Things I love about Open Arms

Written on August 13^th, 2010:

In an attempt to get one of the girls to talk in more positive terms I told her that often I like to take time to write out everything that I like about where I am. (Where I am physically, emotionally, in life, with my friends, you name it…). And while it may not have gone entirely as planned in terms of our conversation, it did remind me that it’s about time I take stock of the things that I love at Open Arms – and in this case, share those with you.

I’ll try to keep this to a (somewhat) reasonable length but we all know that I’m not one for few words. Especially when it comes to this blog so here goes!

Things I like (but really I mean love) about Open Arms (in no particular order):

The children (first and foremost). The stunning stars at night. Eating Milo cereal every morning. The incredible people that come here to volunteer. The purple house. Kids falling asleep on my lap during movie night. Goodnight hugs and kisses. Throwing the babies up in the air. Seeing our one year-old smile. The mamas’ mac n’ cheese. Going to Auntie Ruth’s. Dancing in the crèche. The collage I made of my friends and family. Flipping through the pages of my (nearly full) journal. Watching one little girl’s head pop up from behind the counter. Hearing the word “Kea-ten!” shouted from just about anywhere. Smiles. Finishing a book with one of the kids. Getting cards from the kids. Talking about life with the other volunteers. Watching Auntie Rita in action. Listening to the CD Rosie made us. Long car rides. South African sunrises and sunsets. Making it up the hill to Open Arms on our (few and far between) runs. Heaven Bars, Magnum Bars, Tex Bars and Lunch Bars. Imitating the children with their thick South African accents: “Pickmeup!.” “Whatsyoname?!” Funny language barriers. Seeing the kids wearing my sweatshirt. Hearing one of the girls we’re teaching ask a perfectly-formed question in English without being prompted. Sloppy, wet kisses. More smiles. The hilarious things that the kids say. Telling the kids about the charms on my necklace. The kids singing (and dancing!) at church. Giving piggyback rides (shh, don’t tell them!). Watching How I Met Your Mother with the other volunteers. Mug cake (good or bad!). Getting to wear sweatpants whenever I like. Baking with the kids. Tiny clothes. Tiny shoes. Fat cakes. My South African stunna shades (thanks again Caitlin, Kaitlyn, and Elyssa!). E-mails from my friends and family. Reviewing my pictures. Steri Stemple chocolate milk. Being the cause of one of those million dollar smiles. Laughter. Girls night. Having one of the boys ask: “How did you learn to play soccer?.” Stunned faces when I take them by surprise. Tickling them. Hearing one of the two year olds sing “Everywhere we go” over and over…and over again. Realizing I’ve now memorized the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CD almost completely. Watching Cars with a few kids in my lap. One of the girls constantly shaking out her blanket. The constant talk about “poofy.” My conversations with the oldest child at Open Arms. Reflecting on my life. Pushing myself. Talking to Auntie Rita. Talking to Auntie Jeanine. Feeling like I’m making a difference. Coming up with new ideas to make this place better. Auntie Roses. Dominoes. Laughing with and at Uncle Pat. The trees. The swing set. “Wee.” Remembering I’m in Africa. The goats. Liane laughing so hard she snorts. Silly stories. Komga. Mpshane. Inkwenkwezi. The sweet animals. Braais. Finding out I’ve been spelling everything wrong since day 1. Festival. Bringing my Notre Dame blanket all the way across the world. Talking about Notre Dame (constantly). Hot chocolate. The nargi (sp?) tree. Going to Esme’s. Talking on the phone on Bob’s porch (or the blue house porch). More hugs. More smiles. Snack time. Crazy hour (yes, even crazy hour). Teasing the oldest kids. Learning clapping games. Making up not-so-secret handshakes. Getting fist bumps from the two year-olds. Hearing “Whatsyoname?Keaten!” (no pause in between). Sitting up late at night writing my blog. My bunk bed. Getting mail. Taking pictures. Small battles. Having the mamas teach me Xhosa. Trying and majorly failing to speak Xhosa properly. Hearing “little lady” or “madame” said by one of our older boys. Backwards hats on the kids. Having the kids say “Go Irish!” (or ask if I go to “Go Irish”). Hearing about how the kids have changed (in positive ways). South African accents. Meeting new people. Putting my hand out in front of a kids mouth and them knowing that means “spit it out” even without any words. Petting cheetahs. Seeing giraffes and lions and all sorts of things I’ve never seen before. The box of things we have collected from children’s mouths (shocking what’s in there!). Playing Pictionary-telephone with an Open Arms theme. Reading. Writing in my journal. Cottage pie. Tuna salad. Homemade bread. That’s what she saids. The kids singing. Birthdays. Bonfires. Storytime. Singing in the crèche. Helping the kids paint. Drawing portraits of the kids. The South African flag. Doing craft projects in the crèche. Hearing about school. The kids’ names. Feeling like even after only two months that I’ve lived here all my life. Falling in love with so many little things it’s hard to name them all.

I could go on (and undoubtedly in the near future I will), but for now I’d prefer to end with the quote hanging beside my bed (thanks Nicole!):

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it’s the journey that matters in the end.” –Ursula LeGuin. Here’s to the journey!

