrayed, remind me of literature now coming out of the Arab world. 

Before I left for Yad Vashem a neighbor brought me a brown bag of old news stories from Germany -- brought back by a soldier.  Oddly the bag sat, moved with me a few times, and not until I was getting rid of things to move to India did I actually go through them all.  They were  not just news stories.  They are posters from the Third Reich, and publications, showing Jews as poor, dark, dirty, untrustworthy.   The world needed to be cleansed of the Jew,

Are Jews white?  I haven't seen that question discussed.  I remember as a child riding through areas with "restricted housing."  That meant no Jews or Negroes, the term used at the time for African Americans.  Clearly our blood was not white enough to cross the restricted lines.

Am I white?  Here in Kolkata, the woman on the treadmill next to me at the gym last week has lighter skin than I do.  I studied her arms as we each walked, jogged.... she is lighter than I am.  As a child I was often taken for Puerto Rican, and people would come up to me and talk to me in Spanish.

To the Nazis, I would be Jewish whether I practiced or not.  It was about blood, a genocide that began in the early 1930's with the murder of the mentally and physically disabled and grew to include the Jews, the Catholics, the gays, the dissidents, and then the genocide spread to Russia and the slaughter continued.

This is a picture of my relatives.  The woman standing is my grandmother.  The two girls are my mother (to the left) and my aunt on the right, with my grandmother's sister's arm around her.   That would make Berta my great aunt, and her sons my cousins.  The man on the left is my great aunt's husband.   Berta, her husband and my cousins all died in the concentration camps.  In this picture they are all marked by light.  I wrote a haiku....

Since the ancient past

We bear witness in our sleep,

Shadows in daylight.

 

I believe we are living in very dangerous times.  I hide out in my Home for orphans but I write as part of the larger community from which I also come.  I check homework, make funny sounds with Rani, and work at document after document to prove I am taking good care of the children.   But I also write, blog, ponder our times, think about history, and wonder about the future.  It's a pretty normal existence.  I am happy this way.

But i'm still curious, "Are Jews white?"

.

The Magic Show

Sometimes I forget to write about how much fun I have here!  The kids were invited to a magic show being held on the rooftop of one of the members of Inner Wheel Club of Behala.  They weren't able to organize anything for Children's Day so they held it this week.  Getting places is stressful.  Getting 8 girls ready, choosing dresses, getting hair done, keeping an eye of the trunk of hair things and bangles so they don't ALL get used in one outing.... no so much fun.  We took two of the handicapped children, Bornali and Ganga because they understand more, and are easier, and I was trying to keep the trip easy on myself.

In Kolkata I get to be silly.  In Kolkata my kids aren't embarrassed by my silliness.  It's a different culture, and they are just happy to have a mother person taking them places.  These kids are so unsophisticated (so unspoiled) and it was wonderful to see how they giggled at things they had never seen before.  It was all magic to them.  They were polite and incredibly well behaved.  I brought two massis to help with the little ones, but the big girls quickly took possession of them and kept them on their laps.

I wasn't silly that much, but I've never been good with some things, like a magic show where the dove's neck is supposedly twisted so I ran off and couldn't watch for that part.  Everyone laughed.  I did the same when the magician pretended to put the sword through his assistant's neck.  Makes me shiver just to write about it.

Our hostesses were really nice too, were really respectful of the kids and there was no sense of their being treated differently from any other children.  They also sent home a wonderful dinner for all the girls.  It was enough for two days actually.

"I could be anywhere," is a common refrain in my life as I both live and observe my life at the same time.  I'm with my kids at a magic show and having a wonderful time.  Recently in the process of changing schools for our handicapped children, a school official I met commented, "You are actually pretty simple."  I agreed, said it was what most people didn't understand.  I'm not fancy.  I'm functional -- and fun -- and practical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were all tired after the show.  I was "stressed" because I'm trying to reduce stress, and everyone knows how hard that is!  I went to see a second doctor and the general opinion was that I'd had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) often referred to as a mini-stroke.   This was not good news, though I really believed that's what it had been.  I got back home and let the kids watch TV.  Somehow time passed and I realized I'd let them stay up very late.  Everyone was sleeping upstairs in the classroom for the week while our big room was repaired and painted.  I went up there and made them promise to do well on the exams the next day and not to tell the teachers i'd let them stay up so late.  It was an "inside joke" and they loved it.  They did OK on the exam.  Some did very well.

 

It's been a couple of weeks of extremes, of fun, of stress, of a wake up call about my life and mortality.  Blogging reduces stress for me.  It's funny but true.... so i must do it more.  My brain is clogged with things I want to blog.  That is a terrible non-pun, so either I have brain damage, or i'm just getting to be Silly in Kolkata!  I vote for Silly.

 

 

 

 

 

Why was I in the hosptial?

I wish I understood what happened.  The last thing I remember was feeling tired around one pm on Sunday. I'd been checking homework, and planning a light afternoon for the children.  The day before had been intense with a dance competition.  Preparation is huge, with making sure their clothes are right, hair done, etc, transportation, whether to take the little ones....  I was feeling quite overwhelmed with the work and the singular responsibility.  I am too alone here.  But Sunday started fine. We held art classes on the roof because of renovations downstairs,  I spent time online, and had a head massage.  Then as I said, around noon-1 pm I felt tired.  I cleared the couch in the office and lay down for a nap.  This is not unusual.

 

I woke up 16 hours later in the intensive care unit of Kolkata Hospital.  In the distance I recognized familiar faces.  There was total commotion around me and I kept being told i must stay a few days and rest.  But no one could tell me why, was it a stroke?  I pieced together that no one was able to wake me, that the children tried banging pans (I recall hearing them) that they tried getting me up but my speech was not understandable.  By late evening, everyone was scared.  They were not able to get any local doctor to see me so they decided to go to the hospital.  The local ambulance was busy so they wrapped me in sheets and carried me out to the car and then to the ER.  I was initially admitted to a general floor and then moved to ICU because the staff said I was too difficult -- but I was totally asleep with only an iv running, so I suspect some other reason.  Once in ICU I woke to the clashing of beds, metal, yelling, general chaos, the antithesis of peace.  I could see friends watching from a distance.  They were frightened.  I understood that.  I don't know that I was frightened.  I felt more of a, :OK what do I have to do now?" mentality.  I could get no answers from docs.  All they would tell me is to rest a few days.  My friends told me what had happened and that they had talked to my children in the US,  Then they were told to leave,and then I discovered my cell phone battery was dead.  I said I was leaving, and they said I'd have to sign myself out.  I agreed.  it took hours and I couldn't call anyone because I didn't even have their numbers.  All this time I couldn't get anyone to tell me about my condition.  The hospital finally reached Seema to settle the bill, as she had signed me in, and then I left.  I got to see my reports which suggested dehydration only.  There was no recorded BP or respiration.

I came home to very happy kids and staff.  They had been so frightened.  Yesterday morning, the morning I'd become ill, a board member stopped by to remind me that if I die there is no one to cover.   I told him I was constantly aw\are of that but there was nothing I could do at the moment.    I desperately need a second in command, one to train up but there is NOTHING I can do at the moment.  In an emergency my son-in-law would immediately fly in and manage things.  It's a start.

 

Now I must pursue what is wrong with my health, and I will do that. It didn't feel like a stroke.  I knew I was tired and went to sleep.  I had no aftermath.  It actually felt more like a poisoning of sorts because I could hear everything but couldn't respond.  I was so helpless.  But I didn't eat anything unusual....

 

For the moment urgent work to do. The most urgent is preparing application for a grant for computer equipment and supplies for the handicapped children.  I am determined they will learn to talk to us, to tell us about themselves, not just learn to answer questions posed to them.  I want to hear from them.

 

The room painting will be done in two days.  I had to repair broken and leaking walls... repairs I paid for long ago but were never done and the workmen absconded.

The girls did well in the dance and will go to next higher level of competition.  Four girls also scored in sports day and will represent the school.  I will drink lots of water with salt and sugar and try not to be stressed!

 

ADDENDUM

I was looking through the bills to figure out what was done and saw two medications.  Then I remembered Seema handing me two pills, which in my stupor I thought were my regular anti cancer meds.  But they were hosp meds for hypertension and I had one of each kinds, which I also can't figure out.  Anyway, I'm getting clearer about what happened.  there are certain levels of stress that used to set off migraine headahces.  I learned eventually to anticipate them, and I did so just a few days ago.  it's when i feel totally trapped by things that MUST be done and alone because there is no one to help, and I'm being told I must do even more.

 

I love this home.  I love the children.  I love my life here.  I have to keep working to make it better. 

 

 

"When You Walk Through A Storm..."

From Rodgers & Hammerstein musical CAROUSEL

 

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark.
Walk on, through the wind,
Walk on, through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone.

 

 

 

 

This song came to me this morning as I walked home from taking the girls to school, Ganga on my back.  The song comforts and strengthens me. 

 

It also has a past for me, real and symbolic.  It's the song with the high notes I couldn't reach and was therefore ridiculed by the teacher and kicked out of the school Glee Club.  I can still hear her booming voice, "WHO IS THAT SINGING IN THE BACK ROW WHO CANNOT REACH THE NOTE?"  Meekly I said, "me" and she sent me from the room. "YOU ARE OUT OF GLEE CLUB!"  As that was some 55 years ago, I can safely assume I will never get over the shame I felt, and the loss, and the self label, "I can't sing."

 

Most of my life though I have walked alone.

 

This morning I sang softly to Ganga, and like most little children made no complaint about my voice.  She was just happy to have me back home after four days away.  She has been a brave and strong little one, worried, keeping an eye on my office, waiting for me to walk through the door.  But unlike past times, she didn't run fevers or cry inconsolably.  She waited, for her off-tune, walking-along Mummy to come home.

 

I was in Frankfurt Germany for three days, visiting with Cici, my younger daughter.  She is OK about being talked about on my blog.  We talk and visit through Facebook.  She is never embarrassed by my writing.  She loves to share my work with her friends.  She loves that I am part of their worlds too.  And this is true, that I am.  I believe that her generation is different, better in some way that will be evident in the future.  They are not so cynical.    But she IS embarrassed when I wear a saree in Frankfurt, rather a normal reaction. The first reason is that I gained weight so my western clothes didn't fit.  I never got shopping because of chaos here.   But I guess I just wanted to wear a saree,  one of those things in my head, a kind of adolescent wish to be accepted as I am by my daughter.  She was good spirited about it. I gave her permission to post on Facebook the most embarrassing picture. But the one she put up was small and mild.  Below you will see what/who she had to walk beside as we explored Frankfurt and talked, and talked. 

