of winter clothes and little Shaelah, Jamie, Dolly, Amelia, and _____

The last couple days have been pretty relaxing. The trip to the south really took it out of all of us. Papri told us we could skip class on Thursday so we could get some much needed rest. Elle and I were both feeling kinda under the weather and took full advantage of the day off. Friday is art day and at 10:30 we headed down to the class room to set up water colours on each desk. When no one else showed up in the following ten minutes, I ran downstairs to find Papri. She told me she gave the kids a holiday and to not worry about. Get some more rest she said :) So we did. We did laundry and pretty much rested the rest of Friday.

Saturday was also pretty uneventful. I had to teach Sabbath School again which was actually pretty fun. I told the kids about the porcupine. The program I'm going off of was set up by a sweet old lady from America and is all about wild animals. The only problem is, most of the animals are from forests, which means the kids haven't heard of them before. I think they enjoyed hearing stories at least.

By the way, Mrs. Waid gave us the privilege of naming the babies we brought back. I named my little girl Shaelah, because she is beautiful and looks like me when I was a baby--Michelin Man legs and all! lol The boy was named James, Jamie for short, since all the boys here are named after Bible characters. Mrs. Waid named the younger sister Dolly because the little one has barely any substance to her she's so tiny! After many days of contemplation, Elle settled on Amelia for the older sister. I really like that name and I think it suits her well. We still haven't named the other little girl so I'll have to report back in a couple days.

Church yesterday was all in Bangla so I took little Shaelah back to the nursery when she started squirming. I can't believe the caretakers in the nursery. There are three of them that take care of about twelve babies under the age of about one. I don't know how they do it. One caretaker was changing a diaper while feeding two babies with a bottle on each knee. It was amazing to watch them. I got to see little Amber as she slept in her crib. She is sooo tiny--like premie tiny! Apparently little Shaelah hasn't been taking formula very easily, which is sad. The other "no name" girl is big enough that she's been eating rice and dhal. She really packs it away!

Jamie has been sent to live in the boys room. There aren't many boys here so they all stay in one room, from toddler to about seven years old. I think it's a harder adjustment for the poor guy because boys are always more rough. The sisters are still isolated because they have such a bad cough that gurgles in their chest when they breath. It's really sad to be around them when they cough :(

Today, we were charged with switching out the children's summer clothes for "winter clothes." It definitely does not get cold here by my Canadian standards but Bengali's are starting to find the mornings quite chilly. It sounds like an easy task but when you have winter clothes for all 100kids packed away in drawers and cupboards, finding the right size dress for a little girl in the mess is challenging. Mrs. Waid was in charge of Sabbath dresses, Elle of everyday dresses, Brittni of kangaroo sleepers (you know those child size onesies?), Papri of socks, and me of little girl undies. One at a time, one room at time, we took the misfitting and old clothes away, giving two new Sabbath dresses, three everyday dresses, three tiny undies, two pairs of socks (one everyday, one Sabbath), and a onesie to sleep in.

It was an odd realization to see the little girls bring a foot and a half stack of clothes to our work station in the middle of the hallway. That's all they clothes they have--really that's all they need. When I moved home this last summer from Walla Walla, my poor car Penelope was FILLED with clothes. I probably don't wear most of them, but I still have them. And here are these completely content children holding all they own in their sweet little arms. But it really did take forever to even go through two rooms of girls (and I wasn't even there for all of it--Elliot was the real trooper, there for all of it). We took a dinner break before starting the rooms of smaller girls. We'll give the boys clothes tomorrow. Boys are more simple to dress than girls because they wear their everyday clothes to church for the most part--easy peasy!

After dinner I ran up to the room because I was hoping to connect with Michael on Skype or Facebook because I feel like I haven't talked to him in ages between traveling and bad internet. And yet again, Firefox kept acting up so I barely got to talk to him :( I was definitely feeling blue when I closed my computer and headed down to help with the clothes again. When I got outside, I saw Emily (the caretaker in charge of the sisters in their isolated room) taking the girls outside for some fresh air. She was holding little Dolly and Amelia was walking closely beside her. I told Amelia, "Ah-show" which means "Come" in Bangla and surprisingly enough she came to me with open arms. While these girls both have bad chest colds, I couldn't help but absolutely envelope this little soul. And boy did she cling to me, placing her head in the crook of my neck and wrapping her arms around me.

I walked with Emily and the sisters over to where the massive clothes swap was happening. I tried to set Amelia down so that she could get some new dresses but she wasn't too happy about that. But then the coolest thing happened. I was holding her when out of some silly inspiration, I grabbed her free hand and began to pump it up and down. I hummed some silly song and danced her a loopy circle. She laughed! The little girl that only four days ago wouldn't stop crying after being ripped from her mother's arms was smiling and laughing with me. Suddenly I didn't feel so blue. After that, she let Elliot fit her to a couple pretty dresses and let Brittni find her a fuzzy onesie for bed--well, as long as I was only a couple feet away. It was so special to watch a connection grow with such her, a sweet lovebug deep down.

When I noticed Emily and Dolly were gone, I headed back to their isolated room with Amelia on my hip. I found Emily feeding Dolly some rice and curry mixture so I put down Amelia so she could be fed too. I ended up spoon feeding Dolly about half a plate of food! Seriously, those girls were PACKING it away. I was SO happy. When you see pictures you'll understand why--these girls are nothing more than bones. I'm really hoping they'll grow with all the good food they are being fed.

Tonight, after a small cup of warm milk, the girls were given their cough medicine and put into their cute jammies. Both girls started screaming when we tried to put them into their cribs though. It was so sad. Emily picked up Dolly and Amelia wouldn't let go of me any time I came close to her bed. I sat with her, cuddling her until she calmed down. Dolly fell asleep in Emily's arms so we tried again to put the girls to bed. Dolly fell asleep but Amelia started crying again. I asked Moni (pronounced Moonie, she's the oldest girl here and has been in our conversational English class) what she was saying as she cried. Moni told me that she was saying, "Mom, mom" through her tears. It was so sad for me to know that even though she was making connections here, she still didn't forget her mommy. I can't imagine what that must feel like. I don't think I wrote this in my last blog but we offered the sisters' mommy a job at our orphanage many times. She refused each time, coming up with lame excuses--why she wouldn't come, we don't know.

Please keep these young ones in your prayers each day. Like I said, I can't imagine the trauma of being ripped away from your parents... Sad day...
'tis all for now :)
ami tomake bhalobashi