Night Howl

After a relaxing beach holiday, we came back to New Hope and our rickshaw was greeted by smiling and excited faces. It was welcoming and so cute, but slightly and immediately overwhelming. They all wanted a piece of us the second we walked in the door, trying to settle in and unpack after a 12 hour bus ride. I tried to fight it, but rather than feeling excited to be back, I was frustrated by a number of things. Home less than a day, I plucked a bug out of my hair and was immediately put in a rotten mood. The day went on to feature several bathroom accidents, bug infestations, and foul smells wafting from all over. I know that I only have a month left with these kids and I really want to enjoy it, to soak up the last days I have with them and cherish every second. Sometimes it's hard to do that in the moment when you're changing and washing the 5th set of pee-pee pants and battling a forcefield of flies outside (and inside) because no matter how many times you tell them, the kids wont stop leaving food all over the ground when they wash their plates at the spigot outside our door. Or when you have to pretend not to see the giant cockroaches out of the corner of your eye, or politely pluck the insect out of your food and tell yourself it's just burnt rice. I don't get too easily grossed out, but when you are constantly surrounded by filth, it starts to wear on you.

I had just turned out the light around midnight when the howling began. It was Nithin of course, and at first we tried to ignore it since Nina and I tend to exacerbate the problem due to his attachment to us. Finally, when it only grew louder and no one else went to tend to the issue, I went out to calm him. I walked out into the next room where the floor was strewn with slumbering bodies, the smallest one whimpering and writhing like a dog with an itchy back. The second I lifted him from the ground the sobbing ceased. His breathing slowed, peppered with the hiccupy gasps of a child who cries so much they cant catch their breath. I couldn't help but notice how peaceful he became just laying in my arms. There was nothing wrong, he just woke up scared and lonely and wanted to be clutched close to a warm body who's love he could feel enveloping him. I gently rocked the little boy in my arms as he clung to me like a baby koala and I began to realize that it is moments like this that are what I am really going to miss. Simple moments where I feel that my presence is really needed, or maybe just coveted, the moments where all I can hear is the whirring fan and the shallow breathing of this beautiful child sleeping soundly in my arms, the contours of his perfect little face barely visible in the moonlight. And in that moment I cant bear to think of the fact that after I leave here, I may never see him again.

When I loosened my grip and attempted to lay him down amongst the girls, he grasped at me desperately and the sobbing began again. I knew that everyone else's sleep was dependent on my keeping him quiet, so after a few more unsuccessful attempts to get him back to bed with the rest, I carried him to our room and set him on a mat on the floor. Silently and immediately he curled up and slept soundly for the rest of the night, waking only once with a whimper but after hearing my voice hush him, instantly slept again. As he lay there next to my bed I realized something. To this little boy, I represent safety. He doesn't even need to be cradled next to my body to feel that security, just knowing I am there soothes his anxieties. In the next room, placed between the other children, he writhed around shaking, hyperventilating, flapping his hands and squirming violently in some sort of toddler panic attack. But here, no more than ten feet away from where he lay before, resting beside my bed and knowing that I am near he sleeps like a baby. As an aunt, teacher, coach, and caregiver, I have represented safety to a child before (though usually a child with at least one parent to rely on.) I am there to catch them if they fall, feed them when they are hungry, change them when they are wet, and can be depended upon when something goes wrong. But the safety that I represent for Nithin is different. He is scared. Scared of being left, because he has been left before, scared of waking up alone because he has so many times, scared to be without comfort and affection because he knows what that deprivation feels like. He relies on us for everything and that dependence terrifies me. In a month I will leave New Hope. In a couple months I will be back in the United States. But Nithin will still be here. I wont have any control over what happens to him, wont know how much or how little love and affection he is getting, wont be able to shield and protect him from cruelty or someone else's misdirected resentment. The helplessness I will soon feel for this child whom I care so much about is frightening.

Nithin where he would prefer to sleep if I let him - in my bed.

Though sometimes it feel like the moments of frustration outweigh the ones of bliss, I find myself wondering how I am going to just go on without these children. How will I get by without those grubby little hands grabbing my head and pulling it down to plant kisses all over my face? I have never met a child who is so utterly grateful for my presence and whom I provide so much security for just by simply existing here with him. I see the anxiety he feels with us just in the next room and it worries me for the future. I know what anxiety feels like but I can't imagine the magnitude of it for a child barely older than a baby who already feels so alone. I can't withhold my affection and comfort just because I am leaving soon and know he will then be without it. I simply can't justify that. But I am afraid that when we leave, he just might crumble.