 

If you look closely at this picture you will also see the untied shoe laces.  She was kind and tolerant, and never told me directly what she felt.  She just told me what her friends back home told her when she reported on my appearance!

 

Wearing a saree in Frankfurt, just wearing a saree leaving Kolkata, was  a much more powerful experience than I had anticipated.  I wasn't just a tourist leaving Kolkata for Germany, but clearly had a base, an attachment, my own internal sense of belonging.  Indians smiled at me.  I smile at Indians but they don't "recognize" me when I am in Western clothes.  I am a stranger.  But with a saree on, with my Nike sneakers (common dress for traveling non-fashion conscious older Bengali women) I really look more "familiar," and so my smile is returned.   In India I have worn a saree exclusively since February 2004.  I started because my daughter didn't know how to wear a saree and neither did her Indian friends raised in the US.  So I wanted to be a mom who could teach her to wear a saree (for the once a year occasion when she wanted to).  I figured the best way to learn was to wear it every day when I was in India.  I really loved wearing it, and it meant a lot to the people I was with, as it means a lot to my children at Shishur Sevay.  In the US I would probably be seen as a pretender or a wannabe -- totally politically incorrect, but here in India it is a sign of respect for India, a sign of not separating myself away.

 

As a white skinned mother of a dark-skinned Indian child, we were rarely taken for mother and daughter.   But now in Frankfurt, in a saree, the assumption was that we were together, mother daughter or aunty, but of the same family/community/world.  For me that was a wonderful feeling.  There is a pride in walking with one's children, and the acknowledgment felt wonderful.  In one store the people assumed she was my daughter.

 

 

 

Kolkata has become home.  I have children here, children who called twice a day to ask what I was doing, to talk to their Cici did, to ask when I was coming home, and once to tell me homework had been done, and could they watch TV (yes, of course).  I am torn, with children on both sides of the oceans.

 

I'd spent months working on coverage for while I was away.  Most of it worked.  Some didn't.  I am alone with the responsibility for my children, which is why I now more often use the first person, "my."  It is as important to the children as it is to me that in my absence they are well cared for.

 

Thus the song, thus filling my heart with hope, listening for the silver song of the lark, and holding my head up high.

Rejected for Adoption

This was an old post that seemed to fall off the list.  It's from December 08

The girls at Shishur Sevay were all rejected for adoption. Some describe being lined up along a wall and looked at -- and not being chosen.   The girls with disabilities didn't even make it to the line-up, as it true also for the older and darker girls.  In a sense, this is the real definition of an orphan, a child no one wants, a child who is legally free for adoption, but rejected.

 

Yesterday we had 25 visitors from the US, families with their Indian adopted children, returning to the places of their births and the culture of their heritage.  I always wanted Shishur Sevay to be a place where adoptees could come back and feel at home, and to feel good about what they saw.  My kids here were wonderful hosts, mixing easily with the visitors, helping in any way needed.  There was no tension and no fighting.  We were celebrating birthdays of three of our children, the ones with disabilities and no traces of their past.  I'd made 1 January the birthday for the three and decided to celebrate when our guests were here.  I found out that two of the children also had birthdays and quickly had their names added to the cake.

The main question asked by our girls yesterday was whether these children were born speaking English.   The girls are very familiar with adoption as some of the girls in the institution with them went for adoption.   I remember in raising Cici that some people would ask, "But how did she learn to speak English?"  The day we went to pick up our last group of children, a girl initially given to us was pulled away, screaming, because she had just been picked by the agency there to go for adoption.   We were told that as she was "fair and smart" she would be adopted, and we learned later she went to a "good, wealthy family."  

I'm the kind of person who is always wondering what is going on that I don't see.  When I adopted in 1984 I wondered about the children not adopted. These are the children I wanted to care for in opening this home.  These are the children I have.  My feelings about international adoption are mixed.   The first problem with all adoption is that it occurs within the context of a business, a basic exchange of money for a child.  And because the business is framed as "humanitarian" there is less or no oversight as to what actually goes on.   Further, because of "privacy" concerns, there is no way to authenticate papers.  When I buy a computer I have more information about where it comes from than I do in adopting a child.  For those in the US, remember the scandals of United Way, the pinnacle of ethical donations, created so there would be proper screening and controls --- while unfortunately providing a five star jet-set existence for its executives.  I'm not talking about "third world" or "poor" countries.  These problems are endemic.

A few years ago I came across an adoption orphanage where two of the toddlers were tied to their cribs, hands and feet, in cribs too small for them even to stretch out.  Another child was tied to the window pane with a rope to her foot.  The management were not embarrassed.  In fact I took pictures freely.  I have pictures of smiling staff while a child is in the background straining to see what was going on, limited by her tied hands and feet.  When this child was upset she would rock, and I was sure one day she would rock the crib over.  I held them each, promising I would do what I could to get them out of there.  I failed after many different avenues I tried, including taking the pictures to government officials, and also trying to negotiate "under the table."  I was threatened.  I made sure there were others who would release the pictures if anything happened to me.  When we opened Shishur Sevay I kept a place for two more little ones, just in case I could get them.   I still think about them.

I am aware of the enormous difficulties of children raised in counties not of their birth and heritage.  This is particularly true for dark skinned children raised in a primarily white environment.  I am in touch with adoptees who imagine their lives, their emotional lives, better if they had remained in their country of origin.  These were some of the questions I came here to answer for myself, or at least to understand the picture better.  There is no one answer, no easy answer, for a child born into a situation where the family and community of origin will not keep the child.  It is rarely simply a matter of money.  Among the poorest, children are rarely given up.  It takes an agent who will pay, and a level of disintegration or social status protection of the family, so the child is not absorbed.

 

So yesterday, over lunch, I had a chance to talk to the girls, ask them what they think about adoption, about the children visiting.  They are already familiar with Indian adoptees because of Cici Didi and others who visit and stay with us.  I asked my question very carefully, first making it clear that no one was leaving for adoption.  I asked, "If you were little, do you wish you would have been adopted?"  I knew from their grins, that the answer was yes.  The lone major dissenter was a girl we home-school but send to school for examinations because she acts so badly in school.  I've always believed she just needs to be home, enjoying what she didn't have before.

 

In India, as in most places in the world, there is a great demand for  healthy infants.  This is not true for older children or children with significant disabilities of any age.  Adoption of older children can be very difficult.  Children traumatized with violence and abandonment do not "melt" into a family already formed.  Loyalty to their families, alive or not, fantasized or not, will keep them from giving themselves fully to their "new" families.  They do not forget, nor should they.  The past must be built upon, not buried.  It must be a foundation, not a black hole.  Moishe Holtzberg, two year old who lost his parents in the Mumbai attacks will not be expected to forget them.  Someone or someones will parent him and love him as if he were their son, but he will be allowed to honor and love his martyred parents.  It would be strange if he didn't.  The same is true of adoptees who have known and lost their parents and families.

 

The adoptees visiting were surprised, and I think disappointed that these girls would not be going for adoption.  It says a lot about their adjustment and happiness, and ability to deal with duality, at least at this time in their lives.

 

I am often asked about adoption.  I simply could not imagine putting one of my girls on a plane to go to strangers, knowing I probably would NEVER see her, hear from her, be able to be there for her, or even know how she is.  No child should have to be torn in that way.  Most "preparation" is really indoctrination and threats.  The older adopted child is forced to turn to absolute strangers who do not know her language at a time when she is most in need of comfort, reassurance, and information as to what is going on. My girls here love and care for their Gods.  They take their strength from their prayers, pujas, rituals.  What happens when everything is changed, lost, and even your Gods are no longer there?  And there is no one to ask, no one to tell...

Sometimes I think if children must be moved, they should go in groups, and stay in groups, and have contact with "home" and be able to visit "home."  The natural questions for the Indian adoptee raised in the US, "Am I American or am I Indian?" would still be there but there would be context as to what "being Indian" means as well as what "being American" means.

 

I came to India with hope that there would one day be many Shishur Sevays, and maybe there will be, because this is a very good way for the unchosen to grow up in their country and culture of heritage.  Love, the ability to love, the fortune to be loved, are essential in our lives if we are to have any peace or satisfaction.  We cannot order it up, nor even predict where it will be found.  We are a family here, a funny family -- we each play our parts (me- several at once) -- and any child we might lose would create a great gap and give us great pain.  As I write I hear the girls upstairs in classical song class.  Today we visited the home of one of our massis to see her new grandson.  This is how I imagined it, a weaving together of connections, of people we know, of people we become attached to and who become attached to us.  We have love here.  That's a lot.

An Ordinary Miracle

The following is the introduction, statement of the Founder for the Annual Report 2007-2008, now overdue of course!

 

 

From Mother and Founder,

Childlife Preserve Shishur Sevay

 

 

An Ordinary Miracle

 

Once upon a time there was an old little house on a tiny piece of land in Panchabatatala, where New Alipore meets Behala in Kolkata, West Bengal, India,

South Asia

, Planet Earth, The Milky Way Galaxy, in the Universe.   Then a miracle happened, and it became home to 12 orphan girls, twelve girls suffering from various forms of social deprivation, nutritional deprivation, emotional deprivation, educational deprivation, and four of whom suffer severe physical disabilities. 

 

The miracle is that this house is now one of laughter and joy, and big dreams for the future.  This required enormous determination and plain stubbornness.  It required a deep and unshakable belief that children and flowers bloom when they are fed, protected, and loved.

 

The ordinary is that we are meeting the most ordinary needs of children, shelter, food, health care, immunizations, clean water and clean toilets.  Education is intensive, not unlike that of Indian families in most places.  The children have school, then tuition, then cultural programs, dance, song, art..  Their needs are pretty simple, but they lack the parental and familial advocates to insure they have these necessities.  And the society does not make meeting their needs a priority. 

