There is no real way to describe the day to day events since there really isn't such a thing as a 'normal day' at the orphanage, aside from the guarantee of several nap times and several sessions of outright baby mayhem. Random and bizarre events are more the norm, and one day last week was particularly strange.

To feed the babies, usually a giant bowl of rice-and-something (lentils, yoghurt, some liquidy vegetable concoction) is divvied up between several of the older kids, us and/or Sumathy if she is around. We normally have four or five of the kids 3 years old and younger per person and feed them as long as they will sit still by scooping the mixture into their mouths. We had a hard enough time feeding ourselves this way at first, so the poor kids get to wear a lot of the rice by the end of the feeding. I like to think we've improved somewhat. Anyway, immediately after the dinner frenzy Kate and I (Becca was sick) were called over by this older man who lives in the neighborhood. He was an original freedom fighter with Gandhi and is well-respected in the area. He wanted us to come to a 'function' across the street, where two young women were celebrating their coming of age party. Covered in rice remnants and strongly warned by Ranjith and Sumathy several times not to drink the water or eat the food, we walked over in what we were wearing (me in a salwar kamiz, Kate in a beaded floor length skirt and a long t shirt). We were warmly greeted by the father of one of the girls and smiled at by all of the women at the party. We made the usual whimpering noises through our smiles that we make when we have no clue what to say or do but want to make the right impression. The two girls were dazzling in new bright sari's, covered in garlands of flowers and adorned shiny jewels dangling from their wrists, ankles, foreheads and noses. They knelt and bowed at the feet of the older man who brought us there, a sign of respect by 'dusting' the dirt off of his feet. The father said to us, "You do us great honor by coming here and giving them your blessing" and before we knew it, they were kneeling at our feet. This felt entirely awkward and inappropriate to our politically correct, liberal-minded Western upbringing, and we started to back away and say 'No, no' but they were already on the ground. Kate and I looked at each other, laughing with nervousness. Then the girl kneeling at Kate's feet started to stand, catching her headdress on the edge of Kate's skirt. Kate squealed as her skirt started to go above her knees, and both she and the girl turned bright red as they tried to disentangle the beads of Kate's skirt from her jewelry. Everyone at the party found this entirely hilarious, and Kate and I, out of breath from laughing, said goodbye, bowed and walked home marveling at how strange it was that our lives had led up to this moment. But then again, we have said that nearly every day that we've been here.

The blood results are back: All negative on the HIV and Hepatitus!

School days

The days have been flying slowly by, to use a play on words, and we are realizing our time here is winding down to an end. We still have enough time to fill our lifetime quota(yah right!) of nose wiping, mess cleaning and random other baby tasks but to just be with the kids is coming to a close. It's something we knew would hit hard but even with a month left, its hard to face the inevitable end!
But to get to an exciting part, we used the last bit of the donation fund to allow 4 of the kids to attend school! The children start school at the tender age of 3 and are thrust into learning english, addition and subtraction, basic sentence structure, etc. It's amazing what they need to know even to get in! Ali and I went through the admission process with Ranjani, Subash, Bharthi and Sharda, which consisted of them sitting in front of an administrator and answering questions about objects, all in english. These children DO NOT speak english at all, except for the few phrases we were told to teach and numbers/months/alphabet. They were scared to death, barely opening their mouths to breathe a word, but the teacher saw potential and allowed them in. We were all so excited and relieved because failure to get in would mean another year of waiting before admissions open again. However, after all that, the school would not allow the students any monetary concessions and were charging each child Rps 25,000 to attend, roughly
$625. Obviously, money is a bit of an issue for so many children so Sumathy and Ranjith found another school that accepted their previous admission and charged only Rps 11,000 each ($275). The school has a great reputation and though it is a bit farther away, the education the children will receive is worth it.
Sumathy and Ranjith personally give a huge internet "THANK YOU" to all who donated before we left and after we got here. All the money has been put directly towards the children's benefit, Susan and I made sure of that, and the impact every dollar has made is tremendous. So thank you again from Susan and I for the support you have given us this entire time. The experience has been so extremely rewarding, even at the most trying of times! A special shout out to Natasha Latta for her amazing package filled with goodies for the kids, those puzzles and flashcards are perfect and will be well used. Another big thanks to Laurie Irwin for her package of baby wipes, coloring books and miscellaneous toys. These children receive the gifts like its Christmas and love hearing about people from home and seeing pictures on the internet.
There is so much happening every day and so many stories to share, it's almost impossible to record it all. One of our favorite things, though, is taking 11-yr-old Venkej (i'm impossible with spelling the kid's names right!) with us when we go to the store or wherever. The children rarely get time out so when they do, it is all new. We went shopping last night for some groceries and allowed him his very own pack of bubble gum and an ice cream. Oh man, his face was priceless! He couldn't stop smiling the whole way home. Becca took some of the children to the hospital for check-ups this morning and he accompanied her. The highlight? Riding the elevator up and down, up and down, up and down..... things we take for granted! His favorite American slang is "fo'shore" with a head nod and fist pound. We are teaching them well :)

