India 2009!

The next day was Wednesday and while Katie went over countries, continents, oceans, etc again with the children I started making a game for them to play to reinforce what they had learned. I taped the names of all the different continents all over the room and then had each child pick a country out of the hat and place it under the correct continent. The game went so well! It forced them to really interact with the map and it was awesome when a child really grasped something! Then we taught them some more of “There’s Hope” and this one little boy Kamlesh was singing the lyrics for the whole rest of the day! Then we had some relaxing time and Katie went to work on the computer with Pradeep while I tried to teach Uno to a group of kids. I still can’t believe that they were able to pick up on the game. Colors and numbers are easy to explain to them, but the concept of skipping a turn or reversing the direction is very complicated to explain in a language I don’t understand. But somehow it worked! And for the next twenty minutes, the kids just kept screaming “UNO!”

All of a sudden, everyone started to get very antsy and started fighting with each other. Katie was in the other room and I panicked for a moment when the children all dog-piled on top of each other. Then out of nowhere I just screamed, “Dance!” and quickly turned on my mp3 player. The song “Satellite” from Martian Child was playing and if you have ever seen the movie then you must know the adorable dance that the little boy does to the song. Somehow I remembered parts of the dance and just started dancing around in front of the children. And it worked! They all stood up and started copying my ridiculous dance moves. When that got old, I even taught them the Macarena (remember that? Lol) It was adorable! I can’t describe to you how amazing it feels to just stand up in the front of the room and dance like an idiot and just have a whole room of children copying your every move. It’s an amazing feeling that I will never forget!

After lunch, I taught Rinky how to use the computer. She was so excited that it was her turn to learn and like five children crowded around the computer just wanting to watch. One of the most difficult concepts for her to master was the double click but once we got past that she did so well! We went into Google and looked up sari, dog, cat, Allahabad, and even Philadelphia! Every time a new picture game up there was this chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the children. I think the highlight of working with her was when she mastered pressing the shift button and the key for #1 and successfully typed an exclamation point. She was so proud of herself and it was just wonderful!

Then we talked to Joy and learned about Rahul’s story. Rahul is fourteen years old and he is mentally handicapped. It was amazing learning more about his life because Rahul is one of the most amazing children I have ever met in my life. I don’t know how to capture Rahul’s character in writing but I will try. He is in love with repetition. There are a few things that he does extremely well and he just does them over and over again. He is very functional and does all types of chores around the house. My favorite thing about him though is his randomness. Some days I will find him under the bed searching for beads, other times he stands out by the front gate and tries to jump as high as he can. He loves to dance and has a pair of sunglasses that he wears 24/7, but if your lucky and he likes you he’ll let you try them on. One of my favorite memories of him is when we were playing that game where everyone holds hands and then you try to unwind into a circle. Out of nowhere, Rahul came running with a rope and lassoed the whole circle of people and then just started bursting out laughing. His smile and his laugh bring such peace to my heart. When this boy is happy, you can’t help but be happy with him. After our first week working with SOUP, Katie and I kept wondering why our things kept disappearing in the house. We would bring tennis balls, tape, books, and other things to work with the kids everyday and by the end of the week, all of them had disappeared. We said something to Joy, and he just laughed and gave us this huge smile. “Rahul has been sleeping with them every night,” he said! Joy explained that Rahul is just so excited to see us and he likes to keep things to remember the people he loves! It was such an amazing moment and now we know where to look whenever things go missing!

After hearing Rahul’s story, I went out to find him in the yard. I found him in the corner of the backyard boiling food for the dogs in a pot. I allowed myself to just stand there for a minute and look around. I was standing in a beautiful yard in India with one of the most amazing children I have ever met. Rahul took my hand and just started to point to things around us—like the sky, a flower, the trees. Rahul has such a peace of mind that no one else has. It is truly incredible and I am so happy that he wanted to share that with me.

I spent sometime on the computer after sending emails and then looked up some of my engineering classes from my past year at Vanderbilt. See I had this brilliant breakthrough the night before that I could teach Gautam some of the material I had learned about computer engineering. Gautam always talks about his dream of becoming a computer engineer and when Katie and I were talking the night before I realized that I might be able to teach him something!

Katie and I then found the children dancing to some Indian music on tv. We spent sometime just dancing with them and attempting to learn Indian dancing. While we were dancing with the girls, Rahul had just been sitting on the floor watching. I grabbed him and made him get up and dance with me! And oh my goodness…dancing with him made my day! We just held hands and danced all around the room and he had the biggest smile on his face. Then Katie taught him how to dip and he proceeded to dip for the next twenty minutes. It was just so amazing to see him so happy!

When we finally got home, it was late and we were making dinner when all of a sudden the phone rang and I thought it was my mom calling to tell me about her interview. But when I picked it up, there were all these voices in the background and suddenly I heard the beautiful voice of Julia Tully!!! Oh my goodness…I proceeded to scream into the phone for the next two minutes out of mere excitement! When I finally calmed down, I realized that Julia, Anne, Maggie, Kathryn, Kaitlin, and Kara had called!! I cannot explain to you how amazing it felt to hear their voices. Katie and I have the most amazing friends on the face of the Earth. And they even stayed on the line for like an hour and a half and let us blurt out all our stories of India. Girls, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH and I will never be able to explain to you how amazing it was! THANK YOU! Then the phone rang again and it was actually my mom this time and her interview had gone well! Congratulations again mom!