Shishur Sevay

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 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.

 

 

(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 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.”