Little Songhita

What have we got? Who knows? Krista and I were laid up in bed again this morning-missing a second day of work. Boo. Seems like we have traded symptoms. My breath is shallow and I am now coughing up a lung and Krista's throat is incredibly sore. I want my sore throat back.

We rested until 8 am- I boiled water for coffee on the burner downstairs. Orange for breakfast. Laundrey. Got dressed quickly and we walked the four blocks to Shishu Bhaven to keep a promise we made three days ago. Ghita, our lovely little friend at Prem Dan who told us she had TB and that her baby was at Shishu Bhaven, has sent us on an errand. We were to find Songhita-her six month old baby girl and take pictures, have them developed and bring them back to Prem Dan. "You will recognize her smile- that's how you will know her", she said. That is what every volunteer has said-Ghita and Songhita smile the same.

We arrived at Shishu Bhaven already exhausted from the heat and the dry air. Ducked through the tall grey steel gate and into the main courtyard. The sisters pointed us in three incorrect directions before we found the toddlers nursery ourselves- this is the way business is done here. We slipped our shoes off and quietly let ourselves into the nursery on the second story of the right wing of the building. A mashi nodded her head as we entered. She sat cross-legged on the floor and 12 little bright-eyed kids crawled up her arms and pulled at her clothes. We asked where Songhita was- she didn't speak English, but a little chubby girl dressed all in red with a ponytail sprout at the top of her head- 5 years old maybe, tugged at our pants and pointed to a crib against the far wall. We peeked over and a beautiful little girl was sleep inside. She looked like a little flower. "That is who you want", said another mashi approaching from the opposite aisle. She confirmed that Songhita's mother had been taken to Prem Dan-not only with TB but with a heart condition.The attempted operation to repair Ghita's heart had failed and at the age of sixteen it is unlikely that she will leave Prem Dan.

Krista reached over and snapped the first picture of Songhita-the flash woke her up and she grinned with her eyes still closed. Peeking one eye open and then the other- she is the loveliest thing I have seen here and my heart breathed for the first time in three weeks. Ghita was right- they have the same smile. We probably could have picked her out of the line of cribs. She continued to grin at us with her big dark eyes. The children in that room were products of a situation like Ghita's-or, they were simply unwanted. Their mother's moved into the adjoining rooms for 8 months waiting to give birth. The sisters and mashis fed them, washed their clothes and encouraged them through their pregnancy. They brought a child into the world and immediately afterward, they disappeared-leaving this little flower garden of beautiful children behind them, and leaving their own son or daughter to the orphanage at Shishu Bhaven. Their is a frail, pale skinned little girl who was born too early lying in a crib with a feeding tube-she has aids, as did her mother who disappeared a week ago. Another child was next to Songhita, her mother is also at Prem Dan, though we don't know who she is-we took a few photos and will have them developed as well.

It was good for my heart to spend twenty minutes in there today. To have kids pull at my clothes and hug my knees with their chubby little arms. Immediately restored something that the last three weeks had worn down. Hoping at some point we can come back and spend a few days here.

I have seen a distinct and deep-rooted disregard for human life. That is why so many children are abandoned routinely- left at the mother house, or worse, left on the street. That is also why women are abused in the most criminal and horrific ways.And it has something to do with the fact that a man, two weeks ago could be hit by a bus as he stood waiting to cross the street and no one paused. Not a moment of thought was given-traffic did not break. The bus continued down the street. Finally a few men dragged his body to the edge of the sidewalk and left him there, eventually someone called an ambulance. Our friend Sophie witnessed the whole thing and her nineteen year old mind could not make sense of it. It makes sense to me- I have seen stages of disintegration flash before my face like bolts of hot white from a strobe light and it is all connected. There is a mass deadening of human souls taking place here. It is possible to take everything away from a person- even to deny them their own humanity.  There are a few things that I have difficulty in dismissing as cultural differences because it offends something in the recesses of who I am-something that was placed there- not something I can accredit to myself-not something of my own making  but something I was created to hold and to honor. The distortion makes me shudder and causes life around us to literally fall apart at the seams.

Little mother Ghita with her weak heart, who proudly loves Songhita from a fixed distance is as reassuring to me now as it will be to her daughter in the retelling, when she is gone. There are a handful of little flowers making their way through the cement.

Ev