 

Many forces combined for me to become mother to these children; a sense of destiny, the voices of the children calling to me, my Kolkata born daughter – and an awareness of hungry and abandoned children from the earliest times I can remember.  My grandmother, herself an immigrant to

America

, used to take me to the ocean, point out over the water and tell me never to forget the hungry children across the world.  In Kolkata I feel close to her spirit and her strength.

 

In this second Annual Report 2007-2008, we will write of Shishur Sevay in the context of Indian and international shared values and commitments to children.  We will show that what we give to our children is no different from what the international community including India agree are the rights of children; put simply, what they should have.  That’s all we are really doing, giving them what they should have, what we all know they need, but still do not give.

 

I look at the blossoming of our handicapped children, so far beyond our expectations.  They are each centers of love, giving and receiving unconditionally.  They are the heart of our home.  For the big girls, they are like the siblings they lost.  We all celebrate each advancement, standing alone, rolling over, drawing a picture, beating a drum to rhythm, trying to talk, and always glowing when they are held.  Our handicapped children have also started school.  Each morning, dressed in their proper uniforms they go off to their teachers, their education, their bit of normality of what should be the life of a child.  They have a life!  In fact their lives are full, with teachers, aunties, didis, and a lot of mother’s love.

 

I am a dreamer and the dream grows.  But this dream must grow slowly, and it must grow from its foundation.  A tree grows by feeding its roots, not by pulling at its branches.  We are growing our saplings in the best soil we can create, with warmth, sun, food.  We provide structure for when our children are set off balance by unhealed wounds and inner winds. We treasure the blooms.

 

Childlife Preserve: Shishur Sevay got its name from my stay at Kaziranga Wildlife Preserve in

Assam

.  Kaziranga is home to the Indian One-Horned rhinoceros, wild elephants, and the domesticated elephants who take visitors for journeys through the tall grasses.  In the evening when the domestic elephants came to be bathed in the creek and fed, I played football with an elephant calf as he learned to be comfortable with people.

 

Later I found myself thinking about that place often, and wondering, “Why can’t there be a place like that for children, a Preserve, where they are not prey?”  Thus the name, Childlife Preserve.  And then because my life is a fusion of American and Bengali, there had to be a Bengali name so our home would be understood for what it is.  Shishur Sevay, in the interest/service of children.

 

In a world globally and locally full of violence and abuse, Shishur Sevay is an oasis, a place of growth, of healing, of love.

 

Dr. Michelle Harrison

Re-used needles and syringes; No soap in the toilet

Sonali had a focal seizure Saturday morning while I was coming back from taking the children to school.   The massis called me and all I could understand was that something was wrong with Sonali.  I ran as much as I could, cursing that I didn't get to the gym more often.... and arrived to find her having a right sided convulsion, limp except for the twitching and jerking of the right side of her face, arms and legs.    I threw her favorite soft blanket around her and Seema (our Governing Body secretary who walks the girls to school with me in the morning) and I headed out to find a cab. I called Bijoy to come early, but he lives too far away to come instantly.  Out on the street there were no cabs, as drivers were probably sleeping off the Puja celebrations of the night before.  Then Seema went to find the ambulance, but she took my bag with my wallet.  So there I was standing in the midst of Panchabatatala holding a convulsing baby and realizing I no longer knew where Seema was, or when she would come back.  I also realized I had no money as it was all with her.  I was really afraid -- with both the mother me and the doctor me scared Sonali would stop breathing.

The ambulance came -- Seema having roused the guys from festival celebration the night before and we rushed off to the hospital.  I called ahead to the pediatrician who took care of Rani there.  By the time we got to the hospital the seizure was subsiding.  We decided to admit her to the PICU and put her on iv's as we didn't know what was going on.  Sonali is about three.  I have old records showing brain ischemia and asymmetry.  She has an odd shaped head, not noticeable with her full head of curls.

The hospital is one of Kolkata's better known places, a private hospital.  It cost Rs. 25,000 to admit her, about $500, which will sound like nothing to those living on a dollar or euro economy, but is a great deal of money for someone living on rupee economy.  Once in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) the team came to start an IV.  That's when I stopped them from re-using a bloody needle and catheter from previous four failed attempts at getting a line into a vein.  In this hospital, and according to the doctors this is true throughout Kolkata, needles are re-used in this way.  I was shocked, really.  I can't imagine being in an intensive care environment for sick children and finding dirty needles being used!

 

We got through that, but then later a nurse came to put something into the iv.  The syringe said Augmentin, but she was pushing fluid in and out.  I asked what she was doing, and first she said medicine, then changed it to "saline".  The bottom line is that they reuse syringes too.  In this process the nurse also let the IV line hang so the open end was touching the bed and I told her this was no longer sterile.

 

A young doctor I'd met before on Rani's admissions explained that the staff reuses needles and syringes to save money for patients because the patients are poor, and they are charged for needles and syringes and bed pads, etc. 

There was also the matter of the toilets and the lack of soap.  I saw this on the last admission a few months ago and talked with him about it.  He tried to institute change but it didn't last.  Actually there is no soap in any of the toilets in the hospital (as I'm told) because it isn't the custom. 

I had met the Director of Operations by chance when I was arranging for the C-T scan and called her, thinking she would be aghast at what I'd found (don't laugh too hard at me).  She was defensive and said the hospital was wonderful, hadn't I read in the newspapers?  Now I clearly had lost my cool and said I didn't care what the papers said, but I'm sure they would love to know about the re-use of needles.

 

I went back to Sonali's bed and tried to be calm.  Another senior doctor there said it's this way everywhere.  She said, "we go abroad to train and then come back to these standards."  I heard again about how India is a poor country.  It's not a poor country but it is a country of poor people.  I talked of transferring Sonali but I no longer knew where to go.  I wanted to take her in my arms and flee, take her to safety, but there was no place to go.  Then I decided I'd stay the night and work as "massi" since visitors weren't allowed but massis were. 

There was one scene in the elevator because the guard tried to take me out of the elevator because my card (given to me by emergency room) said Day/Night Visitor but he said that was only for the lobby.  I said my baby was upstairs and I wasn't leaving and all the other people started yelling at me and I yelled back that I was sick of this place as they used dirty needles and syringes.  I asked if they knew that!  One man, particularly nasty said, "well, anyone can make a mistake!"  My readers have to understand that when doctors "make a mistake" in West Bengal they are likely to be beaten up by the patient's family.

 

I had called Seema earlier to come and help me decide where we could move Sonali if we had to, so she was in the vicinity, thinking all was well since I had gone back up to see Sonali.  I called her and said I was in the corner of the elevator refusing to leave.  The hospital had also started posting men in black uniforms and black turbans, looking like bar bouncers or the body guards of gangsters, and I wasn't going to be bounced.  Seema came and pushed herself onto the elevator and did a lot of just patting people and telling them to take us up to the PICU -- did the, "she's a doctor from America and she is upset about the dirty needles."

 

I decided then that I had to stay the night with Sonali and play the massi role.  The PICU had said they had to have someone with her as they couldn't manage her, so I became the one, to their dismay.  I came back to Shishur Sevay to say hi to the kids and tell them Sonali was doing well, and to have something to eat as I hadn't eaten all day.  The girls packed a bag for me... picked out a sari, blouse, made sure I had comb, tooth brush... towel and I went back.  But I told Ganga I'd be out for the night taking care of Sonali.  I have to tell her or she gets very upset.  Meanwhile Bornali was already upset that Sonali wasn't there.  She keeps track.

 

The part that was nice was spending the night with Sonali as I don't usually spend a lot of time with her alone.  To everyone's shock I was able to feed her, change her diapers, etc.  I sang songs to her, stretched out next to her -- they allowed that.  The doctor came late at night so we had a chance to talk for a while.  Like everyone else, she just says that's how it is here.  But we also talked about soap and I suggested dispensers since bars walk away.  That part was surreal, talking about dispensers....  

In the evening the nurse brought me a blue gown to put over my sari.  I asked why and she said because i'd be sleeping there and in contact with the baby.  This is true and good, but I asked why only in night.  Actually I'd never seen a blue gown on anyone!  She said in the day the massi didn't have contact with the baby so she didn't need a gown.  This is nuts!  In the day the massi carried Sonali, fed her, sat on bed with her.  I wore the gown and insisted the massi wear one when she came in the morning.  I asked about the child in the other bed and the nurse said the mother didn't touch the child so she didn't need a gown.

This hospital has a School of Nursing.  These nurses and students are from their School of Nursing.  They were working as they had been taught.  I was clear these were lapses in teaching, not intent of any of the staff there.

 

In the morning Sonali was clearly ready to go home.  The nurse asked if she should give her a bed bath and I said fine.  Then she asked me for the soap and powder to bathe her but of course I didn't know I had to bring it.  After the plain water bath i went to change my sari, brush my teeth, etc.  The bathroom and toilets were flooded but there was a small container of soap!  I had to take the top off the toilet and fill it with water from a mug so it would flush.  But at least I could wash my hands.

 

I drew the curtains around Sonali's bed and put on my sari.... engaging in what I call the Zen of Sari.  It means you have to relax in order not to get into a battle with six yards of material that wants to go on it's own, not where I want to fold it.  But, once done, my sari was much admired.

 

I told the staff that my arguments were with the administration, with the head of their nursing school, in the hospital.... and that these were policy issues, re-use of needles, soap for toilets...  The junior doctors I talked to were upset that they are constantly compromising their standards.  They want to leave India because they can't stand what is happening to them, the lowering of their standards.

 

I have a thing about handwashing, which is to say it's big in my head.  I still see images, drawings, of women dying of puerperal fever and Semmelweiss ridiculed for wanting to disinfect the hands of doctors.  I love building toilets.  In one orphanage here in Kolkata I put in a septic chamber and toilets for girls in the dormitory rooms.  I've built a few toilets in villages.  At heart maybe I'm a "barefoot doctor."   My idols were Albert Schweitzer and Tom Dooley.

Soap is so simple.  It's so cheap. 

By noon Sunday we were ready to go home, and I made my way through the bill department and the pharmacy.  Seema called to see if I needed help and I said I thought I could get through the process without making a scene.  Actually, when I was standing in line at billing a huge fight broke out with men screaming at each other!   I waited.... I'm fine waiting.

