Heart Breaking Experience

While Jose and Mary were at the clinic providing vision checks on the children here, I went to the House of Peace for the first time. There, I interacted with a tiny little five year old, Fiona, who was clearly the “boss” of the house there, ordering children and visitors alike. She, along with Kathy, a six year old, and Moses, a tiny little boy who looked like he was four, were doing math. They were sharing an eraser between them and learning math at each of their skill level. Moses made frustrating sounds and was obsessively writing and erasing the same numbers (1 through 10) when his copying of the numbers weren’t perfect. Another visitor/intern, Kirsty, informed me that he was not autistic as I had thought. Rather, he was deaf and dwarf – he was actually nine years old. He signed the numbers 1 through 10 in Chinese and corrected my signing as I was signing American. He then brought over a cloth book and “copied/signed” the long nose of a huge rat in the book to show me. He went to Kirsty to show her his mimic of the “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil” monkey statues at the foyer, and signed the same thing with me. After a while, Moses turned on a Mr. Bean cartoon DVD and lined up the stools for all of us to sit there and watch. He made sure we had paid full attention to the DVD as he mimicked Mr. Bean with every action and expression. I joined him in mimicking Mr. Bean and he seemed to really enjoy it. I came to understand later on that the Deaf school he went to in the community refused to place him at his comprehension level (that of a kindergartener), so he’s been staying at the school on the grounds, while not being able to communicate with others effectively. He blew me kisses to say goodbye as I left their house. I stayed in this house longer than expected, as I just wasn’t able to leave this interaction that I was really enjoying…

I then went to the House of Love. There, while I was playing with a cute little two year old Susan, dressed in Chinese traditional red vest, in came Noel Joy, coming home from school, using her hands to pull herself across the floor. I was forewarned of some kids who get around this way from the rest of the team, but hadn’t seen it until now. She has a beautiful face and she smiles easily and freely. Few minutes later, in came Joann, who had a pair of knit shoes on her hands as she dragged herself across the floor. About two minutes later, I see a small and thin little girl dragging herself spastically across the floor…as if she was having a seizure. Her name is Noel and she has Cerebral Palsy. These four little girls played Lego with me. Even though Noel only has one fairly functioning hand, she happily stacked up Lego with me, laughing as Henry came over to play with us, making us sing songs like, “ABC” and “Silent Night.” My heart broke and tears welled up to overflowing to see these little girls with such severe physical challenges laughing and fully enjoying themselves, while playing nicely with each other, sharing their Lego blocks perfectly well with one another. As I laughed with them and took out tissues to wipe away my tears and blow my nose, they all looked at me with concern, Noel Joy seemed especially concerned…
Dinner was being served, and I sat on the floor with Noel on top of me as one of the nannies fed her. She swallowed her congee in lightening speed, and an autistic boy who was at first anxious over my approach, came and sat on the floor next to us, with his back to us. He allowed me to hold him with my left arm while I held on to Noel with my right, and he let me hold and play with his hand…It was time for our team to go out for dinner and I very reluctantly left the house…

While I’ve not been to The House of Zachariah yet, I’m feeling reluctant to go to yet another house and have such a hard time leaving each house. I’m feeling attached to these kids and it’s so hard to leave them, although they don’t seem to be having a difficult time with the comings and goings on the visitors (total strangers visiting them for the very first time). They’d run up to any visitor and grab us to play with them. They seem to enjoy the moment they have with the visitors, and as the visitors leave, they happily wave “goodbye” and are able to go merrily on to their next activity. I haven’t quite figured out if this is a sign of “healthy living in the moment” or a sign of pseudo-attachment…In either case, I’m the one who is obviously having a difficult time leaving them and letting them go…sigh…

Signed, Elissa