Back at Balagurukulam

This is our second day back after our two week break up north, and we had an exciting trip to the hospital this morning. Last night Sumathy told us to be up at 6 am to bath and dress 11 of the babies, and to be ready to depart at 8. Baby mayhem ensued, as usual. The infants have been moved down to the main dormitory, where all of the other kids sleep, and so it was extra messy waking up the babies and dodging all the extra waste piles that accrued in the night. Apu, one of the youngest at 10 months or so, was sitting in a constellation of bright yellow mounds of poop, but didn't start crying until I picked her up out of it and Becca dumped cold water on her head in the shower. We got them all ready but then had to sit for about an hour before the taxi showed up.

The hospital was nice, much better than the "Emergency Room" I visited with Sumathy a few weeks ago where we took one of the kids to get an injection of some kind for their cold. Becca, Kate and I took turns watching smaller groups of the kids in a waiting area while they were whisked off to get X-rays done, visit with the doctor, and have blood drawn for HIV, Hepatitus and TB tests. Not surprisingly the last one wasn't terribly pleasant. The other half of the babies had their tests done the day before, and somehow they knew the results the day after. I was a little confused since I didn't think that HIV test results came back so quickly, but didn't have much time to think about it since Sumathy whispered it to me while we were pinning Rupa to the table for her injections. She also said that the family doctor who had visited at the orphanage suspected that two or three of the kids might have HIV. Shortly after telling me that, the nurses screwed up by poking Rupa two times before getting the needle in a vein. I was holding her body still and standing over her head, trying to whisper something reassuring, when the second nurse let go of the arm the needle was in. Rupa reflexively bent her arm, stabbing herself deeper with the needle and causing more bleeding (and screaming). It was a chaotic moment, and even though Sumathy had told me that all of the tests from the day before had come back negative, I couldn't help but feel a little nervous since they didn't even sanitize the table in between children. I'm not sure they even changed their gloves. Thankfully, Kate and Becca took turns with that chore. We all left a little shell shocked and probably just a little less relieved than the kids were that it was over.

Most days are not this intense. It does feel good to be back, plus the kitchen has running water now and the internet is hooked up here, so quality of life has improved a bit.

Here are a few pictures (finally):

This is a group of napping 3 year olds.

This is Sumathy and Ranjith during a badminton break.

Apu, sitting in one of the saree cradles.

At the second wedding we went to. I'm not sure why Indians don't smile for pictures, but they were actually having fun even though it doesn't look like it.

Dolled up in our saree's and presenting the groom's gift from the bride, Vanna White style.

Northern Thoughts

Have a brief moment to jot down some thoughts before Indian adventures suck me back into the streets. This time I'm writing from New Dehli and on a time constraint of our own, as long as the electricity holds out, so I don't feel as rushed as the Ambattur blogs. Susan, Ali, Becca and I have planned a 2 week trip up north to visit the sites, such as the Taj Mahal(who could come to this beautiful country and not see its prize posession?) and trek over to Rajisthan(spelling is off im sure) for a real camping trip on Camels. It's been exciting for us to breathe after a month of gogogo with the kids and various tasks.
We left the orphanage on the night of the 25th, telling the children we would be back and to please remember us when we did! Of course, silly of me to think they would forget us because they ALL came out waving our auto away at 10 p.m., sad to see us go but excited because we would be back soon. It made my heart glad to see how much they love us and the impact we have had with our short time there thus far. Sumathy says that they will ask her every day where we are and constantly check our rooms for any sign of the "sisters".
Speaking of sisters, I am now labeled "doctor" sister because of the minor first aid we have taken upon ourselves for the children of the orphanage. It has been mostly scrapes and bleeding from ankles and the such, but Varuna, an 7 or 8 year old boy, was a serious case. He spilled boiling water on his foot, which proceeded to blister and pop in the day before he even said anything about pain. I mean, serious doctor here, about 40 percent of his foot was open sores and to mix that with the sand and filth in the orphanage, it was just a matter of time before that thing got seriously infected! Luckily, I was able to use the bandaids, gauze, neosporin and hydrogen peroxide donated by the people of Valdez(Thank you so much!!!) to clean and cover it as best as we could. He was an amazing kid, softly saying "pain" when they bubbling of the hydrogen peroxide got to him but keeping a smile on his face the entire way. I have so much respect and awe for these children and their pain threshold, I think i would be screaming and yelling at anyone who was doing that to me! It was a good feeling though, for him to come up to me everyday and ask for a new bandage and more 'water' for his foot. The bubbling action is something those kids love to gather around and watch, think it is the coolest thing ever.
So we are gone until the 11th, taking some time to see different parts of India but mostly we have been just talking about our favorite moments with the children, looking at the pictures we have in our cameras, and laughing at the all around silliness of mis-communication issues with Sumathy and Ranjith. Excited about all the upcoming adventures!