Sometimes the tears come and sometimes this don't

Beware, this is actually two posts in one (written on separate days):

Written on July 30th, 2010:

The other day I sat and watched as tears silently streamed down a five year-old boy’s face, thumb in mouth, for thirty minutes. At the time I wondered why I couldn’t muster any tears for him. I wanted desperately to stop the whimpering, to hold him in my arms and find the words that would make everything he’d experience in this seemingly cruel world he lives seem just a little bit more hopeful. And yet, I couldn’t shed a single tear. None were even close to forming. I sat, mouth closed, reminding myself that sometimes we all just need a good cry, and waited. Eventually the crying did stop. Auntie Rita, the miracle worker, was able to remedy the situation and afterwards we briefly pow-wowed on what had happened. It turned out it had been a mere mix-up with the distribution of new clothes (this particular boy hadn’t been given new shoes) – something fairly trivial in comparison to what these children have already dealt with in their young lives. And yet, while Rita and I talked over the incident, I felt my voice crack just a little. Rita might not have even noticed, but I could feel the tears welling up deep inside. And tonight, hours later, after dinner, a little relaxation, a little more work, watching 30 minutes of Braveheart, and doing some planning with Pat, I sit here on my bunk bed and I can feel the tears welling up slowly. I don’t think I’ll cry, at least not the full-on crying anyone reading this blog knows I’m capable of, but I feel the emotions slowly building up. And so I sit here and think it through and here’s what I’ve come up with…

I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s easy, being here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (for the most part), to forget that these kids lived in destitute conditions, that some of them are HIV positive, that some have parents who love them mere hours away but aren’t, for some reason or another, able to care for them, that some of these children were literally abandoned in dumpsters, on street corners, sometimes even multiple times. When you battle with them over silly things like who gets to ride the bike first or who swore or hit who first (“it doesn’t matter who hit who first!”), it really becomes second nature to treat them as you were treated, like a child who has been given the world but instead chooses to focus on the little negatives in the world. But the truth of the matter is, these children have been given little to nothing and still manage to take the big negatives in their lives and chose instead to focus on the small things, on battling for a volunteer’s knee to sit on, on begging and pleading to have an extra 35 minutes in the playroom. And so slowly these kids creep into my heart. They’re infiltrating and even when I have a headache from the constant screeches of “can I go the new playroom?!” (I hear this at least 200 times a go) or cringe when a kid shouts “I hope you go back to America tomorrow!” I know that this is where I’m supposed to be and these are the kids that I’m supposed to be with.

It’s not easy, I’ll admit. Talking to (beautiful) Auntie Wendy just minutes ago I commented on how I prior to coming here I had thought I was a patient person. (After meeting Rita, I realize I, in fact, have a long, long ways to go.) Sometimes I find myself clenching my teeth at a child who just won’t listen. Sometimes there are mass time-outs. Sometimes I just escape to the solitude of my room to write or read or nap or just be away from the children. Sometimes I count down the minutes until they go to bed. But ultimately, as I remind myself every night when I write in my journal – there are also times like this morning, when I watched one of our 11 year-olds, a spunky boy with a great big smile and a passion for the dramatic, sing loudly in church and I actually had tears in my eyes. These kids. These kids blowing kisses, dancing with silly little mechanical-looking pelvic thrusts, shouting “Hi Kea-ten!” and helping me make popcorn (snack on Saturday nights), mean the world to me.

And these kids; they’re scared, they’re confused, they’re behind in school, and they’re often misbehaved (“Now was that bad behavior or good behavior?”). They rejoice in small victories (a few math problems, on remembering what day they get to go to playroom), and they mope about the most insignificant things. They threaten “I’m going to kick you!” one second only to hug you around the waist and demand that you never leave the next. Life is so full of emotions here – it’s a daily reminder that life is meant to be felt. These kids. Let me tell you, they know how to feel.

Written on August 2nd, 2010:

I realize I’m posting these in the same day but realize that these posts are actually from separate days. What you’re getting is a snapshot of a few days in a row of thinking through my thoughts feelings, and emotions gradually.

So my apologies for the multiple entries, but I think it’s important that they’re all recorded, and I suppose they needn’t necessarily be shared, but if you, my family and friends, would like to take a glimpse into what it’s like for me to be here, (everyone here is having a different experience) then I’m happy to share.

And while I’m happy to share, I must also admit that I’m finding the words hard to come by at the moment. Tonight marked an important milestone in my time at Open Arms: the first time I’ve truly felt like crying (besides my first day here, but we’ll just chock that up to a big change and jet lag). I won’t go into the circumstances too much since I believe fully and completely in the confidentiality of the child, but basically tonight, I was faced with the heavy reality of what these children have lived with.

Tonight, I sat with a child who was afraid to go back to his house alone. Now, if there’s one thing I understand, it’s the fear of being alone. I not-so-vaguely recall being home alone for two nights while my parents were in Ireland (and Reed was up in Washington visiting friends). I was twenty years old, living in a secure house in a safe neighborhood, and still I left the lights on and hardly slept a wink. Being alone (especially at night) was just downright scary to me. I had visions of murderers and burglars and goodness knows what kind of monstrous people flashing through my head. I could imagine men climbing the stairs and people surveying the house for the best time to break in. And this, all at twenty. In a secure house in a nice neighborhood.

So tonight, looking at this 11 year-old boy’s eyes as we sat outside on the brick-rimmed herb garden, I seriously wanted to break down and cry. I watched the tears well up in his eyes as the tears welled up in mine and I was grateful it was dark and that he wouldn’t look me directly in the eye. In fact, he never allowed the tears to come freely, nor did I, but silently my heart was breaking for him.

I can’t even begin to fathom what he’s been through in his short life. Orphaned, bounced around, and God knows what else, I couldn’t help but picture this boy as terrified as I had been imagining scary things. Only he’s been through these scary things. Granted, I don’t know what he’s been through. We have our guesses, but the truth is we don’t really know. But regardless, as he vehemently backpedals and denies he was ever scared, I know he’s witnessed a terribly cruel reality that I can’t even begin to understand. And so the tears build up. And I am aware that one day they’re all going to come rushing out. But for now, I’ll leave it at this: I have to be someone steady, someone reliable, someone strong, someone understanding in their lives. Because growing up is scary without the justification of fear.

Bless these kids’ hearts.