A Weekend With the Children

I spent a recent Saturday morning going through our little front room library organizing the books, and clearing out a cabinet to store a bunch of art/craft supplies that Kathy had acquired. Three little boys hung at my screen door watching me and asking: “Didi, lal gari wala” repeatedly even when I told them no, I’d give the red car puzzle to them in the evening. I think they were mostly just bored though, because they turned it into a sort of song instead of a whine. It was cute! I eventually discovered some candies as I was cleaning which I gave to them and they scampered off.

At 4:30 sharp, one of the boys was back at my front door and asked for the red car puzzle as I’d promised. (Often the children forget and don’t come back when I tell them to.) 4:30 is the beginning of the kids pre-dinner play time, so I quickly had a mass of children at my front door asking for puzzles, Frisbees, jump-ropes, and books. I played with them and read stories for a while until some of the older girls came and asked to “learn laptops” (i.e. they wanted to learn typing on three laptops that a church had loaded with educational games and donated for the children.) So I finished reading Where Is My Mother?  to my young audience then got the older girls set up in my office on the computers before going back out to supervise the play time. (Mostly to make sure the kids don’t run off with the books. I make them return them before dinner unless an older one wants to borrow it for longer in which case I have them log it out on the register.)

The next day, I didn’t feel like supervising play time, so when the children all crowded to my door at 4:45 I told them, “no, no books and toys today”. They whimpered and begged for a while, but no, they got along fine before I came and they’re capable of being creative with sticks and stones when I’m not around. When they finally understood that no, I really wasn’t going to give them toys and books, I turned back to go inside. Then, “Didi, will you play with us?” *Sigh* The little brown-eyes were compelling. I smiled and said ok, but I had to put something in the house first. In doing so, I realized that my kitchen trash, which had been looking sadder in the last couple of days, was beginning to smell even worse. Usually trash dump happens in the evening, but hey, there wasn’t anything wrong with taking my trash out in the daytime in front of the kids, so I proceeded to tie the bag up. Ugh, it really DID have a bad smell AND a disgusting amount of liquid at the bottom of the trash can. What had been IN there? I took the whole, thing canister and all, to my front door and told the kids it was my trash. I needed to take it out. “Budaboo, very bad smell,” I explained. They all peered at it with wrinkled faces and repeated, “Budaboo, very bad smell” in their cute accents and promptly proceeded to follow me to the trash heap like they were the honorable helpers in the adventure of taking out Didi’s trash to help her house smell better. The daintily held noses and adorable chorus of “budaboo, very bad smell” made it hard to conceal my smile during our very important mission.