Do Something!

Goma smiling away on our Ping!Thank you for all of the health wishes.  We've pulled out of the sick rut we were in.  (Special thanks to our amazing medical friends in the U.S. for all your tips and advice.)  So happy we’re through it… Fewf!

Now for some very exciting surprise news!  Kopila Valley has been chosen as one of 12 finalists for the 2009 DoSomething Awards!  Right now I’m actually sitting in the airport in Delhi, India and will be flying back home to NJ late tonight for interviews this weekend in NYC. 

Take a look at the other finalists here if you want to be super inspired (and prepare for your chin to drop to the ground.)  I'm so excited to meet these guys, and the DoSomething team and be a part of this!

More to come from my home in NJ after a big slice of pizza and a night's sleep!  xoxo

Sick :(

Kayla and the kids at the park

The kids are on a two-week vacation.  Kayla, our new volunteer is here and settled and has been incredible.  She’s giving hours of English classes to the kids and she’s very present with them.  It’s so nice to have someone else around the house to give the kids love and attention and for me to bounce ideas off of and talk to (in English!) And when things get crazy and Maya’s throwing a tantrum and Naveen’s misbehaving and the house is a mess and there are 5 people outside waiting to ask about keeping children here and I feel like I’m going to lose it, she stands up calmly and says, “here, I got it.” 

The weather’s getting warmer and the kids have all been coming down with a 24-hour bug.  It hit Narendar the hardest and he’s been in bed for three days straight with a high fever. The problem with living with 24 kids is that when one gets sick you put a ton of energy into getting them better and then as soon as one gets better, the next kid gets taken down.  Yesterday I took Narendar to the hospital only to find that there wasn’t a single doctor in town.  He was so weak and couldn’t take two steps without falling down. There wasn’t a single ambulance stationed at the hospital either so I then had to carry him to the clinic to get him a blood test.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that I live in Nepal until I walk into a hospital or a clinic and see just how desperate things are here.  Surkhet’s regional hospital serves 12 of the surrounding mountain districts that are by far the poorest in Nepal and there are weeks when we don’t even have a single doctor here.  It seems unethical.

By the time I reached the clinic yesterday I was drenched in sweat.   When we went to take Narendar’s blood he just wouldn’t have it.  They had to call four people in to hold him down– four grown adults for one six-year old boy.  He just kept squirming and kicking and throwing his head back and screaming for his mother.  My heart sank and I found myself wishing that his mother could be there with us too.

We got home and I started sorting through Narendar’s medicines and thinking about how ready I am for all of this sickness to be out of here.  I didn’t think I could make it through another night.  Suddenly Goma came in with a bucket and soaked Narendar’s feet in cool water.  She took off his t-shirt and covered his body in cool cloths.  I watched as she gave him sips of water and sliced up an apple into small pieces feeding him slowly.  She took his temperature just about every 5 minutes and celebrated every time his temperature dropped a decimal point.   I told Goma I thought she would make a great doctor and she smiled her biggest and proudest smile.  Goma is a nurturer and a healer with what seems like a superhero power of making things better in the worst of moments.    I really hope we don’t have to wait for Goma to graduate from medical school to have our first pediatrician here though.

*Wishing for some good health to come our way.

darling citizen*

Krishna

Mornings at Blackwater
Mary Oliver
 
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
 
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.
 
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
 
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
 
and put your lips to the world
And live
your life. 
 
©2008 mary oliver RED BIRD

boys*

Bhukta with his bow and arrow

The other night at around 9:30 I was in my room when the lights flickered.  A minute later they flickered again.  And then the third time the lights went out for good.  I looked out my window and saw that the rest of our village had electricity so I walked outside of my room to investigate.  The girls were quietly asleep in their rooms and I heard the boys being rambunctious so I marched straight for the blue room, where all the activity was coming from.  Sure enough I found my boys in an argument and as I caught pieces of the story it turned out that SOMEONE had been sticking wires into the electrical socket.

“YOU DID WHAT!?!”  a beastly-manly-monster-like-voice came out of my chest that I did not recognize as being my own. Suddenly the room went completely silent—everyone shut up and stared at me with terrified eyes.

I looked down and saw two thin white wires lying on the floor—the evidence.

I saw that half the boys had disappeared into the other boys’ room (the purple room).

“Get all the boys in HERE NOW!”  I think I might have even stomped my foot.

I looked at little Birendra, who never tells a lie. “Birendra, WHO STUCK THIS WIRE in the electrical outlet?!” 

As the story unfolded it turned out that there had been three culprits whose mischief explained all three of the incidents.

#1 Puncka

#2 Deepak

#3 Padam

Between the three of them they had successfully managed to blow the fuse of the entire household.

The boys started arguing about who did what and when, and who told who to stop.  I couldn’t hear one story over the other.

Ubji and Prithi, the couple who live here with us came running down the stairs.  Prithi went to check the inverter and the fuse box and Ubji and I stared at each other in disbelief about how lucky we were that none of our children had been electrically shocked.

A little background—in Nepal, electrical injuries are sadly commonplace.  It’s not unusual to see children or adults walking with missing limbs due to electrocution from poorly wired homes or fallen electrical wires on the streets.  The thought of a current passing through the kids tiny little bodies sent me over the edge.

