Why do the little monsters make me love them so much it hurts.

There's something about a crying child that tugs at every maternal instinct I try to deny. S., the little monster who calls me "MAMMY!" with one breath and then refuses to make his bed with the next, cried on my shoulder last night. He told me the other day that he loved me. Or, he told me as well as a 10 year old from an orphanage in South Africa can manage. "Me love you," he announced one day when I came to take him to his medications in the morning. The HIVSA rep told me that she thinks he has ADD and a low IQ. The ADD portion I may agree with, but not the low IQ. There's something about S. that makes you love him. The sticky hugs. The cheekiness. The demands - "Kiss!" Or, as he calls them, "Boops!" He does speak broken English since its not his mother tongue, but he seems pretty eloquent in Zulu. I don't know how well he'd sit still in a class but he knew enough last night to realize that the cards we were drawing to thank the camp sponsors meant that camp was coming to a close. He drew one flower on his card forlornly (insisting on using my lap as his desk) and then fell silent. He announced "Want sleep!" and fell over like a narcoleptic. I've never seen anyone fall asleep so fast. He kept waking up with tears leaking out of his eyes and crying heaving sobs. I put him in his bed, only for him to stumble out again a few minutes later to throw his arms around me and cry tears against my neck. He fell asleep on me with one arm holding me securely around the neck and the other hand patting my face sleepily as he'd mumble repeatedly "Me love you. Me love you." It brought tears to my eyes, especially considering that he's the one I'm always dragging out of the dirt, telling him to stop fighting, no pushing, go wash your hands. And his response is always "NO!" I'm sure orphanages these days are nothing like the institutions in Little Orphan Annie, especially since S. and his brother K. seem well adjusted, but it still made me want to take both of them home with me.

I eventually put S. back into his bed when it seemed like he was sound asleep, and I tucked the rest of the kids in for their bedtimem story. Usually, because these kids are from Soweto, they insist on closing all the curtains and doors tightly before they go to sleep even though we're in rural area. I normally have to yell through the door when I read them their bedtime story. That last night though, when I read them their bedtime story as usual,

S. woke up again to climb out of bed and open the door all the way so he could see me as he was lying in bed.

I turned 24 today. At breakfast, the boys sang me happy birthday before they got on the bus. I got a little shiny-eyed as they were boarding. Today (the last day of camp), S. refused to let me hug him or touch him, scowling "NO TOUCH!" whenever I tried to even cut his food for him. But when he saw my tears, he leaned out the window of the bus and grabbed my hand, scowling "No cry!" as the bus pulled away.

For all the levels of frustration that they caused in one way or another, I was sad to see them go today. There were a lot of nice photo ops at the goodbye as the buses pulled away, but something stopped me from whipping out my camera and snapping away. Being behind the camera somehow alienates you from the situation, making you an observer and no longer a participant. Never have I wished more for a little camera behind my eyes so that I could replay their hands waving out the windows and their heads poking out. I think I would feel better knowing that they were going back to loving families, but the harsh reality is that I don't know what they're going back to. Most of my kids live in children's homes, and others live without any adult supervision - only with their siblings. While they were at camp, I at least knew that they were getting 3 meals a day, a hot shower, and were safe. I have no such assurance now that they're gone. The older boys broke my heart more than anything else. The younger ones I know will have caretakers at the children's home, but some of the older boys are returning to the street. Most of them were crying because they didn't want to leave camp. A lot of them are good kids and I can only hope that they're going to turn out okay. I'm frustrated with the English language as I feel like I can't adequately express my thoughts right now. I think it's a mixture of incoherence due to too much emotional stimulus and exhaustion. I can't help but feel like my life in the U.S. is so... soft in comparison. Cubicles. Excel sheets. Paperwork.

All I want to do right now is eat chocolate and bury myself in meaningless fashion magazines.

041002_05boardingbuses Originally uploaded by nantron

041002_08goodbye Originally uploaded by nantron

The pleasures in life.

Being at camp is like being in jail sometimes. The food is bad, you wrestle with the other inmates (the kids), and at the end of the day - you feel like you got your ass kicked. Food and candy bars become the currency the way cigarettes do. Counselor NiceBag got each of us a Bar One when she went into town (Bar One is the South African equivalent of a Snickers). I told myself I'd save it for the end of a really bad day, but I already took one bite. Then I told myself I'd ration it for the remainder of the week, but I ended up eating half of it, before forcing myself to stop and put it back under my pillow. But oh that guilty pleasure was so good. I could feel the chocolate coursing through my veins and that warm sweetness filling every corner of my mouth... I had to really brace myself before putting it back, telling myself I'd need it for the remaining days.

The kids were so bad today I was ashamed. I've had to scold them all day, and tonight's evening activity was chaos. They're not getting dessert tomorrow. I had to pull L. aside and tell him, "As long as you're at camp, you have to follow camp rules, which includes doing what the counselors tell you to. If you don't want to follow the camp rules, we can send you home. There's a bus coming tomorrow for all the kids who don't want to stay at camp." Yes, the imaginary bus works wonders on getting kids to behave. I've changed my plan of wanting 16 children of my own. These past 6 days, I got a taste of having 12 children and I'm at my wit's end. I find myself wanting to shake them and asking the unanswerable questionn, "Why are you so bad?" Glasses said it might be homesickness. According to camp philosophy, all this bad behavior is because we're in the "Storming" phase (the phase that comes after "Norming") where the kids begin to test their boundaries. We've had at least 4 fights over the past 2 days. When I wake up in the morning, I drag my feet on the way to the cabin because I can already anticipate the scene that will greet me. Tears and fists.

The most well-adjusted cabin kid is the one who lives with his mother. The next well-adjusted ones are surprisingly the ones from the children's homes. Some of our kids evidently have problems. One of them regularly doesn't eat, or will fail to respond when being spoken to. Another one is bigger than the others and ends up hurting them often when they wrestle. A third one is a complete mystery to me since he rarely smiles, only sometimes participates, but is otherwise well behaved when he's not pounding some kid into the dirt. He helps clean up and such all the time though.

Some of the boys in cabin H have crushes on me, which I suppose is flattering in a 14 year old sort of way. It's been a tough day. Tomorrow I'm teaching Swimming. I get to spend all day sitting in a freezing pool.

Camp Sizanani - Neo and me.
Originally uploaded by nantron

Cranky is the word of the day.

I'm in one of those unexplainable fussy moods where nothing makes me happy and I'm generally listless. Being at camp means that you never really get a moment to yourself without someone knocking a friendly hello, which you then feel guilty about feeling resentful of. I guess this is where my loner side kicks in.

The kids have been fighting and crying and generally being horrendous to each other. One kid smeared toothpaste all over the other kid's bed. S, the former sweetheart, alternates between being a little monster and wanting to blow love strawberries on my neck. X competes with S for my attention, making him the equivalent of a limp puppet hanging around my neck half the time. Oh, and we haven't had running hot water for 3 days and the food has been awful. It's been eggs, oatmeal, mac and cheese, bread, and more and more empty carbs. What I want tomorrow morning is a leisurely breakfast of strawberries and cream and a good book. I want to read out in the sun on a lounge chair. Alone. I don't want to see or talk to anyone.

040921_06yondrumming_small
Originally uploaded by nantron

One of our other international counselors Red, from Monaco. Drum it!