So I've had a hard time thinking about what to write on this blog.
I get home or even sit down during the day after morning coffee,
and don't know where to begin recounting adventures.
So I'm going to start sharing single stories and vocab.
Todays word: "Bhaiya"
It means: BIG BROTHER
Last Sunday, after rehearsal, I took a rickshaw ride home as normal. I have started bringing kids with me so that I can drop off en route and they don't have to take the bus. This saves their families money, gets kids home faster, makes sure girls aren't traveling alone (a female is raped every 20 minutes in India), and gives us quality time to bond and be silly. So this particular Sunday, per normal, we loaded the rickshaw up like a clown car. I'm talking myself plus 5 kids: Chaitrali, her brother (whose name I can never remember so I call him Lil Man), Shussti, Deepak, and Shlok. This is nothing considering I've seen 8-10 traveling in a Rickie before.
Shussti (a 4th grader that's gone up 4 academic grade levels in 6 months and who makes me cry with her now voluntary sage wisdom instead being more or less mute) was sitting behind me where the luggage usually goes, Chaitrali stood while her little brother was sitting on my lap, and Shlok and Deepak were busy playing a video game on my phone. We were laughing and singing amid me describing what it is like living in Paris: the food, the history of the Eiffel Tower, what a World's Fair is, how there are in fact 2 Statues of Liberty, and what gothic architecture is.
Point of reference: The kids are about as open as it comes on a daily basis. If you got a haircut they don't like, you no longer look nice. If you've gained weight, they asked "what's happened?" in shock. And also, like kids do, they ask questions they already know the answer to see what you will say. Along those lines, the kids also comment on my beard experiment on a daily basis. When I don't trim it huge swatches of white hair appear and I am also constantly stroking my chin like a Wizard when I think, which they mimic. Most people in communities think I'm either a wrestler in the WWE or the guy from the movie "300." And my favorite is "You look like Hero." Because of it, I also get a look dismay when I wear my glasses because I "look like Uncle" which is an old man. Weird opposites....
So Chaitrali's little brother thinks of me like a big brother. Both their parents died in the last couple years and they live with some pretty heinous family. He isn't even apart of "Maya," but when he comes I make sure he gets some Bro Love because he needs it. We draw and laugh and he likes to climb on me. Or, I swing him around, which he loves.
This is when I began to sense Lil Man examining my face in my perepheral vision.
And then he looked perplexed. He then reached and grabbed a tuff of my hair gently. "Bhaiya what's that?" "What's what little man?" I responded. "Can I?"-asking if he could pull it, to which I nodded. He held up a tiny white hair with mouth agape and eyes sparkling with question. "Ah. What does it look like?" This is my usual reaction to a question that Im certain they know the answer to. "It's white." Cue the William Shatner pause with a tilted head...."Why?" I cycled through 5 witty answers... "Bhaiya is old and has lived through a lot of crazy adventures. It will happen to you too one day." The kiddo nodded with a tinge of the classic Indian head wobble and then held the hair up on his finger for me to blow off. I closed my eyes and made a wish that my whole rickshaw full of kids transcended their living situation to help change India. I then blew it off into the wind shooting past the rickshaw and he went to work.
I didn't pay much attention because Shussti started teaching me some more basic Hindi (which I learned is actually a mixture of Hindi and Marati), but as we reached a stoplight I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned to find he had plucked a score of white hairs off my head. He held them gently in the palms of his tiny hands like a precious piece of china. He gave an ear to ear grin...
"Better."
Then he turned and blew them away into the wind, like the worries of my past were being given back to the wind that brought them into my life. Seconds later my little angels went bounding off into the slum community that surrounds their school with a chorus of I LOVE YOUs fading off into the distance. I turned to sit down and the rickshaw driver smiled as we sped away...
"They are your kids."
It was true. They call me the biggest MAYA kid, but they are really like my kids. I would do anything for them. And, I they would do the same.
I am now kin. I am family. And I am a safe harbor for them. I am being groomed and loved by the very kids I myself am grooming and loving. And we take care of each other...maybe this is why I unconsciously bring bananas for those kids that had no breakfast? Puna is now my Jungle and I am the SilverBack of the tribe called MAYA.
OOh OOh OOh AAh AAh!
(Cue me beating my always semi unbuttoned hairy Gorila chest as I gaze to the sky)
I have arrived. I am one with the tribe.
