The newest member on my personal list of heroes (and heroines) asks my father and I to attend her convent's chapel of Perpetual Adoration for an hour. After a month of very limited church it feels so nice to just sit in a chapel and pray. We pray for the time, until a new shift of nuns comes in to replace the sari-wearing nun kneeling in front of us.
During prayer, I hear the sounds of the nearby alley. I hear families talking. Children laugh and the goats and donkeys make their sounds, but it seems quiet here somehow. In front of us, a starved looking Jesus hangs on a crucifix with the words "I thirst". He looks far more like the typical resident here then my father or I do.
The lead sister returned and asked if I could play with the children. They are having physical therapy today, but she needs someone to watch the rest of a specific group. They need to be constantly monitored.
On the way to children, a mute pregnant woman that I recalled from last time found us and gestured that she wanted to show us her other baby. I remembered her older child from my previous visit. The toddler whose crib she lead us to was not her baby. She proudly showed us this and three other sleeping children. "They are mine!" She gestured. "I love them."
"These are not your children." Said the lead nun. "But I am sure that you do love them."
The pregnant woman beamed and then wished us adieu. She had just wanted to show off the children.
Laughing, the lead sister took me to a poorly-lit room with seven children with profound developmental disabilities. They sat in plastic chairs and strollers, often tied into place with a white band of fabric under their arms. One child, who appeared to have Downs Syndrome as well as other difficulties, shrieked rhythmically and banged on his chair. The lead sister went over and started banging the rhythm with him and turning it into a song. The boy calmed down. "He's a great drummer." She said, "And look at this girl's smile!" The girl she led me to had cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and a great laugh.
"Their mothers leave these children at our gate." The nun said. "We raise them from infants. They are the true children of God. Comfort them for an hour. Be Christ to them. Come back any time you want to. God bless." and then she left me.
Immediately, a small, drooling child slipped out of his cloth band and nearly fell out of his stroller. I caught him, dried him, and retied him into place. He "slipped" again, to the same cramped and nearly out of stroller position, about every seven minutes while I was there.
The laughing girl spoke gibberish to me. I realized at one point that she was spoke in the regular lilts of iambic pentameter. "You're creating poetry for God." I said, and she laughed at life.
Every now and then one of the children would start shrieking or crying and I would go over and rub their heads, hold their hands, sing songs. When nothing else was happening, I would circle them and wave off the ever-present waves of flies.
Mentally "normal" children soon came by to listen to me sing and prattle to the kids in the dim room. We practiced English greetings. They kissed my hands.
There were cribs in the corner and a baby awoke and stood in one of them. I picked him up and walked with him while I helped the other children. When one of the attendants came by I asked who was supposed to take care of the little one. "You." She said. "He happy when you carry. You stay him." So I carried the baby too.
By the time the hour was up, I was tired. It was worth it though.
Later, we went shopping and got delicacies like butter, cheese, bread that isn't flat, and fruit juice. Beggars on the way back told me that they were hungry. I handed out small bills to them. I just couldn't walk around with a bag of fancy food while they asked for help. I didn't give them any of the food, and I'll probably (guiltily) ignore them next time, but hopefully I helped a little today.
When I gave an old, old woman one of the bills she pointed to Heaven and smiled. There was an infant tied to her back. I wondered what her story was.
On the way back to campus and my home here, I thought about the children at the hospital and the nuns who constantly pray and watch over them; how all of us are true children of God. All of us are perpetually seen and adored.
What a world. I'm glad I got to see this part of it.
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