 

Bijoy had brought a massi in case Sonali was staying, and I wanted to leave for a bit. Instead we were packing to leave. We were at Sonali's bedside and I so much wanted to carry her.  I didn't want to always be "white lady carrying bags."  But this young woman really wanted to be the one carrying her out so I let her take Sonali and I followed with all the "stuff." 

Sonali got a huge reception at home, with girls arguing over who would hold hold her and feed her.  She seemed happy with the attention.  Bornali laughed; Ganga just looked relieved to see me and didn't want me to put her down.  Rani seemed fine when I was away, but seeing me got her started... crying, screaming... hitting her head.  So I spent time with her, immitating her sounds, clapping my hand in rhythm to her clapping.  This went on.  She was happy and calm. 

 

...Which reminds me, Kasturi,  a close friend of mine and of Shishur Sevay has posted pictures and a note and poem about Rani.  http://ashajournal.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-met-rani-in-june.html It is really beautiful.  My dream is for my children to have voice, to not be orphans to the world.  Kasturi has given Rani voice, even as Rani works so hard to create her own voice of communication.  This is what they all work on.  Voice is connection.  We all search for connections.  Our connections are part of how we know ourselves, how we build sense of self, identity, and dignity.  Washing and grooming are part of who we are, what and who we carry with us....

 

Sonali and her massi in Bed I of PICU. (Blue gown per my instructions)

 

 

 

 

A Month of Busy

I've been away from the blog for a month, the longest time since I started.  I've blogged in my head but it's been harder to get the time to write.  To catch up on several fronts:

The new school for one of the girls has been wildly successful!  She is happy and self confident, and loves to go.  She has so impressed the taxi driver that he took out the taxi to take her on a puja holiday -- something he has never done before.  He said, "I just thought of that little girl and how much she loves school."   On our way to school the first day.... a girl about ten put her hand in the window for money.  I asked if I should give her money, and of course my girl said yes.  Then I told her that when she grew up and had a job she could give money to children on the street and she beamed.  I told her she could bring children to Shishur Sevay.  Something clicked for her and she saw a future for herself.  My kids are so incredibly caring and generous.

 

I finished the finances and had the audit completed and had the taxes filed.  These are major accomplishments since documents all need lots of signatures, and there had to be meetings to discuss many aspects of the finances and taxes.  And, mostly I have to do it through others.

 

I put an ad online and hired an assistant part time.  I am really thrilled.  This is my first real relief from all the responsibilities.  He is working on the annual report, which has to be done so we can file our registration renewal and then apply for FCRA.  I met with the registrar of societies who said a foreigner CAN be on the gov body of the society -- contradicting what i'd been told for years.

 

The girls have had me very busy -- actually they consumed me -- and I'm not totally sure why it became so bad.  Starting our weakest girl at a good school shook up the order of things and there was a lot of jealousy.  There was more fighting, and more out of control time that kept me here, which was their purpose.   I felt trapped.  No one else wanted to deal with them.  Neither did I at times, but they are mine, this is what I say to myself over and over.  They are mine, so I have to find the solutions.  Part of this is their feeling more secure, and know they won't be kicked out.  So the more they feel secure, the more they will challenge me.

 

In their anger they repeated the "old lady" term and a re-run of past emotion.  Some of that is still here, and there are still people who would like me to fail.  Too many people are waiting for me to die. 

 

There have also been magically wonderful times with the girls, the big ones and the little ones.  Today is the last day of the Durga Puja which has really been fun.  Without real family we had to create how we would spend the holiday.  I found people to visit.  Like others in the community we dressed up and visited the beautiful pandals, elaborately decorated temporary temples.  I totally overspent on Puja clothes!!!! I was really angry with myself until I saw them all dressed up and was happy for every rupee I'd spent, every gold thread, deep colored beads of glass, bright pinks and blues and deep red... I will get pictures up soon.

 

We found a local mela with rides, not crowded as this was not the more elaborate of little parks around.  But it was perfect for us.  Rani rode alone on an child's airplane ride.  Most of the girls went on the ferris wheel.  They stuffed on puchkas. We went back a second day.

 

We were invited to an ashram where we were truly treated as guests.  I had hired a bus for the day.  We all went except for Sonali who was running a fever, and a massi who stayed home with her.    Everyone was tolerant and even laughed as Rani took the paper plates from the table as I moved her along in her stroller (until we noticed!).  I asked the Sambuddha Maharaj to bless all the children.  He held Bornali on his lap as she smiled at him.  The food was great; there were geese and a field to run in, and lots of kind people.  On the way back the bus had a flat tire, just another bit of entertainment.

 

Yesterday the girls were invited to Gibi's for the day.  They dressed up again, and truly enjoyed their time with Choto Ma and her family.  Ganga and Bornali went too.  Rani stayed home.  I took Sonali to the doctor as her fever and cough had not improved after three days on antibiotics.  I'd listened to her lungs and thought we just needed to change antibiotics, but I wanted another opinion.  The doctor did not have chamber hours but asked that I bring her to his house.  We are really accepted and supported by so many people her.  We make them smile.

Staffing over the holiday has been very difficult.  The usual seems to be to wait for puja bonus and then leave.  Of course, I like many others think this won't happen, but it did, so we are very short staffed.  It's hard on the kids because the same women who often try to become "mothers" to them disappear overnight without a call.  I've been more and more aware of how vulnerable the girls are to people who indulge in fake emotion that makes them feel good, and then leave.  It was hard with Sonali sick as the massis she knew were all gone! 

 

Today got off to a bad start.  We were supposed to have three massis but one called Bijoy at 7 to say she wasn't coming.  So I figured we would all pitch in, which we did and it's worked out.  But one of the girls took my keys when I went to shower.  We found them scattered, off the chain, but the key to my money cabinet is gone.  We all tore this place apart but didn't find it, as she stood by watching.  I have her on time out in Rani's crib and I've been clear to everyone she isn't after the money, only trying to make my life miserable and trying to make me angry enough to hit her.  I told her I could beat her but then I'd be the bad person.  I asked her a few times to tell us where it is, but she won't.  She is also the one I pulled out of school for the rest of the year last week as she hit another child in the nose with a scissor.  Before this the school didn't believe me when I said she couldn't manage school in terms of behavior.  I worry about her a lot.  She scratches herself, makes herself bleed.  She is in so much pain.  I'll lock my room tonight to keep her out of the cabinet and tomorrow the carpenter will change the lock.

 

I've been sorting clothes all day, matching up the three pieces of churidar and salwar sets, and I've been doing laundry.  The girls scrubbed the classroom and all the desks.  The room looks beautiful.  Now they are working on homework, as one of the teachers returns tomorrow morning.

 

Neither of the two massis today has cooked here before so we did the simplest kitchuri, a rice and dal mix, and the girls cut all the garlic and ginger, potatoes, and cucumber for salad.

 

The man who cleans the bathrooms is away, went to his village, so I clean the bathrooms.  Someone dropped a towel down the toilet so I reached in and pulled it out.  This is not a glamorous job!

 

I have been thinking a lot about what this job is, what is needed, what I can delegate and what I can't.  No one else will worry about whether the red outfit runs in the wash and turns the white outfit blotched pink.  I care, so one of the girls and I washed all the outfits.  I taught her to separate the colors, and to wash gently to protect the sequins and stones.  We changed the water after each group of colors.  We hung the clothes on hangers to dry.  Nothing ran, nothing was ripped, no sequins or stones came off.  I've lost a lot of good clothing I bought for the girls because of how they were washed.  This is universal, not about India, or our home, or our staff in particular.

The girls missed lassi, a yogurt drink they usually have mid day, so I said they would have yogurt with rice at night.  I like them to have yogurt every day.  We make it here.  It is healthy.  But it wasn't served.  The massi didn't give it to them.  It's like vegetables -- or anything else -- staff or babysitters will rarely do as we say (I say this after years of babysitters in the US).  It's part of how I've come to define motherhood, being the one who cares the most, who commits the most, the person to whom it matters most that homework is done, clothes are clean, good food is given and eaten.  It's also what is hardest to find or create in an institution, where  ultimately the children only have each other.  These girls lived together, along with many others.  But they are like a sibling group, their fighting, their caring, their vigilance for fairness, and their acceptance of the oldest as their Didi.

 

I know what their lives were when they were alone.  So even when they are at their worst, I am grateful they are with me, and not out there hungry, cold, being abused, not getting their yogurt and vegetables, and looking like orphans.  I asked for orphans, not "good" orphans.  This is what I signed up for.  This is really what any parent signs up for.  Kids from any family may act this way.  There are no guarantees with who we give birth to, who we adopt, who we mother in any other form. 

 

Maybe it's just an illusion to help me through, but I really imagine one day that this girl will say to me, "Mom (she refers to me as mom), I'm really glad you stood by all those years when I was such a jerk."  She might even thank me.  Or, none of the above, but I'm doing what makes me feel right, standing by, steady as I can be, yelling when I'm not so steady, writing when I feel so alone in what I am doing.

If we give the best to the worst..... how will it be?

What if I take the child I most worry about, the one with the worst prognosis, and give her the best available?  One girl worried me the most. In a year and a half she has not learned any alphabet, numbers, colors, etc.  She has learned to manage and control a pencil and can now do beautiful handwriting, but has no idea what it is.  She has learned to draw.  She is a very good dancer; she can sing and act.  But she is also naive and trusting and would easily follow a stranger anywhere.  She has no sense of danger.  She has limited impulse control... and more.  It's not that anything she does is terrible, but it's hard to imagine her being independent in any way, or even socialized to manage in a combined family marriage.  She is a caretaker by nature -- but she can be very stubborn.  The usual track for such a girl is to put her into "vocational training" either in sewing (she puts her clothes on inside out half the time) or beautician -- a quick path to prostitution for the vulnerable.

She was in school with the others but couldn't keep up.  So she was moved to nursery in the hope she would learn as she "helped" the teacher. But she was restless and the school never knew where she was or what she was doing.  On paper she is nine years old but is probably about 12.  I moved her out of our classes and had her assisting our special educator with the little ones.  One day the teacher told her to write her name ten times.  She refused, and said, "If you make me do this I will cry and then Mummy will fire you."

