Stars that Splatter the Sky

“Aka, eipenda? (Older sister, finished?)” the eight-year-old in front of me queries.

            “Almost done, chile (younger sister),” I reply.  I scrutinize the fine-toothed comb in my hands and find a tiny black blob.  Sticking my fingernails into the tight space between the teeth of the comb, I endeavour to get the blob out.  I dip the comb into the pail of water to clean it thoroughly.

            “Aka, me too!” another voice pipes up. 

            I look up to see the chaos before me.  Some children are waiting patiently; others are busy scooping water with pails out of the water tank into buckets (we have no running water) to prepare to wash their hair; still others are impatiently crowding around me demanding that they be next.

            A week after our 20 children arrived at the children’s home, I was doing the girls’ hair and I made a horrific discovery: lice.  I had never thought to check everyone’s hair when they first arrived.  I always assume that people don’t have lice, and not the opposite.  It never even occurred to me to check.  I should have known.  I’ve encounterd a lot of kids with lice and I’ve heard that most village kids have it. 

            Since then I’ve been washing the 5 girls’ hair with lice shampoo every day, every time I’m at the school.  It’s taken a lot of cajoling and persuasion to get them to cooperate.  They don’t see is as a big issue because they’re used to it.  I mean, everyone has it, why not jump on the bandwagon?  The girl who was the least reluctant to cooperate had 100 big fat adult lice combed out of her hair during the 1^st hour!  If her thick black hair is as dark as the midnight sky, then the nits in her hair are as numerous as the stars.  And I’m talking about the stars you can see when there’s an electricity cut and there’s absolutely no light pollution.

Just yesterday, boys approached me to get their hair combed.  I haven’t combed every boy’s hair yet, but out of the 6 heads I combed, 5 had lice.  Fantastic.  Now half the children at our children’s home have lice.  I might as well take on the position as the licerminator.  I’ve seen lice in every shape and size.  The baby ones are transparent, but they’re red if they just had their breakfast.  As they group up they turn gray and then eventually, black. 

            The problem is multifold.  First of all, the medicated shampoo isn’t strong enough and it’s intended to “stun the lice” so you can comb it out.  The first thing I’m going to do in Canada is to get some strong lice shampoo that actually kills the lice.  Another problem is that all the kids sleep on the floor on bamboo mats.  Because they sleep so close to each other, I get them to sleep in alternate directions.  However, some of them rotate 180 degrees, and by the time I wake them up the next morning, their heads are touching other kids’ heads.

            Not only does sleeping on the floor exacerbate the lice epidemic, but it also can be dangerous for the kids.  Last Friday, we spotted a 1m long snake near the bathrooms.  Later, we were playing a group clapping game with all the kids sitting in a circle on the veranda when suddenly one of the older boys jumped up in fear.  He had discovered a scorpion on the veranda!  Snakes, scorpions, and centipedes (whose bites are terribly painful, as I discovered in Feb) are common where the school is located.  We are the only settlement in a 2km radius, and we’re surrounded by forests and fields.  Beds.  A simple solution.  We trust that God will provide for them soon.

Apple Peels

From Aug 10^th to Aug 21^st we had the pleasure of hosting David, a volunteer from Taiwan.  After lunch one day, he peeled an apple to increase his fibre intake.  Siddu, a 7-year-old boy who is often homesick, approached David and pointed at the apple peels as if to ask for permission.  After David nodded his consent, Siddu took a peel and ate it with relish.  David felt sorry for Siddu, so he gave him a slice of apple and watched as Siddu gobbled it down.  Most children from impoverished families, including the kids who are currently residing at our children’s home, have diets of mainly rice.  Rice is not only their staple, but it is also the main foodstuff they eat to satiate their hunger. 

A typical meal consists of 2 bites of really salty and spicy vegetables and some kind of soupy dish.  When I first stayed with a low-income Indian family, I thought Indians just liked their food super salty and spicy.  I later realized that I was eating too many vegetables (compared to what they usually eat), so that’s why I found the food too salty. 

My heart always cries out when I see the children so happy to eat a banana.  Bananas are the cheapest fruit here, and you can get a dozen small ones for 40 cents.  However, if you look at the income of $50-100 of a typical lower-class family, 40 cents is a lot.  If a father of a single-parent family or a widow makes only $50/month, it means they’re surviving on $1/day for food.  And that’s for like 3-4 people.  Things like fruit, eggs, and meat are considered as luxury items consumed on special occasions.