"I yam... tree!"

That is 3 year old Subash's way of answering the question "How old are you?" Yesterday four of the kids - Sharadha, Bharathi, Ranjani and Subash, all 3 years old, took their entrance exam to get into a really good private international school. It is taught in English so they had to answer some basic questions that we have been trying to practice with them for the past few weeks. It took one week just to stop them from simply repeating the question back to us and another week to respond with the semi-complete answer. Subash now gives an adorable (in our eyes) pause in between "I am" and "three" since we would say only a few words at a time. Honestly, I'm sure they don't have a clue what all of it means (they're only three, after all), but I like that Ranjith and Sumathy are trying to get them into better schools instead of shoving all of them into government schools.

Ali Fischer and Becca Polk, Kate's cousin, arrived earlier this week and have jumped right in with all the kids. It is nice to have some more people around that you can just meet eyes with in the midst of all the craziness and just be able to laugh. There are fewer things that make you feel more pointless than trying to control a room full of 2 and 3 year olds that don't speak English. Chennai is in the state of Tamil Nadu and so they speak Tamil, one of the oldest languages in the world. I don't know much more than "go" "come" and "drink milk". I should be trying harder to learn more but they want us to speak English to the kids so that they can practice. It definitely would come in handy during the moments of 'baby mayhem' when we're trying to feed them (rice with our right hands of course) and half of the 19 babies (kids under three) are crying, covered in the food, and sitting in their own urine and shit. Did I mention that they don't wear diapers? We're in the habit of staring down to avoid the obstacle courses on the tiles.

Speaking of tiles, the have completed a lot of the construction on the new building, which has a decent-sized kitchen now, a dining hall large enough to seat everyone, and plans to build a new dorm on the second floor. And by construction I mean hand mixing cement and carrying it in little dishes on their heads, bending rebar with a mallet and a rock, and hand chipping tile in intricate designs for the flooring. I've never seen anything like it. We have some amazing luxuries with the hand tools and machines we use for building in the states. I have some great photos of the tilework they've done, and hopefully I'll get to an internet place that allows me to use the USB to upload them. So far now luck on that front.

FYI, the donated money has helped pay for the tile work as well as some of the new fans in the dining hall and will likely pay for those kids' first year of schooling (pending admission). We'll be letting you know what else its used for in the future. It is a huge stress reliever for Ranjith and Sumathy to be able to pay up front for some of these things, so thanks again to everyone who donated - the $3200 raised is going to go a long way here.

Hopefully more updates soon and more often, we're supposed to be getting the internet soon!

-Susan

2 weeks?

Its hard to believe its already been two weeks. It feels like we've been here a lot longer, but also that we just got here. The days feel slow and hot (its in the upper 80s with 95% humidity), but its surprising how much has happened. We stay in a little room that is connected to the main dormitory, and spend most of the day with the kids. There are 43 of them, from 4 months old to 14 years old, and the each one's story of how they were abandoned is sadder is sadder than the next. The oldest one, a 14 year old boy, was a 4 year old slave in a mine up north, and Ranjith bought him for 2000 rupees ($50) and took him home as his own. Somya, a 3 year old girl, survived an attempted murder by her parents, who tried to split her head and leave her in the gutter as an infant. She has some disabilities because of it, and a scar on her head, but she is healthy, happy and loves to draw. These stories are too horrible to believe, but the knowledge that there are good people like Ranjith and Sumathy out there makes it a little more bearable.

Unfortunately, the internet is extremely slow here, as is the delay on the keyboard, so I have to cut this shorter than I'd like.