All By Myself.....

So Tuan and Caitlin left less than an hour ago to go travel, and I have the whole room to myself, which I'm sure I will appreciate a lot more tomorrow, since after spending the afternoon at Shishu Bhavan, I don't think my afternoons will be as lax as they have been (minus all the big volunteer stuff that we had going on this week).

My friend Mazie has been working with one of my favorite kids, Deepa, in the afternoons. I absolutely adore this child. She has virtually no eyes; they are so deep-set into her head that her eyelids don't open, making her blind. Nevertheless, she is one of the most adorable children I have ever met. Lankhi is exactly the same as Deepa, the same appearences and disorder. They look so similar that I wonder if they are sisters. I realized today, at least, that they are not twins; Lankhi is a little youger than Deepa, I can tell by the size of her hands and feet, and the fact that she is a teensy bit shorter. To my utter pleasure, Mazie has been working with Deepa, Lankhi, and Johny. While I haven't worked with Lankhi before today, Johny and Deepa are by far my two favorite kids. They are difficult, but they are "my kind of difficult", as I put it in an email earlier this evening, when talking about a beautiful but very difficult little girl named Nibyah (I think I may have mentioned feeding her in an earlier blog).
Anyway, Sister asked me to come Friday afternoon this week to learn how to do 'school' with the kids in the afternoon. I wasn't very much looking forward to it, because the only other afternoon that I had worked left me wanting to go home. But, Shishu Bhavan is where I 'belong', and Daya Dan is not. I feel that God wanted me to come to Kolkata to meet these children, to inspire these children, and to work with these children. He wanted me to have this experience at this house. I was happy to visit Khaligat and Daya Dan, but I knew, spending time at both of those places, that Shishu is where I was meant to serve.
Anyway, back to Shishu. So, Mazie showed up late today, and I had never worked in the afternoon at Shishu before, so I didn't know what happened. I got there and got ready as usual, and then went and saw Deepa and walked around a bit. She seemed very happy to see me, which was a great feeling, because she had been sitting, very content and kind of dazed, and when I said her name she stopped rocking back and forth and turned her head to listen, and I said "Hi, Deepa!" again, and she smiled and clapped her hands. That means she recognizes my voice. She started waving her palms in the air, which means she wants you to hold out your hands so she can clap them with hers, which I did, and she did it a few times, then stopped and felt my bracelet, and smiled again. She knew it was me, and that makes me soooo happy. After a few minutes, a Massi told me to get her ready for school. I didn't know what that meant, so I walked her towards the door and the Massi came at me with little sandals. We put them on and the Massi lead me out of the building and across the grounds, which I was unaware exited, and through a playground. We went into a little building that was just one room, and I believe that this is the school that Sara started when she was here. We all took off our shoes and basically played with the kids and taught them how to use each of the items in their backpack, which was interesting, considering that they each have to identify these items by touching them. What we did for most of the time was help the students stand and walk. Deepa is so close to walking that my dream of it happening before I leave may very well come true. She couldn't stand confidently by herself when Mazie left a few days ago, but she can now! She has been able to for a while, but gets nervous when she doesn't have something to hold on to. Now, she is okay to stand, but when you urge her forward to take a step, she starts freaking out and crying. I'm talking baby who is in the crib but doesn't want to go to sleep crying. It was a very sad thing to hear, but it was so amazing to see her standing! She did take a few hesitant steps forward, but fell into the Massi's lap bawling.
I helped Lankhi stand as well; the Massi saw that I was standing her up and if she had just a little support on her back, she was just fine, but she is still too afraid to stand up on her own. So, we propped her up against the wall. She really liked that, and we would shake toys and stuff in her face, she had a great time. I played/worked with Johny as well, and I started shaking a toy in front of his face, which apparently was the funniest thing ever, because I had never heard him laugh so much, it was hilarious. All I would do is say "Hey, Johny!" and shake the toy, and he would crack up! It was great.
At about 5:20 we took the kids back up to their floor where they were going to have dinner. Mazie showed me an easier way to feed Deepa, because she is supe-grouchy in the morning; she loves the 'Baby Shark' song (baby shark! dododododododobabyshark!...). OH! Its amazing, I never knew this! When Deepa claps the table or your hands or her own hands, if you sing a song, she will clap in time with you! How awesome is that!?
Anyway, I fed Deepa and giggled and sang with her. Yes giggled! That was one of my wishes! I wanted to hear her laugh, and it is a beautiful thing! She has the most precious laugh I have ever heard! Mazie said she doesn't do it often, maybe a couple times a week, but I was delighted to hear that she smiles a lot in the afternoons. So I think I will come more in the afternoons, now. But I also don't want to give up my mornings. We will see what will happen.

So, as we speak I am moving all of my pictures onto my flash drive, which I started doing earlier but had to stop so I could have dinner with Caitlin and Tuan before they left, in which time we had torrential downpour, thunder and lightning, a 20 minute blackout just as we finished eating, and complete calm again, where the ankle deep water cleared itself before we walked back around the corner to Hotel Maria.

Because I have my pictures on the computer now (:D) I will post some on here, because I love you all that much :)

Here are the links to my pictures on Facebook:

Kolkata - Album 1

Kolkata - Album 2

Kokata - Album 3

enjoy!

Oh, that beautiful girl would be Deepa.