Shishur Sevay

Teacher’s Day, 5 September 2007 — We are guests at the school.  Children offer flowers and cards to their teachers.  Some recite poems; one little girl dances and sings.   She becomes lost in her sound and movement, and finally must be reminded to end.  Everyone laughs, but it is kind laughter.  Our girls perform twice, dancing with flair, still clearly beginners. 

For Teacher’s Day there is a handwriting contest for Class I and an art contest for Class IV.  One of our girls takes first place, and another third in the handwriting contest.  I am so proud of them. To me this is better than a thousand fine dances! 

Boot camp was the model in my mind, no time to feel sorry or "make up" for what they had lost.  They HAD to become literate, and it had to happen quickly as the school year was starting in only two months.   So boot camp it was… four hours of class in the morning and then three hours in the afternoon.  Three evenings a week they also had classical dance. I hired teachers and college students as the girls had no idea of what studying meant.  They had to be taught one on one.

Some people thought i was being too hard on the girls, expecting too much, not giving them any choices (how many of us really give our children a "choice" as to whether they want to learn?).  So i wrote on the blackboard one day, in big letters, "CANCER."  You don’t ask a child with cancer if they want chemotherapy.  For these children, illiteracy is a cancer.

I had another reason too for keeping this grueling pace.  What else was I to do with these girls?  We didn’t share language; in the absence of structure they bickered and whined. it’s not as if i could tell them to go read a book!

One day when they were all being particularly moody and difficult in class I had a talk with them — through Gibi of course.  I waved my arms a lot and jumped around to make my points.  I told them, "Before you came to the government home and then to us, your lives were very difficult and a lot of bad things happened.  But also, you mostly could do what you wanted.  If you didn’t like one train you hopped on another.  if you didn’t like one station you went to another.  No one told you when to sleep, or eat, or what to do."  Then waving my arms even more, I said, "But now you are on a train you can’t get off!!  And, you have to sit in the seats!!!!!" I paused, and stared intensely at each one of them, "No one is getting off this train, and this train is going to education and jobs and a better life.  You are STUCK!" 

it hasn’t been easy and still isn’t always easy.  Some teachers have not lasted.  Others have put all their energy into the effort, which is why the children can read.  In the beginning I did some of teaching of Bengali. I know the alphabet; I can count to ten and do simple math, but the kids have now totally surpassed me. The girls and i struggle to communicate with my limited Bengali and their beginning of English.  And when we get stuck we just say, "Babababababababa" which means just that… and shrug.  Or we hunt for Choto Ma or Bijoy to help us out.

As I write today, on a relaxed Sunday afternoon, the girls are watching a Bengali DVD of Thakurma Jolie, who recites children’s tales of talking animals and witches and people good and bad.   These days the girls DO come looking for books to read. They share coloring books and crayons.  They work on puzzles.  As i write two girls are helping to squeeze oranges for juice for the little ones.  Two are sitting on the floor next to my laptop, practicing handwriting.  Boot camp is over.

August 15th is Independence Day in India.  Our girls danced in the school program.   At other Independence Day celebrations I’ve been a guest, or speaker, or sponsor.  But this time I was a parent, rushing the kids out the door because WE got the time wrong,  pinning sashes so they wouldn’t fall of their shoulders as the they danced, and taking pictures (always).  Gibi arrived in time to cue them from the sidelines. 

They danced just fine.  Always looking to be sure we were watching, they concentrated on holding their fingers in the right positions, tapping their feet at the right time, turning right, or left or kneeling when they should.   They danced with gusto and with pride; they felt glorious.

To celebrate Independence Day means to understand you are part of a country with a history, with a pride, with songs and stories, and great leaders whose names you hear over and over.  Our girls came to us with only vague concepts of India.  None of them could identify India on a map, or understand that Bangladesh and Pakistan were countries that bordered India.  Now they know our home address, the city, the state, the country.  India on the map has a unique shape with special meaning to them now. Time, Place, and Person, the three major criteria of awareness in the mental status examination.  Today our girls know about calendars and about countries, cities, communities.  But "person" or "who I am" remains elusive. 

Remember, they are orphans, so their pasts have to be reconstructed with bits of information, bits of memory.  Some came without names or ages, so before they began school we practiced names and ages, and how to respond when other children, or teachers, asked about their families.   

Part of the community, and outsider too — this is the duality of their lives, now and probably throughout their lives.  They are insiders until certain questions come up, and then they are outsiders.  To the extent that we, the founders, can be part of the community, their acceptance increases.  But always there is a point of separation, the moment they are asked,

What is your mother’s name?

What is your father’s name?

Do you have any sisters or brothers?

Where are you from?

Our girls have no birth certificates.  They cannot prove who they are, or even that they are citizens of the country whose independence they celebrate.

Amader Meye’ra
Floating in the darkened night,
Wailing to come home.

"Our girls"  that’s what Amader Meye’ra is in Bengali.  Like everything else about Childlife Preserve: Shishur Sevay, these words are a combination of English and Bengali….

First came the words, and then the picture — or maybe together…. the outside wall of Shishur Sevay in April 2006 when we bought the house — and then the words, as time went on and we faced obstacle after obstacle, and yet i felt the girls’ presence — my children out there — frightened, waiting, wailing.  I put together the words and the picture.  Here was the address where I was waiting for them.  I showed it to people, like opening my heart… but I think mostly people just smiled politely — and I understand that.

But that’s how it felt, like the girls were out there already waiting, that all of this was predestined, that i had to understand that each obstacle, each delay, would still bring us to the place where the "right" assortment of us would all be together at Shishur Sevay.  Sometimes it was hard to remember this.

It was like this when I adopted, 23 years ago — waiting for the child I knew i was to mother, naming her so she could find her way back to her name, and thus to me.  Now at Shishur Sevay, I was waiting.  I renovated, added a room, made the house more beautiful.    I secretly sprinkled glitter into the cement as the roof was being poured.  I wanted the roof to sparkle in case the children were coming by flying elephant.  I wrote a story once about Sarmu a flying elephant who brought children home to their mothers.  Always I heard my children calling.

Sarmu and Ma Kali brought them home.