A Different Kind of Soccer Mom

I think I was made for this.

Baby Michael (or Maike, as his under-5 card calls him) has joined the long list of children who have captured my heart.  I can tell what he wants just by how he cries. He smiled at me for the first time yesterday morning. We were sitting in the living room, and he was joyfully refusing to even consider eating his bottle. Morning is his favorite time. The earliest rays of sun blasted through the fluttering curtains to dance across his face as he cooed and babbled on, and then he smiled at me.

Elias is my new star student, and if you’ve read any of last year’s blogs then you know how out of character that is for my former delinquent. He’s excelling and learning at a remarkable speed, and he really enjoys helping the others learn. Surprisingly enough, he is a pretty decent little teacher. He helps them through there workbook pages the same way that I help them—explaining the instructions and providing an example without giving them the answers. I’m impressed.

A few days ago, David and I ventured out the front door just as the sun was setting. Some of the neighbor kids were walking home in a group. One of them was carrying a large, flat, round tupperware lid. I asked if I could see it for a moment, then tossed it to him like a frisbee. That was all it took.

It was an outreach opportunity I have longed for, and I rejoice over the chance to love on the children whose faces are usually on the other side of the fence from me.  It’s a strange dynamic; the only difference between “our” kids at the orphanage and “those” kids on the street is location. Our kids’ parent(s) died, and that tragedy thrust them into fortune’s way. They have plentiful food, clothing, shelter, education, and anything else they need. That is quite often not the case for their village counterparts.

Now, once our daily work is done and if circumstances allow it, we meet those village kids of an evening on the tired dusty roads that winds around the orphanage. It puts us in a beautiful position for teaching and interacting with them. They quickly picked up on the rules—if you can’t play nice, then you can’t play. No pushing, shoving, name-calling, picking-on-the-younger-kids, or otherwise acting out. When someone falls down, the game stops as someone helps them up. Our names are David and Meghan, not “musungu.”

It’s quite a different experience to walk down the main road into the Boma now, because when children greet us, we actually know their names. Juliet, Mabel, James, and Kabuta live in the white house on the left. Albert, the kind-hearted ringleader and all-around big brother figure of the group, lives in the house on the corner. Several of the littlest children are grandchildren or grandnieces to one of the kitchen ladies from last year, Mercy. Maikeke was initially the bully of the group, but after a couple of days he simmered down. He always wears the same blue shirt. Matete looks like he was placed on a taffy stretcher—he has that lanky, growing-too-fast look that some teenage boys get, but his is back-shadowed by a likely history of protein deficiency and general malnutrition. Joseph has an impressively large ringworm across the back of his head. Rosa’s skirt was ripped across the front, but she sat in my lap and let me mend it for her. Marita is my favorite, though the JuJu (witchcraft) necklace nestled between her collar bones is a constant reminder of the very dark world these children live in. The list goes on and on. They are dirty and hungry and probably contagious, but I love them.

There are a million other stories I would love to share with you, but if I tried to write them all down then cyberspace would probably overload and just spontaneously combust, and we can’t have that. Just take a moment, close your eyes, breathe in deep, and imagine that you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

I get to do that every day.

And when I open my eyes, I’m still there.

Here at Last

Home.

Or something like it.

I don’t think home is a place, really. It can be, but it isn’t always. Sometimes home is a person, or several little persons, or a promise.

We’ve been here at the orphanage for a week and two days. In some ways it seems like we’ve been here forever, or like I never left.  In other ways time is fleeting, and the days fly past at the speed of light. 

The bus ride was much, much worse than I remember. Buh. The first half of the trip was blessedly devoid of the awful Zambian pop music that normally blares from the bus speakers, but when the drivers switched halfway through, it came on full blast.  We didn’t run over any goats or bikers or kids this time, so that was nice. David, Emily, and I had seats next to each other. The bus seats are Zambian-man sized, and David is not a Zambian man. His knees were right up against the seat in front of him, and that was before the nice lady sitting in it reclined it. Then we discovered that his seat was broken and wouldn’t recline, so he basically spent 12+ hours hunched over with his knees halfway to his chest… Eventually I switched seats with him so he could at least stretch his legs into the aisle, so I can vouch for the incredibly uncomfortable ride provided by the non-reclining window seat.

When we (FINALLY) arrived at Kazembe, I made sure the rest of our party made it off the bus first. Then I battled my way out. Peter, a man who works at the orphanage whom I consider a very dear friend, pushed his way through the crowd and greeted me with a smile, half handshake, and hug that warmed my very soul.  He loaded the baggage into a taxi while all of us began the walk up the long hill to the orphanage. It was all I could do to keep from going at an all-out sprint.  About thirty yards from the front door, a nanny, Lizzy, came leaping out. She screamed my name and we embraced, and the joy grew a little bit more. Then I stepped through the entryway.  The littlest ones were sitting around the courtyard. There were a few new baby faces—Naomi, Joseph, and Michael—that I knew only from pictures and stories. Most of the nannies were unfamiliar as well.

Then a voice. Johnny’s.

“AUNTIE MEGHAN! YOU’RE HERE!”

The kinders (they’re actually first graders now) all rushed out behind him. I held my arms open wide, and they leapt down the steps. The next thing I remember, I was staring up at the leaves of the mango tree, smothered in hugs and kisses and maybe a few tears, though I think those were all mine.

I finally reluctantly extricated myself from the pile, and Jasmine showed us to our rooms. I dumped my stuff off and made my way to the nursery. I picked up baby Michael and instantly became concerned. Though fully awake, he was listless and a little limp. Something just wasn’t right. While not severely malnourished by any stretch of the term, he was certainly underweight and on the brink of dehydration. He had trouble closing his eyelids all the way.  I increased his feeding amount and personally made sure he was getting it all down (if you don’t burp him really well every 50 ml, he scowls a little and then projectile vomits all over you…) After about three days of TLC, his whole demeanor changed. He is quickly gaining weight and is an exceptionally cuddly and happy little baby.

I’ll end with a highly amusing story. Henry, one of the kindergarteners, is my new little shadow.  He repeats EVERYTHING I say in his thick little Bemba accent (I imagine it’s what Arnold Schwarzenneger would sound like if he had grown up in Zambia), which is probably why when I read them a bedtime story last night, he sent me off with, “Okay, baby. Goodnight sweetheart. I love you so much.”

Goodnight sweetheart. I love you too.