And that’s when I lost it.  I started screaming like I’ve never ever screamed in my life.  Then I stomped down the hallway, to try to calm myself down, threw a few things, (in my room) and walked back to their rooms and screamed some more.  I was shaking with anger.

“How many times have I told you, what do I have to do to get this through your heads? What did our electrician tell you about playing with electricity?  Did you not see the child that came here before missing one of his arms, and the mason who came here last week asking me to keep his child, who was missing two? What is wrong with you?  Does someone have to get hurt before you get it?  WHY DID NO ONE COME AND GET ME while all of this was going on.  Seriously guys I just don’t understand!!!”

I took the three boys and put them in the bathroom (where there are no electrical outlets) and told them to clean it, sit down, and have a think about what they’d done. 

Then my hoarse-monster-voice came back!  "YOU KNOW WHAT!?! Just sleep HERE tonight!” 

Prithi fixed the fuse box and the lights came back on, he walked back up the stairs shaking his head.  Ubji was just as upset as I was. 

I know what you’re probably thinking, jeez, I’ve been angry but I’ve never shut my kids in the bathroom! And, it wasn’t even like I was reenacting one of my childhood punishments either. Actually that’s exactly what my parents said to me, “we never gave you a time-out in the bathroom!”

When I was in the fourth grade I remember one of my best friends parents getting in a fight while I was over their house to play.

The dad yelled something like, “Who was the one that decided to have these god damn kids anyway?!?!”  I remember feeling that exact same thing in that moment.

It’s kind of funny what anger does to you—in a very not-so-funny kind of way.

I walked into my room and closed the door and started to cry– tears that haven’t been cried in a very long time.  Of course all the anger I had expressed was just my fear in disguise and after some coaching and a pep, from my parents, and my sister Kate, and my friend Megan about normal curiosity, brain development, and children under ten’s mental ability to understand perspective, judgment, and consequence, I opened the bathroom door and sat down on the floor with my three 7 and 8 year old little boys and I cried some more and so did they. 

“You really, really scared me.  Please don’t ever, ever do that again.”  The voice that I know as my own was back.  I tucked them into bed and said goodnight.  The next day we had a big family meeting involving a lesson from Puncka, Deepak, and Padam to the other children about the danger of playing with wires and electrical sockets.

I’ve been questioning myself these days.  I’m raising Nepali children in Nepal coming from a young American suburban girl’s frame of mind.  I babysat in houses with child proof toilets, and cabinets– with baby gates protecting the stairs and plug-ins that went into outlets– even in houses where a robot voice came on and told you when a door or window was open and where.

The other day as the boys were playing with bows and arrows with the neighborhood kids, I watched them whittle their bows with sharp knives, and shoot little twig arrows up about 40 feet in the air, and I thought to myself, “Is this really safe?  Should I really be letting them do this?  When should I let “boys be boys” and when should I draw the line?”  They worry me sick when they’re walking down a main road with a tractor coming by.  Then I think about their lives before they came here.  When I met Bhukta he was just 7 years old, holding a machete cutting grass in the jungle for some buffalo.  I watched Birendra (age 8) chopping firewood with an ax almost as big as he was, and here I am worried about them holding a kitchen knife?  Naveen (age 9) and Krishna (7) spent years of their lives living on the streets and I’m worried about them crossing the road to get to school? 

I’m still searching for the right medium between being their protector, their caretaker, their provider, and their friend who they can come and talk to and make forts with in the yard.  I’m searching for ways to let them be creative and curious and adventurous without putting them into danger, without being overprotective and spending my day telling them all the things they “can’t do.” 

I saw a new side of myself on Friday night, heard a new voice come out of my chest that I never knew existed and, thinking about it now, I know it wasn’t manly or monster-like, or not ME, it was just a feeling and a side of myself that I’ve never felt before.  Megan called it my Hindu Goddess Durga voice, it arrives to protect—a voice every woman knows and needs to find and use at times. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts* (yes you!) on raising little curious, healthy, adventure-seeking boys.  What has worked for you?  How do you define your limits and how do they change as your boys get older?  

talking little miracles

Shanti

It’s been two months since Shanti arrived. She had walked for over twenty days from her district in Humla, all the way up near Tibet and besides being totally marveled by the miracle of how this child could have possibly come all that way; my initial concerns were to get her healthy. She has put on 6 pounds and we’ve successfully eliminated hundreds of worms with no recent sign of any more to come. Her hair is black again. It had lost its pigmentation and turned a strange orange color due to her malnourishment.

But here is the best, best news of all! Since Shanti's arrival she hasn’t been talking and was pretty much just communicating with head nods. Then, suddenly she began to speak. It’s been three days now and she hasn’t stopped! I feel like there's a whole new child living with us, suddenly a whole new personality, with the sweetest little voice.

Shanti, you bring out a warmness in the other children that I never knew was there before, that I didn't notice until I watched the others play and interact with you, and hold you in their arms. You've made us all a bit more gentle, a bit softer. You've taught us to lower our voices, to be patient, more kind and more loving and you've taught us these things without words. I can only imagine what you'll teach us now that you're talking, little one. I have a feeling this is just the beginning, the very, very beginning of the lessons you have to teach here on this earth.

Shanti with her favorite big sis, Karma!