The past night and morning have been uneventful. Last night Kumari and Xavier had some things to do at the new house, so I was alone with the kids for most of the night. I did fine by myself, and Priya was in the house doing homework if I needed anything, so I wasn't to worried. For most of the time the kids were doing their homework. Whenever they finished something they would bring it up to me for me to check and sign. Several of the younger ones had to recite a song in Tamil without looking at their books. They could have been singing gibberish, but it sounded fine to me, so I signed that they had memorized the song. That is what a lot of their work is like, memorization. Memorization and repetition. Several of them had to write the number 1 through 100 five times. Others had to write the same sentences in English ten times. A couple had to memorize a song in English. This is all well and good, but many have no idea what the sentences they are writing mean. Subala was singing me a song in English, and when she got stuck on a line I pointed to it in her book; she just shrugged and shook her head no. It reminds me of how I am learning some of their rhymes in Tamil, but if I saw it written in Tamil I would have no clue, and if someone asked me what it meant I would have no clue.
When Kumari came back she brought freshly boiled peanuts with her, they were very good, but I think I ate too many of them. She then taught me to make dosais, which reminded me of pancakes. I explained pancakes to her, but she got really confused about the whole maple syrup part. I explained it was sap from a tree, and she just laughed and said "you come from a very different world, my friend." We've had two other moments like that. One was when I asked her if the leaves fell off the trees, and then tried to explain autumn to her. The other was when I was talking about snow. She had a lot of questions about snow, like do we need umbrella's? She said that she had seen pictures of the red autumn leaves and the white snow, but she thought they were just photo-shopped to look pretty. Then again, I have been pretty ignorant about Indian life as well. I took a while for Kumari to explain to me that the vegetable in the curry that I had eaten at the neighbors was actually the inside of the banana tree. Or the time that they explained to me that having squirrels and lizards in the house was normal. One time Priya said to me, "I think India is too different for you, no?" I replied that yes, India is very different, but I am enjoying it a lot. "Okay," Priya responded, "you come back every year then." I just smiled and shrugged.
After dinner I went to the bathroom, but the light was burned out. First a little bit about the bathroom, it is incredibly narrow, but is a fair length. The half the toilet is on is raised a step, and the other half has a spicket that goes into a very large bucket. The toilet does not flush, instead you fill a pitcher from the bucket and dump it into the toilet. The extra water in the toilet drains out, and you hope that your business goes with it. I mention this because it took me a while to get used to. You use the same pitcher to pour water on yourself when washing. Anyway, the light was burned out, so I told Kumari. She didn't have any light bulbs, so we decided to take one from a less important light. That bulb didn't work in the bathroom either, so we went to put it back in the back room, and it didn't work their anymore. So we started switching around light bulbs all over the place, and pretty soon none of the lights were working except one. Then, out of nowhere, the fan in the Xavier family's room stopped working. Kumari threw her hands in the air and declared that she was sleeping outside because it was going to be so hot without a fan, and because she was done with this out of wack house. We rearranged the lights one by one, until finally they all worked (which was strange because we were sure at least one of them was dead) and then the fan burst into life. I don't know what kind of ridiculous wiring they have in this house, but it had us juggling light bulbs for over a half an hour.
I woke up around seven this morning, and had breakfast with the kids and saw them off to school. Kumari and I talked about what would be needed to get an FCRA number. This is a number that you need to get funding from organizations outside of India. There is a lot of paper work and you need to show that your foundation has spent over 6 lac (600,000 rupees) in the past three years. While Kumari uses more than that, a lot of the food, clothes, supplies, etc., come as gifts or through agreements; she doesn't have enough receipts to add up to the 6 lac. She did, however, buy the piece of land (with a lot of outside help) for 5 lac. I discussed moving that land out of her name, and into the WIDE trust (it is being used for the orphanage in the first place) so all she would need to come up with receipt-wise would be 1 lac. She already has an application pending and we should find out while I'm here, so if it doesn't go through I will help her rearrange things and send in a new application. For the most of today I played secretary. There will probably be an inspection soon, and there are a lot of forms that needed to be filled out, and information that needed to be typed, including the history of each child. I took the typing jobs, and created spread sheets which include all the children's information, and typed up the daily schedules and meals, which are supposed to be posted on the walls.
While we did this Xavier went to the school to speak to one of the teachers. Friday Naveen came home with a lot of cuts and bruises. He had been beaten by one of the teachers. Apparently two younger children at the school told their teacher that they were afraid of Naveen, so the teacher pulled Naveen out of his class and beat him excessively. Physical punishment is accepted in Indian school, but Kumari and Xavier will not stand for it. Xavier basically tore the teacher, and the head master, apart and threatened to pull his kids out of the school. Schools depend on high numbers, so many schools in the area want Kumari and Xavier to enroll thier children in their school. This gives Kumari a lot of pull in the school system here. Xavier told the teacher that if he heard of any other instances like this one, he would send "the Mistress" (Kumari). This is a huge threat because a lot of the teachers are afraid of Kumari and she could easily get him fired. They do not hit the children in the orphanage, and they won't let the teachers hit the children in the schools, even if it is acceptable.
Kumari would have been upset if anyone came home bruised and bleeding, but Naveen is a special case. His sister Maha, one of the oldest and certainly the most responsible here, watched as her father and some of his friends beat their mother to death with steel rods and logs for the fire, and then hung her from the ceiling fan. Maha was four. They are terrified that Naveen will turn out like his father, and all last year they let him do what he wanted until he settled down. If he said he wanted his grandfather, they would immediately call him and off Naveen would go. This year, much to Kumari's relief, he decided that school and being with his sister is most important, and he hasn't left the home since. Kumari is afraid that because of this incident he will no longer want to attend school, and any possibility of him making something with his life and not going down his father's path will be lost. There more I hear about each child's background, the more I wonder how Kumari can handle it all, and the more I respect her for what she does.
I am going to rest now, I'm going to have a very late night because I am going to a wedding, and then to the wedding celebration early tomorrow morning. I am so excited!
Peace,
Robby
This is Naveen. The girl peaking into the picture is Sandhiya.
One of the two dogs exhausted in the heat outside the front door.
On the front porch.
Prince, Kumari's little trouble making son. He is the biggest cheater, and when I took the kids to the field Kumari lied to him and said she wanted to take him somewhere. He stayed home, thus letting the other kids play and have fun without being bothered by him.
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