I get home or even sit down during the day after morning coffee,
and don't know where to begin recounting adventures.
So I'm going to start sharing single stories and vocab.
Todays word: "Bhaiya"
It means: BIG BROTHER
Last Sunday, after rehearsal, I took a rickshaw ride home as normal. I have started bringing kids with me so that I can drop off en route and they don't have to take the bus. This saves their families money, gets kids home faster, makes sure girls aren't traveling alone (a female is raped every 20 minutes in India), and gives us quality time to bond and be silly. So this particular Sunday, per normal, we loaded the rickshaw up like a clown car. I'm talking myself plus 5 kids: Chaitrali, her brother (whose name I can never remember so I call him Lil Man), Shussti, Deepak, and Shlok. This is nothing considering I've seen 8-10 traveling in a Rickie before.
Shussti (a 4th grader that's gone up 4 academic grade levels in 6 months and who makes me cry with her now voluntary sage wisdom instead being more or less mute) was sitting behind me where the luggage usually goes, Chaitrali stood while her little brother was sitting on my lap, and Shlok and Deepak were busy playing a video game on my phone. We were laughing and singing amid me describing what it is like living in Paris: the food, the history of the Eiffel Tower, what a World's Fair is, how there are in fact 2 Statues of Liberty, and what gothic architecture is.
Point of reference: The kids are about as open as it comes on a daily basis. If you got a haircut they don't like, you no longer look nice. If you've gained weight, they asked "what's happened?" in shock. And also, like kids do, they ask questions they already know the answer to see what you will say. Along those lines, the kids also comment on my beard experiment on a daily basis. When I don't trim it huge swatches of white hair appear and I am also constantly stroking my chin like a Wizard when I think, which they mimic. Most people in communities think I'm either a wrestler in the WWE or the guy from the movie "300." And my favorite is "You look like Hero." Because of it, I also get a look dismay when I wear my glasses because I "look like Uncle" which is an old man. Weird opposites....
So Chaitrali's little brother thinks of me like a big brother. Both their parents died in the last couple years and they live with some pretty heinous family. He isn't even apart of "Maya," but when he comes I make sure he gets some Bro Love because he needs it. We draw and laugh and he likes to climb on me. Or, I swing him around, which he loves.
This is when I began to sense Lil Man examining my face in my perepheral vision.
And then he looked perplexed. He then reached and grabbed a tuff of my hair gently. "Bhaiya what's that?" "What's what little man?" I responded. "Can I?"-asking if he could pull it, to which I nodded. He held up a tiny white hair with mouth agape and eyes sparkling with question. "Ah. What does it look like?" This is my usual reaction to a question that Im certain they know the answer to. "It's white." Cue the William Shatner pause with a tilted head...."Why?" I cycled through 5 witty answers... "Bhaiya is old and has lived through a lot of crazy adventures. It will happen to you too one day." The kiddo nodded with a tinge of the classic Indian head wobble and then held the hair up on his finger for me to blow off. I closed my eyes and made a wish that my whole rickshaw full of kids transcended their living situation to help change India. I then blew it off into the wind shooting past the rickshaw and he went to work.
I didn't pay much attention because Shussti started teaching me some more basic Hindi (which I learned is actually a mixture of Hindi and Marati), but as we reached a stoplight I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned to find he had plucked a score of white hairs off my head. He held them gently in the palms of his tiny hands like a precious piece of china. He gave an ear to ear grin...
"Better."
Then he turned and blew them away into the wind, like the worries of my past were being given back to the wind that brought them into my life. Seconds later my little angels went bounding off into the slum community that surrounds their school with a chorus of I LOVE YOUs fading off into the distance. I turned to sit down and the rickshaw driver smiled as we sped away...
"They are your kids."
It was true. They call me the biggest MAYA kid, but they are really like my kids. I would do anything for them. And, I they would do the same.
I am now kin. I am family. And I am a safe harbor for them. I am being groomed and loved by the very kids I myself am grooming and loving. And we take care of each other...maybe this is why I unconsciously bring bananas for those kids that had no breakfast? Puna is now my Jungle and I am the SilverBack of the tribe called MAYA.
OOh OOh OOh AAh AAh!
(Cue me beating my always semi unbuttoned hairy Gorila chest as I gaze to the sky)
I have arrived. I am one with the tribe.
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