There were times I really wished she were not here, that she had not been among the others -- which of course made me feel guilty but also forced me to confront the problem of what to do. I asked myself what I would have done if she had been mine by birth or adoption.  In a snap, even a normal child can have a head injury, lose knowledge, memory, lose impulse control.... Yes, I could have been faced with raising such a child, and now I was.

 

Then last week I saw a news story about a special school for mentally disabled children.  It had a big focus on dance, music, theater -- social adjustment --and rehabilitation.  It looked like a place full of resources, and I assumed it would be very expensive.  Like an epiphany, I suddenly thought, "what if I take my most worriesome child and give her the best?"  This looked like a place I'd send my "own" to.  I went on line and found more info, and called the number given, which turned out to be the founder.  The school is 20 years old.  We had a good conversation and he said to visit this week. 

 

Yesterday I took my trouble child to visit the school.  She was such a perfect young lady.  I was so proud.  She wants so much to go to school.  The others want her to go too.  There was a happy send-off when we left for the interview, with our teacher telling her to make sure she answered everything right.  In the car I assured her that this wasn't a school where you had to answer right and there were other children who had trouble learning.  And this is exactly what it is!  This was the first time I'd heard the term dyslexia here.  These are educators.  They know the territory.  They work with a variety of problems, autism, retardation... more.. but they speak the language of education in its broadest sense. 

The day was also a chance to see how much she has changed in a year.  She was so sweet and graceful.  She clearly was the better functioning of the children, but reached out to each one.  She is used to children with handicaps.  In one class we visited, she drew a fish, and then a flower.  In another class a girl was trying to write letters of the alphabet -- kaw, the one letter she knows.  The school has a physiotherapy room, with treadmill, trampoline, stat. bicycle, which she sat on -- and I took a picture.  Back home at rest time she sat with a circle of the others around her, telling about the school. 

 

This child could never have made it through the day, the interview, the visit, without the intense teaching and guidance she has received from one of our teachers.  Helping, socializing this child has been a mission on the part of a teacher who sees good in everyone but knows it takes some doing at times to get there, to get them to that good, to be able to see that good.  She has taught the girls meditation, and yoga, and also sitting up straight in class, keeping hands on desk, asking to leave or enter the class -- she is strict about handwriting.  These are all reasons I am happy to have her here.  At times the girls didn't like her, her discipline, strictness.  I told them this was life -- that some teachers you like and some you don't -- but you have to do the work.  They also threatened her that I'd fire her, which they have tried with everyone (it's never happened).  But I set up a system so that every time a girl complained about a teacher, the teacher got a ten rupee bonus.  

The major obstacle to this school is the distance, but having decided it was what I wanted for her, I looked for solutions.  For now actually, this teacher will take her every morning by public transportation.  This will be a chance for more learning, for learning how to behave on buses, how to cross streets, how to deal with peeking eyes and wandering hands.  Most important it will be a chance for talk about the past, about the change in her life from being on the street watching buses and autos to being on the bus, riding in the auto.  "What does she think about when she sees a child on the street, or a mother and child on the sidewalk, or beggars reaching in the windows?"

 

Shishur Sevay is about learning, about learning by the children, learning by us -- I think about this girl.  How many people walked past her and did not see her, did not help her?  She doesn't remember where she is from or the names of her family.  Now she has us, and this is the question:  What happens if we give the best to the child who is the worst?   We will learn.  But it's not just about outcome.  Everyone here is excited!  Everyone is filled with hope because we are not abandoning or giving up on the child who is so difficult.  "Mummy is sending her to a good school!!!!"  Shishur Sevay is also about hope, which at times can be contagious.

 

 

 

"Mummy, We want to have a meeting."

"Mummy, We want to have a meeting."  It was about seven last evening.  I was at the computer, several girls were doing homework in the room, on the couch, the floor... They whispered and I tried to find out what was going on.  They kept looking at one another, and then our oldest said quite determinedly, "Mummy, we want to have a meeting." 

"All of you?" I asked.  This was a first and I really was clueless, but I did know something important was happening.   The girls called the others, and then we all sat on the floor, eight girls and me.  I wished I could have gotten a picture.

Our oldest, Mother India, spoke for them all.  They had been afraid to tell me, but she convinced them we could all talk.  The gist is that a few of them have talked with the boy who lives in the house behind us.  I've written before about "Romeo" as I call him, because at one time staff was very upset that he watched them play in the garden, and there was an attempt to keep the girls inside all the time.  I had made light of it all, even putting on our picture wall a snapshot of him peeking out his window.  One afternoon last week he was blasting rock music when I was in the garden.  I called for him to turn it down, which he did right away.  This could have been anywhere in the world, except that in the US the music might have been turned higher in spite.

He has chatted with the girls, and they with him, and with his mother.  The boy and the mother both said our home is nice, that their mother (me)is good.  The girls said the boy was nice and he wanted them to refer to him as Dada, the term for brother.

I put them at ease immediately, telling them how happy I was that they came to me, and then telling them I thought they had done very well.  They want to call him Dada -- so fine.  I told them what would worry me.... if he used bad language, if he tried to get them to come outside the gate, and if he tried to touch them.  Until their incarceration in the government orphanage they had always lived also among boys and men.  I want them to be safe, and the best way is to give them skills, not isolate them behind walls.  We also talked about politeness, being friendly to neighbors, all of which is part of the culture in which they grew up...

We used to need a translator, but we are really fine on our own now.  Reasons for past meetings?  The first I recall was to dispel fears that I would die and leave them having to beg.  They didn't come to this on their own, but they heard all sorts of predictions about my leaving, everything from cancer to my deciding to leave.  So I took care first of the practical and explained about Wills and that there would be money to take care of them.  Then I told them there was no reason to worry, that my health was fine, and that I was here because I love them. 

I told again the story of my walking along a street in NY and hearing them call to me for help and how I'd said, "OK, I'm coming to find you!"  I tell them about selling my house and coming to Kolkata and telling the government I was looking for my girls, and then standing outside the institution and waving to girls behind the grilles, and waiting and waiting, and going to the government over and over, and praying to Kali and Sarmu to bring my children home.... and then their coming home to Shishur Sevay.  They love the story, a piece of their histories, a thread of empowerment, that they called to me and I came to find them.

 

Another meeting was for us all to talk about one of the girls who was disruptive, took things from others, and fought.  We worked out a plan, with her participation, and it worked for a while.... then we had another meeting.... and now things are quiet.  When I run out of ideas I ask them for help.

Teaching discipline, and self discipline are major priorities, but I also recognize that most of the girls were in charge of their lives, and that of their siblings at times.  So I respect their sense of autonomy while insisting they learn self control and restraint.  It's all about "attending to them" in the various forms they present -- much of it about cutting nails, helping with homework, admiring art work, watching them dance, settling disputes -- which is easy because I rarely understand so I just say babababa and send them away. 

 

Bababa is a very important word here.  It's what I use to describe what goes on in their minds when they are angry, out of control, can't study, are "bad." They tell me about their bababa.  When my kids from the US visited and some of the tension spilled out at Shishur Sevay, I just told the girls we were having bababa.  I told them everyone has bababa, and we have to learn what to do with it, how to manage it.

 

Walking to school a few days ago one of the girls told me about her bababa.  She had been failing all her math work.  I asked about whether she had bababa in her head and learned that she was feeling terrible about her looks, her dark skin, her eyes... so we talked about skin color, and prejudice, and stupidity, and how others try to hurt people.... Some bad stuff had been going on among the girls.  But also, a month ago when we went to visit a temple, some beggars there were pointing her out and talking about how dark she is.

 

When we got to school SeemaDi took my hand and showed her, brown and white, two hands, friends... and I reminded her of her two older didis, brown and white, sisters -- they love each other.

 

Truth?  She has not gotten a wrong math answer since!!!!!  I wish it were always so simple....  Her teacher is amazed... thinks she was holding back.  But no, it was bababa in her head.  That's the psychiatrist part of me here, as well as mother -- knowing a lot about bababa in your head and how it can intercept good thinking and good work.  I know.  It's part of what I love about being here with these children.  I want this to be a bababa-free-zone.

Ganga Wants to Dance

Ganga wants to dance.  Writing about Ganga is a strange experience because she cannot speak, and yet she seems to tell us so much.  As I've written before, when she came to us in February 2007 she could not lift her head or move her arms.  She did not make any sounds except crying.  Her only form of communication, other than crying, was pointing with her eyes, and her very expressive face.  She had less body tone than a newborn.  I've blogged about her befor, when she learned to use her hands to turn a page, when she and the others started school.

Ganga sits in on the dance classes.  She insists, arches her back and screams if the girls try to go upstairs without her.  She watches intently.  She watches the teacher intently.  She adores him and talks to him as he works.  He adores her.

 

 

Ganga almost always wakes with a smile on her face.  But one morning a couple of weeks ago, the morning after dance class, she slept later than usual, and when she woke she stared at me, looked around, and then her face got sadder and sadder, and she began to cry.  I asked her if she had been dreaming of dancing and she kicked her legs and waved her arms (affimative) and I talked to her about dancing in the sky, and flying, and everyone looking at her dancing.... and then it was a dream, and here she was.  She listened... rapt... and I told her she would dance one day, that we would find a way for her to dance.  She glowed, and then her eyes pointed to my cup of coffee and we had our morning coffee together before going off to school.

I sent a note to school that Ganga wants to dance, but they didn't respond.  They never do -- an ongoing battle I have with them.  My children can't tell me what they do in school.  I want to know.  I want some hint, some words we can use later in the day to create some continuity.  But at home, everyone was/is aware of how Ganga feels about dance and our teacher.  If she gets sleepy in class here the teacher tells her the dance teacher is coming and she wakes up immediately (I hate when they do this.)  Ganga now watches music and dance DVDs and VCDs the way she used to watch Damu and Charlie Chaplin.

Ganga tends to be physically lazy.  But now I've told her she has to work hard to get her arms working and she has made real advances in the last several weeks. 

Our dance teacher dreams of her dancing.   I actually dreamed one night she was dancing with him.  He was able to hold her up in the air and spin her because her body was limp.  She spun so fast she became almost invisible, like when a fan or airplane propellar spins and then slowed down and she could be seen again spinning....  Then in the dream the teacher told me she was very good.  In the morning I told her I'd dreamed she could dance.