My heart also aches when kids tell me their favourite food.  Most kids back home in Canada might say McDonalds or ice-cream, but at least 4 out of 20 of the kids at our children’s home said eggs.  Can you imagine?  Back home, we always have eggs in the fridge and more often than not, I choose not to eat eggs.  Here, for families living below the poverty line, eggs are a precious commodity.  In March, a dozen eggs were 85 cents.  Even then, many families cannot afford to give their children eggs every day.  Now, in Aug, eggs have inflated to $1.20/dozen.  Absolutely unaffordable.  As around the world, inflation is hitting the poor the hardest. 

I’ve lived here so long that I’m used to eating soupy rice.  The other day, I had the luxury of eating some boiled spinach, and I found that I wasn’t used to chewing the fibrous food.  I usually can afford to buy some fruit for myself, but I always feel guilty when I have to hide to eat fruit because I can’t afford to buy it for everyone.  Financial support is good, but we’re praying now that our micro-businesses can start up.  For starters, we want to purchase 15 buffalos so they can provide milk for our kids, and we can sell the rest of the milk to dairy manufacturing companies.  We don’t know how to procure the capital for our micro-business ideas, but our eyes are on Him, the author and perfecter of our faith.

No Sacrifice

All the tears, the discomforts, the loneliness, the frustration, the inconveniences, the language barrier issues, and the worldview clashes are worth it when a child says, "I love you, aka (sister)."

Please continue praying for me.  Jason Upton's "No Sacrifice" is my prayer:

To You I give my life, not just the parts I want to
To You I sacrifice all these dreams that I hold on to

Chorus

Your thoughts are higher than mine

Your words are deeper than mine

Your love is stronger than mine

This is no sacrifice

Here's my life

To you I give the gifts Your love has given me

How can I hoard the treasures that you've designed for free?

To You I give my future as long as it may last

To You I give my present, to You I give my past

Inflation

I know inflation is happening all around the world, but it’s occurring in gastronomical proportions here.  For example, chicken went from $2/kg to $2.75/kg and chili peppers from 20 cents/kg to $2/kg.  It might not seem like much, but when you think about the daily budget for food of an underprivileged individual—60 cents—the inflation is killer.  There are people who earn $1.70 a day as daily wage labourers and they get called for farm work based on the season.  If there’s no work to be done in the fields, they don’t have any income.  Shepherdesses earn even less. 

Living here makes me appreciate the Canadian government’s support system even more.  People earning below a certain amount get child benefits and many people enjoy free medical care.  There are food banks and different organizations reaching out to the less privileged.  Here, if your husband deserts you or if your wife dies, you’re on your own.  You gotta just etch out a living for you and your children.  Some do daily wage labour.  Some go into the forest and collect edibles to sell on the street.  Some herd buffalo.  And some—the ones that are really sick and unable to get medical help—beg their friends and relatives for relief. 

For some, inflation is just a pinch, but for those living in poverty, inflation is a deep gash.

(sorry it's sideways.  It uploaded this way and there's no function to turn it around) 

Baking in Rural India

I’ve been wanting to make these peanut butter cookies from a mix I got as a care package from New York, so I kept waiting for electricity to be more stable.  (There have been power cuts for at least 2 hours every single day of the 6.5 weeks I’ve been here) One day, we had power in the morning, and we had power in the afternoon.  I thought we’d for sure have power at night, so I started making the cookies.  When I was putting them on the cookie sheet, the power goes out.  I’m lucky the power didn’t go out while they were baking!  Fun times J

A few days later, I wanted to bake again, but there was a lot of burnt stuff in oven, so I decided to clean it.  I brought it to the outdoor tap and started using a wet rag to clean it.  Jagadeesh sees me and asks, “aka, help?”  Seconds later, Ganesh comes and tells Jagadeesh to go and rest, saying that he could help me clean the oven.  Since they both were so eager to help, I let them work on it and went to prepare my baking supplies. 

We brought the oven indoors near an electric outlet, and I plugged it in.  I tried to open the door of the oven and felt a minor shock.  I barely noticed it because I experience the same on a frigid and dry day when I take off a coat.  The oven was tilted and about to fall off the stool we placed it on (the current kitchen we use doesn’t have counter tops), and I tried to straighten it.  Suddenly my knees buckled and I screamed involuntarily.  Some teenagers ran up to me, and asked me what was wrong.  That’s when I realized I just experienced a huge electric shock.  I had only touched the outside of the oven, but I didn’t know that it’d give me an electric shock.  I felt pain where the electricity entered my body through my hand & left through my feet.  Then they left the oven under the fan for half a day to dry it.  When I tried baking that night, I plugged everything in and turned it on before plugging in the cord in.  Luckily I didn’t get a shock again.  There are so many 1^sts in India, some pleasant, but some not so pleasant.