What a day...

I just got home from my first day volunteering at the charity. It is at a convent and what I thought I was getting in to and what is reality are two totally different things.

I was told the convent was a group of Italian Nuns who do physiotherapy on disabled orphans. So I was expecting a clinic type setting where children would be getting physical therapy and I would help any way I could... cleaning bathrooms, chopping vegetables, laundry, whatever...

When I walked in I was introduced to a couple of nuns who brought me into their school. A few students came to greet me and they all had mental disabilities. The students and nuns took me around to show me where the live-in students live, then they took me to the school to show me the classrooms and dining area (that doubles as a classroom and art area). Then they took me outside to greet the non live-in students as they drove up.

This is a school of 48 mentally disabled people (because not all are children) with about a third having a physical disability as well - in wheelchairs or walkers. Some are live-in, some are orphans who "belong to the school" (their words), some are orphans from a nearby orphanage who attend school, and some are day students whose families drop them off.

They come by family car, rickshaw and motorcycle. One girl, who is autistic and is pushed around by wheelchair, arrived by motorcycle!! I was a bit shocked and asked a Sister and she told me that the girl is able to hold on tight enough so she comes by motorcycle with her father, then the school has a wheelchair waiting for her.

Everyone called me "Auntie". As they met me they said "Good morning Auntie, what is your name?" and they continued to call me Auntie. A lot of them thought it was funny that my name is Helen because the convent has a Sister Helen and that was just too hilarious for many of them.

Here's what my day consisted of:
When 9:30a struck the kids sang a song (school song? Indian national anthem? I have no idea) then did some exercises (only a handful could actually do it, for others it was an exercise in following the schedule). Then the kids lined up and walked, scooted or rolled back into the school.
The Sisters asked me what I would like to do. I said I'd do anything they need me to. They asked me to work with the older kids in their classroom. I went to the classroom and sat at a table with some older girls and helped them write a cursive "a". They would try and try and every time they'd make a mistake they'd open their pencil boxes, get out their erasers, erase their mistake, put the eraser away, close the pencil box, push the pencil box up, and try it again. Usually followed by another mistake and the same routine with the eraser. Eventually they'd get one right and I'd clap and say "Good job!" which would make them blush or smile at me with the biggest grin. Totally sweet. The Sisters were moving about the room trying to help everyone. They are very kind but stretched very thin so their bedside manner was not as touchy-feely as mine. (Plus, it was only my first day... they live there 24/7)
Then they asked me to listen to one girl as she read. She read a workbook to me about loving Jesus and remembering to say "Thank You" and "Sorry". I was very impressed with her reading - I mean, here she is mentally disabled and she knows more of a second language than I DO!!! But later in the day I saw a poster with every one's picture and birth date and saw that this particular girl is only 6 months younger than me. Wow. Makes you grateful...

After class everyone went out on the playground. By this time more kids were getting comfortable with me and would come up and hold my hand and not let go. They would say "Auntie" and then point to something, like a tree, or a butterfly, or nothing at all. I walked around with a couple girls like that. Then I made my way to the more active area of the playground and played ball with a little girl with downsyndrome. Another little darling girl, probably about 5 yrs old, tugged on my shirt. I squatted down to be at her level and she just looked at me. She put her hand out, so I put my hand out, she put her hand in mine and just looked at me with empty eyes. A Sister came up to me afterward and said "She has no mother so her father left her, she does not speak." Dude... and the precious little girl obviously has a broken nose. So is it the accident that broke her nose what caused her disability or was it her disability that caused her to break her nose? Or something else that I'd rather not think about. The Sisters told me about other children on the playground as well, they pointed out who were from the nearby orphanage, who lives at the school, one orphan was abandoned near the convent around the age of 4 with a drainage tube sticking out of the back of her head. They introduced me to a little boy who they said has a very good brain but cannot speak, walk or control his body - I'm guessing CP.
The snack on the playground was hard guavas from the Convent's tree. They were very hard, very sour, and left a furry feeling on my teeth. I took a few bites to try but then one little girl saw it in my hand and wanted it so I gladly gave it away.

After playtime was lunch time. Today was one girl's birthday so she was wearing a salwar kamis instead of the school uniform. Her Dad came with a HUGE pot of chicken briyani for the whole school and he stayed and ate with her. Chicken briyani in India comes complete with bones so as I helped hand out the plates to the different children we had to take our hand and scrape the chicken meat off the bones. The sisters wanted me to sit and eat but I wanted to help, so after helping to hand out the plates I spoon fed some of the children who could not feed themselves. The little girl I helped was too excited to eat because I was helping her. I'd say "open" and open my mouth too and make sounds like Mmmm Mmmm and that made her crack up and pound her hand on the table so she couldn't eat. (I managed to get some food into her though.)

After lunch they put me in charge of the nap room. The smaller kids came into a classroom, sat at school desks, took a hand towel out of the desk, rolled it onto the top of the desk, then crossed their arms and put their heads down. Little angels who sleep sitting up. I thought of Auggie and all the classrooms he's been in and the cozy places where he takes a nap with a full sized blanket from home. These girls were obviously used to it and the smaller ones went right to sleep. The other ones, on the other hand, were very naughty. A room of about 12 mentally disabled kids trying to keep them quiet and still... nearly impossible. We did this for about an hour.

After nap we all got together in the dining area where "Auntie" was going to do some songs with the children. Well, that was news to me, so we did "One little finger" "Old MacDonald" "Twinkle Twinkle" "Ba Ba Black Sheep" and then the children ran with it and started singing song I had never heard before. It was all singing and laughing for those who are able to engage.

At 2:45p some parents started showing up to take their kids home. The first was a mother of the youngest downsyndrome girl. The mother lit up when she saw her daughter. It was very nice to see. Then other parents or rickshaw drivers showed up to take those away who needed to leave.

I got a lot of "Goodbye Auntie" and "Thank You Auntie". It was all very sweet. Then the girls who live at the Convent went back to their area of the school, I said goodbye to the Sisters and said I would be back on Friday. They said they do yoga on Fridays. Hahahaha, I've been looking for yoga...