On a practical level I'm thinking about a light weight "standing box" on swivels, open on the sides so her sari will be seen, but holding her up so she only has to use her arms and head, and eyes, and incredible smile.  I imagine the girls using her in the dance by moving the frame.  We will start with Ganga, for this is her passion, but these days we have all four watching, and will find ways for them to dance too.

Ganga's force of will helped get them all to school.  That force of will may have them all dancing. 

Rani, Bornali, and Sonali

Bornali and Ganga are like a pair... both with CP, competitive with each other, one outgoing, the other shy.  Bornali is the better student.  She is obedient, learns her lessons, quietly, and watches everything going on.  Today I showed the staff how she differentiates red and blue, can choose shoe or pen... many objects.  I have the massis doing more play with the childen and they love it -- kids and staff.  Bornali loves to follow Ganga, be where she is, do what she does.  She is much more physically able than Ganga and may eventually walk.  We are working at socializing her more.  We actually try to get her to watch TV.

Rani is also communicating more.  At school she is well behaved, unless she is in a bad mood, but then she just is quiet and moody.  Her behavior is good, which is amazing because for a long time she was our most difficult.  She has severe encephalopathy, but sometimes she seems so present, not just to me -- to all of us.  She and I communicate by "vocalizing" and tapping our hands over our mouths.. kids' play.  We sing to each other.  It feels so good when we connect.  She is intriguing.

Sonali, with her minimal sight (light and large images only) is our youngest, and most playful.  She is so determined, climbs on everything she cqn, is now able to sit on her own and pull heself up.  The teaches at school adore her. The afternoon I met her first, and had to decide (when i ended up saying i'll take any child you give me), I held her with her head just under my chin, wondering if she was conscious, if she even knew she was being held, and she squirmed a bit -- seemed to know she was being held -- and that's when I thought to myself, "Four sleepy babies, how much work can that be?"

We brought seven girls home that evening, including the four handicapped girls.  We were totally unprepared!  We had no diapers!  We had nothing!  Those were wild days, but it was wonderful to have them all -- still wonderful, for all of us.  As I told the big girls recently, "They are just like us, but they can't tell us what they think or want."  The big girls love having the little ones in their dance and song classes.  They want them to dance, they want to dance with them.  Everyone wants to dance, together.  This is our home; this is Shishur Sevay; this is our family -- of course, with their Didis and Dada in America.

 

 

Independence Day: An Orphan as Mother India

This was so exciting!!! One of our girls was chosen to be "Mother India" for her school's Independence Day function.  She earned the honor with her work, academically and socially.  She is our oldest, and I sometimes refer to her as the President of the girls.  She is their "Didi" in all ways.  When she and the others came to Shishur Sevay, they did not recognize a map of India.   

 

Those are our other girls dancing in front of Mother India, paying tribute to her.  We started costume preparations the day before, and I had much help early in the morning so we could leave before 7 am.  We brought Ganga along since she comes with them to school every morning, riding on my back. 

 

I tried to get a good group picture, which I guess I did.  But I was looking for a cute, everyone looks happy and easy picture.  When I look at the picture though, I see their toughness, their moods, the challenges in raising them.   

I tried again when we got home, but the picture wasn't much different.  We finished the program at their school just in time to pick up our handicapped children to take them to their school function.  By the time we got home it had been a long morning.

I see the full range of happy, sad, angry, defiant expressions, what they live with in themselves, what we manage in raising them and helping them to focus, learn, and grow.

I am so happy they have a country now, a country they know, one they sing songs about, a flag they draw over and over again in their notepads.  Today they went to SeemaDi's House to watch some of the Olympics.  They recognized the flag of India; they cheered for the boxer who represented India.

In the last year we were able to get them birth certificates, so they are credentialed citizens.  They are also forming their own sense of history and politics.  Today we were drawing, and talking.  They asked about the English... as they had seen a play of Indian soldiers shooting the English.  This was "loaded" as I count as "English" with my white skin and English language.  So I told them Independence was wonderful for India, and that the English had tried to boss everything, with emphasis on "everything."  I said I was very happy that India was an independent country now.  They were happy.  I'm glad they could ask.  I'm glad they are thinking about these things.

 

But that's who we are now, me and my twelve Indian girls, recognizing the vast cultural differences while sewing the bonds of love and trust stronger and stronger.

 

 

My Children Were Here

My children came to visit, my two daughters and my son-in-law. For my younger daughter this was her first time here since the children came, in fact her first time here in several years.  Since I'm still re-living the visit, day by day, photo by photo, it's hard to simply describe.  Some of it was hard, very hard, but our basic family bonds stayed intact -- stretched at times, challenged by this major change in my life, challenged by sharing me with 12 other children, and a life that consumes me at times, in spite of my attempts to have Shishur Sevay function without me.  Some systems worked.  But by the end of the visit we were on familiar and comfortable emotional territory with each other, and all looking forward to the next visit.  And by the end, there was a level of comfort among ALL my children....  My girls at Shishur Sevay had worried that I'd abandon them.   I think my adult children at times have felt abandoned.   As a mother, I'm a mixed bag of good and bad -- just how it is.

 

I feel more settled here now.  I realize I used to worry a lot about my kids back in the US, and seeing them left me more relaxed.  I feel freed by them, like permission to openly love and mother these children.  I also realized this is home.  Some part of me that I kept "on reserve" is now present.  I'm creating more systems for things I thought would just work themselves out.  I bought a lock box and I have each girl's school badge and ID card and hair things separated.  In the morning I give them out...  It's about intimacy -- about pinning belts, being more present, and recognizing what mothers learn, namely that no one else will ever care as much about how your kids look, whether their hair is combed, whether they eat their spinach.  It comes with the territory.

 

As for the administrative duties, the audit is completed.  We held the Annual General Meeting.  We are on good terms with the government.

 

And my room is once again a mess.

 

 

Saturday nights -- a late post

(I wrote this post Sunday 13 July but didn't get to post it.  I cleaned up until my kids arrived.  The room was clean for a day, well, half a day.)

 

Saturday nights have always been special in my life.  Saturday nights here I am usually alone with the children.  Our night massi needs a night off.  None of our day staff can easily stay, and bringing in someone new just for once a week is more work and disruption.  I also think it is good for us to be alone.  It's really pretty easy because i'm a big believer in the healing power of sleep, so I let them sleep in!

 

This morning I was the first up, made my coffee, and just sat looking at all of them.  I've written before that I love to watch children sleep.  I somehow feel honored -- all these children entrusted to my care, living in my nest -- my cup runneth over.

By seven, several are up.  Two older girls have taken the little ones, brushed their teeth, fed them -- our handicapped children can't eat on their own, or even tell us when they need to go potty.  So we have lots of routines to get them on the potty chairs, bathed, fed, and the girls can do all of this.  They would do it more, but school leaves little time.  This makes Saturday night and Sunday morning special to them.  One girl has already begun homework.

 

As for me, after my moments of peace and reflection, I fed the dog and the rabbits, dumped the garbage, and put up a load of laundry.Staff has arrived and I am able to take time to write.

 

There is a flow to life here.  The behavior problems are familiar.  The girls talk more.  The two who are sometimes out of control, each tell us they know they are being bad and can't stop themselves.  They are both very bright.  One girl hates herself when she is bad, and scratches her skin until she bleeds.  I give her time out, and have her work with staff.  She loves to clean and be helpful and needs the closeness with someone over work.  When she is ok she lets me know, and she goes back to class, or back to school.

 

The other difficult girl is very defiant at times, and simply refuses to do her work, here or in school. She really knows how to get everyone angry, with her feisty stance of defiance.  It's easy to forget what/who is inside.  But yesterday when I went to pick them up at school, she came running out crying, fell into my arms --- cried and cried.  The story -- she has a new friend in school.  That girl's father bent over a kissed our girl on the head -- as one does with a daughter.  But our girls have been abused, seriously abused, with every personal and sexual boundary violated.  Our oldest girl wanted to hit him, and said she would if he ever touched her again.  They protect each other.  So our tough little girl fell apart.  In the school yard I explained that what he did was wrong, but he was thinking of her as his daughter, but he was never to do this again.   

 

Sunday morning I cook breakfast with the girls.  We make French Toast, with green chilles (lonca) and we make enough for staff too.  This is a peaceful place.  For the most part all the girls get along.  There are no consistent groupings, no  consistent exclusions.  As I write, they are watching tv for a few minutes.  The art teacher came by to see if they were free this morning instead of in the afternoon.  He has gone now to have breakfast and will return for class.

 

I will work on cleaning my room.  I have been working on this for most of my lifetime.  I am not good on order in this sense at all.  I prefer procrastinating, writing, playing with kids, cooking.  But my daughters and son-in-law are coming to visit in three days!  I want the room to be clear for them to see, but I will probably  still be working on it when i leave for the airport to get them.  And how would they believe its my room anyway if it were clear?

Childlife Preserve: Shishur Sevay, the NGO

 

 

Childlife Preserve: Shishur Sevay is the name we gave to the organization when we filed formally with the West Bengal Government to receive our registration under the West Bengal Societies Act of 1961.  We wanted to have English and Bengali names.  Childlife Preserve is a play on Wildlife Preserve.   After I came back from a wildlife park in Assam, I thought about a place that protected children, like a preserve.  Shishur Sevay is Bengali and loosely means "in the service of children."

 

Founding and registering a society is similar to creating a non-profit in the US, and requires approval for all aspects and missions of the project.  Looking ahead, thinking about what the next generation might want to do, and thinking about young people I know, I decided to make it broad so we could encompass many areas of work. 

 

Below are listed the particulars that were approved by the government.  My single purpose was to create the orphanage, but the society structure allows for many other projects , in the future for which we can be an umbrella, (or incubator). Maybe there will never be more than what it is today, but the possibilies are there if the interest is there.  It's open-ended......  I like that.

 

From the MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDLIFE PRESERVE: SHISHUR SEVAY:

 

3.1.                    To provide food, shelter, primary education, primary health care and vocational training for orphan children in

West Bengal

so they may become independent and contributing members of the community.

 

3.2.                    To establish a home or homes for orphan children in

West Bengal

for the above mentioned purpose provided without any profit making motive.

