Volunteering

We spent 4 mornings with Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa's organization). They run an orphanage in Old Delhi. We ended up walking over from our hotel with a family from Switzerland. They had adopted their daughter at the orphanage 12 years ago. The sister in charge wasn't there when we visited the first day so we went the next morning. The kids were having their hair brushed and I asked a nun if we could volunteer with them, explaining that I had called from Dubai a month ago. She said to go in and teach the kids something and she would find the sister superior. The kids were very excited to see us. They smiled and grabbed our hands. There were about 13 kids about 5 or 6 years old. In order to 'teach them something', I decided to sing some camp songs with them. They loved 'Bananas Unite', 'the Beaver Song' ( there are some fun sound effects in this song: chchch), 'head,shoulders,knees,and toes' as well as the hokey pokey. We also taught them 'Duck, duck, goose' which took a bit of practice. We noticed that if the kids weren't choosing one of us as the goose, they were choosing a kid sitting beside one of us. They were very sweet kids who loved our attention. We asked the nuns how the kids came to them and they said sometimes the police would bring them. They said the kids are often adopted by Indians and by international couples. They said that some of the kids were going to be sent to a special orphanage because they had learning difficulties, speech difficulties, or, as they put it, "one screw loose". The nuns knew a lot about the kids and showed them a lot of love. There were also some young ladies who are paid to help take care of the kids. The didn't speak much English, but were very nice. We read the kids some books and the ladies would practice their pronunciation. The ladies were also an asset when we taught the kids 'duck, duck, goose' as they understood what was supposed to happen and explained to the kids in Hindi. We realized the hard way, the next day, that they were also keeping the kids in line. So day 2, we arrived pretty tired and the kids went a little crazy. With no way to discipline them or explain what we wanted from them (because the nuns and the helper ladies left us with the kids on our own), we felt a little lost. We took them down to the basement so that we would have more room to play 'duck, duck, goose', but they wanted to play with the toys they had down there. We took them out to their little playground and played a bit of catch. We had to get one of the nuns to help us to get them to come back inside for some ending of our day songs. We decided to come back more prepared the next day. So, after a long nap, we went in search of some colouring books. On our way, we met a traveller with a small guitar. He sold it to us for a good price happy to be helping the kids out. He turned out to be a lot like my brother A.J. Not just because he had started drinking the water in India, traveled with a small guitar, and had wounds on his legs that wouldn't heal, but also because he was very kind, open-minded, and easy to talk with. Anyways, we found some crayons, colouring books and connect the dots (which we got the hotel to photocopy for free!). We felt like we had a couple more days' worth of activities. The next day, when we got there, the kids were working on their printing. We sat with them, helped them, and drew/wrote some examples in their scribblers. We showed them how our names were written and learned a few of theirs: Pinky, Teena, Ajay, and Asus. It wasn't uncommon for me to glance over and see kids climbing on Brandon, pointing at the items on his t-shirt, or linking arms with him while they wrote. When we set them up later with their connect the dots, Brandon's table had all the boys at it. After writing practice, we sang some songs and the kids were totally mesmerized by the 'geetar'. Many of them imitated the motions of Brandon's guitar playing.
They loved the connect the dot even though many of their pictures didn't quite look like a rabbit. The ears were a little squiggly on some. The girl with cataracts wanted me to show her exactly where to draw her lines. The nuns, who had dropped in, told the kids "botacha!" (very good) when they presented their drawings. They told us to leave our address and they would send us a Christmas card. They said they would pray for us (I felt like I'd just received the best offer ever) and asked that we would pray for them.
Our final day passed just as easily as the third. Brandon gave all the kids a turn to strum the guitar. Only Asus had a tough time waiting in the line we set up. The kids loved strumming the guitar and Asus starting singing a random song, so Brandon played the chords for Twinkle, Twinkle. There was a new little boy about one and a half who joined us. He ran into the room, smiling at me, and put his hands up to be held. I picked him up and gave him a big hug. He did the same thing with the nuns and loved to be held. He laughed and smiled the whole time. He also did some side to side swaying as well as marching to the music. I'm not sure why he was there on the last day, (all the rest of the really young kids stayed upstairs) but I think I will often remember his joy and ability to reach out and love.
(I don't have pictures because there was a sign that you could only take them with permission.)