Mangos and Fevers

Tonight, I am angry with India. Tonight, a little boy is going to bed alone with a fever. He has no one to look after him but the teasing shoves of the five boys who share is dormitory room.

As the children stood around the trash tonight, juice from hot-sweet mangoes dripping down their chins and arms and falling from their dusty elbows, I noticed Sakthivel sitting by himself. I went over and almost before sitting down, I could feel the heat of a fever radiating off his skin--a fever is a dangerous thing when the weather is already close to 100 degrees each day.

I help Sakthivel find a clean shirt amid his messy trunk which holds all his possessions--mostly threadbare clothes. He is quiet, pensive--a sick little boy in the middle of a country that refuses to give him a mother, a father, a family. The children's home model is a common one--parents and relatives with no safety net, send children they are unable to care for to live in homes like SEAMs.

As I sat silently beside Sakthivel, I felt the hard, pulsing sting of tears behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw and put a comforting hand on his little, threadbare shoulder. He looked up at me with gentle eyes and I found it harder to keep the tears hidden inside my own eyes. I wanted to lay a cool washcloth on his forehead. I wanted him to know someone was worrying about him. I wanted to be there if he woke in the night and I wanted to make him breakfast after the fever broke

Later, finally alone in my room, I let all the ocean of salty-sad tears fall. I'm not just crying for Sakthivel, though. I'm crying for all the lonely children of India, and though my eyes will eventually dry, I know my heart is constantly crying for change, for the dreams of these children and their fevers and their tired, dusty feet.

Sakthivel (L) and his little brother Monickam (R)

Painting India

This past week, I've spent each afternoon painting the dormitory at the SEAM children's home. In the monotonous, buzzing heat, each brushstroke covers up more of the grime that has pressed into the walls. It's been four years since the walls were painted. Four years of dreams, nightmares, hopes and disappointments pressed by small greasy hands onto the walls as the children drift to sleep in the almost liquid, humid air. Four years of finding their way by feel along the walls in the middle of the night. Four years of balls bounced off the sides, leaving sticky Chennai dirt and city exhaust from the thousands of auto-rickshaws, cars, motorcycles and trucks that thunder past each day.

In the hours of painting, I've reflected on the past four years and the difference my first trip to India made in my life. It's been just a little over four years since I came to this country for the first time. I was abroad on the Global Semester with twenty six classmates, and I arrived with just under the acceptable weight of luggage and a heart ready to change forever in this hot, tumultuous country. I was slipping into love with Chris as we spent lazy afternoons talking about home and I was slipping into love with India as I watched children beg food and money from tourists on the streets of Mumbai and Bangalore.

Just like the walls at the dorm, I've painted India over many parts of my life. I've worked hard and saved money for two years to come back to this country where I've left pieces of my heart with all the children I've met. The family that has been working alongside me this past week leaves today and said goodbye to the children at SEAM last night. As the kids sang a song and thanked each person, tears came to my eyes, imagining the heartache of tearing myself from them next Friday before I head home.

As I continue to explore and try to understand the complex culture of caring for the orphaned and poor children here, I am continuously painting my life with their joy, their loneliness and their needs. Trying to put the needs of children here over my own desires in the U.S. is not always easy, but as I watch them scamper around playing cricket and jump-rope in their dusty courtyard and see their hard, hot beds and their soft, knowing smiles, my heart breaks and I know there has to be something more.

Home Again

As I sit under the drifting halo of my mosquito net and reflect on the past few days in Chennai, India, my heart is full. It is full of the love of a country I have come to know intimately, but which constantly surprises me. It is full of the children peaking out from the creases of their mothers Saris as a family of four races along the congested street, all on one motorcycle with no helmets in sight. My heart is full of the smell of garbage, heat, cows and joy and full of the colors of brown cows in the road, jet black dogs sleeping in corners and the cheerful, sometimes lonely eyes of the kids I get to spend the next two weeks with.

On my third day here, I finally feel settled and rested. Twenty-seven plus hours of travel, overnights on planes trying to sleep sitting up and too many meals served on trays, exhausted me on my way here. Now that I've exhaled the airplane air and inhaled dirt, grime, heat and pure fascination I am ready to continue this third adventure in a country that feels just as much like home as my own bedroom in Minneapolis.

This morning was a visit to the school I'll be helping at for at least this first week of my stay. We met the principle, a very kind, gentle and excited man who was clearly thrilled we were there to help. We then went around to the classrooms (7 in all) and met the kids. They stared at us with large brown eyes and chimed "Good Morning Missus" in unison.

The afternoon was spent speckling ourselves with white and pink paint as we re-finished the children's dorms at SEAM Children's Home--a place for orphaned and poor children to live and go to school. The best part of the sweaty, messy afternoon was the look of appreciation on the faces of the girls who saw us finishing up their dorm room when they came home from school. Our day ended with games of cricket, table pool played with coins in a wooden board and lots of hugs and struggles over our attention from the kids.

I am happy to report that tonight's shower might have been the best shower ever taken by anyone, ever. However, despite my cleanliness, I am now sweaty all over again after washing my laundry in a bucket.