 

3.3.                    To establish a non-formal school to educate orphans and destitute children in

West Bengal

.

 

3.4.                    To establish other services for orphans, abused children, and destitute children in the community irrespective of religion, caste, or class.

 

3.5.                    To provide educational, financial and other support necessary for orphan children in institutions and in the community.

 

3.6.                    To create a model of care of orphans as an alternative to institutionalization.

 

3.7.                    To organize meetings, workshops, tours, cultural programs, conference seminars, etc. for achieving or furthering the aims of the society.

 

3.8.                    To prepare and publish, articles, booklets, journals, news letters, bulletins, posters, web pages etc. to further the activities of the society provided without any profit making motive.

 

3.9.                    To undertake research, studies, documentation, and video documentation in order to raise and bring public awareness on social, cultural, and developmental issues.

 

3.10.               To undertake relief work and assistance for the benefit of the victims of natural and man-made disasters.

 

3.11.               To establish services, homes, education, and rehabilitation for destitute and abused women.

 

3.12.               To establish services, homes, and health care for poor and destitute old people.

 

3.13.               To directly undertake projects for social, economic, and cultural development of the disadvantaged.

 

3.14.               To undertake activities which would go toward establishing human rights of the individuals, children, the weaker sections, and the minority communities of the society.

 

3.15.               To provide legal aid support and build awareness on human rights of children, women, handicapped, destitute, and minority communities.

 

3.16.               To provide training  on social awareness of women, children, aged, handicapped, destitute, and other minority communities.

 

3.17.               To collaborate and co-operate with international and national agencies working for the upliftment of children, women, handicapped, aged, destitute, and other minority communities.

 

3.18.               To set up and manage crèches, non-formal schools, homes and other units which would directly assist different sections of the disadvantages.

 

 

The income and properties of the Society whatsoever derived or obtained shall be applied solely towards the promotion of the aims and objects of the society.  The Society will have no mission other than philanthropic activities and in no way be tantamount to running business activities to profit mebers of the Society.

 

 

For now we are what our kids march too sometimes;

 

Amar Barrie, Shishur Sevay

 

It means, "My house, shishur sevay."

 

 

We received our license!!!!!

For those who have followed this saga, you know what an achievement this is, and what a relief!!!!  And guess what, I'm not so tired!!!!

As for stuff wearing me down, the laptop could not be fixed, so I'm using an older back up one for now, and I was able to take the hard drive out of the broken one and keep the data.  The printer, after many false starts, finally went to the printer hospital, where I learned that mice had eaten the ink tubes, and that's why ink spilled out all over.  This was not covered by warranty, of course.

The audit is done!  This was another major achievement.  Now we are apreparing for our Annual General Meeting.  Creating the society, registering it, keeping up with the records needed-- all takes time, energy, and always new learnings for me.  In my next posting I'll write about the actual NGO we formed.

Typepad regularly sends out apologies for technical difficulties, but it remains cumbersome and slow, and I recommend it to no one.  But i'm here so I stay with it.  The apologies, made in the name of improved composing of blog entries, are as if that is only a minor part of blogging.  But the word processing or non-processing is a real obstacle.

The girls are fine, as usual.  They talk more and more about their pasts as their English and my Bengali improve.  My current staff really engages with them -- as the aunties i'd hoped for.  We have started English classes for the massis each day.

We kept alive a baby crow who had fallen from the nest.  It was doing so well, developed feathers, began to recognize us, and then died last night.  We just had a little funeral for it.  I dug a hole in the garden, near the back wall, and we stood and cried.  The girls had never seen me cry before.  I was quite close to Paki, as I called the bird.  Paki is Bengali for bird.  I have buried so many pets in back yards and gardens -- dogs I've loved, cats, gerbils, guinea pigs -- with monuments and prayers for safe journeys, and hopes that no one ever digs them up.  Paki is along the back wall, beneath two trees, where it is unlikely anyone will dig.  The girls want to plant flowers around the grave.  We will.  In some ways, life is the same everywhere, and so are children with their pets.

Sometimes I'm really tired

 

 The things that really wear me out:

My printer has spilled ink all over its base.  I put in a new cartridge and it seems to have spilled.  A red light blinks.  The printer doesn't print.  It is an HP Inkjet.  I bought it here on 5th June, 2007.  Therefore it is 11 days out of warranty.  I buy new cartridges all the time -- not refills.

My laptop died about a month ago -- needs a new motherboard.  I was able to take out the hard drive and put it in a casing.  I'm using an older laptop from the US.  I had it here but when it broke I had to find ways to get it to US as NO ONE will repair a computer if not from India.  The trouble is a friend tried to upload Explorer 7 and it loaded with an error I can't get rid of.  It's a standard error and there are pages of references about it online so it must be a common, and unfixable problem.  So I have to work around that. 

My virus program expired so I got a security program which included virus (the same brand).  I loaded the software but the key won't work.  I get error messages.  I sent them to the help desk.  They tell me to do things i already tried, and which don't work.  So, I"ve spent the money buying it online.  I can't get it to work.  Within the next seven days I MUST do something because the trial is running out for the one I bought.  That will take another day... a day when it feels like all I got done was to fix or play with the computer.

ON THE OTHER HAND... some very good things are happening.  Today we started English lessons for the massis.  They are so happy!  It will be 45 min a day, mid morning, when  other things can be put on hold, and before any kids come home.  The English teacher who teaches the children will teach them.  I really want this place to be good for everyone.  I finally have a very good team and last week I raised their salaries.  Sunday one of them brought her granddaughter for the day and will do so again.  For those with children and grandchildren, I help with school.  This is how I'd always imagined it.

 

 

Faces of Dance

The pictures never were posted -- I guess a combination of Typepad trouble and my internet trouble, but i just found out, so here are the pictures... Again!

 

  End

End

Days of Play

We had a quiet weekend, which is to say mostly we just hung out in the house -- well, what I mean is that the kids didn't have work to do -- well, what I'm really trying to do is defend myself from anyone who thinks I make the kids work ALL the time!  For many reasons, teachers were now here and some of the usual scheduled things didn't happen.  What do the girls do when they have unstructured time?

 

 

They play in the garden.  And you can see from the accumulated familiar plastic that we are well stocked in plastics.

 

 

They set up a classroom for the little ones.  They teach, and have fun with plastic.

 

Read the phone book?  She really enjoyed reading out the phone numbers.  But then she got more interested in playing with the rabbit.  Of course I had to take pictures:

 

 

 

The "Old Lady's" hopes and expectations

Well, I'm the "old lady" and it stings.  There is a Bengali term for old lady, used affectionately or insultingly... One of the girls was angry and called me "Boori" or something like that (Not bodie, which i know).    Children will say anything, and probably they have said worse to me and about me -- while I enjoy the ignorance of not knowing Bengali.  But this expression set off a chain because she took the phrase from what others (staff) had been calling me, and that led to other unpleasant terms, and my realization that my sense of isolation was not imagination, my sense and open complaints of disrespect were not unfounded.  I was the crazy old lady who thought I could do something with these children, and some people wanted me to fail, and to leave.  It is complicated and simple at the same time. 

At first i took the insult literally and said she would be lucky to be such an old lady at my age.... and that there was nothing wrong with being an old lady.  But that wasn't the point... and that was only one of the difficulties that came to the surface in talking with the girls.  Other staff had told the girls I was too strict, that I was ruining their lives, that i expected too much of them, that I was trying to make them forget Bengali (ignoring that I chose Bengali medium for our education)... and many other accusations which sink easily into the minds of children, especially when they are facing discipline, and a foreigner (a white lady) for the first time in their lives.

Some of my readers may believe i'm too strict.  There is no formula for what i'm doing.  Oddly i'm accused of challenging or violating the "culture" in how i'm driving the children academically.  But which culture, which Indian culture?  Is the the Indian culture of the educated who enroll their children in the best schools and then add hours of teaching after that?  Is it the Indian culture of the US, with which I'm most familiar, where Indian children study harder and longer than their American counterparts and do better.  The culture I am really challenging is one with low expectations and a sense of hopelessness in what can be done for these children, the culture for whom these are the throw away children.   And I am the old lady who thinks she can help them.  And I still refuse to beat them or allow others to beat them; I don't allow withholding of food, or pencils...

So, for the record, what are my hopes and expectations... What do I want for these children, who I now call mine?

1. I want them to be educated enough and well-behaved enough to have choices in how they live.  If you are mad at your boss, whether she is a principal or a cleaning supervisor, you cannot call her an "old lady" and expect to keep your job.  You also cannot throw books at your boss, or simply tell them they can't make you do something.  They can't make you do something, but they can fire you.  I dont fire the kids, so I just tell them l/we will have to slug it out until I win.  They will be well-behaved eventually.

2. I want them to value personal connections and whatever sense of family they have.  If they marry, I want them to be good wives and daughters-in-law, but if they are ill-treated they can come home. 

3. I want them to manage issues of sexuality, to which they have been much too exposed.  One of our girls loves to dance in pure Bollywood style.  My goal is for her to have a good life, in whatever way she can, but NOT to end up dancing in a cage in Mumbai.  She is gullible.  She could go off with a stranger.  I tell her about the cages.  I have to.  My girls are prey.

4. I want them to experience a stable life now, with enough food, with education, with good health.  If they choose or feel forced into the life they came from, I believe they will want better for their children.  These girls are full of doubt about their own worth.  They know they were discarded.  They have been used in all sorts of ways. There is no way to feel good about that.  Sometimes they are, and will be, self-destructive.  They all wish their lost siblings could have this life.  So some of their rebellion and pain comes from guilt -- that they have what their siblings don't... the guilt of the survivor.  They have too much on their minds.  They have begun to write stories and poems.

5. Coming to specifics, we have one or two potential nurses, technicians, maybe a doctor or lawyer,,, maybe a teacher or two.... one mathematician, a couple totally unskilled, but hopefully experienced in working with handicapped children... specialized "unskilled".   We have potential artists, dancers, musicians, actresses.   I expect a few weddings.  Remember, it's only been 14 months.   We don't know, and can't know.

I started by saying the insults sting, just cuz that's how life is.  I used to complain that no one was telling me what was happening.  It was true.  it was more about me than i'd realized.  But with all that, I have to come back to the present moment.  I am where I want to be;  I am doing what I want to be doing.  It has been very hard.  It will always be very hard.  There is no formula, only purpose and effort.

I have come through many battles.  It has been hard on my kids, my two daughters and son-in-law in the US.  They are upset when I tell them, and worried when I don't.   We are at a new plateau, a level of openness, as I prepare for their visit in July.

When I was undergoing chemotherapy I lost all my hair, and my husband told me I looked like an old man.  So I'm reminded of his words, and of my trusting people who feel so free to try and hurt me.  I wrote a poem:

 

Hair, Hair, Everywhere

Hair hair, everywhere

Floating down the drain,

Guess its time to shave what’s left.

I look like an artist!

I look European!

I look like a baby,

I look like an old man – but with pretty hanging earrings

Please, just look at the earrings,

Try to ignore the rest.

MH

November 18, 2000

I keep thinking of what we tell each generation of children about insults:  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  What a lie.  Words can break our hearts and our spirits, and sever the ties that bind us  They can take up residence in our minds, and serve of constant reminders that we are not safe, loved, or protected.  My children have so many words in their heads.  I don't expect them to disappear.  I do hope the girls can find balance, other words, good words that balance, that also remind them of who they are and what are their possibilities.  We need to create the "Old Lady's List" of words and ideas that give them strength, words that build and soothe and shore them up against the insults they already hear inside.

 

 

 

Meet Jelly, our new watchdog

The girls have wanted a puppy for a long time.  I've held off for several reasons.  One, is that dogs are not clean.  Their feet are like shoes -- carrying in all the germs.  Two, I have my hands full and didn't want another creature to worry about. Three, I miss my dog Rupee terribly, and even though she is happy where she is, with a family she loves and who love her, I couldn't face having another dog.  It felt/feels disloyal, and still makes me tear up just thinking about her.  So that's probably the real reason.

Streets here are full of dogs roaming.  We see puppies all the time.  One pup across the street from the school used to follow our girls into the school yard.  I held out.  Well, close to our house, in the lane just off the road, was a funny looking big eared black mother dog, and one of her pups who looked just like her.  I thought to myself, "now that's a puppy I wouldn't want.  She is so funny looking with her big ears."  About a week later this funny looking pup ran out in front of a truck and I yelled at the driver and he stopped just in time.  The pup wandered off, oblivious.  Then last week she came to our house, limping, with a handkerchief on her paw, covered with blood, and a bloody cut on her head.  We learned she had been hit by a scooter.  A neighbor had put the handkerchief on her paw and called the pet-line.  They come out at night and pick up injured animals.  The girls looked at the pup, and looked at me, and I said I would take care of her, and that we could keep her.  The pet-line people didn't show up so I took her to the vet, who sewed up her leg.  The girls named her Jelly. 

Jelly is a timid puppy.  The people who feed the street dogs say she is "not normal" and that she used to faint a lot.  They also agree she is not smart, which is why she has to be protected.  Our taking her has actually eased some local tensions.  Some people who have never spoken to me (or responded when I said hello) now ask how she is.  It seems important that my care extends to a street dog.  Jelly likes the food she got on the street, chicken and rice, to our usual vegetarian fare, so the neighbors still bring her some food when they make the rounds.

Jelly licks her bandage and nibbled at the loose gauze, but never tried to remove it.  She chews, but gently.  She chases flies and mosquitoes, and once barked at a cat passing by. I love just quietly sitting with her. I reflect on now having the dog I said I'd never want because she was so funny looking.  Irony is one form of order in the Universe.

Academy of Fine Arts

One day last week I saw a notice in the paper about a photo exhibit at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata.  I've been there a couple of times for functions.  The exhibit was closing in three days.  That meant either I go that afternoon or miss the show altogether, and I wanted to see it.  But I also thought the kids might like it, and they hadn't been there.  So, last minute, I talked to the teacher and instead of class we went off to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Driving along on the the streets, well, stuck in traffic actually, we saw a mother putting a sheet of plastic down on the pavement and putting her young child down and then sitting.  The girls all saw, and I asked what they thought.  One of them said, shyly, "My mother did that.  I lived this way."  I asked how the girls felt, and they all agreed, "Sad."

Between the curbside and the entrance were many posters of plays, concerts, and other art shows.  The teacher and the girls read the placards, and talked about what we might go to in the future.    For the teacher, this was a first also.

The photo exhibit did not hold much interest but we wandered into the other galleries.  We saw different forms of art, and met several of the artists.  With each artist, I asked them to explain in Bengali what they thought about when they did their art, how it happened.

I never know how the pictures will appear in the blog, in terms of placement, but I don't want to put them in separate albums -- I prefer the one click read.  So, you can see from the pictures, the variety of art.  One picture, with a girl looking sad caught their attention.  One girl said, "crying, crying" and the others came over.  I asked the artist to tell them why he painted this picture, what he was thinking.  He explained to them in Bengali that he was thinking about her being poor, and her thinking about being poor... they connected, art in the mind, art on canvas.   

The girls quickly also learned that if they pointed out a "favorite picture" I would take a picture of them in front of it.  There were lots of "favorites."

No trip is complete without ice cream, but even after the ice cream they read all the signs, posters, as we waited for Bijoy to bring the car. 

School begins at Indian Institute for Cerebral Palsy

  From the top: Sonali, Bornali

Rani  

Ganga

All four started school this month.  Sonali is in Nursery and the other three is Class I.  All four have adjusted and are distinguishing themselves with their varied personalities and styles of interactions. 

The logistics of transport and preparation, packing clothes and lunches, extra clothes, keeping track of what days they have hydrotherapy (MY favorite activity), etc. are part of why April disappeared.  They all go at the same time, but Sonali comes home earlier.  And then there are the older girls and their schedules, but fortunately they were on break most of the month.  They take turns coming to help pick up the little ones at two.  They love this, and the little ones love seeing their didis there to meet them.

The teachers share almost nothing of what goes on, which I find difficult to accept.  From their perspective they don't want to be bothered by parents asking questions and taking up their time.  "If we talk to you we have to talk to all the parents!"  Those of you who know me, know where this is going.  I am the kind of parent every school Principal purports to want but not one really wants in their school.  Added to that is what I've learned in India, that "A teacher is higher than a parent," and I go into "I'm facing a brick wall" mentality and I'm not good at that.   And anyway, since I have four kids in their school, and I'm paying full price, no concession for siblings or charity, I figure I'm a good customer and if they talk to me they save having to talk to three other parents too.

It struck me the first day, that when we pick up our verbally articulate children from school, they can tell us what they did, how they were, what they liked and disliked.  They can tell us who they played with, what colors, letters, words they learned.  Their language communication bridges their lives at school with their lives at home.  With non-verbal children, the experience as a parent is much more like daycare, leaving off an infant and depending on staff to tell me what the day was like.  The afternoon teacher can't continue on themes, strengthen skills, knowledge, because she has no idea what the children were learning and doing.

There is a diary where I'm supposed to write questions, and I have made entries, but the responses take a week or more and are non- substantive.  This institution is one of the premier centers in India and trains professionals and non professionals throughout India.  They are known for their rigidity though.  I'm not a single case at all.  But I'm probably the only one blogging about it.

I have a past history with this institution which may also affect the tension between some of the experts and me.  About four years ago I funded this institution to do evaluations and develop care plans, with goals and objectives, for the handicapped children at Sabera Foundation.  The children were the left overs from when International Mission of Hope closed -- the ones who were not and would not be adopted.  I felt a certain responsibility for the children left behind as the orphanage where my daughter came from closed its doors.  Many of the old staff were now at Sabera, as well as the handicapped children.

I'm the kind of donor every institution/NGO purports to want, the one who doesn't just give money but gets involved.  So I'm also the kind of donor no one really wants... because I had some disagreements over the conclusions.  They developed the plans based on "efficiency" of care, while the staff, who had been taking care of these children (some in their teens) since their infancy.  Efficiency meant job loss, and efficiency meant giving up the very personal and nurturing roles they had with "their" children.  It may have been more efficient to have one person bathe all the children, but each massi liked bathing "her" children... and why not?  There was no place anyone was going... they were there for the day, no classes for kids, no reason to be "efficient."

I have also learned over time that in this culture, disagreement is considered bad manners.  Arguments are common; discussions more difficult, and quickly become personal.  So I really do try to shut up early -- but not about wanting to know what my kids did all day.  IICP is stuck with me, and I with them... And of course, like elsewhere, no one really knows what to make of me.

So, the little ones are in school until 2.  They have lunch at school but rarely finish, so we just have lunch ready for them when they get home.  Then they get a trip to the potty chair, a shower, and a short nap -- if they fall asleep.  At four, the special education teacher arrives and is with them until 7.  The trained caretaker is here 4-8 also.  Some evenings the physiotherapist comes, and sometimes the speech therapist.  One evening the speech therapist was here with them until 10:30 but I fell asleep on the mat at 10.  We try to get physiotherapy and speech therapy three times a week each. Sometimes the therapists come on the weekend.

Then of course there are the other eight girls, and their lives and schooling, which I'll write about more.  But I do have to tell you that seven passed; one of our girls was third in the class, and today I filled out their admission cards for Class II.

More happened, which I'll write about over time.  I remain so much at peace, happy that I am here, that they are here, that we found this little place to be together.  They smile.  I smile, a lot!

People who help us...

The school assignment was "People who help us" and the girls had to dress and act the parts of various people who help us in the community.  The pictures are from the practice, dress rehearsal the evening before as we could not be there for the performance.  Actually this was part of the year- end examinations so they were graded.  I present "People who help us" as played by girls at Shishur Sevay.

Holi in Kolkata

The Festival of Colours...  celebrated this year on Friday 21st of March by Bengalis, and the following day by non-Bengalis.  Note the reference point  -- Bengalis and others...  I don't know what to call the "others" who happen to comprise most of the population of India.

Pictures from our Holi celebration, which is really a drenching in water and dyes.  The girls wore the running shirts from the various races and marathon brought here by my kids when they last visited.  As I've written before, I'm not sure of how the order of these will come out, and i won't even bother to try for captions, but if I put these in Album, they are harder to find....

Holi at Shishur Sevay: