A Fresh Start

2010-06-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

A lot of things have happened.... a lot.

As a lot of my life is transitioning more to India and less in Nepal, its getting harder and harder for me to be a transnational single parent... and likewise, the age of my kids approaching more of an adult state, and me not being their biological parent has changed a lot of things in the everyday dynamic of our relationship. All of things paired with adolescence, need for more discipline, structure, etc have been lurking in my mind for the last six months... but to be honest I didn't know how to change things or more so, I had a fear of doing so.

I guess when we are in these positions a lot of time God "closes a door and opens a new one" as the cliche saying goes. 8 days ago my landlord abruptly told us that we had to move as some relatives of hers were coming back from years abroad in Hong Kong and now wanted to live in our flat. We don't have a leave agreement, so she does have the power to kick us out with less than two week's notice.

Like most cities it's impossible to find a flat in such a time frame... especially when toting around a handful of ex street kids.

I spent a lot of time in prayer about what to do... what's best for them... what's feasible for them... etc etc.. and decided to make different decisions for each of my kids.

So as follows...

Dorje & Arjun.... Arjun's been getting into so much trouble as of late it's not even funny. Drunkenness, crashing cars (did I mention that this kid does not have a license?), shouting at every kid in our house except for Dorje etc.. Dorje is pretty well together... so I've decided to send both of them to a boarding school in Leknath, about 40 kilometres outside of Pokhara in a very serene environment in the midst of a lot of rice paddies and hills. I think the nature will be good for Arjun... as will the discipline. He thinks so too.. bc even tho he's been disobedient, he still wants to be different.. he just is dealing with all that adolescent angst mixed in with life confusion/revelations and doesn't really know how to direct himself. But to be honest, despite recent behavioral problems, I truly have hope in Arjun... I know that with a little more love and a lot more guidance he will grow up to be someone that really makes us proud.

Dorje is really super excited to go to this school as he has wanted to be in boarding school for the last two years... He's not a very expressive guy, but this week he's been jumping off the walls.. thanking me daily for letting him go there... I think right now he really has a value for education... which is good...

Khalay & Bibek....will join another boarding school in Pokhara. This school offers a lot of 'after school' classes that will enable them to catch up and get more on track in their studies. Khalay is a very influential person in Bibek's growth.... and it's important for the two of them to remain together.

Soraj & San Soraj.... my two working boys... will continue in their job... and for the next few weeks while we look for a room for the two to share will stay with Soraj's family. This is the first time Soraj has stayed with his family in more than 7 years. It will be very hard for him, but also good. and hopefully a time for family healing... We will look for a single room (nepal's version of a studio apartment i suppose!) for the two of them that we'll take up for rent... For a point of clarification, the two boys do not earn nearly enough money to actually sustain their lives... in a way this is modern day slavery in Nepal...because a monthly salary for the boys is less than the monthly expenses I have for each boy in food - and we eat very simple food. Thus, they still need economic support for at least the next three-four years until they advance in their jobs... Also, Soraj will take up a computer class to continue some form of education and San Soraj may take up a technical course to help him in his auto mechanic job.

Gopal.... has gone home to his village in Ithari, the far region of Nepal.... he should be joining a school there... living with his family and rebuilding those relationships again.

So to say the least, this is a very transitional time in our lives. These boys have been living together for more than 5 years... actually more like 7 if we count their lives on the streets. Although it hasn't really sunk in, I know it will soon... and all of us (probably most of all me) will have an emotional week to say the least. It's the closing of one chapter in our lives... but definitely not the end of our lives together...

All this moving and changing schools actually costs a lot of money... I have to buy all new bedding, uniforms, books, individual things for all the boys that were previously shared household items (towels, toiletries, etc)... not to mention "new student enrollment fees"...

As always I appreciate the support that you have given my boys and me over the years... and hope that you continue to do so as boarding school & hostel expense will actually be quite a bit more... but we are trusting in faith that everything will work out as I really see no other option for them at this point. Over the last five years of my life, there hasn't been a stress-free financial moment regarding their needs, but a few years back I started to realise that worrying never helps anything and at the end of the day they are God's children and not mine... so if it shall be, He will work it out.

Most of you already know the routine... tax deductible donations made to the following:

Hines Foundation

2500 Dallas Pkwy, Suite 260

Dallas, TX 75093

love you all always.

2010-01-28T18:08:00.001-08:00

"Didi, I MISSSS you! I LOOOVE you! Okay, bye bye!"

-bibek's phone call to me last night.

the rules of abstinence.

2010-01-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

i love having heart to heart conversations with my kids. while i don't really like the whole "i have to talk to them about sex, relationships, etc" thing... i still do it.

i'm a big advocate of telling teenagers to use condoms. for most people, that sounds obvious, but it seems that many christians preach one message and one message only and that's abstinence. i've read that the percentage of teen pregnancies amongst christians (and also abortion out of fear of telling their parents who are so anti-pre-marital-sex they would probably die if they found out their kid had sex) is actually quite high.

so we have the "don't be so fooled into thinking you will be able to always maintain abstinence" kind of talks at my house.

this makes arjun EXTREMELY uncomfortable. okay, rightfully so. he's a 15 year old nepali boy who's had one kiss in his entire life and here he is listening to this white lady preach about condoms. it's enough to make any boy squirm.

"didi, you always think negatively! i am not going to do this!"

"i'm not thinking 'negatively', i'm thinking realistically. and i don't mean today or even tomorrow. i mean in five years when you are twenty and some really hot girl comes up to you and wants to. then what are you going to do?"

"you know didi, in that situation, when I want to, but I don't REALLY want to (i.e. the conflict of the conscience and desire), what I am going to do is just try to run away from that girl, then go and smoke a lot of ganja and then I will most likely forget that I ever wanted to do that thing with that girl."

Hmm... this sounds like a Colorado sponsored abstinence plan!!! :)

2010-01-20T23:23:00.000-08:00

ok i lied. actually i am just not writing long ponderings of my heart. but i will still tell you funny moments. like yesterday when bibek came up to me with a fistful of hair extensions (yes, for those of you oblivious, every time i go to thailand i put extensions in my hair!!) and a fistful of tampons saying "Didi!! what are these???"

nothing, child. nothing at all. :)

2010-01-19T01:59:00.001-08:00

in an attempt to collectively gather my thoughts about them, i've decided to stop blogging about the kids for a while... but i will again sometime... just not for a while. if you would like to check up on their lives you can always email me... i think my email is somewhere on this blog :)

bibek ka sawal.....

2010-01-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

this boy is now the king of text messages. i don't know why but receiving text messages from bibek really makes me laugh.

he sent me one this morning.

didi, please call me i have some questions for you.

i followed the instructions and here was our conversation.

"didi, is king kong real or not?"

"no."

"is the yeti real or not?"
"i don't think so."

"is avatar real or not?"

"no."

"didi, can you buy me a pencil and a pen?"

"yes."

"okay! bye!"

2010-01-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

a new year, a new puppy.

shantaram....

2010-01-04T02:03:00.001-08:00

"everybody has tension, didi. rich people are tense trying to figure out where to put their money. poor people are tense trying to get money. what can we do? i cannot say, but there is no such thing as a life without tension."

-bibek.

2010-01-03T19:13:00.000-08:00

ah, my kids, my kids, my kids.

the other day (and by other day i mean about a month ago) i asked x when we were supposed to stop calling our kids "kids". he said, "well, i mean you are still your parent's kid, i'm still my parent's kid. it's just like that."

for all the people (nepalis especially!!) who tell me "my kids" are not "kids", it's just like that. :)

i've told the aforementioned "kids" - and by kids, i really only mean my 15 year old trio; Dorje, Arjun and San Soraj - that i've begun to grow:

1. weary

2. bored

3. hopeless

about their lives. meaning, they've hit a wall that only they can climb. i can't push them over it; they have to go to the next level themselves.

it's kind of like entering our house.

i've never really thought to mention this because it seems quite normal, but we don't use the front door. everyone, our 50 year old upstairs landlady included, climbs the backyard fence to leave the house.

it's not a tall fence, but it is usually a bit awkward when i bring people to our house for the first time.

there is a logical reason for climbing the fence; the two doors lead to entirely different places. the front door and the back door lead to different roads. the road attached to the front door leads to a road that i've only ever gone down when i'm bailing one of the kids out of jail. gosh, this story is turning out to be more metaphorical than i intended, but yep it's true. the easy road leads only to jail and a field where kids use drugs. the backdoor, however, leads to everything else. the shop where we buy our food, the butcher's, the college, the bus, the town and in all practical senses, life itself.

so those are the options. the road to jail and drugs or the road to community.

right now my kids are sitting in the house smoking cigarettes in the bathroom as if i don't know, confused which road they are going to take. a while ago someone asked me what my goals for these kids. i simply answered, "my goal is that there would be a few less criminals in nepal." that shut the person up.

people want me to give these nice, pretty answers about how they will be businessmen or teachers or anything upright. people who want to quantify success of my 'rehabilitation' of these kids. those are the type of people who usually think things like if i can't provide those kind of solutions, then i should either a. stop helping those kids or b. reevaluate my own efforts/ methods.

basically my point is this: a lot more people than you would realise discourage the help of street kids, because street kids are lazy, criminally minded, selfish individuals and for the same effort it takes to help one Dorje, one San Soraj or one Arjun, a person could help 20 Sushmitas, Ashmitas, and other poor children who want nothing more than to go to school. That's all well and fine, but if you don't help the Dorjes, San Sorajs, and Arjuns of the world, then you are going to be the one's getting beat like a pulp outside of a nice bar in Kathmandu by a street kid or the one knifed in the hand and mugged at 9 p.m. both true stories; the first i'll post about soon. then you'll probably be wishing that someone had taken the time and energy to help a street kid.

lately i've been telling arjun that he looks like a young criminal we know. not exactly positive reinforcement, but it's actually a bit scary to me that his mannerisms so often mimic those of that street kid turned professional criminal. the only difference between that young man and arjun is that my boys still has a slight innate goodness and a desire to be something other than a thug. arjun still has that flame of life and that sparkle of pure innocence in his eye. but dually, the criminal side is there; i know it and even arjun knows it.

so he has a choice that i cannot make.... stroll out the front door or climb the fence.

2009-12-23T06:36:00.001-08:00

this 20 year old girl is coming around our house to give the boys extra help with their homework. before meeting her bibek simply asked, "is she dangerous, didi?"

i looked at him and said, "yes, she's dangerous. very dangerous."

he said, "you don't know didi, some girls are SOOO dangerous."

yes, boy, yes they are.

2009-12-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

teenagers. ah, they are really difficult.

san soraj has been all moody all the time.

today arjun said to me, "didi, i'm not a kid - i'm only a kid in your mind, but i'm not really a kid" to which i actually responded, "if you are not a kid, then stop acting like one!!!"

i feel really old! it's funny that during their adolescence i feel a wider gap in our communication than when they were in fact, just kids.

2009-12-23T05:58:00.000-08:00

bibek n kaley

me n my boy - gotta love that he's wearing my headband!

2009-12-13T00:56:00.000-08:00

the other day my kids were talking about people who care versus people who pretend to care. the list of people who actually cared totaled three - puja, sewa, and emma didi. then dorje actually said, "but i think some of ur friends in america care about us, don't they didi?" i said, 'yes, yes they do... and a few of them even named every one of you kids to me when i was home - which, i actually found very, very touching.... but they were definitely right that puja and sewa really do.... and evidence there of... my lovely friend just sent me this picture.. her interpretation of bibek, me and the 200 rps. bird! :) i especially like that bibek and i look so classy ;-). if only....... :) ahh! i love you!!! please come back from "austria".

2009-12-11T01:03:00.000-08:00

bibek and his bahini, ashmita

2009-12-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

Dorje: Didi, when i get big, I think I want your job.

Emma: And what's my job?

Dorje: I don't know but it must be a good one because you just lie in your bed all day and play on your computer!

I love him.

but just for clarification - i'm working, not playing! and we don't have heat or insulation in the walls - it's cold! and i've been sick!

but it was still really funny :)

2009-12-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

the other night soraj, my oldest came home a little bit intoxicated.

this is the first time i've seen the kid on anything, and i must say, if i have to choose - i'd take soraj with a few drinks in him than any of my other kids on any other substance. just saying...

i don't know why, but intoxicated nepalis all want to speak in english. it's true no matter where in the country you go - if they know a little english, that's all you'll hear after a few glasses of raksi or chang. soraj is no different, and the funny kid kept saying to me, 'didi, i am english talking so perfect when ali kati jap (a little drunk). me never speaking so good english, but drinking time... so nice and champion english speaker. isn't it didi?"

uhm.

basically, he talked at me in a monologue for two hours about his woes in life, his concerns for the other kids and his concerns for me. and he said "thank you for everything, didi" about 48 times. when he wasn't saying thanks or worrying about the other kids he was sweetly saying "sorry for i'm drinking didi. so sorry for that. you give me sorry, okay? i'm working so much every day and looking these boys going bad way... my head is sooo.... oh my gosh... so hurting, didi."

yes, i get it. me too.

i honestly don't know what to say about my "feelings" about him being drunk. it's not the best of choices, but not the worst of either. the next morning he got up and went to work on time and lived up to all of his responsibilities. drinking is not setting the best of examples for the other kids who like to justify every action, but at the same time, my oldest has lived a lifetime of being the best example. sometimes he probably just wants a break.

during his slightly intoxicated state i asked, "WHEN is san soraj coming home?"

the story the kids gave me a few days ago was that san soraj was off in pamey village; a place about 40 minutes away from our house, visiting this auntie and uncle we knew when i first met the kids. they even went so far as to say, "yeah, even auntie and uncle are calling you there.... they want to see you too, didi."

but a few drinks in and the truth came out.

"oh didi! i did not like to tell you because you are so tension and san soraj is such a bad boy! always doing something bad! i don't know, didi where is that boy's mind?"

usko deemag arko sansar ma.

his mind is in another world. clearly.

"out with it - where is the boy?"

"didi, you know some days back, he went hunting...."

let me stop. hunting is a term probably not employed by the nepali community at large, but used regularly by my kids who also say things like "jacking" for stealing. it's a term they say when they mean someone's gone to look for free growing marijuana; which occurs in mass quantities in nepal, hence the reason getting my kids to quit full stop is an almost impossible task.

"....and?"

"...and....." soraj was reluctant, "he is in jail didi! him and five boys together going to jail. i thinks one day before you are coming."

brilliant.

"but didi, i thinks we leave him in jail, he's not smoking marijuana and becoming a good boy."

"sor - get real man! you don't think he can get drugs in jail??"

"no didi... when i was in jail there were no drugs."

i know the jail sagas of all my other kids; i've been there during all of those sagas... but soraj? this was news to me.

"when were you in jail??"

"didi, i thinks i was 8 years old. maybe. i don't know why. i'm sleeping in road and then they are putting me in jail. me thinks, there was no drugs there didi. but you know didi? first time i am smoking ganja? i am just 5 years old!" he got a scorn on his face, "now i think that time and i am so angry.... why i am smoking so young??? this choice is making my whole life going to bad, didi."

regrets, we all have them.

i did a little research on my current jailbird and came to find out san soraj was in the district jail; a bit more serious than the other locations.... trial pending. instead of rushing out there the very next day, i decided to think through my plan of action. according to my go-to guy when it comes to street kid dilemmas, x told me san soraj could be facing a long, long sentence because of stricter laws these days.

fast forward to last night.

san soraj with a very short haircut walked into the house and told me his sob story of why and how he got arrested.

"and they just let you out?"

"yeah, didi."

"well, at least you got a free haircut out of the whole thing," i joked after our long heart to heart.

"no didi, this haircut cost 5,000 rupees ($80). my friend's mother came and she is paying for all guys to go out. when i become a rich man, i will pay her back."

"so, basically, you are never paying her back?"

"ha ha. didi!"

5,000 rupees is a monthly salary for a nurse in nepal. it's a lot of money. multiplied times how many ever kids this woman bailed out of jail...she did something i don't think i would have done.

i don't really know if my san soraj will ever learn. i truly have very little faith he will. the offspring of an alcoholic mother, he's genetically predisposed to a lot of problems, he is very slow at grasping any concepts, all probably aggrevated by his own early drug/alcohol use.

sometimes i wonder, is it christ-like to love someone without actually expecting God to change their lives? is there real love in that? is it possible to have love without hope?

2009-12-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

2009-11-30T06:07:00.000-08:00

i've had certain sentiments about returning to nepal that i can only equate to what it must be like for an educated nepali living abroad for a number of years to come back.

there is a level and type of frustration distinct to this scenario. it's different than a normal westerner who just can't adapt to the surroundings. it's birthed more out of love than disgust or lack of understanding. it's not a patronising kind of frustration, it's a "why? why?! why are you still toiling away in your same old habits and same old ways and not growing and changing and becoming more refined?? i want to see you prosper,... i want to see you be the best you can be...because i love you.." okay, that's not fair to say exactly, because in some ways nepal has grown and changed before my very eyes in the last 7 years, but still... that's how one may feel. frustration out of love is something i have both for this land and for my kids.

frustration out of love. i kind of like this concept.

on one side, you don't want to leave the thing you love. you think you can pour everything you have into it and make it better - because you love it (or in the kid situation, love them) and you want it to get better. you want to nurture it in the state that it's in because, after all, it did give you life. nepal and my kids did that for me.

sometimes i ponder how or who i would've been had nepal or these boys come into my life. it's so unreal and in all of their craziness, i am forever in debt to both this country and my kids. when i talk about nepal i say things like "we do this..." or "we do that..." and i'm not talking about america or in the west... i'm talking about us; the nepali people and me. :) i am pretty sure my subconscious thinks i am part nepali. after seeing the changes that occured within me after working in a ghetto in the US, i used to tell people i was born in suburban america but grew up in the ghetto.. i guess now i could say, i was born in the suburbs, grew up in the ghetto but matured in nepal. or something like that.

so coming back to the present, the initial thoughts have been nothing more than wanting to leave this country and all of its shortcomings. to leave my kids to the devices they so love to . to abandon it all. at least for some time...and just a warning, i'm not saying i won't. anything is possible and if there is one thing i know about myself, it's that even i don't know my next move. ever.

there is a six hour overcrowded van ride on windy mountain roads between kathmandu and pokhara. i cried a little leaving kathmandu because i just wasn't ready to deal with my life as a surrogate mother of crazy teenage boys. let's just say there is a part of me that is just very tired of it all. i love them, but it's been a good number of years that whether far or near they've been the centre of my world, and nearly every decision i've made has involved their well-being. i guess that's what mothers do, but there is always a little part of me that doesn't want that role. i love them, but i don't want to be in charge of their lives. this is just me being honest.

so back to the van ride. the driver left without getting a full tank and thus we ran out on the side of the road, and waited for one hour to get petrol delivered so we could continue the journey. this would be okay if about 1/3 of the time i take this ride something didn't happen. political problems, buses breaking down, etc etc etc... it never ends and the six hour ride is often more like 10.

when i got off my plane a nepali man from a simple background began talking to me on the shuttle from the runway to the airport. unsolicited, he informed me, "madam, nepal is an underdeveloped country, but i blame it only on ourselves. we are mismanaging."

i think that's why overseas returnee nepalis become so frustrated with the Way Things Are. because we know the problems, we know how things should be, yet we can't seem to figure out how to fix them... and instead we continue to drum on in our same ways as if there is some kind of universal force compelling us to do so in The Same Old Way. nepal does it in its political endeavors and its development plans, my kids do it in their still street style choices, and i do it in my personal life.

the petrol running out mid trip scenario was a small catastrophe but one large enough to send me headfirst into stream of thoughts of How Do I Escape. Plotting and planning... this was the frame of mind in which i arrived at home.... but then... ah... i saw my kids... and remembered how much they mean to me... and how although it's nothing big, the taste of my everyday life with them is so rich, so full of love...

dorje is my most self-conscious, insecure kid of the bunch. he hardly even knows how to talk to me, never looks anyone in the eye and is always worried about talking for the fear of being misunderstood. he doesn't know how to express him self in the least. so the boy lingered around my room last night telling me some random information about his life from the last few months. basically he was complaining about how my absence made his life rather difficult, and of course i felt bad about that.

then he said, "didi, when you left nepal, our lives are so not good. don't leave nepal again! don't leave us!!!"

what can a girl say to that?

just kidding and other emma-isms

2009-11-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

the scary thing about being an important person in the lives of some kids is that you actually are an important person in their lives.

i think about that a lot when i yell at my kids. i think about one thing i say and how it could be that one sentence that stays with them forever, that forms them, and it really makes me nervous.

especially with bibek.

but there are some funny ways i guess i've influenced my boy.

apparently i say the phrase "just kidding" a lot... but bibek seems to think "i'm just kidding" means "i'm lying." okay, i guess technically it does, but it's funny when he tries to lecture me:

"didi, you is always just kidding (shakes his finger at me). Hey, girl - don't you know? Just kidding is no good!!!"

and then there's "oh really".

the thing about bibek is... well... the boy talks.... a lot.

one time bibek and soraj walked 2km to buy a book and then walked home. afterwards, soraj came up to me with a scorn on his face and said, "didi, this boy... we left the house... and he started talking and didn't stop the whooooooooooooole way. he's soooo annoying, didi!!!"

every day of our existence together he comes into my room and tells me every minute detail of his life. i have a lot of kids living with us, all of whom call "didi!" "Didi!!!" DIDI!!! every five minutes so i can't really give bibek my full, undivided attention for 4 hours to listen to his life story every evening and half the time i wind up just letting him talk about this and that whilst i say "oh yeah?..." "oh really?"

one day i realised how frequently beebs says "oh really" and "oh yeah?" and how no other nepali people say that.

anyway, it's cute.

i would write more but my favourite northern irish girl in nepal just came in the room... so... basically.. yeah...i've quickly become....distracted...:P

2009-11-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been meaning to write about this, but haven't. So typical of me... :)

Before I left Nepal, Arjun came and sat in my room on the spare bed where Bibek occasionally sleeps. He didn't look at me, just pretended like he was doing something. This is how Arjun approaches conversations with me; he lingers.

"What is it Arjun?"

"Ah... nothing..."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

And then what he does is suddenly and abruptly looks up at me as though the idea just struck him, as if it wasn't at all the only reason he came into my room, and says:

"Emma Didi!!"

"Yup?"

"So... you are going to America?"

"Yup."

"Can you buy me one game system? I am sure it must be cheaper there."

"Uhm..."

"Yeah, yeah, can you?...."

Last time I went home, I also brought Arjun back something he had asked for; a stuffed animal. Now the funny thing about it was that my dear 14 year old had actually asked me for it a few years prior; I just forgot. Then when I was home, I saw one and suddenly remembered. I knew he was probably too old for it, but for some reason I still thought it would be funny if I embarrassed him and brought it to him. I'm not going to lie, it was hilarious.

And then, suddenly with a half smile through gritted teeth he says, "And don't make it like that time I asked you for a doll and you brought it years later."

I started cracking up, "That was funny, wasn't it, Jun?"

Still through the gritted teeth, "No, didi! It wasn't funny at all! You caused me so much tension! I was like, 13 - what do I need with a stuffed doll at 13?"

Okay, this story just isn't as funny when I can't do the impersonations of Arjun... but trust me, it was a riot.

Yay! I get to see my beloved family in just 6 days. I cannot even wait. I love them so much more than I think anyone who reads this will ever imagine.

2009-11-17T05:20:00.000-08:00

2009-11-03T08:31:00.000-08:00

my friend and i are having a fundraiser this weekend in colorado... here's our write up about it... and if you happen to have friends here... send them!!

Imagine a five-year-old child using drugs. He doesn’t know how to write the alphabet, but he knows how to roll a joint or how to prepare a dose of hallucinatory drugs because he’s been doing it for so long he doesn’t even remember when it was that he took his first hit. It’s a startling image; one you might pass off as impossible or improbable, but it’s the reality for a large percentage of the 100 million + street kids worldwide.

That’s how old Bibek was when we first met him; how old he was when he was already a regular user. And as the young boy publically self-destructed on the streets of Nepal, a thousand people walked by, or worse yet, blamed him for his status as a street child.... and hundreds and hundreds of miles away, on the streets of Cape Town, South Africa, the same thing happened to six year old Randy*. The two boys from very different political and cultural landscapes are bound by a common childhood: one devoid of love, protection and self worth, but instead filled with violence, exploitation, and the constant harshness of their daily reality as they struggle to survive.

Disregarded, dismissed and considered the refuse of society, street kids throughout the world are subjected to exploitation by drug dealers, pedophiles and society at large. It’s estimated that more than 90% of street children have suffered abuse. In most of these countries, the faulty legal systems in tact continue to fail the children at risk, reaffirming their innate belief that they are worth nothing, not even protection.

The Hines Foundation and the Brown Foundation are partner organizations that work together to change the lives of street children on global scale, one child at a time. Through a decade of experience working in the field, we’ve learned that true rehabilitation only occurs through the presence of consistent, reliable, love that a recovering street child can grow to trust.

Currently we focus all of our efforts on issues of street life and drug rehabilitation in South Africa and Nepal, but hope someday soon to expand into other countries as well.

We would like to invite you for a Sunday afternoon at Namaste Restaurant in Lakewood to learn and share about the lives of street kids through our video screening, short talk and Silent Auction. We are kindly asking a $5 optional cover charge that will go directly to impact the lives of street children in South Africa & Nepal.

All donations or purchases in the silent auction are tax deductible.

Thank you so much for taking the time to hear our stories, support our efforts and be part of the solution!!!!

See you Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and someone wrote about my boy bibek:

This really hit home. I met Bibek in Pokhara about a month and a half ago. I was catching a microbus back to Kathmandu and Bibek was at the microbus station (my friend recognised him). He approached us timidly; a desire for love and fear mixed in equal measure. After assuring my friend that he was fine, he fled and disappeared into the early morning crowd in Prithvi Chowk. I have wondered since then what happened to Bibek.

2009-10-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

although there is a weird caveman (i.e. santosh dai) present in this pic... this is still and most likely always will be my favourite picture of me and my boy, beebs....

i love my boy... an notice, he's the toothless one in the header... ah, he's all grown up.

How to Help.

2009-10-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

From time to time, people ask me "how" I support these kids... I've been thinking about this answer recently and decided one word describes how, over the last 4 years, I've supported these kids: faith.

Many, if not most, months I really don't know how or where the money will come from. In the early years, I really understood the hardships of being a single mother trying to make ends meet. Those days led me to get this tattoo and to really surrender all my life plans. We can only work so hard for some things, and they either come through or they don't.

Well, we've finally set up a stateside 501 (k) for donors to get their tax write offs! The foundation acts as an umbrella foundation for a few projects in Nepal and hopefully, as we see fit, elsewhere in the world. The best thing is, there is no overhead costs when making a donation to our organization. We have no paid staff in the states and don't spend a single dime on glossy letterhead and the likes... Basically, every single penny you send goes directly to serving the communities we work with in Nepal.

The projects I've helped set up that will be under the foundation are these kids you've probably been reading about on this blog for some time, as well as the female rehabilitation centre my friends and I set up in Pokhara, Nepal.

If you would like to contribute to either of these projects, you can mail a check to:

W.E. Hines Foundation
2500 Dallas Pkwy, Suite 260
Dallas, TX 75093

In the memo of the check just write "Nepal: street kids" or "Nepal: rehab centre".

Hopefully soon we will have a paypal option and a website... but as for now, that's how we do it!

Thank you so much for playing an active role in the work we do in Nepal. You are vital to our kids' and female drug users' success.

unfiltered ramblings. like always.

2009-10-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

i'm very far away from my kids. they have their phone switched off, because well, they are weird like that. luckily we live in the kind of town where i can call the shopkeeper and say, "yo, have you seen my kids? are they alive?" and he says, "yeah, they're alive. dorje came to get milk just an hour ago."

so they are breathing. that's a good sign.

but how are they living? ah... that question remains unanswered.

i called x and woke him up early in the morning yesterday and the daft bollywood ring tone that makes me laugh in nepal, warmed my asian heart that's still suffering from reverse culture shock from overexposure to the "american life". so x actually answered the phone. he never answers the phone when i call. hm, maybe he answered because it was an international number, maybe i should take offense that he doesn't answer my phone calls in nepal, but somehow i don't. x is the one guy who can blow me off a million times and i still won't ever get mad. maybe because he's rescuing children from sexual exploitation on the regular, maybe because he's more committed to justice and street kids than any person i've ever met, maybe just because he has a british accent. i don't know which, but i still let him ignore my phone calls for weeks at a time without even flinching.

more possibly, maybe because he keeps tabs on my kids like no other when i'm away.

bibek's on the streets. it's not surprise, really. a week after i left nepal, bibek landed up on the doorstep of my kathmandu apartment. kathmandu is a six hour bus ride away from pokhara. , so without a rupee to his name, my boy, who i still count as one of the street smartest people i've ever met, made his way on a six hour journey and finagled his way through the streets of kathmandu until he landed at my other flat. he thought maybe i was "joking" (a word bibek thinks to be synonymous with lying...which, i guess it sort of is) about going out of nepal. he thought i was just kicking it in the capital, so he came to find me. my friends took him by the hand, took him to kalanki, and put him on the next bus back to pokhara.

i'm the most stable thing in bibek's little life, and anyone who knows me, knows that i am anything but stable.

x said he saw beebs roaming around on the streets and when he asked him what he was doing he said with his normal bibek confidence, "oh, i just decided to move back to the streets." as if 'moving' back to the streets was something legitimate, a real choice, a viable option. it's something he can do, because, well, why not?

how can i balance my life? how can i take care of my bibek and support him financially? i can't make money in nepal, but when i leave the country to get an income to support his life, he can't stay away from the life he used to live.

i know bibek knows that i love him. i know that. but i also know that he doesn't quite know how to love himself or let anyone else truly take care of him or help him make the right decisions. i blame myself for not being a constant in his life, even though i know the rationale that logistically, it's impossible. sometimes i want to demand the nepali government give me actual custody of the boy (which goes against current laws), but even then... will gallivanting around between nepal and bombay and america be a more stable life? at least he won't do drugs. at least he won't run the risk of sexual exploitation. at least he won't grow up thinking the world's against him and that all men are evil. at least he'll know love.

it's incredible how an eleven year old boy can break my heart more than anyone else in the world... pray for my beebs.

plans of love.

2009-08-16T19:10:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I joke that my kids are the best kind of kids to have because unlike other parents I can always abandon them for weeks on end and be free to pursue other things. I say it jokingly, but in some sense, I really do believe that. I'm just being honest! I love my kids but I would go out of my mind and probably fall into a deep state of depression if they were where my life began and ended. I'm a restless soul and my heart longs for more.

What happens to the kids when I'm away? That's what many people would like to know. I used to have a guy who came and stay with them. In fact, I have had a number of babysitters, nannies, social workers or whatever you want to call them but it's hard to come by a soul who can handle my kids.

My kids don't trust people. If they sense you don't truly and genuinely love them and have their best interest at heart, they aren't going to listen. “That guy doesn't love us,” they'll say to me, “He's just coming here so he can take your salary. He would never make this much money in another job.”

They've been b.s. detectors since they were very young because the only way a kid survives on the streets is by knowing who's full of it and who's not. Usually an optimist when it comes to judging characters, my kids are quite different than me – they are nice to everyone, but they know there are a lot of people in the world with ulterior motives.

The other day Bibek got hit by a motor bike and a friend of mine was going to take us to the hospital. Bibek didn't want to have anything to do with it. “Do you think that guy – or any guy for that matter – would help me if they saw me in the street with this leg? No. The only reason he's helping you now is because you are a westerner and he wants something else from you.” Bibek's known for some time that there are two main things that fall under the category of “something else” - American visas and sex. For sure my friend isn't like that, but always a skeptic, Bibek wouldn't budge.

So back to who they stay with. These days they are staying under the careful watch of the only boy they know it's safe to trust: my oldest. Soraj is the most serious of them all. The only time he's ever done anything bad is when he found out the father who doesn't even play a role in his life had tuberculosis. Soraj sold our television to pay medical expenses for his father and then ran away because of the guilt. He wound up sleeping at the pad of a fairly notorious drug dealer. In my search to find Soraj I ran into the dealer and out of cordiality asked him what he was up to, "Oh, you know... the same... selling drugs. Mostly heroin... sometimes ganja or pills but mostly things for injecting...You already know, Emma... so that's why I'm not even going to bother to lie." Kudos for bluntness.

Sewa and I met a dishevelled version of Soraj a few days later and over a plate of fried momos, Soraj trembled and poured out confessions of every minute sin he'd ever committed in his short life. He loved his father but I think it hurt him even more that he hurt us because we were and still are his familyl.

One time I asked Soraj about girls. He just gave me a look and said, “Didi, I don't want to think about this. I am not looking at girls, not thinking about girls. I don't want to be distracted. I will just try to focus and work hard and then one day, God will tell me which girl to marry and I will marry her and that will be all.” Basically, God's arranging his marriage so there's no point in the frivolities of teenage romance.

Last month, with a climactic last week, I had escapades with Bibek on par with days of old. It's been a while since I've had to literally had to fight against the stubborn wills of self destructing street kids in order to save them from their worst enemies - themselves - but with Bibek this summer has been along those lines. I just didn't know if I could do the whole chasing after him, reassuring him of my love and his security amongst us thing any longer. I didn't know if I could endure his psychotic fits of rage. Actually, I take that back – I couldn't endure those things and I told God one fine night, "I can't do it – you are going to have to take care of this child for me right now because it's just not in me.”

Bibek was on the streets for a week. I couldn't even bring myself to visit him. I just couldn't. I figured what was a few more days of street living in the life of a child so very comfortable with it. Bibek quickly picked up the drug habit as if he'd never left it and he blended in with the other street kids as if it were the only version of life he'd ever known. My kids met him in the road one day and asked him what he was going to do. “I'm going to take a year off school and be a khatay,” he used a very derogatory term for street kid to identify who and what he wanted to become, “then I will rejoin school next year,” as if going on sabbatical from his studies in order to pursue his calling to the streets was a viable choice for an eleven year old.

"Didi, that boy...." the others shook their heads at me, "We just can't help him if he is so stubborn."

Like me, the majority of my other boys have grown tired of the whole street fiasco scene.

On my last day in Pokhara before some extended time out of Nepal, I wondered what would happen to Bibek while I was gone. I'm the only person who fights for his life and if now even I don't do that, who will? Surely not him. The thought made me nauseous.
The sun was already down and I still didn't know what I would do, what he would do. I came back home, trying to push the thought far from my mind, arguing that it won't do any good to be full of anxiety and worry about the matter, only to find a clean, un-street Bibek sitting on our porch waiting for me. It wasn't the Bibek of Kathmandu who shouted profanities through windows and sunk his teeth into my arm. This was the Bibek of our calm, relatively undisrupted life. The only time he spoke was when he said, “Soraj dai told me to come. He said he will walk me to school every morning and wait for me outside of my school every evening to make sure I go. Is it okay?”

Soraj was the angel who brought me back my boy when I couldn't do it myself.

At around ten at night I thought I would go to bed to be ready for an early morning but Soraj stopped me. “No, Didi! You can't go to sleep now. You have to sit with us. You aren't going to see us for a long time and we aren't going to see you too. Why do you need sleep? You sit with us and just look at our faces. You have to look at Bibek.”

I did it and I remembered why I miss them so much when I'm not with them. Sometimes people confuse my weird family as some sort of act of sacrifice, as if I gave up so much to be with them. The truth is, the real sacrifice happens when I'm away from them. It's when I miss watching them grow up and miss being with them that I give up something truly valuable.

Before I went to bed Soraj said one more thing to me that made me sure I was leaving my kids in the right hands, even if he is only seventeen. “Didi, I'm going to take care of everything now – just you wait and see. And then, when you come back, I'm going to tell you my life plan.”

“Your life plan? Just tell me now.”

“No didi,” he smiled, “it's too big and you have too many things on your mind. But I will tell you when you come again. I promise you didi, it's really big.”

My boy may be a pragmatic realist, but I guess he's a dreamer and a visionary too.

"It has to do with helping people, doesn't it?"

"How do you know????” he said with a surprise as if I had read his mind.

"I know you guys, don't I?”

His smile was one of ease, “Yeah Didi, you know us guys... You know all the things about us guys...”

I miss them already....

ramblings in monsoon.

2009-08-01T04:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve wanted to write about my kids for a while now, but every time I come to my computer I just think, “Where to start?”

I guess I’ll start with me. Four years into this pseudo sister-guardian-friend-mother relationship with a random bunch of kids with very hectic pasts and presents, I still have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. The hardest part, which I imagine to be something so different from being a real parent or a legitimate legal guardian, is that I always have a way out. Everyday I have to willfully choose to stay in their lives and sometimes that’s tough. If I gave up tomorrow and just walked away I know my friends would say, “Well, you gave it a good try. It’s tough what you were doing.” They would commend me for my acts not condemn me for my lack of will.

Sometimes I look at my kids and I have to repeat “He is just a kid, he is just a kid…. He’s had a hard life… Do not abandon him… do not abandon him…” I know it’s not a lovely thought, but seriously there are a lot of times I’m just so tired of it all.

After a week of chaos with Bibek, the last two days with Arjun have been no walk in the park. Although Arjun and his blood brother Soraj are the two kids who probably most consider me a bona fide, irreplaceable part of their family and the two kids who I think actually “get” me and the two I “get” the most, Arjun still is fourteen and he still gets under my skin. Three weeks ago the two of us rain around the small plot of corn growing in our yard during a heavy monsoon rain. After fifteen minutes of exhilaration, we tumbled into our living room and collapsed in laughter on the floor drenched from the downpour. It was probably the best fifteen minutes this month. So that’s me and Arjun in our sister-brother relationship. Then there’s the disciplinary role, when I have to deal with his habits of drinking and smoking pot. Being that I drank a lot at his age, it’s still hard for me to know how to handle it. How is the "right" way to punish him? What should I tolerate and what should I not? I know it stems from something else, some deeper issue that I want to acknowledge and address, but I still find myself yelling at him instead of loving him. Last night I told him I was sorry I had to yell at him and he just said, “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who did something wrong.”

A few weeks ago, Bibek and his friend Lourie came to Kathmandu with me. Actually a friend of my oldest kid, Soraj, Lourie is about seventeen now. He's an emaciated kid who used to run around with my boys while they were still on the streets, and even though he spent many a days with us while I was still getting to know the boys, I left Lourie behind. I justified my decision: he had too many issues and he wasn’t ready. The real reason is, at thirteen he didn’t even know his ka and khas. The rest of them knew at least that much. Lourie would be too much work; work for which I didn’t have the energy. Every time I’ve seen Lourie over the last few years, I’ve felt remorse for neglecting him, for leaving him to the streets over the mere issue of the alphabet. It haunts me and his inability to be angry with me about it makes my lack of love haunt me even more. Instead of throwing bitter words in my direction, when I see Lourie he smiles and tells me the mundane details about his job rowing tourists to the temple in the middle of Fewa Lake. When he stayed at my Kathmandu apartment with Bibek, he washed all of our dishes and said thank you every time I fed him rice.

Last week Bibek and Ramesh came to Kathmandu. Ramesh is a kid I’ve never seen before, but Bibek told me he sells bottles of water to bus passengers. He gets a 5 rupee commission every time someone gives in to his enticing, "Chiso Pani!!" cries and reaches a hand out the window and takes one of the bottles he holds above his head. He’s eleven. Bibek enlisted this kid to go to Kathmandu because he has a job and therefore had money for the bus. I was in Kathmandu for an extended period of time due to some bureaucratic hold up and I guess Bibek was missing me. Those seven days in KTM were Ramesh’s heaven and Bibek’s hell. For the first time Ramesh ate well, slept well and didn’t have to worry about pedophiles feeling him up at night. He watched movies, learned about the novelties of things like freezers and blow dryers and bideshi food. When Bibek went through his normal manic moments of threatening to run away and this time forcing Ramesh to accompany him, Ramesh always left the house with a disclaimer, “Didi, I’m coming back. Even if Bibek doesn’t come back. I’m coming back.”

During one of Bibek’s more unexplainable manic moments, he locked himself in the bathroom and consumed shampoo until he passed out. A few hours later he opened the door and came flying towards Ramesh like he was just shot out of a cannon. He started beating the kid over and over again. I don’t know why, but I think it was something of jealousy that he brought this kid into “his” world and now he had to share the platform as youngest child. I pulled Bibek off of Ramesh and Bibek sunk his teeth into my arm. A week later, I still have the bruise. He’s done that twice, once a year and a half ago in Kathmandu and then last week . This time I just couldn’t take it. I picked the boy up and pushed his shoeless body out the front door and locked it. Ramesh went back to watching T.V.

After an hour of screaming in the dark and beating on windows in a manner I’m sure my landlord loved. Bibek came up to the window barred up to keep out all the thieves running around our neighborhood (really, there’ve been a lot as of late) and he just started crying. “Didi, don’t I have some life? All you see is I am doing bad? Don’t you see I’m trying! I’m trying to change!!! Don’t you see that???”

Ahh… I do… If this had been a year back, there would have been twice as many psychotic episodes, threats and "moments". Even when he reverts back to his old ways, I know my boy has changed... And two things he's definitely mastered - no littering, and eating all the rice on his plate. I wish he would've mastered the whole no hitting others or the whole losing temper thing, but I'll take what I can get.

Yesterday Soraj, Khalay and I were the only ones home. They told me Arjun spent 1700 rps intended for our bills on taking 7 friends out for cheap drinks that taste vaguely like rubbing alcohol and some dried meat snacks in one of those shady places with blue benches that serves local alcohol out of a pitcher I would use for something like say, Kool-aid or Minute Maid orange juice. I don't know what happened but with the news I lost all my will and just started crying. The thing I love about Soraj is he is the best oldest kid I could ever possibly want. He may not go to school anymore, but he is just a person of integrity and for me, that means so much. He said to me, "It's okay didi - you need to throw all these tension out of your system, so just throw it all to me. If you don't, you'll probably go crazy. Don't throw to these other guys... I don't mind, really... you just throw all of it to me."

Right or wrong, that's just what I did.

They're tough to deal with sometimes, and I'm probably tough for them as well... but one thing I know is our weird make shift family is still full of a lot of love... even if it isn't in such a normal way...

pushing it away..

2009-07-13T00:16:00.001-07:00

Bibek is the eleven year old love I’ve been chasing for the last four years…He's my prodigal son..pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling... It's a full time job trying to get him to trust love, trying to get him to feel comfortable being a child who’s not always on guard, trying to get him to realise he doesn’t always have to rely on himself. And remember, he's not my only kid with issues. Ah... the issues...

There are so many hard nights that come to mind with this child. Sewa and I picking him up off the road at eleven at night drunk and high. He was probably eight, arms and legs thrashing around in resistance. Or the time he sunk his teeth into my arm. Or how about the time when he started swearing profanities in a cave, during a movie shoot, in the middle of the night.

Every one of those times he self destructs, because he knows the best way to hurt others is to hurt himself. Smoking, drinking, drugging. It's his one big Fuck You to the world. He's right - it is the best way to hurt people.

“Why don’t you care about my problems anymore?!” Bibek shouted at me through a face of tears before thrashing his arms to shake himself from my grip.

It’s the first day I’ve seen my boy in the last three days. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s trying to integrate back into his family life, and in attempts to do so, I figured it was best to try to make him less dependent on me and more dependent on his biological mother for his day to day needs, but he interprets this conscious decision as abandonment even though I talk to him daily when I am not around him.

A bug crawled in his ear. He knows where the free clinic is, his mother knows where the free clinic is, but yet they somehow didn’t make it to the doctor.

“Let’s go to the doctor,” I said.

“No! I am not going to the doctor! I hope this bug eats my brain and I die!!” he shouted back, “then it will be better for everyone – better for me, better for you, better for all.”

These are the words of my eleven year old.

There are so many things I want to shout back at him at times like this. Do you not understand that in some capacity my entire life has revolved around you for the last four years? Do you not realise that you are constantly pushing love away and I am constantly forcing you to do what’s best for yourself even when you don’t want to do it?

Of course I don't say any of those things. But I want to.

He has a lot of the same characteristics of an addict. He’s been so, so good for the last year… So good… but everything reverts back to old habits in just an instant. He copes and the belief so deeply rooted in himself that there is no one to trust but himself comes back a hundred times stronger.

I know he wants to be loved, but sometimes I think he wants to be right. He wants to laugh at the world and say, “See, I was right all along – nobody loves me, and I’m the only person who will ever look out for me.” Better to rely on yourself than someone who will let you down.

I wonder what kind of issues my boy will have when he is a fully grown man… I wonder if I have the energy to endure all of his pushing away...and I wonder if I will ever truly be able to break through the darkness he believes. Sometimes I think I don’t have it in me. Sometimes I know I don’t have it in me. Sometimes I wonder if his obstinacy and his persistence to disprove love will be stronger than my love. I don’t want it to be, but sometimes I think it might win over even though love is supposed to conquer all. Does it conquer fatigue? I hope so.

He thrashed his arms around some more, but for a minute he remained calm in my grip. He just sat there and I know he was contemplating things – wanting to trust me because deep down inside he knows he can trust me – but it only lasted for a moment. Bibek pushed himself free, wiped his tears, and looked at me with that convincing look Bibek seemed to master a long time ago. It’s that look that fools everyone into thinking he is a calloused boy who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything.

"Bibek... you know I love you.."

“Thanks, didi,” he said calm and collect, “but I don’t want your love. I don’t want anything from you.” He said and he walked out of the house on his way to self destruction.

He almost fooled me just like he fools everyone... but I know Bibek better than that...

2009-07-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

arjun told me he was going to start calling me "Emma Bahini" next month when he grows just a biiit more and surpasses me in height. Bahini means little sister. :P wow, and i remember when he was just a tad more than waist-high on me...

2009-06-20T18:14:00.001-07:00

My only non-street kid, Khalay, has been living with us for one year. Khalay’s just a nickname though; his real name’s Rohit. Or so I’ve thought until a few days ago.

“Didi, remember I told you my name is Rohit?”

“Yup….”

“It’s not Rohit. Some people call me Rohit, but my name is Mahadaya.”

The things you learn about a kid after raising him for 12 months; like his name.

I still call him Khalay, because calling my fairest-skinned kid “Blackie” and having it be totally and completely socially acceptable is just funny to me. We used to have a dog named Khalay a few years ago. My kids fed that dog raw chicken and he died. Oh, the dead pet stories. We have a lot.

The other day my Khalay brought a handful of snake eggs into our house. He found them in the yard and thought it would be fun if we kept them inside. I vetoed the idea.

Khalay didn’t have a reckless street kid upbringing. His story is a bit different. His mom abandoned him 3 years ago and for a little while he lived at a friend’s house until he became too much of a burden on the family. That friend was our neighbor at the old house, so he was vaguely familiar to me, but not quite as memorable as his deaf younger brother who had never been taught how to communicate with the outside world. He moaned and groaned and had an obsession with anything electrical. He was always on a mission to find outlets, batteries, light bulbs and the likes. Maybe those electrical charges were his connection to the world. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand, couldn’t communicate back, but those little electrical things going on and off, they were the one thing he could grasp. I remember watching the way my kids interacted with that deaf, little boy. They never ostracized him, but instead they always made the extra effort to push him on the swing or carefully balance him on the teeter totter. I remember one day Gopal said to me, “We have to take extra care of him.” And that’s exactly what my boys who quite readily understand what it’s like to face social stigmas did for the deaf boy; they gave him extra care.

When I was last in America, the kids phoned me one day to tell me their friend had moved in. I grumbled a bit, wondering how we’d manage and who this boy was… A lot of people think I’m “such a good person” and take these kids in on my own free will, but the truth is five out of seven moved in against my will. That’s right, the only kids I took in were Roshan, San Soraj and Gopal. Roshan left after 8 months, but the other two forced me to take Arjun and my other Soraj and those two forced me to take Dorje and Bibek and all the kids forced me to take Khalay. So that’s how it is. My kids bully me to help their friends and I love them for it. They have more compassion then I will ever have.

So they phoned me, ‘Didi, Khalay’s staying here now.”

I said, “Who’s Khalay?”

“You know… Khalay…”

No, I didn’t have a clue, but a few weeks later I found out. Ah yes, he’s that vaguely familiar boy with the deaf brother.

So in came my first non-street kid kid who loves discipline. He gets up and goes running at 5:30 in the morning. He never does drugs. He spends approximately 4 hours a day reading his school books. And, apparently, he prays for Bibek every night…

“I miss him…” I confessed to Khalay how hard it’s been for me when Bibek’s not around.

“I do too, didi… you know every night I pray for Bibek….”

“You what?!”

“I pray for him..every night.”

Let’s be honest, I don’t even know if I pray for Bibek every night. I think about him, I cry about him, but I don’t call out to God on his behalf nearly as much as I should. But Khalay does.

“I pray for him…and my family problems, didi.”

I once asked Khalay if he felt hurt by his mother. He said no. I told him if that were true he’d be the first person on earth to be abandoned by his mother and not feel hurt. It’s okay to be hurt, Khalay, it’s okay to cry. He gave a little Khalay half-smile and looked at the ground.

When Khalay mentioned his family problems, it seemed like an appropriate time to ask the “family questions” my kids don’t usually like to answer.

“Have you seen your father lately?”

“Uh-uh,” he gave me the Nepali noise for ‘no’.

“You should go see him, no?”

“Yeah… but didi…” his eyes started to well up, “you know my little brother? He’s missing.”

A few months ago, Khalay brought his deaf little brother to our house. It wasn’t so much a random visit as it was an emergency. Khalay had found the boy in the street, knees covered in blood. He’d been tearing things apart in a small shop that sells potato chips and other small things and the shopkeeper decided the best way to get him to stop was to beat him with a stick. The boy sat on my bed licking the blood off his own knees while Khalay went into older brother mode in a way I’d never seen him do before. He got wet cloths and wiped the blood from the boy’s knees, hands and now mouth, as the little boy moaned incomprehensible sounds and twisted his wrists in awkward positions. It was a painful sight.

“What do you mean he’s missing? When was he last seen?”

“Three months ago….”

“Three months?! Did your father notify anyone he was gone?”

“Uh-uh,” that same ‘no’ sound.

“Where do you think he is? Do you think he’s begging in the streets?”

“Didi… I’ve looked all over Pokhara… so many times, didi. He’s not here,” I knew he was about to say the words he hoped weren’t true, “Didi… I think someone stole him and took him outside of Pokhara.”

I talked through our options. We can talk to the police. To Sewa didi’s mother- she’s a politician and a human rights activist, you know. She always helps us. Or we can call Jeremy Dai.. he’ll know what to do…

“Didi…I have so much tension… but there is nothing we can do… Can I go to bed now, didi?”

My boys… they go through a lot….

mero chora.

2009-06-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write this well.. but every time I’ve tried… I just can’t… Now I just want to write it.

My boy Bibek is around 10 years old. He’s been under my supervision for the last four years. His earliest memory is watching his older brother overdose on drugs and go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped or whatever it is they did to him to detox. Of course, that day was a Nepal Bandh. Political instability and drugs. This is what my boy remembers early on.

Bibek’s a half caste kid. If you know anything about Hinduism, that’s not a good thing. He’s the middle child of five. The first two, Vijay and Arthi, have the same father who disappeared before Arthi can remember. Then comes Bibek. His father also left. Then Ashmita and Sushmita. The father of the two girls now seven and four, fell into the same black hole as the two fathers of their older siblings. I met that man once when Sushmita was first born. He left soon after.

People often ask me, “If Bibek has a mother why is he living with you? ‘ Think of it as foster parenting. I guess that’s the best explanation. His mother is probably around 35 but Bibek thought she was 55, and I’ll vouch, she looks the part. She works one of the most labour intensive jobs I can think of. She shovels sand from a riverbank into a big basket and carries loads of about 50some kilos up a steep hill and dumps it in the back of a truck. Then she goes down and gets more. Her small house sits on the cliff overlooking the sandy, quarry-like river and if you stand there and look down, it looks like a scene from “Prince of Egypt” or what one might’ imagine the scene looked like when laborers built the Taj. Bone thin workers scurrying around piles of sand like little ants. It’s really quite surreal.

On little patches of grass on one of the many pathways between the sand and Bibek’s mother’s house is where boys go to shoot up brown sugar. So I look down and see the ants, I look to the right and see the boys shooting up, and I look behind me and see Ashmita combing Sushmita’s hair.

Part of my vision as a “foster parent” has always been family restoration, but now that it’s happening, it’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever gone through Before my kids helped her build her first house, Bibek’s mom and sisters were squatters moving around from abandoned spot to abandoned spot. In the three years I knew her during those roaming days, I think she lived in six different places. That’s when my kids decided we should build her somewhere permanent. My kids are thoughtful like that.

After acquiring a stable house, and with Bibek’s temperament drastically changing, it really doesn’t make sense for him to live with me rather than her. Before, she couldn’t keep him still, didn’t know how to deal with his drug use, and lacked the strength to chase after him every time his janakka risauni personality of shouting and screaming led him to do crazy things. But that was Bibek in the past, not the present. Now Bibek is calm, together and thinks before he acts.

Little by little Bibek and I have been spending a lot more time with his mother and four siblings, and he’s even sleeping there sometimes. The nights that he sleeps there, he calls me 8 times in the evening and 10 in the morning. He tells me everything and asks me for permission to do anything. I’m pretty sure this is the hardest separation I’ve ever gone through… which is funny, because I still see this boy a minimum of three hours a day on the days he’s not at our house… it’s not so much our present reality that kills me… but more that sometime…soon… he’ll be able to live with his birth mother fulltime.

It must be weird though… Sometimes I put myself in her shoes… watching the son she hardly got to see grow up as he interacts with this foreign woman in a language she doesn’t understand. Or when he calls me to ask for simple things instead of turning to her. It must hurt her to know that he’d rather eat at my house than hers because I can afford to cook with onions, garlic and tomato whereas she just boils up a gourd, throws in a bit of spice and tosses it on rice for each of her hungry mouths. It must be hard for her… but I’m not going to lie… giving him back to her little by little… I think it’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.

Yesterday we were at his house and suddenly he asked Arthi if she remembered her father. She said no. Bibek looked at me and said, “I think Vijay and Arthi’s father is my father.” It pained me because it’s certain he’s not – we’ve always known that. I simply said, “Babu, Arthi is six years older than you… if she doesn’t remember her father, how can that same man still be your father?” That made sense to Bibek and then he said, “Oh! I mean, Sushmita and Ashmita’s father.. yeah.. he’s my father!” Like I already said, we’ve met that man. He’s the reason Bibek ran away to the streets at the ripe age of four. That man would have nothing to do with my half caste little Bibek who was just a burden to have to feed. “Babu… we know him, don’t you remember?” “Oh yeah… ya ya.. he’s not my father…”

The whereabouts of his father never phased Bibek before. He never saw a need for a father, never cared that he was gone. I remember the first few months Bibek lived with us and he was sitting coloring and someone asked about his father. Without looking up from his coloring in a matter of fact sort of way he said, “he’s either in a village on the way to Kathmandu or he’s dead.”

Yesterday I don’t think he cared about his father, but I think it was more out of a desire to be closer to either his two older siblings or his two younger ones, both sets who fully share the same parents. Bibek’s somewhere in between… somewhere by himself.

I don’t really know what else to say, except that my kid is already starting to have a lot of self realizations as of late. His mind is turning and unlike my other kids who internalize everything, Bibek uses me as a sounding board to process his surroundings. It’s good, but sometimes just hearing what’s going on in his mind… how he’s starting to realize that the life he took for normal is very far from it… sometimes it can be very heartbreaking.

I still call my boy blessed. He’s got six amazing brothers in my other boys, who in their own way have given him a great deal of love and he’s got three sisters who pamper him beyond belief… he’s got a lot of things working against him… but he’s got a lot of things going for him... and i'm blessed too.. getting to be a part of his life..

transformation...

2009-06-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

bibek was lying on his back basking in the sun when i came up to the small house made of cinder blocks and corrugated metal. before my kids helped his mother build this house 8 months back, bibek's mom and his three sisters were squatters, occupying empty shanty houses, spending a few months here and a few months there... but now, for 8 months, his little sisters have had a steady place to call "home".

vijay, bibek's 20 year old brother and long time heroin addict, just got out of jail a few days back. he's still using drugs, his mother still doesn't know what to do with him, and just like bibek, one of the earliest memories of 3 year old ushmita and 7 year old ashmita include their oldest brother using his teeth to tighten a band around his bicep before pushing in the needle.

"can we just put him in jail for... all of his life?" bibek asked me.

"i think he has to commit a big crime first."

"but he's causing my mother so much tension," bibek argued that's crime enough.

ushmita's soiled trousers left a mark of dirt on my leg where she was sitting just a few minutes before. the same thing happened when i pulled bibek on my lap for the first time four years ago. like sister like brother.

"you know, didi," bibek looked at me with a different kind of seriousness, "i'm not doing drugs any more. I already stopped all drugs, all drinking, all cigarettes."

"i know, babu...that's good..."

"you know why?"

"no..."

he pointed at his older brother talking with some other boys in the narrow pathway of the maze-like slums.

"because, if i use, i am going to be just like vijay dai...i am only going to think about myself, me, and my life... i won't think about anyone else..."

He took his youngest sister by one arm, and his middle sister by the other, "i have to think about my sisters... when i am not using i am thinking about my mother and my sisters.. i'm thinking about our family...and it's better... to think of others... right, didi?"

"right, babu."

mero dushman, mero saathi.

2009-06-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

"You look different," Suresh says with his eyes in their typical half-open state.

"I'm getting old," I say with an uncomfortable laugh. An hour ago, San Soraj told me a few days back he saw Bibek wandering around with the boy I tell my kids not to hang around. When Suresh's business that started out exclusively with drugs graduated to providing pedophiles with young boys some time last autumn I put my foot down.

"It's not a matter of being old or young - you just look different."

Our conversation wavered on with subtle cordialities, with me always on edge. This is my enemy; this is my kids' enemy. I wanted to shake the evil right out of him, tell him what an asshole he is for using kids, for loving no one, for protecting only himself. I wanted to tell him he was bad and I was better. I wanted to point my finger at him and say, "It's you - you are what's wrong in the world!" I wanted to make sure that he knew, but I didn't tell him. I didn't have to.

"Okay, well then Emma.. I will see you later... in our next life," Suresh said as he turned to walk away.

"Our next life?"

"You know... the one where I become a good person."

This is when I understand why God wants us to love our enemies....

2009-04-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

the best phone call in the world:

my boy rohit called me this morning (i'm in bombay, he's in nepal as per the norm) and said, "didi, i started school... i am soooo happy."

rohit moved in with us last may. i tried to enroll him in school but the nepali schools wouldn't accept him "mid year" (the school year had just started 3 weeks prior!!!) so he had to wait an entire year to join... and now he did! the first time he's been in school in three years. i was so happy to hear that he was so happy!!

fire & water.

2009-03-29T00:01:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wonder how in the world my kids have grown up so much. I don’t just mean physically, but in the way they think, the way they act and the way they live.

Don’t get me wrong, they are no angels, no angels at all, but they have grown so, so much.

San Soraj and Soraj work at a small, family-run furniture workshop. They use hand-powered saws and good old fashioned sweat to build furniture for the middle class. TV stands, dining room tables, king size beds; everyday my two ex drug using, thieving teens come home with the grime of an honest day’s work under their nails.

“Sometimes, Didi… that San Soraj…” Big Soraj shakes his head as he chops vegetables for dinner by candlelight, “he can be so stubborn!!!”

The knife pounds against the cutting board and pieces of carrot fall on either side.

“We are new at this job,” Big Soraj is always a humble soul, “we’ve only been doing it a short time, some months, but some men have been doing it their whole lives.

And sometimes those men try to show San Soraj how to cut the wood properly, how to make a curve or a design…and do you know Didi? Do you know what he does?”

I can only guess.

He puts down the knife and takes on the task of re-enacting how San Soraj responds to instruction at work.

Big Soraj throws up his arms in a fit of stubbornness and walks away from the project at hand, “Ahhh! Fine! I don’t do it good enough, then you do it!!”

Big Soraj goes back to his normal state, “You know, Didi… we are new. We can learn from other people and then become very good at this job. I try to tell San Soraj to just listen and learn and then he can learn properly. It’s okay that he doesn’t know how, we are new, but he has to listen and then he can learn.”

And if this insightfulness isn’t enough – he keeps going.

“Didi, at work San Soraj is like fire,” he opens his contracted hand like a fire igniting, “he just burns… and sometimes I want to be like a fire too when he does that,” his free hand also transforms into the flames of burning fire that represents himself, “I want to shout at him because he is sooo stubborn!”

“But if I do that,” his hands join together and the fire grows, “it’s just making one big fire and nothing good comes from a big fire.”

Wow.

“So Didi, you know when he is a fire,” his two hands separate into two, “I have to be like water.”

His ‘water’ hand squelches out San Soraj’s fire, “If I’m water, Didi… the fire goes out…so even when I want to be so angry… when I want to be fire because he is being so stubborn – I still act as water.”

Wow.

“I can be water because you know Didi, San Soraj doesn’t really know God yet… I used to be like him too, I used to be fire… but God taught me to be water,” Big Soraj finishes matter of fact.

This boy… I tell you what..

2009-03-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

a little secret: truth be told, i love coming home after work and yelling at my kids with love to do things like clean our house and do their homework. i love even more that they just look at me smile... and obey.

soraj.

2009-03-06T02:14:00.000-08:00

If there was ever a doubt in my mind that my oldest, Soraj, was the glue that held my kids together for such a long time, our load shedding conversation last night put it to rest.

Soraj, the most serious of the bunch, is also the one whose sudden bouts of nostalgia cause him to truly understand grace.

There is something about not having electricity that brings this boy back to his childhood. In those idle hours of quiet when we all sit around the dim glow of a single candle, he likes to go back to the days of old.

Not for recognition or praise for his goodness, but purely out of recollection of things that happened, he told story after story that showed he was always a boy with a conscience.

He told of the time the waist of Suman’s pants had lost its elasticity. The boy sat shamefully in a tree afraid to move lest his pants fall right off. While the other kids laughed, the 9 year old version of my oldest went around begging from tourists in order to collect the money needed to buy his friend a new pair of pants.

Or the time a tripped out on drugs Japanese man fell in the lake after dark. Soraj thought the man drowned so he ran to the police to tell them. Turns out the man was just floating along enjoying the Pokhara night sky on his back. During this Japanese man’s trip, he threw thousands of rupees at the way of my kids – proclaiming he didn’t care about money. Soraj didn’t take the money, but instead he took it back to the man’s hotel and told them to give it to him when he became sober. “I knew he was just tripping, didi,” Soraj said, “I didn’t want to take his money even if he was giving it to us, because he didn’t know what he was doing… so I thought better to give it back to him.”

No street kid I know would ever do such a thing. But my Soraj did.

He recounted story after story that reflected his own conscience, and without his knowing it, each story also showed the influence and the example he was to other street kids. He showed love, taught them to do the right thing, and stood true to himself rather than giving in to the code of the streets.

Soraj is my kid who doesn’t go to school. Too difficult for him. But he works and instead of spending his money on worthless things, he saves a good portion of his salary in his “bank account” with me and uses the rest to pay his sister’s school tuition.

His younger brother Arjun has decided to follow suit. He’s using his last two week’s allowance to pay for some school books his sister needs.

These are the moments when I think my kids might grow up to be good men after all.

confessions of my heart: a post more for me than for you.

2009-02-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

People often ask me “how” I got my kids and “how” I decided to start working with them. Oh, how much easier it would be if those answers were black and white. But they’re not. It’s a twisted tale of fate that I know was from God.
What I can tell you is the moment that I knew my still street-sleeping kids were going to be in my life for a very, very long time. Arjun, then 11 years old, had broken his arm the night before. The hospital was too busy to cast his arm at the time of the break, so there we were, sitting and waiting 15 hours later. Arjun hadn’t slept a wink, so he rested his head in my lap. His closed eyes fluttered in pain every time he re-adjusted his broken arm. A dozen Nepali onlookers stared unabashedly at the white girl with a dirty, Nepali street kid. Khatay, they not-so quietly whispered the derogatory word in reference to Arjun.

I thought about what Arjun would’ve done had he broken his arm without any kind of adult in his life. Would he have come to the hospital? Would he have sat in the waiting area battling all of the judgmental faces on his own? Or would he have just hoped the bone healed itself without a cast? So much for an eleven year old kid to be worrying about on his own.

That’s when I knew. I knew this boy and his pack of friends were not going anywhere. They were going to be in my life for a long, long time. I just knew.

Logistically it didn’t make sense. I didn’t have the finances to take care of them alone, and I didn’t have that many friends who stepped up when I asked for help. I had a few – and I cherish them deeply – but honestly, not many… not many at all.

But I had begun and I held on to God’s promise to me that he would take care of them. And he did. He took care of them by relocating my graduate school plans to a cheaper, closer university in Thailand instead of the European school I was supposed to go to in just a few weeks. And when things got so tight half way through the first year, he moved me from my already small studio apartment right into a room literally smaller than a solitary confinement cell. I could touch walls opposite one another at the same time and I shared a bathroom with 20 other tenants. Other than my Thai friends who lived in the same building, none of my friends knew that I lived in such a crazy place.

My landlord and neighbors asked me continually why a foreigner would live in such a condition. I asked myself the same question. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times that I cried myself to sleep at night asking God how while my stateside friends were getting stable lives, buying their first houses and “moving up the ladder”, I was living in a hell hole barely able to survive. I’d also be lying if I said it didn’t bother me when my friends from home wrote me saying “I would love to help your kids, but I really don’t have any money right now…” even though I knew how often and how easily they dropped $15 on dinner. In Nepal, $15 is a lot of money. It wasn’t so much the fact that my friends didn’t give financially, but more so that they actually took the time to write me to explain their “desire” but their “inability”. It took a lot for me to get over the judgment in my heart, but I’m pretty sure I’m over it now.

I loved my kids in Nepal, but I realized that at the age of 23, I was already growing weary. They were a noose around my neck. I felt like a single mother always short of making ends meet for her kids who didn’t care. My kids were/are filled with a million issues. Issues that made a lot of people in Nepal feel the need to tell me repeatedly to “just leave those kids” and to “give up because they will never change”. Sometimes I thought what those people said was true. When my kids refused to leave their habits of stealing, shouting, using drugs, and beating one another up, I wondered why in the world I was still involved in their lives. They don’t want to change – why should I make them? Why should I struggle the way I am for their sake? Those were the thoughts of doubt that crept into my fragile mind.

I had a war within myself. I loved my kids so much already, but they had taken over my entire life and whether I was in the same country as them or not, every decision I made required I ask the same question first: “is it best for the kids?”

I was so tired of asking that question. I was tired of not being able to “be 23/24/25”. I didn’t get married, I didn’t reproduce, yet I had more baggage than any other person my age. I felt so very alone in my concern and my fight for their lives, because really, at the end of the day, I was the only person who loved them. Nobody else did – just me and God. And when all havoc broke out in our house and usually ended with one of more of the kids temporarily running back to the streets and their old habits, I was alone calling them back. Sometimes it would be so tempting, oh so tempting, to just leave them to their own devices. Then I could be free again. Not the best of thoughts, but the truth.

I was thinking about these early days and how worry used to stalk my heart. I worried so much, trusted God so little, and honestly felt nauseous every time obliviously intrusive people asked “but your youngest is only 6 – do you plan on taking care of him for the next 12 years?” or “how do you pay for them all?” I don’t know and I don’t know.

Now my six year old is ten and over the last four years, he’s been like Benjamin Buttons. He went from a short man who lingered around entrances of bars at midnight doing drugs and yelling “fuck you” right in your face to this younger boy who is afraid of walking in the dark alone and apologizes for things like he means it.

I miss my kids when I am away from them for 5 days and when life sometimes pulls me out of Nepal for a month or two at a time, I’m an outright mess inside whether I show it or not.

From a logistical side of things, life with my kids has gotten easier and I’ve finally learned that worry doesn’t do anything but cause wrinkles, anxiety and nausea.

My friend and I opened a rehab centre for female drug users last fall. We have no financial security, but we went ahead with it on the same assurance from God that called me to struggle with the kids four years ago. I am pretty sure the struggle for our rehab is going to be just the same as the struggle with my kids. I’m actually pretty sure that “struggle” isn’t going to just be a season of life, but it’s going to be the theme of my life. Somehow, I’m finally okay with it. I’m finally okay with living like some rootless bohemian hippy that appears to have taken a holiday to Asia and then lost her mind and became afraid to “face reality”. I’m still annoyed by people who ask a lot of questions about my kids but don’t want to be involved in the answers, but what can you do. I try not to worry and I just try to live. Instead, I spend my time thinking about girls with collapsed veins from injecting too much or about how a few years ago my kids struggled morning and night to find a meal and to avoid exploitation. But most of all, I guess the thing I think about more than anything is that there is truth in the promise that if God calls us to act, he’s going to make a way. It probably won’t be an easy way, but there will be a way.

how to catch a thief.

2009-02-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

The thing I love about my seventh child, Rohit, or Khalay as we like to call him, is that he is totally and utterly clueless.

You see, he was never a street kid.

My other kids have a grand sense of story telling; boundless imaginations of the “plausible”. No matter what it is they need; or more rightly said, want; they can justify it through their stories.

This is part of what they learned on the streets. Illusions are part of their reality and all the more reason that timro deemag arko sansarma is my favourite expression for the kids (your mind is in another world).

Well, that and rukma paisa fal cha ra? (you think money grows on trees?).

“Didi, can you buy one piece of rubber?” Khalay innocently asked me this morning as he held up a broken piece of some industrial looking band.

“Why?”

“You know, khelne.”

He tells it like it is. He just wants to play.

No.

“DIDI!!!!!!!!” I hear Bibek shout through the kitchen window as I walk out the front door.

“What is it, babu?” I walk up to the window without entering the house.

“Didi, you know we need to buy one rubber. It’s emergency!”

“Emergency?! Khalay just told me it was for playing!”

Arjun, Dorje and Bibek all start reaming Khalay in Nepali as I laugh and walk through out garden. Before I make it to the gate Bibek’s run after me shouting.

“Wait, wait, didi. It’s an emergency also. Let me tell you,” he stands poised to give a full demonstration.

“You see, one thief is going to come to our house and I have this rubber and I put one piece of glass here and I pull this back,” his arm is ready to slingshot the imaginary glass, “then that thief is running away with your things and I let go… and ugh!!!”

Bibek falls to the ground in a slow and painful death. Seconds later he opens his eyes, “this is how we catch the thief. See- it’s an emergency, didi! We need the rubber!!!!”

Arjun, Dorje, Khalay and I all start laughing and no, we didn’t buy the band.

2009-02-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

on the heels of yesterdays grammar discussions with arjun...

this morning is saturday so i asked bibek where he was going and what he was going to do.

"now is morning, didi, you don't ask now what he is doing," arjun instructed me, "you wait til nighttime then you asking this."

but then i would have to speak in past tense, arjun.....

tense-sion.

2009-02-06T04:36:00.001-08:00

One of the perks of living with a house full of Nepali kids, is the free Nepali lessons.

“Maile officeko name palan garnu par cha,” Dorje says for me to repeat.

“Wait, wait – that’s present tense, right? And past tense….? Maile officeko name palan garnu….?”

“Didi!!! First you study grammar! You study grammar THEN you are speaking nicely,” Dorje scolds me, “You don’t study grammar, you are not going to speak nicely.”

But it’s not a consensus.

“Didi – just you learn everything present tense, it’s enough! Why talking all things past tense, future tense?!?! So much tension!! Just you talk everything one tense! It’s enough!!!” This is advice from Arjun, the boy who calls his habit of leaving out prepositions as “short cut talking”.

Yes…. Speaking in a variety of tenses does cause “tense-sion”, Arjun. ;)

ah... to be fourteen.

2009-02-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

I’m starting to remember how when you are fourteen, a lot of things are the beginning and the end of your world.

Gopal’s writing new chapters in his love saga with Anjali. Despite my discouragement, he’s singing James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” in her honor at a school program on Friday.

The tragic lyrics of a couple that will never be are all too fitting for the real life scenario, but he’s just not getting it. He likes the chorus, but ignores the deeper meaning. Maybe that’s how we all are about love sometimes.

“It’s just like Gopal and Anjali,” Arjun says right after James Blunt belts out I’ll never be with you.

He gets what the boy blinded by love does not.

Aside from the 14 year old love sagas, Gopal’s got ongoing issues with Dorje. They’re hard for me to understand because as the guys tend to say, I see a different Dorje than the “real” Dorje. I’d like to think I know the real Dorje and the Dorje that acts out is just the Dorje that likes to be tough and cool; the Dorje of facades. But who knows, maybe the guys are right – it’s really hard to say.

When I asked Dorje if he and Gopal were still friends he simply said, “We’re friends, but he walks his way and I walk mine. Bhooj cha, Didi?”

I nodded my head. I did understand.

And then there’s Arjun.

He’s missed a few days of school because last weekend he fought some older kid he didn’t know, without actually realizing that the boy studied a few grades ahead of him at his same school. Oops. Arjun’s been petrified of showing his face at school lest he gets smashed to pieces.

“I tried to meet him at the ground over there to work everything out, Emma Didi, but then when I went- him and those guys are sooo big and all older than me! They’re going to crush my face!” Arjun said still sporting his trademark smile and laugh. Mind you, he told me this story with his hood up as he struck a blade against a stone in order to sharpen it.

“You look like a gangster, Arjun.”

His eyes just peaked up at me and he laughed that Arjun laugh, only it was a few octaves deeper than I remember it to be.

This is what it means to be fourteen at my house.

the dilemna of various types of pollution.

2009-02-02T20:34:00.000-08:00

i came back to pokhara last night after a week away from the kiddies. this was one of the first times i left them completely unsupervised, so i was just waiting to see what i came home to.

surprisingly, it was very clean house with four kids sitting quietly and bibek chopping vegetables alone. san soraj was roaming around doing who knows and i guess gopal has been staying at his friend's house.

i had left them with only 700 rupees and surprisingly, they gave me back 500.

they also gave me a list of who ditched school on what days. yes, they ditched school, but they kept a record. that's impressive.

during my house inspection i did notice, however that the kids have a huge empty rice sack full of all kinds of rubbish - wrappers, papers, etc.

"didi, we don't have anywhere to take it," dorje argued. this is true, there really isn't a typical trash pick up or disposable system in nepal. so, i suggested to do what everyone in nepal does.

"just burn it," i said and pointed to the place outside of our house where this happens not only for us, but for our landlord as well.

dorje scrunched up his face, "didi! no!!! burning trash makes so much... air pollution!!!"

kitch kanti and caterpillars.

2009-01-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

The thing I love about my kids is that getting to know them is a never ending process. Partially because of the language barrier – I don’t pick up on everything they are saying amongst themselves – and partially just because they are humans; ever evolving, growing and changing.

After a day at the rehab center, I came up the little grass pathway to our house where water buffalo often mull around and Bibek, bundled in the puffiest winter jacket, looked as though he had seen the much talked about Kitch Kanti. Who is Kitch Kanti, you ask?

Let me tell you.

Kitch Kanti is something of the Nepali version of the ghost Bloody Mary. She’s a dead woman in white whose only job is to float around and scare children, and it seems that she has a peculiar business of messing with street children in particular. My own ex-street sleeping kids are quite acquainted with her; by the number of stories I’ve heard about this restless dead woman, I guesstimate that she used to visit them every fortnight on the streets. Oh, the number of load shedding nights we can fill recounting the hauntings of dear, old Kitch Kanti. “You know didi, one day I was going to toilet, and Kitch Kanti is chasing me!” They say. “She was chasing you…while you were going to the toilet?” “Yes.”

Today, my rough and tough, afraid of nothing, Bibek, looked as I imagine he must’ve during the days of Kitch Kanti’s hauntings; the days that she used to chase them while they were relieving themselves.

“Look!!!” His voice quivered as he pointed to the grass.

All I saw was a black plastic bag attached to a stick.

“I know, the global warming crisis – at this rate, it’s never going to be resolved.”

He didn’t get it. But to be fair, I don’t even think he knew words were coming out of my mouth; he was too distracted by the object of his fear.

“Loooook!!!!” Bibek shook his pointing finger furiously.

“What?”
“That!!!”
“What?”
“That!!!!”

Nothing. I see absolutely nothing. Okay, I saw grass. That’s it.

“Look didi, soooo dar lagyo!” He expressed his fear as he gets too close for his personal comfort, to direct my sight to a little fluorescent green caterpillar. It actually looked so, so cool to me.

Bibek is afraid of caterpillars. This is the boy who calmly walked a mouse right into a plastic bag and then carried it around the house. The boy who told me to “go back to sleep” when there was a huge cockroach roaming around my room. The boy who jumps off walls and rocks like it ain’t no thang and is utterly unfazed by anything in nature. This, this is the boy who is afraid of one inch long, very very cute caterpillar.

the seventh.

2009-01-21T18:03:00.000-08:00

Six out of seven boys living in my house have been a part of my life for roughly four years. They are all street kids; living, sleeping and scheming the streets to survive at an early age.
Who is the seventh? Well, for the last four years, the seventh child in our house has been an ever-changing, never constant, child.

First, there was Roshan. Ahh.. Roshan. He’s our long lost love. Roshan was the older version of Bibek; or more accurately Bibek is the younger version of Roshan. He’s the boy with the brilliant smile and the softest heart, but likewise the boy with the feisty attitude and the worst temper. Roshan is the reason I met these kids, the reason I started it all. He’s also the only boy to ever walk away from our family and never reappear in our lives. Rumour on the streets has it that Roshan left for Kathmandu, but no one knows for sure. This rumour has moulded my life in the capital. Every time I’ve been in Kathmandu for the past three years since he’s left – and that’s been a lot of times - my subconscious has continually been on the lookout for that twelve year old version of Roshan; the Roshan I last saw. I see him playing in the streets, riding a bicycle, looking in mirrors on motorbikes, climbing on microbuses, and holding glue bags to his mouth. None of these kids have ever been Roshan, but every time, I still think, I still hope, that it’s him and my heart skips a beat; sometimes two. I know he must be so much bigger and he’s so much older than the "Roshan’s" I see in the streets, but my eyes and my heart still look for the Roshan I used to know.

My boys still talk fondly of Roshan. They too miss the boy they used to sleep next to on the streets and in the early days of their non-street life. They miss his humour, his laughter, his crazy personality. They miss their friend.

Suman was next, but not really "next"; he’s more of a drifter, a boy who comes and goes in our lives like a soft, subtle breeze on a warm day. Suman was a friend of my boys during their days on the street, but not a part of their exact "circle". He was more of an acquaintance, if you will. When the kids came off the streets, Suman went his own way, but wound up sleeping at our place on and off, sometimes for weeks or a month at a time. Suman has a special place in my heart and although we’ve never successfully been able to convince him that street life and drugs aren’t the best way to live, he’s found solace, family and a break from the hardness of the outside world in the comfort of our house with the love and the "realness" of my boys.

Then there was Khan. Khan’s a working boy, or should I say a working young man. At 18, Khan was and is responsible for sending money home to his widowed mother and his five younger siblings living in the eastern region of Nepal. Because of his financial situation, the boy couldn’t afford rent or rice and thus made our house his home for more than six months so that he would enough money to send to his family.

Khan and Suman are boys I still see on the regular; in fact, Khan just dropped by last night. I’m happy they have been and are a part of our family, in a way as random as it is.

I used to be concerned about the phenomenon or "curse" of the seventh rotating boy. It bothered me that the seventh spot in our house was always changing, always unstable, and always new, but after time I came to accept it as something that was supposed to be. Maybe not every boy is supposed to be a part of our nuclear family, but many are supposed to be part of our extended family. Maybe its my boys’ way of touching the lives of others.

This is how it’s been, but not how I think it’s going to be.

The new seventh child, I think just might be the last. He’s not exactly new; Rohit’s been living under our roof for nearly 8 months, but only now am I fairly certain that he’s not going anywhere.

It’s hard for me to introduce the complexity of a child’s background because people ask way too many questions for comfort and although I write this blog, it still seems strange to me when people don’t want to know my boys, but they want to know every detail of their lives and how I run our house. If he has living relatives, then why is he living with you? The same reason the foster care system exists in the states, I guess.

Here’s what I’ll tell you. Rohit was never a street kid. I don’t even think he could survive more than a night on the streets. He wouldn’t know the first thing about survival. For the last two years, Rohit has lived at a friend’s house. The friend’s family was kind enough to put him up, but although they are a middle class family, somehow they missed the importance of school. I think Rohit existed at their house because they didn’t know how to throw the boy out, but not because they really wanted him there and unfortunately for Rohit, a child knows when he’s not exactly wanted.

He came to our house and I tried to enroll him in school, but being "mid year" (school had actually just started two months before) every school said he had to wait until the next year to enter school. So he’s still sitting idly at our house, but I’ve been home schooling him when I’m around (which is more education than he’s got in the last two years) and he’s excited to start school again in two months.

It’s been interesting to get to know Rohit, to start growing a love that is equal to that of the boys I’ve known for years. Starting from scratch in a relationship and trying to play catch up to get on par with the others; the boys I’ve walked with through many of life’s joys and hardships; has been a bit difficult, especially because he is a very shy boy – something polar opposite from my loud and attention vying others. Yet, I can see how he’s warmed up to me, how he considers me his didi in a manner just as close as the others. I’m someone he can count on, someone he knows loves him, and I actually think that my boy, Rohit likes getting disciplined because unlike my street kids who are used to being untamed, Rohit longs for a bit of structure in his life and likes a few walls to tell him when to turn left and when to turn right.

A few months ago, Rohit was another drifter who just appeared at our house one day with no explanation. He was just a boy I didn’t even know, but now he is one of my boys. Irreplaceable and irremovable.So this is Rohit, my newest and most likely my last, seventh child in our Pokhara house. Sorry I don't have a better picture... hmm.. I should start snapping more..

2009-01-19T01:09:00.000-08:00

last night i was looking at bibek and wondering how i can just freeze time... he's getting so old. so are all my kids. i know i say that all the time, and i think all parents say that all the time... but it's just unreal.

today i went to meet with bibek's principal to check on his grades. last term he failed 7 out of 9 classes. ouch. rough start to the school year. this term, he passed all his classes. wow. so impressed with his improvement. but the best part of our little conference wasn't actually his grades. it was when the principal said, "you know bibek... he's got the leading personality... really, he is so... clever in speech that boy... so... (smiles)... yes, he's just got such a leading personality."

funny thing is, i know exactly what she means.

whenever bibek and i go out together, and people hear him talk and the things he say, they turn to me and say, "how old is that boy?" "9/10/11" i've said over the last few years. then they respond, "clever... clever boy."

i wish you guys could hear the things that come out of that child's mouth. he does in fact, have a "leading personality" that will drive you both insane and make you love him to death.

2009-01-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Phone conversation while I was India:

Gopal: Didi, where are you?
Emma: I'm at Shah Rukh Khan's house (this is me trying to be funny- no, I was not really at SRK's pad)
Gopal: Oh really? Cool. Have fun.. Anyway, Didi, you know yesterday....

Totally unfazed.
Conversation in Pokhara:
Gopal: Hey, Didi, didn't you say you went to Shah Rukh's house?
Emma: I was just joking Gopal...
Gopal: Oh, okay. So, anyway, so you want to hear me play the guitar?

For you non-South Asians, you might not get this, but if you are South Asian, you might find it funny how the kid is totally indifferent towards my "meeting" the biggest guy in India (next to Amitab, of course) and towards the whole thing being a joke. Any "normal" kid would've have gone crazy on both accounts. Well, I guess my kids just aren't the starstruck types.

i miss you!!!!

2008-12-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

'hello? DIDI!?" bibek's still little-kiddish voice always breaks my heart.

it's 9 a.m. and the boy is calling me.

"Where are you???" he demands.
"i'm still in india, babu!"
"india...when you is coming... naypaul?"
"maybe in a week."
"one week?"
"yes, one week... any problems?" knowing my kids usually call because of a problem of money, fights or the likes.
"no, didi, no problem. just talking....DIDI!"
"yes, babu"
"You know, tommorrow is Happy Christmas!"
"Yes, babu, I know..."
"DiDI! You talk Arjun."
"Okay"
"Wait, wait... DIDI! I miss you!"
"I miss you too, Babu"
"I miss you!"
"I miss you too, Babu"
"I MIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS YOU!"
"i miss you too, Babu." Yes, at this point the tears are coming.
"Hello, Didi?" Arjun says.
"Yes, Arjun-le"
"Hi."
"Hi.... I miss you, Arjun."
"Yah.." he's fourteen... this is the kind of answer you get from 14 year olds.
"Didi, Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas to you too, Babu."
"Didi?"
"Yes"
"When is it you are coming Nepal?"
"Maybe in a week."
"Didi... so boring!!! You come now. Here is boring! We want to look your face."
"Looking at my face is interesting?"
"Hahaha. Yeah."

I want to look at your faces, too, boys.

I MISSSSSSSSSS YOU!

2008-11-09T01:33:00.000-08:00

i miss you boys so so so so so so so so much. :(

tihar.

2008-11-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

i can't believe i have been in nepal a good number of tihars and really never even talked about it on my blog. it's funny... i've been trying to remember last tihar... and i don't remember a thing.... i think i have some sort of holiday black hole in my mind.

so what is this tihar celebration all about? according to wikipedia it's a "five-day Nepalese festival celebrated in late autumn, which comes soon after Dashain." most of my readers are probably going to ask "what's dashain." well, sorry... you'll have to look that one up yourself... or else i will wind up going on for days about hindu holidays... but this blog is really about my kids.

in my book, two of the biggest things that happen during tihar is bhailo and bhai tika.

bhailo is officially supposed to be when "social workers and children" (again, thanks to wikipedia) roam around singing songs and dancing for money, but theses days it is anyone and everyone. for five days (and in pokhara, two days after tihar teenagers are still "playing bhailo") teenagers have a legitimate excuse to roam around until the wee hours of the morning watching different groups of other teenagers shake it like they are stars in a bollywood movie. they wander around from location to location with loud speakers blasting out "om shanti om" and "sohi haiiiii" in tow. basically, my assessment of modern bhailo is, that it is the best way for girls and boys who normally don't have as much freedom as in our western world to scope out girls and boys from neighboring schools. at least that's what my kids did.

on the last official night of bhailo, my boy dorje was probably busy checking out some girls and two teenagers driving on a motorbike ran smack into him. i asked him if the bike was going fast and all dorje had to say was, "i don't know didi! i was standing and direct i am falling to the ground!" then he bust out laughing. of course he didn't bother to go to the hospital or even get the name of the person who hit him for that matter. his leg felt completely numb, but i guess whoever he was watching was far too interesting to make a fuss. this is why i love my kids. i tried to force dorje to go to the doctor, because there is a pretty good chance his leg is broken or fractured but he flat out refused. apparently he thinks he is going to heal by rubbing the nepali version of icy hot (moove) on his leg, wrapping an ace bandage around it, and taking calcium supplements. he's a teenager. if he wants to be stubborn, i'll let him be stubborn... but only for a day or two. i'm sure he'll be going to the hospital before monday.

the other tihar highlight is bhai tika. bhai tika is the last day of tihar when sisters and cousins are supposed to give their brothers and boy cousins a "tika" (the usually red marking placed in the middle of the forehead... aka the 'eye of god') . as long as i have known my boys, they have never been ones to wear a tika... ever. the only time i have known them to accept a tika was a few years back when our varsha didi wanted to give it to them... but other than that, out of their own decision, they've decided not to take tika. because soraj, arjun, bibek, rohit, and dorje all have some living girl cousin or sister in pokhara, they were all being summoned to their houses for getting the tika...in order to avoid the calls and ultimately receiving of a tika without offense, all of those boys (except for bibek) went home the morning AFTER bhai tika. stubborn and obstinate. those are my boys.

but bibek... bibek does actually have a semi-functional relationship with his mother and his adorable sisters. he lives with us because the stability of his house is non-existent...because his ex-step father (who disappeared 7 or 8 months ago) used to abhor my "half-caste" boy... because his mother and ex-step father roamed around occupying empty buildings until they got kicked out... because they stay in an area of pokhara known for high levels of HIV and drug use... because of all my boys, bibek is the most stubborn and the most obstinate of them all and needs much more guidance than his mother is able to offer him... because bibek slept on the road for three years despite his mother being in town... because... well, there are a million "because's"... but all that to say, he still loves his mother and his three darling sisters. so, my boy went home for 3 out of 5 tihar nights.

he came home yesterday morning a bit shell-shocked. quiet as can be, wide-eyed and just walking around in a silent daze, the boy at our house was someone completely polar from the bibek we love and know. after a few minutes he said, 'didi, you know that centre.. for..." he held his hand up to the crease of his arm as if he was pressing down on a syringe, "inject... you know.. same like rehab? you are already opening?" "yes, bibek." "boys also possible for going in there?" "not in that one.. it's only for girls... because another is for boys..." he looked contemplatively, "didi, you put my brother in rehab, okay?"

his brother, technically his half brother, Vijay is 18 and a long time user. He's one of the "because's" that has "helped" bibek turn out to be such a wild child who trusts no one and who knew too much, too soon. Vijay normally doesn't stay at his mothers - actually, we don't really have any idea where he normally stays... but it's guessed that he flops around from place to place, using wherever he can - but for some reason he decided to come around during tihar.

"every night in tihar, my brother came home 8 or 9 o'clock at night...he was injecting even in our home," bibek said with an empathy i've hardly seen him have...ever.

when bibek says 'home' he means the 10' x 7' room that my boys san soraj, rohit, and soraj helped his mother build out of cement blocks and corrugated metal. the whole house cost about $160 to construct. this is the room where bibek, his three sisters, and his mother watched Vijay shoot up. this is my boy's life.

one of bibek's earliest memories is taking vijay to the hospital after he drank an entire bottle of cleaning supplies. vijay nearly died, but with a good stomach pumping his life was spared. this is how bibek spent his first few years of life.

sometimes i wonder what is going on in any and all of my boys' heads... but when i remember their realities... the events that painted their worldview... it's really not so hard to understand them.

i am going to india, europe and america for 2+ months on tuesday... work calls... i won't see my boys for that whole time and gosh, does it ever feel long... i already feel nauseous....

p.s. sorry i am terrible with the whole picture taking thing :)...

the story of bibek's future family life.

2008-10-28T02:02:00.000-07:00

It was load shedding when Arjun begged me for two rupees to fix their bicycle. I had already told the boys I wasn’t fixing it on such a regular basis – even if it was only two rupees – but he kept on pestering me.

“Okay Arjun, I will give you the two rupees if you tell me a story about what is going on in your life these days.”

“What is going on? I am not even leaving the house! I am sitting house all days!!! Nothing is going on!”

This is true… ever since the boy decided to really try to get clean, he has hardly stepped out of the front door. In a way I think he is nervous.

“Okay, I will give you the two rupees if you tell me how you are going to treat your wife when you get married.” I said we sat in the dark.

“Pshhh!” Arjun said probably with a rolling of his eyes, but I can’t be sure because I couldn’t see, “I am never getting married!”

“What if I force you to have an arranged marriage?”

“Then I am running away! I am not getting married! Never!!!”

“Okay, then since all the boys use that bicycle and thus all probably want it fixed, you find one person in the house to tell me how they are going to treat their wife after getting married.”

Of course Arjun brings me the kid who loves to talk.

“I am marrying three girls, Emma Didi – one is for you know, cooking, one for washing dishes and one for cleaning the rooms!” Bibek said.

“Why do you have to make all those ladies your wives? Why not just keep them as your maids?”

“No, no, I need to make all three same like wife.”

“No, no, futchay – you don’t need 3… you need 4!” Arjun chimes in, “4th one is for keeping at your side!”

“No no, I am joking, didi! I am only marrying one piece.”

Arjun busted out laughing, “Emma didi, ask him he is marrying one piece what things? Furniture? Towels? Dishes? What things is he marrying one piece?”

“No, no, not piece.. what means… same like.. I am getting married one girl. Then, all things I am helping. Together we is washing dishes, cooking food, cleaning room… Then I am coming home from job – I have to bring somethings nice things for giving my wife. You know, didi?”

“Yes, I know.”

“And before… you know we is going on honeymoon to America… no no, not America…Australia,” Bibek’s story continued.

“Oh good, you can see Sewa Didi on your honeymoon.”

“Pshh!” Arjun laughed through his pursed lips.

“And you know honeymoon time, then I am making my son. Then my wife and me is coming back to Pokhara and my son is born.”

Gosh, that kid understands the honeymoon activities far too well.

“And my son is going to read, then is coming my daughter… and she is also reading… and sometimes my son wants to using drugs and I am shouting… and saying ‘you is not using drugs’ and then sometimes one boy is coming for beating me and my son is so strong and saying, ‘you is not beating my dad!’”

“No, no.. your son is going to be crazy same like you… and you are going to be sooo… then you will know how ghado it is for having a son like you!” Arjun chimed in.

Bibek didn’t get it, “and then my daughter is getting you know, same like big… and I am looking ‘where is one nice boy who is marrying my daughter?’ and then this boy I am giving my daughter to marry….”

“So.. you only care about giving your daughter away to some other guy? Don’t you want to raise a strong, independent daughter?” I asked.

“Oh yeah yeah… I am giving her for taekwondo class…Okay didi, this story is so long… same like two stories… You give 4 rupees, not 2, okay?”

“You ask Bibek to tell a story… he makes a film… sooo long,” Arjun said as he took the money.

This, my friends, is why I actually like load shedding.

2008-10-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

my kids... have been so calm... and relatively drug free.... impressive. lately we've had load shedding (power outages) more often than normal. last night i got in my bed for a 'nap' at 7.00 p.m. because there was no electricity and i didn't have anything else to do... dorje (grace) always sleeps during load shedding to avoid interaction with our other boys (he's quite the introvert) so when i was in bed at 7, bibek bust in the door and asked, "are you jacking dorje's technique?" "what?" "dorje's technique - his style - is sleeping in load shedding... you is jacking?"

yup. ;)

grace.

2008-10-21T23:06:00.000-07:00

six out of seven of my boys have reconvened to our quaint, little flat in Pokhara. I did break up a pretty strong fist fight the other night (gosh, the bigger they get, the harder it is for me to rip them apart- virtually impossible!), but other than that our lives have been relatively quiet and substance free. last night i went out with one of my best friends in nepal and then went to make an international call after that (we have these cheap little phone shops) so i got home around 9 - pretty late in our world - but to my surprise, all 6 of the boys were home, sober, and quiet.

overall... things have been surreal. call me a cynic, but i am just waiting for something to go wrong...but today's post really isn't about that. it's about a boy who i probably don't talk about enough.... dorje... or as he likes to be called nowadays, grace.

dorje is hands down the most reclusive of the bunch. he doesn't travel with the pack and when it came time to enroll in school this year he pretty much demanded to go to a different school than the others. he's kind of like me in that way - doesn't really like mixing the areas of his life - likes to keep all of his 'worlds' separate from one another.

dorje has a hard time expressing himself and if he gets blamed for something he didn't do, he rarely, if ever, defends himself.

dorje and bibek stayed with my kathmandu flatmates and i for two nights before coming to pokhara. one of the girls said, 'you know, i just cannot imagine dorje getting into trouble...'

i know. it's weird.

in kathmandu, dorje and bibek came from one end of town to my end of town alone. they were three hours late and i started to panic. if it was any of my other kids i wouldn't have worried, but dorje... he's the kid i always joke with, asking him, "how on earth did you ever survive on the streets?" he just doesn't have that bold sense of falsely projected self confidence that my other kids have. he second guesses himself all the time.

but dorje and bibek made it to my house. Lost, but they made it.

let me tell you about the evolution of the boy's name. at birth his family gave him the name Buddha. it changed to a nickname Buddhi and for the next six years of his life he lived as such. when he turned to the streets, he shed that name and took on the moniker, Durga. only a few months after he came off of the streets, he decided he no longer wanted to be that boy, and again he changed his name to Dorje. two years ago, our Amma gave him the nickname Kripa, meaning grace, because she knew that it was grace that saved him in both a physical and spiritual sense. Amma is the only one who called him Kripa, but when he enrolled in his new school last March, he filled out his papers with the English version of the word, Grace, as his name.

everyone in our house calls the boy Dorje, but to the people who don't know where he's come from or the circumstances of his previous life, he is Grace. washed free of the past that he tries to escape with each change of name, I wonder if this name will be the last. more than any of my other kids, I can see this struggle to come into his own skin, this search for his identity. it's something I can appreciate.

he's a thoughtful one. he thinks things through in a way i am not sure my others ever do... and when he does get into trouble, he has genuine remorse - sometimes only seconds after the incident.

"You know didi, in my village nobody is a Christian... well, one girl I hear maybe she is... but I didn't get to talk to her," Dorje told me as he was getting ready to go to Pokhara, "but on the bus from Kathmandu to Ramechaap, I met one man who believed in Jesus. I talked to him that bus ride... and when I got to town, I bought one book about Christian things... I don't know where that book is - so you find it and bring it to Pokhara, okay?"

grace, kunai din timile afailai vetaune chhau.

my boy, dorje.

2008-10-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

dorje and bibek just came back from spending dashain in ramechaap... the home of dorje's grandmother and the place where he spent the first 5 years of his life. this was dorje's first trip back to his village in 9 years. he brought these pictures back with him. yep, the baby on the left in both pictures is my boy, dorje... so cute... and it is so amazing- he looks so much the same!! his mother is the woman next to him/holding him.

2008-10-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

so for all of you who really don't have a grasp on the geography of nepal and how it pertains to our life... here's a little map for you... yes... very little i know! sorry!

blue star= the beloved pokhara... always and forever our "hometown."

pink star= sunsari district. the village of my dear gopal.

light blue "k"= yeah, i know it is hard to see... but it's kathmandu... obviously.. K... kathmandu... get it? :)

the apple= jumla... the home of all things apple... and the loveliest fresh cider in the world (and i mean the alcoholic kind... mmmmhh!) the soon-to-be home of our newlyweds... can't wait :)

so, to the point of the post...

see the distance between pokhara and gopal's village? and kathmandu for that matter?

well.. i have realised the kid should be a detective. my kids don't really know any of my friends in kathmandu since well, only bibek and now dorje have been to kathmandu... so imagine my surprise when pooja, one of my best friends in ktm, called me yesterday to tell me that gopal had called her. uhm... what?

gopal's neighbor in itahari is pooja's classmate... this classmate has never had any conversation with pooja about me or about sewa (the only one of our friends that gopal knows)... as far as the three of us girls knew, the classmate doesn't even know about sewa/my existence... i mean, pooja claims to "hardly even know" the classmate from itahari... yet somehow completely beyond any kind of reasoning... gopal met this guy in his village and somehow found out that this guy knew one of emma didi and sewa didi's best friends... so he thought he would call her up.

seriously. this kid should be a detective. really. i am completely impressed.... but also very frightened at how "small" nepal is. you can never fly under the radar here, i promise.

and they are off...

2008-10-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

last year a friend of mine from the states took my oldest boy, soraj on a week long trip around the beautiful mountains of nepal. j even taught my boy how to read a topographic map. this year, arjun, the boy who has hardly regarded soraj as his brother for the last year, begged me to let soraj take rohit (aka khalay), san soraj, and himself on the same adventure. i was a little hesitant... not because i don't think soraj is ready for the task, but because i thought arjun and the other boys were not ready to follow his leadership.

i left the four boys home alone for 5 days last week. that was the longest time they have been alone with no supervision in well.... probably since their street days years ago. i also left them 3,000 rupees for food and other necessities. to my surprise... i got back a detailed list of what they spent every last rupee on... and i got 1,500 rupees back in change. i guess that means they may be ready.

before they left this morning at 5:30 this morning, they called me and said, "didi, let's pray."

considering, i am not the one who normally prays with my boys - purely on the basis that i don't want to give outsiders ammunition to say, 'see, they just follow you because you are a westerner, you pay for their lives and they want to make you happy' - i know it came from their own hearts and their own minds...

so this morning i shipped the last of my dashain dwellers to the mountains. bibek and dorje are safely in ramechaap... gopal is in ithari... and my remaining four are headed to annapurna basecamp.

my boys told me to go to kathmandu so they didn't have to have so much worry about me staying home alone whilst they were gone. so lovely they are....

hmm.. what is a girl to do with her 7 roommates gone....?

hypocrites.

2008-10-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have a boy in my house who I often refer to as the ‘glue’ of our family. His name is Soraj. He’s the oldest and ever since their street lives, he’s encouraged all of my boys to at least try to do the right thing. Many onlookers assumed he was the influence of evil in the group just because of pure age, but he was anything but that.

He is the only one I consider to actually understand and feel in debt to God’s everlasting grace. He’s sees that God pulled him up from the muck and mire of life and although things aren’t perfect, he knows God’s love has changed his very existence.

As the boys have gotten older, their reverence for Soraj has faded. He still has pull and influence, but not like he used to. And Arjun, sweet Arjun. Soraj’s younger brother rebels against him the same way a child normally rebels against their parents. He likes to defy his brother. If you ask Arjun if Soraj is his brother he will say no and look at you like you are crazy and its been like this for more than a year now.

But things always change.

After Gopal had his heart broken by Anjali he thought it granted him liberty to tell everyone in our house off. He had no reign on his tongue and for that he found himself in trouble.

“I’m sorry, Didi, but I have to,” Soraj said to me politely as his fists tightened and he grabbed Gopal and beat him to the ground on the plot of land outside of our house where corn was growing only a few days back. Gopal cried and swore and cried some more.

Over the last year, Arjun has always chose Gopal over Soraj. Always. But in the midst of the fight, Arjun stood by Soraj’s side, knowing that while we don’t advocate fighting as a solution, let’s be honest – Gopal deserved every punch.

Seeing as it was 11 at night, the land lady leaned over the balcony and so did her sons.

“Who’s fighting?” they asked.

By this time, Gopal had already run to the road in tears.

“It was me. I beat up Gopal,” Soraj never throws the blame to another.

A bit later, Gopal came back and every one of my kids gathered around in the living room as the two of them nearly brawled again. Fighting in the yard. I don’t like it, but I might not break it up immediately. But fighting in our house? It’s a definite no.

Gopal is the boy who looks down on others, seeing himself as perfect and more behaved than them. He goes to church and brags about it, but the real reason he goes is to save the 40 rps. They get for church lunch. “I’m a Christian,” he always boasts, “My mother is a Christian. She goes to church.” And this, he thinks, makes him high and mighty in comparison to the other boys – even the boy who is the only one who understands grace.

Gopal talks the talk and ticks off those Christian boxes of praying, going to church, and saying “Jaymasay”, but he doesn’t have the heart. Not yet.

And this, my friends, is why Soraj beat him up.

He couldn’t take the hypocrisy any longer.

“How long? How long are you going to sit here calling yourself a Christian and going to church, but having absolutely no inclinations to change your life or be changed by God? How long?” This was the fight.

Arjun seconded the motion.

Gopal’s suggestion was the house break up into teams. If you were on his side, you didn’t talk to the other team in the house and Team A wasn’t allowed in Team B’s room and vice versa. Somehow I think he thought Soraj would be on a team alone. He thought, surely all the boys would agree with him, follow him, because he is “good”, but when he offered up his team suggestion, the other boys just looked Gopal like he was mental.

But my kids shouted it out. Every boy had an opinion on the matter about what it meant to say you are a Christian and what it means to actually be a Christian and they each wanted to know who was going to just talk about it and who was going to try to live it out.

Soraj did feel immediate guilt for fighting Gopal.

“Didi, I feel soooo bad. Really. This is the first time in my life I have done such a thing to Gopal. I always love Gopal, but today… I just couldn’t take it anymore,” he said with great remorse knowing it was wrong.

“I know Soraj.”

I think all of us hypocrites learned something that night.

teeth marks.

2008-10-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been thinking a lot about those discouraging voices, those people who tell me that it would be much easier to take care of simple, poor children who aren’t so emotionally needy as mine. It will be easier, it will cost less, and it will take less of your attention and energy. And besides, why would you want to help “those” kind of kids, anyway? They are so ungrateful and they really will never progress.

“Those” kind of kids means ill-behaved street kids; namely, street boys. I will be the first to admit they are ruthless, cunning, and completely filled with rage. To be honest, there are a good many number of days I think, ‘if they run away, I am really never looking for them again.’ And sometimes my thoughts, even if only for a second, turn from 'if they run away' to ‘gosh, I wish they would run away.’ I don’t really wish that… but in the tender moments when things are excruciatingly rough as they have been the last three weeks… yeah, sometimes I think I am too tired to fight.

But there is an argument for helping these boys and others like them far greater than the good of the kids themselves. There is a reason far beyond Bibek, Arjun or Gopal. There is a reason bigger than Soraj, San Soraj, Rohit and Dorje. There is a reason beyond the kids still scrounging through rubbish around Thamel with plastic bags of glue up to their mouths. There is a reason far beyond the kids themselves that people; and more personally I; must continue to help the street kids, no matter how tough it gets.

Tonight I got my first set of teeth marks. A pretty little circle, puffed up in the middle. Yep, that's right, one of my kids bit me in a fit of crazy rage. Hard, too. I told my friend I felt like I had joined an elite club of individuals long seasoned in the work of troubled children and youth. But while my child sunk his teeth into my arm after throwing things around the house and addressing me with words similar to whore and slut, I realised one thing. At that very moment I wanted nothing more than to take that kid’s belongings and throw them in the road and tell him to never, ever, come back to our house. Never.

But I didn’t.

And the reason was not for the sake of that child. Not at all. He has issues and a history of abuse, yes, but even those factors were not enough to muster up compassion or understanding for that child’s behaviour. At that moment, I didn't even like the boy. I still loved him, yes, but really, I did not like him at all.

The reason I didn’t give up on that kid is actually because of his future, and more accurately, the future of those who will be in his life. A girlfriend. His sisters. His mother. A daughter. And society.

He is a rage filled kid who honestly has the potential to grow into a very dangerous man. A negligent father. A wife-beater. A gangster.

I tell my boys often, that I would love for them to do great in school, but if they don’t, that’s okay. I will let them slide. But one thing I will not do is raise boys who turn into men who abuse their wives and hurt their families. I just won’t do it.

And now, knowing that if I never saw this boy again, at best that’s exactly the kind of man he would be, I just won’t give him up. And not for his sake.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my boy and now that I have had time to think about it all, I do have compassion for his past abuses and the life he has lived up until this point. I understand why he’s had three major breakdowns in less than 40 hours. I care that he is broken. But this post is for those of you who don’t. I know there are many people who are tired of streetkids or who find working with streetkids too exhausting or less productive then working with other types of underprivileged individuals.

Whether you like the kid or not, whether you can see past their ill-behaviour and have compassion for him or not, there is one thing I know: what society chooses to do about streetkids - ignore them or love them - will effect more than just that child in the long run.

detoxing the youngest.

2008-10-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

i'm not ready to tell you part 2 of the Gopal-Anjali-love-saga-turned-huge-brawl-in-our-living-room/garden... it's too long for the moment...

but i will tell you this. yesterday i brought bibek to kathmandu as part of his detoxification program. actually, it was his idea to spend his school vacation time in ktm so that he could be in a not-so-familiar environment far away from the drugs he knows how to easily get in pokhara. good thinking.

last night he had a bit of a meltdown. screaming, crying, kicking, all for reasons unknown to me. this is what we call the other side of bibek. the crazy side that doesn't know how to handle much of anything since well, he was raised on the streets for the better part of his childhood, with no one to discipline him, no one to show him how to express himself in a way that is productive.

a new girl is staying in the flat i stay in during my trips to ktm and my steady roomie happens to be at everest base camp. ahh... the poor new girl.

"welcome to my life," i smiled at her whilst holding the boy's thrashing arms amidst his teary screams.

"exciting!" she chirped.

ten minutes later, bibek was fine. completely fine. so fine that when my new roomie shouted to inform us there was a mouse in our house (this is only the second time in a year i've seen a mouse... ok by american standards that might be quite frequent... but by nepali, it is not). bibek slowly cornered the mouse until it climbed right into a small plastic bag. the kid then picked up the plastic bag, tortured the mouse and then threw him into our neighbor's yard nice one, kid. send the mouse to eat that guy's corn.... ahhh.. my boy.

on the ride to kathmandu a crazy thing happened. we were in a 15 passenger van carrying 24 people as is normal in this part of the world. bibek was sitting smashed up against the door, and i was sitting smashed up against him and a village woman with more piercings than any delinquent punk kid at home. the van was driving along at probably 60 km an hour on the windy "highway" through the hillside when suddenly the window next to bibek just burst. literally, it just burst for no reason. bibek was covered in glass a lot of which had made its way down his pants because of the way he was leaning forward at the time of the shattering. it was definitely one of those events that turns on my motherly instincts.

after the glass breaking and some seat shuffling a man started talking about my balidhan tattoo. a few minutes later, bibek asked me, "didi, what means balidhan?"

"sacrifice" i replied.

"no, no, i mean, what means balidhan?" he didn't know that nepali word.

i tried to explain it the best i could in nepali and then very matter-of-fact he said, "oh, ok. you mean same like god is doing for us people?"

"yeah, same like."

pray for my boy and the rest of his detoxifying vacation.

2008-10-01T03:12:00.000-07:00

gopal and me approximately 11 months ago.

gopal yesterday. gosh he looks so old in this picture. it actually frightens me.

first love and a broken heart.

2008-10-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

My boys now have a 7:00 p.m. curfew. Not saying the boys always fully abide by it, but the rule is there.

Kids aside, work-wise, the last 48 hours have been mad hectic for me, so throw raising 7 kids into the mix and things are just pure insanity, but yesterday night all 7 of them were home at 7. Good for me, considering I had a colleague coming over to discuss a project we are starting together at 7.30. Good, I thought, no worrying about the kids.

Oh, how easily I forget.

I guess I got too focused on our talk that I only realised the deafening silence that had taken over the house after emerging from our meeting. Where were my boys? Three of my boys were completely hypnotized by a video game, and the four others...? Nowhere.

Gopal had a bus to catch at 3:30 in the morning…he was going to the far eastern part of nepal to spend a month with his family and he needed to get ready… where could he possibly be at 9:00 p.m.? Hmmm… a boy with a drug and alcohol problem, a broken heart and nearly $100 for travel expenses in his pocket…

Oh gosh! How dumb could I be!?!?!?! why did i give him that money so soon!!

My colleague smiled. He had just finished telling me that this month I needed to be extra careful with the guys. “Watch over them three times as carefully this month... it’s holiday season, and holidays are when addicts are most likely to relapse.”

Bibek and I went to look for Gopal and whichever of the other kids might be along with him. I fully expected to catch him red-handed at a little local hole in the wall down the street, but I didn’t.

Instead, I found Gopal sitting with his head hung over a plate of food and a pool of tears and Rohit at his side for company... and the vices? Where were the vices? Nowhere. 6,000 rupees and sorrow but my boy did not turn to his vices. I still cannot believe it.

You see, yesterday was the day Gopal’s girlfriend of nearly 7 months decided that she was over it all.

“She doesn’t know my heart, Didi,” he said through the tears, “She doesn’t know my heart. I never wanted anything from her. I just wanted to be her friend, and then after we are big, I wanted to marry her… She’s the one who came to our house and kissed me! I didn’t kiss her! She kissed me!”

That line... "she doesn't know my heart"... it just touched me...it really touched me.

Gopal is a tricky boy. He’s the kid I still feel I can’t really figure out because I had never seen him broken about anything. No matter how bad things have been, no matter what terrible trouble he’s found his way in between, Gopal has always been completely aloof to sorrow. He has narcissistic tendencies that frighten me because he can identify right and wrong outside of the context of his own life, but he is normally so unfazed by anything. He is normally just so emotionless and always thinks himself right and good. But, oh how a girl can change a boy.

She broke him. I have never heard Gopal talk with such honest sincerity as during our talk about Anjali. She reached his heart in a way I thought was truly impossible and although I don’t like seeing my kids hurt, in some twisted way I feel thankful to that 13 year old girl who broke my kid’s heart. It’s good to see him react in such a human way…

but the night's events didn't end there... it's still too be continued... :)

scorecard.

2008-09-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

sunday:
1 of 4 school-goers actually in school.
1 of 7 substance free. how on earth this boy has managed to stop doing anything amidst friends who are completely entrenched at the moment is beyond me... but this is the only boy who really knows how to pray....
1 of 7 drunk (the school-goer).
5 of 7 glued up approximately 20 minutes after their long confessions of desires to stop and change.... this is how entrapped in addiction they are... they are completely in the stage of denial and "one last time".

monday:
4 of 4 in school.
1 of 7 definitely substance free.
2 others claim to be substance free.... but i have my doubts.
4 of 7 drunk.

it's been hectic... truly, truly hectic.

i just found out that two very sweet, fairly well-off neighbor girls of ours have been giving my youngest marijuana. i am still pretty much in shock. i used to let him go to their house often because i thought he was just missing sewa....but apparently these two girls, one who is 16 and one who is 19, think that giving pot to a young kid like bibek is a good idea... or at least an acceptable one.

this is why it is so hard for my kids to stop anything....

2008-09-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

my kids. my kids. my kids.

gosh i have been overwhelmed this week.

i shipped them off to my friend, x's house the other day in the pouring rain for a good beating. that's how crazy my life has been with them as of late. unfortunately they came back with only a few pieces of information to recall.

1. x has a bunch of coins lying around in odd places just like you, emma didi.
2. x has waaaaaay more music on his computer than you do, emma didi.
3. x also has such a cool game system, emma didi... can't we get that too?

uhm, great.

after their time at his house, x and i had a few hours' chat about my kids. he's known a few of them for years and he is the guru of all things street kids so he gave me his analysis.

"that gopal... " he smiled, "he knows everything but doesn't know a thing, does he?"

gopal is a tricky one.

he recommended i make different rules for different boys on the basis of 'where they are at'... and then he joked, "and since gopal is well, perfect. gopal should follow perfect rules." :) (i am pretty sure only those of you who know gopal will actually get what this means... hehe.. but i hope you see the humor in it :) )

after our chat, x just smiled and said, "well, you've got your work cut out for you."

yes, yes i do.

a few of my kids spent a couple of hours in jail the other night. i almost wanted to leave them their forever, but it was at x's insistence that i actually went and got them... all the boys apparently got out of that experience was this:

"seriously, emma didi, who are those clowns that work as police men? they are like.... so not champion. i think they only went to class 5 and then stopped! that guy asked me, 'how are you read? seven o' clock?' he's asking what class i read in!!! and he says seven o'clock!!" seriously, emma didi... he was not champion at all. i am champion more than him and i am a boy not a man!!!!!"

uhm. i think what you were supposed to learn out of the whole jail fiasco was that lying, cheating, stealing, using drugs.... that life pattern only leads you down the road of destruction...

my ex-drug user friend came over the other night and was asking about my boys... he asked san soraj how many guys "still use". san soraj said, 'oh, everyone... just not me and thulo soraj...' my friend asked san soraj how many days he had been clean.... san soraj said, 'oh... you know, two days... two days ago i left everything!!!!'

my experienced friend smiled and said, 'one day at a time. one day at a time.'

pray for my kids. they really, really need it as of late.

2008-09-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

this week our house has been chaos of epic proportions... but i am not going to tell you all about that right now. mainly, because it is too difficult to capture without thinking it all through and also because i need to remember what it is i love about these kids.

so a pleasant story.

the other night i closed the curtains to our house and bibek asked me why i was doing as such.

"because it is night and i don't want people looking in our house."

"You don't want people looking at you?" he almost laughed, "You are white, you live in Nepal and you don't want people looking at you? People looking in our house - no problem! All day people is looking at you! You want people not looking at you, you have to do more than close the curtains... You have to change your face! And your skin..."

Gosh, that kid is so clever.

2008-09-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

my birthday was a few weeks ago. at first, i didn't want to celebrate it with my kids because i know that most of them have no idea about their own birthdays... but, they found out it was my birthday anyway. i can't hide anything from them. that day i told them they could choose their own birthdays if they wanted. nobody chose right then but yesterday arjun decided that september 16th was his official birthday... i think he just wanted to bring chocolate to school! he already told his classmates that the following day would be his birthday.

"emma didi, prakati is telling me i bring her chocolates for my birthday but i don't want." arjun made a face.

nepal has a peculiar tradition... on your birthday, you have to treat your friends. prakati happens to be the ex "girlfriend" of arjun... she came over unannounced one saturday. arjun was laying around with just his running shorts and no shirt watching t.v. and in came prakati decked out in a nice kurta (or as they call in india, saywar kameez) and dress shoes. she came with a purpose. arjun, daft as he is didn't even get up and when she left all he had to say was "didi! why is she coming here?!?!?! sooooo tension!!!!"

she was quite a tall girl. i asked arjun if he had kissed her because all of the boys were teasing him saying he had. he looked at me like i had just suggested the grossest thing ever and he stood on my bed and said, 'you saw that girl! she is sooo tall.. what i am doing? i am standing on this bed and kissing her? like that i am kissing her? no, emma didi. i am not doing like that... noooooooooooo!'

my kids are almost as sarcastic as those british folk.

i asked arjun how old he was turning for his "happy birthday"... the kids don't get that it's just called one's birthday.. and the "happy" is a wishing. they just like to refer to it all as "someone's happy birthday". :D. anyway, to answer my question arjun said, "14."

oh really? because i thought yesterday you were fourteen.. and the day before that for that matter... and the day before that...

i guess arjun is just like all of us... wants the chocolate that comes with a birthday, but doesn't want the years. :P

but regardless... a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my darling arjun! :)

random, non-linear post.

2008-09-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

on the micro bus from kathmandu back to pokhara to where my kids live, i cried a bit. i was just wondering what little small incidents had happened in the week i was gone...

now a few days back and it feels as though i never left.

i especially love my conversations with bibek. i love talking with all my kids... but bibek still has the talk of a clever little kid.

i told him he has to start studying harder and start doing more work with me because his exams weren't anything to boast about.

in the tone that presumed he already knew the answer, he asked, 'didi wait, you listen... when you is studying, you are taking exam, exam is finish and direct you are studying for next exam? no, you is going round with your friends.' and he smiled., 'then exam time is coming again and you is study ALLLL day.'

he keeps asking me if i ever passed SLC. SLC is the big exam students in nepal have to take after 9th grade in order to continue on to 10th grade. no, i didn't pass because we don't have SLC exam.

"you is not even knowing dorje's math problems... you think you passed SLC? no." another smile.

"and if you did pass already bachelors and masters like you say, you is already marry." smile. "girls passing bachelors and masters, they is marry."

i am working on an HIV project with a few friends... one is a doctor and one is an ex drug user.

"emma didi, you is helping you know, rich man... so many people is not having rice or another thing, and that guy is coming here on motorbike and you is helping that man with HIV... HIV man is rich! why you don't help another man?"

okay, kid, i am not HELPING that guy we are working together... and anyway, helping the rich is okay too...

"no, didi, you help poor people... not dhani manche!"

that said friend who my kids like to call "that man before using long time" followed by holding an imaginary syringe to the fold of their arms, came to my house yesterday morning. i was at the dentist with beebs - who by the way had a nasty, nasty root canal...

my friend later told me that the whole house smelled of pot when he came inside. lucky for me, my friend is a drug counselor... so he sat and talked to them for a while...

when i got home i talked to the boys... arjun laughed when i asked him if he was smoking pot before going to school.

"didi! how i am going to school after smoking ganja? don't you know, ganja is making you lazy!"

well, that didn't seem to stop a few of my friends... a few who graduated with honours, i might add...

sometimes i don't know how to deal with my kids... i don't seem to know what gets through to them. and they are different than other kids. traditional punishment doesn't work for kids who "can take care of themselves". and they know their choices are wrong... they know it's not best for their lives... but they just keep doing the same things over and over again.

my friend, the guru of all things street, gave us a movie made about street kids by ex-street kids. we've had the movie 36 hours and the kids have watched it four times. it's like they are replaying the events of their own lives over and over again. connecting with the characters as they get mistreated, use glue, and fight in the streets. it surprised me, because the one with the most serious face of all was dorje. he didn't even laugh once. made me think there is something much deeper going on in the boy i used to think was the street kid lightweight of the bunch... the least "street experienced".

the other morning, it was just 7 a.m. when gopal and san soraj were fighting and throwing around the nepali version of "fuck you" like it was no big thing. to be honest, that's the first fight that's happened in about two months since the time dorje nearly knocked out rohit's tooth. so things have been pretty good. after the fight gopal just continued polishing his shoe and when i asked him what happened he just looked up aloof, and said, "hajur, didi?" such a polite and clever guy....

but all the craziness, i love being here with my kids. nepali people ask me all the time why i am in nepal.... and i just answer them nicely, 'some of my family is here.'

growing up.

2008-09-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

today i was thinking about how i really have watched my kids grow up. i think bibek's grown 5 inches in the last six months.

sometimes i think i need to stop calling them 'kids' considering bibek is really the only one who fits the description... but i guess parents; or guardians as i may be; never really think of their kids as older than a kid. in some way they still remain something fragile.

all of my kids have grown up. soraj is nearly taller than me. gopal, dorje, arjun, rohit and san soraj... well, let's just say they are on that threshold between childhood and adulthood.

and bibek... my little phutchay, chora... i will never forget the first time i met bibek. he was so small i just pulled him onto my lap. he was a child of the streets through and through and sometimes i look at the other young ones still trapped in street life... and i have to remind myself... this is where bibek came from... this is where all my kids came from. because for me, its so incredible to see. they aren't perfect, but they have changed so, so much.

that first time he sat on my lap i looked at his smile of rotted out teeth (he's the toothless one in the banner) and i tried to smile through the stench from the trousers he had been wearing for god only knows how long. to be honest, i could only take the boy on my lap for a few minutes because i could feel a wetness of his street covered trousers seeping through to my jeans and when i pushed him off, he left a ring of dirt right across my lap.

i bought beebs some new shorts and told him i would wash his dirty ones myself. in nepali he said, 'no no didi will do it.' but i wanted to really feel connected to this little boy i hadn't even known a full day.

i don't think i have ever told anyone this, because it used to be something i wanted to keep as a memory for myself... and today, that's probably the person i'm writing it for, but i washed those trousers five times by hand and i promise you the water was black all five times. every time i washed them, i just thought about the layers of this young boy's life. i remember crying while i was scrubbing the cloth against itself hoping i could remove some of the dirt... some of the pain...

i was reading this post called "just an update" today and i just remembered so many sweet times bibek and i had on our crazy 10 day trip together around the valley and beyond. we slept in a jungle, a cave, and many places in between. it was such a sweet time, but also a very difficult one. for the first time in my life the kid flat out refused to leave my side and in between talks about what its like to get high from petrol he threw a dozen 4-year-oldesque temper tantrums.

after one of those temper tantrums, i walked away from the kid just trying to stay sane. about 200 feet away i met a friend. the said friend asked me if i wanted to smoke and in a moment of stress and weakness, i accepted. only two seconds later bibek appeared and saw me smoking. the little guy flipped out and ran into the street swearing with tears streaming down his face and beating his fists into everything he saw. "next week you'll be using brown sugar," he was convinced smoking cigarettes leads to injecting drugs.

he didn't talk to me for a few hours and to be honest, i thought with that one cigarette the boy was going to be back on the streets for good... and i realised man, little things make such a huge difference. we mended our ways and went home happy but other events that happened the following week caused him to indulge in a few moments of weakness himself. he ran to the arms of the streets and substance and pushed love away with a vengeance because he wanted to prove to himself and maybe to me that he was that tough.

those were the days that little things could set bibek off and he could use the 'run away' card. for two years he played that card and pulling bibek off the streets was a regular occurrence. once sewa and i borrowed a school bus late one night and with the help of soraj, we pulled the kid from the grips of darkness and pushed him onto the bus kicking and screaming. We slammed the door and drove off all the while trying to hold the boy still, dodging his flying fists. those were regular occurrences.

nowadays i never worry about bibek running away. never. he's grown up and calmed down and come to realise he can push and push and push... but we won't let him go. now his hotheaded nature is just an occasionally flicker.

these days, the wild child who used to explode in rage reads me stories at night with his head in my lap. last week he read me the nepali story about a jackal who tricks a crow into dropping a piece of meat. i asked questions along the way and bibek said, 'didi, i am reading fast fast one time and you listening and next you is asking questions.' well, alright then, boss.

a few hours after the story, we confronted his glue usage for the umpteenth time. he felt so ashamed for doing the thing he used to be proud of... it took him about 30 minutes before he said a word. his head just hung in his lap until finally he said, 'you know didi, direct chordyo is so ghado... maybe asaumbau." (directly stopping is so hard, maybe not possible).

this is the kid who used to scream the nepali equivalent of "fuck you" right in your face. the kid who everyone said would never change.

and yeah, he's still using from time to time... and for people who put him up against the measuring stick of a child with a semi-normal upbringing, he is still a bit of a wild child... all my kids are... but when his growth is measured against where he came from and who he was, gosh is it clear how much my little boy has grown up... my phutchay and all of my boys are growing up.

2008-08-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

life at our house is never dull, that's for sure.

the phrase "tauko dukhyo" means head is hurting.... but these days bibek likes to mix his english and nepali... "why is your tauko dukhing?" he asks with the present continuous english "ing". such a rare child.

and since arjun has recently diverted his substance addiction with some sort of affinity for watching people play slot machines and taking every 2 rupees he finds directly to the slots, i finally went to the little hole in the wall "casino" near our house and told the owner off. it's become the joke of our house that emma didi thinks that laws (you have to be 18 to gamble or go into casinos big and small in nepal) can and should actually be enforced. the kids crack up every time i mention the fact that arjun is 14, not 18, and thus does not belong in the casino. "this is nepal, not another country!" they shout. yeah, and this whole making laws up as you go thing has proven so fruitful for the country.

arjun was laying around in my room looking tense so i said, 'what's the matter, boy? what's the cause of your worries?'

'you say me first,' he said, 'you are also looking tensy.'

'ah.... i'm getting old, and wondering what am i doing with my life,' i said with sigh, 'like that.'

'oh! you are taking care of us! this is nothing?' arjun reminded me.

'yeah, yeah i know... and you? what's the problem?'

'you are making jackpot closed for me! so tensy!' i wish you could only hear his kid-like laugh. it's so endearing even when he is 'tensy'.

yesterday my father called. he hardly calls so i talked for a long while.... and so did bibek. and during the moments when bibek was talking i went into the living room only to find a bunch of marijuana seeds on a piece of burnt paper. all the boys minus bibek were sitting around the dining room table in the dark (dang load shedding never ends) playing cards.

"whose is it?" i demanded but got no response.

i went back in the room and got the phone from bibek... his mouth was full of that scent i have grown to hate. fumes of recently inhaled glue came my way as he talked on and on in my face.

who knew my kids would be so embarrassed that i found some of their vices whilst on the phone with my father. they looked petrified. maybe it is that innate fear of fathers most children have. mothers are a bit too soft sometimes.

after i hung up the phone they realised the reason my father called was because it was "emma didi's happy birthday".

9:00 and the kids demanded we get a cake. no cake shop in nepal is open at 9:00. so arjun, gopal, san soraj and rohit took a cab to chipledunga (about 3 km away) and went to a cake shop where they knew the owner lived nearby. they pounded on his house door and told them it was an emergency and they needed a cake NOW.

"don't worry emma didi, we didn't disturb them," gopal says, "only they are watching t.v. and drinking beer."

great.

the power still wasn't on which meant the candles scattered around our house for light quickly and easily became my birthday candles.

and i made a wish.

"you're wishing all boys become good, aren't you?" arjun asked.

"i can't tell you or it won't come true."

"yeah, but this is what you are wishing," he smiled, "i know already."

the cake got distributed, no plates or forks necessary.

soraj looked at me with the look of concern, "didi, are you happy in life?"

"what do you mean?"

"are you happy?" he repeated the question, "are you happy sitting here with us, you think you are getting old, i know... but are you happy?"

"i know she is happy when she is coming back from kathmandu and sad when she is going to kathmandu," arjun inferred that i like being around them, but hated my bi-monthly work trips to kathmandu. so true, so true.

"i'm happy soraj," i replied, "and are you happy?"

"i'm happy, didi."

why i love south asia #167.

2008-08-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

it's one of the few places in the world where straight boys can comment on how great another guy looks without being afraid of people thinking he is gay.

today bibek was looking at a picture of the famous model-turned-bollywood star, john abraham.

"you know didi, this john abraham... he has soooooo cute," bibek points at his face, "dimples. i like them soooooooooooo much."

believe me, kid, i know. ;)

2008-08-24T18:30:00.001-07:00

a few days ago i woke up and told soraj how i had a dream about him.

"you were like 30 or something, and you were living in a big house with all these street kids... taking care of them and looking after them," i said as we sat outside on our porch, stretching with morning yawns.

"oh! so didi, your sleeping dream is my life dream! wow... how interesting is that!"

so maybe someday my soraj will be a social worker himself, eh?

load shedding joys.

2008-08-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

sometimes when i am with my kids, i just try to savor the moment. i just make a mental video to watch over and over when i am away from them...that way, when my laptop is broken -like now- and i cannot watch our little movies- i can still remember our memories.

we have a thing here in nepal called load shedding. it means the city is on a schedule and certain areas have planned blackouts on a regular basis. during the winter we usually run with no power for about 50 hours a week. summer is less... around 8. last night it was pouring rain during our load shedding time and well, since water is another thing we run short on here in nepal, arjun and rohit thought it only made perfect sense to make use of free water. The two of them washed their clothes in the dark rain with only the light of my mobile to guide them. I don't know why but it was such sweet fun for me.

and then half of them played hide and seek in our 1100 square foot flat while the others sang some daft nepali pop songs. eight boys present, two guests from switzerland and me. my oldest kept saying "i am sure the landlord must think there are a hundred people in our house." she did come banging on our door at one point... and i endured the wrath. sorry, auntie :)... i know we were loud!

then thulo soraj told me something so sweet.

he said, 'you know didi, sometimes us guys talking... you missing all your chance to get married because you are sitting here with us.. and you are getting old, and what are you going to do? you won't be married and you will have no one.... so we made already one plan...after all guys get married, you sit one week my house, then one week arjun's house, another week bibek's house.. and you be grand didi for our children. huncha?"

the thought of rotating between 7 houses in my elderly years sounds pretty much like a lifetime of instability... from my twenties right up until death... but it was so sweet and so honest.

of course you know this girl was in tears.

good thing it was load shedding.

2008-07-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

rohit and san soraj on the block "delivery truck".

2008-07-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

i was getting on a microbus up the street from our house when a little beggar kid began scratching me in hopes of getting two rupees. when i finally looked down at the soil-covered face, i saw a very familiar blue t-shirt. i processed my thoughts out loud in nepal, 'hey, that's my son's shirt!' the whole micro started laughing.

i asked the child if he knew bibek and yep, of course he did.

i know kids of the street will always remember what it means to be a kid on the street... and i don't know why but it warmed my heart to see bibek's tee on another child.

2008-07-29T03:27:00.000-07:00

Here's Bibek's family minus his older brother... Bibek sees his sisters about once every month or so. Recently, they've had a lot of hard times, but it was good to see them the other day.

2008-07-29T02:30:00.000-07:00

my incoherent updates..

arjun...he's on and off of substances like you wouldn't imagine. but yet, there is something inside of arjun that is so real, so pure, so raw, that it is unlike anything i can eloquently write down.

he's high on a bottle of prescription drugs that bibek got from the hospital the other day. he's sitting across the room from me, but unlike the other kids who look away when they're using, he's looking me straight in the eye, 'thanks, emma didi.'

'for what?' i don't know what he is talking about.

'for all things. you're giving us all things,' he looks at me with a serious honesty, 'thanks for that, emma didi.'

he says it and he means it. i just cut off all the kids' money. no lunch money. no running errands for emma didi and "bringing back the change". no saturday pocket money- even if they are perfect angels. i'm cutting it off for all the kids, because even if i give it to one, the drug users will convince their friends to help them get a fix.

no matter how much arjun hates that it is going to be increasingly difficult for him to get money for substances, even in his current state, he knows it's the best thing for him. he does have a desire to come clean, but he just can't.

'you know didi, morning time i am not thinking drugs. i am thinking just go to school and read.. and school time i am also thinking just read... but then school is finished and i dunno what's happening, i am thinking only one thing and even i don't want to do, i have to do.'

he wants to stop, he does. he comes clean for days and weeks and i think everything is on the up and up, but then it just takes one afternoon, just one hour, and the habit comes back like an old friend who never left.

and amma.

this elderly woman lived with my kids for two years and the kids still adore her. they may use drugs, but they do their best to love. lately she's been so sick and the boys are constantly worried. they love her so much and i love how they love her so much.

and then there is rohit.

my house is something of a halfway house. i have my somewhat stable six that have been with us since the beginning and will probably be at my side 'til the end... but in between, we have had a string of boys that have found comfort or security in our house for anywhere from three weeks to 9 months. these are the boys who have come and gone. it used to bother me, because running a house that operates in a short term manner is never something i wanted, but i've found peace with it and realised that maybe i didn't want it, but it is part of god's plan. it is our - the six constants and my- way of serving others.

most of those boys we still see every now and again. shuman and khan to name a few. one of them - roshan - we haven't seen for years, but my boys never stop talking about him, never stop praying for him. gosh, they love and miss roshan so much and so do i.

next on our list of temporaries is a boy named rohit. he used to go to school and actually perform quite well. we have known him for years and he lived what appeared to be a semi-normal life. yet, in the time we've known him his parent died and the other got remarried and pushed rohit out the door. for over a year, he has been living at a quasi-aunt's house. she feeds him and endures his presence, but she doesn't pay for him to go to school. she just lets him exist.

it usually happens during school holidays that new boys become a temporary part of our family. my kids are bored and have friends sleep over and one night suddently turns into three which turns into months. this holiday it is rohit.

he is the boy who tries his hardest to remain invisible. i know he has a lot of emotional trauma from the death of his parent, and the loveless year he's lived at the quasi-aunts. he hasn't healed and he needs to be in a place where he belongs.

is it with my 6 sometimes drug using kids? you wouldn't think this is the place for such a sojho (straight) kid, but apparently it is. some of my kids may use drugs, but one thing about them is they are truly learning to love.

is he going to stay with us a long time? you never can tell. my friend has decided to sponsor him for education, so he will be giving school one more shot. i am thankful for my friend... and thankful for all of you who make it possible for my kids to remain off the streets.

2008-07-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

this is beebs after a day of fishing with the boys at begnas lake.

2008-07-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

i started rambling on my other blog... and in the end it turned out to be a story about my kids... so if you want the latest update, check here.

still more than Angie and Brad.

2008-06-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

i don't think i have mentioned the fact that i now have seven kids.

the short (short for very verbose emma, that is) version is this... in january, san soraj made a decision that he didn't want to stay with us anymore. no hard feelings and he left with a smile, but he didn't want to stay with the others. end of story.

truth be told, the boy lacks self esteem more than any of the other guys. he has absolutely no self worth and he is insecure. i don't know the external reasons he decided to leave, but i do know the internal ones.

the last time i saw him was in the street when he was telling me all about a drug den kept by a boy i've known for a long time.

"he has sooo many drugs, didi," san soraj held his hands out wide, "so so so many. and you know, that place is same like underground."

so that was the last i heard from san soraj - stories of his mate with so many drugs - and for five months thulo soraj was the only one to even catch a glimpse of our friend. thulo soraj provided me no information except for that san soraj was all drugged up and sitting "same like buddha".

i looked for him many times. sewa and i cried out to god often. yet, he was nowhere.

but in my house, the minute one leaves, another seems to walk in the door.

khan is a long time friend of thulo soraj. his father died ten years back. his mother became a widow and single mother of eight children when khan, now a teen, was still but a boy. to relieve his mother's burden, the boy quit school, left his terrai village for the big city and started working odd jobs building furniture in pokhara. khan works hard and doesn't have the same street kid past as the others, but the last ten years he's lived the life of a drifter, floating between places he never belonged.

i let him stay mostly because thulo soraj begged me, but i've grown to love khan in his own right.

fast forward to two weeks ago. arjun and bibek found san soraj. he was covered in mud so thick that rather than wash the clothes, arjun opted for making a bonfire out of them in our backyard.

with the fire still burning, i sat patiently with my prodigal son and listened to him recount every and i mean EVERY place he's been, every event that has happened and every rupee someone gave him or stole from him in the last five months starting with the day i last saw him. my very serious thulo soraj walked out on the story after two minutes and returned 45 minutes later, "didi, this kura (talk) is not necessary."

he was right -it wasn't necessary - and sitting with my somewhat slow san soraj tell his story for nearly an hour was hard for this restless girl, but i wanted san soraj to be known. his kura was a string of stories of someone or another telling him he was a burden. the drug selling friend who turned on him. his sister and her husband. his uncle. his mother. his temporary employer who didn't even pay him.

san soraj has been an excellent re-addition to our growing family. he cleans the kitchen three times a day and does anything he can to be a help. sometimes i have to rub my eyes to make sure it is really san soraj - the same boy who went to jail for accompanying friends as they sold heroin.

but he's back. and he's different. and i'm still rejoicing.

the alter ego.

2008-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

sewa always says that bibek has an alter ego, and i think she is right.

sometimes he is like a 4 year old child - screaming and crying and so insecure - and other moments he is like a full grown adult.

a few weeks ago, the stepfather that never loved him died. bibek doesn't really care about the man's death, but he does care about the havoc that has followed.

"my older brother, you know didi, always use," he puts his hand up to the fold of his arm and pushes down on an imaginary syringe, "inject."

heroin is the drug of choice for a lot of young males in nepal. heroin.

bibek's 18 year old brother hasn't lived with their mother for years.

"he came to my mother's house and stole all things for selling," bibek smirks a little at the predictability of the actions of the brother he has previously described as a 'no good guy'.

bibek looks deep into my eyes, as if he has to counsel me on the ways of the world, explaining the things i do not yet understand. It's as if he has to tenderly destroy my naive world of innocence for the truth; the way an adult has bestow reality unto a child, "you know didi, if a man is using inject," his thumb presses down on the top of the invisible syringe to insert the fake substance into his arm again, "then coming soooo nice trip. so so so nice. but then, trip is going and you know, man is going crazy."

he looks frantically around as a drug user might when the trip has worn off.

"ahhh. ahhh," he breathes heavy panic before returning to his narrative voice, "coming so crazy, didi. no thinking mother, no thinking anything except for one thing-"

he picks up the syringe and sighs with relief, "drug."

2008-06-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

go check out some new videos of the guys.

2008-06-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

last night, bibek came in my room for one of his regular interrogations. he likes to make sure my life is on the straight and narrow.

b: what was that black book on your bed?
e: huh?
b: that black book. it was yours or sewa's?
e: i don't know what book you are talking about.

he pulls out the evidence.

b: this.

he's talking as though i should be ashamed of what he's found. he's holding a copy of Nepal's youth magazine, WAVE.

b: aha....

he flips to a page with swimsuit sketches drawn with colored pencils. sooo racy...

b: this magazine, didi. it's no good. no good. you don't look at this magazine.

i wonder what he would think if he knew i was writing for WAVE these days... :) shh...don't tell him :)

child psychology.

2008-06-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

it seems as though most of my friends took at least one psychology class to fulfill basic undergraduate requirements. i can hardly remember what classes i took outside of my major, but i know i didn't take psychology. maybe i should have. probably would have been more useful today than whatever that class was that made me watch and review amateur theatre performances.

there are certain behavioral patterns amongst street kids and "recovered" street kids. dependency. rage. lack of trust. while their areas of improvement range, most of my kids demonstrate typical patterns to one degree or another.

and then there is gopal.

gopal's habits such as drinking, drugging, lying, and stealing are on par with the best of 'em, but his reactions are not.

he is the most well-behaved of all of my kids. polite. looks people in the eye. says 'yes sir' and 'no ma'am' and never complains when someone asks him to do something. if you met him for just a minute, you'd probably be impressed.

but the tricky thing is... i am pretty sure it is all fake. gopal is clever. too, too clever. and he has realised in life that it is easier to get what you want if you please people and then slip the rug out when they least expect it. people often ask me what my kids are going to do when they get older, and half joking but half expecting my prediction to actualise i say, 'oh gopal is going to be one of those dodgy characters in lakeside or thamel... you know, those trekking guides that are uber sweet and do everything for foreign ladies...he is going to have one from america, one from australia, another from france...and which ever one can process his visa fastest, he's going to go for...but he'll always keep the others around for 'just in case.' then he is going to marry one, go to her country and just as quick as he can he is going to leave her." it's a fairly common "love story" in nepal and at this point i wouldn't be shocked if gopal's future pans out in such a manner.

don't get me wrong, i love gopal. i really do. if i didn't, i would've probably kicked him out long ago, but i haven't.

in the past, gopal's charm had won him another safety net besides me. the owner of a hip restaurant took gopal in on more than one occasion when he fought with other boys in our house or some other episode arose. that owner loved gopal almost as much as i do. gopal always admired his ali dai, but still the admiration didn't prevent him from stealing a $500 camera and $100 cash. it's fair to say gopal's burned that bridge beyond repair.

i never thought i was exempt from gopal's thieving, but the way he can look a person straight in the eye without remorse after stealing a $250 ipod and selling it for $9 is something i still cannot fathom.

when gopal does something wrong, when he hurts those he loves, he never has remorse.

on a day the kids each got 600 rupees to buy new clothes, i found out gopal had a 1600 rupee debt to stores around town. bibek couldn't justify spending the 600 rupees on himself when his friend was in need. as painful as it was, he forked over the money even though he really wanted new shoes.

did gopal pay back the debt? no. he drank his and bibek's money from morning until night and probably gave the rest to "friends" from whom he wanted to earn the title "hero".

he doesn't care who he hurts. ali. his mother. his little friend bibek. emma. and he does it all by staying close like a friend, one you'd least suspect.

don't get me wrong, it's not the ipod i care about. not at all. i care about my kid's unrepentant, apathetic heart.

it's as though gopal can differentiate right from wrong when it is outside of the context of his own life, but everything blurs when it is about him. it is as if he doesn't even know what he is doing unless he can see what he is doing. while my other kids struggle with worthlessness and lack of self confidence, gopal sees himself as a great kid, who always knows what's right. and he does know what's right, but somehow he doesn't know when he does wrong.

and that's exactly what arjun showed him. just to pass time i am sure, arjun took two stuffed animals and put on a puppet show. one doll became Anjali, Gopal's girlfriend, and the other became Gopal. The two were a happy couple until Gopal decided to steal something and at that point Anjali kicked the thief to a curb. She's not about to spend the rest of her life with a "jacking type of guy."

somehow when none of my words, none of any of our boys' words, could get through to gopal's indifferent heart, that silly little puppet show brought him to some place of remorse. i just hope god continues to break my kid down...

mothers and children.

2008-06-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

Arjun and Soraj's mother has been calling for days. She's looking for her working son, Soraj, because she needs money to pay a man she owes. Unfortunately for her, Soraj has been in Baglung for about two weeks now. In Soraj's absence, she's wanted to talk to her other son, Arjun. He is attending school and his weekly pocket money isn't enough to pay her debt, thus he is a little less useful to her, but she still wanted to talk to him.

Until recently, I thought that because Arjun grew up under the wing of his older brother Soraj, he was the least emotionally damaged, but in the last few months things are becoming much more clear and the depth of the pain in Arjun's heart is coming to light.

Arjun: No! I don't want to talk to her...
Emma: Come on Arjun... she's been calling for days... just talk for 1 minute...
Arjun: No, Emma didi, NO! You tell her I am not home. I am outside. Or I am sleeping.
Emma: Arjuuuuuuuuuun....

Bibek grabs the phone: Hello Auntie? Arjun cannot talk right now.....

Emma: Arjun, don't you miss your mother sometimes?
Arjun: Not sometimes, didi.. So many times.

Their mother lives about a 20 minute drive from us. The day I met her she cried on and on. She loves her kids, but she doesn't know how to do so in the way that they need. On Mother's Day Arjun begged me to buy a present for his mother. He wanted to bring her something nice. He picked out a top with a sparkly bouquet of flowers imprinted across the chest and a printed wrap around skirt. It wasn't exactly an outfit I would've worn, but it was an outfit nonetheless. He folded the two items carefully - the way Arjun does everything - and put them in a plastic bag. I gave him fare for the bus and a some extra to buy her fresh fruits.

He didn't buy the fruit. He didn't even go to his mother's house.

He came home that night tripped out on drugs and told me he gave the clothes to Gopal.

"Gopal gave her the stuff, Emma didi," every breath of his words the dank smell of chemicals, "Not the fruit, but the clothes. I didn't sell them. I just didn't buy fruits."

I was disappointed in Arjun and his collaborator, Gopal. I thought at least for the sake of a mother I could trust them with money.

"It was too hard," a friend who works with street kids told me when I recounted the story.
"But I didn't make him do it!" I defended myself from the misconception that I push my kids to do things they aren't ready to do, "It wasn't even my idea!"
"I'm sure he wanted to, but it was just too hard."

It was only after my friends spoke such simple words that I realized why Arjun came home with his mind drenched in chemicals.

He was too afraid. He was too sad and too hurt.

To medicate the pains from the past that still comprise his present, he used the money that was supposed to be for fruit to buy a nice dose of chimeric happiness.

Arjun loves his mom, but the reality that it has been far too long, and the damage far too detrimental, assures him the relationship is beyond redemption.

She loves you, Arjun, can't you see?

I felt the same way about the relationship I had with my own mother when I was a teenager. I went months without seeing her even though she lived so close. I tried to shield my mind from acknowledging the brokenness of my heart. I didn't know how to heal our relationship, so I avoided it at all costs and drank until I was numb. A few years and a lot of epiphanies later, my mother is one of my best friends and one of my dearest souls...

She misses you. Not sometimes. So many times.

the saga of the inter-caste love....

2008-05-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

Don’t you wish love was as easy as when you were just a kid? But I feel sorry for the girl… my Gopal is a charmer destined to break a lot of girls hearts…. And I don’t mean that in a good way… but the “please don’t mind” thing in Gopal’s letters must be a bit of his insecurity shining through…

Gopal,
Hi how are you? I hope you are fine there. I am also fine. One thing I ask you is where is your home? In which place is your family live? Write me in next paper, okay?
Today I am so unhappy because I say to you don’t come here. If my brother know anything about us I will died. That way, I say don’t came here. Ok! You want your answer yes or no. My answer is yes, but one thing, that how is your behaviour but my heart say you behaviour is very good. I didn’t like such type of boy who smoke, who beat another person. I like that kind of man who have good behaviour. Your face is so white. I like your face very much. You are so handsome boy. In my life there are many boy came in my life but I didn’t like anybody, but I like you. In your face their was something that make me crazy. On thing you didn’t write me letter why their was a problems. Ok! I stop my pen here. I miss you. I love you. A lot of remembering you. Okay bye bye. Anjali.

Dear Anjali,
Hi. How are you? I hope you are also fine in your house and your mom also fine and borther also fine and I saw your small brother everytime. You ask about my family. My family is not here. My family is my village. I have my mom, my father, small brother, and big sister. Please don’t mind, my house is very far because I have two house and I like you very much. I like your family, please don’t mind. Okay and I am not a bad boy I am a good boy and I come after a big boy and I take you in my house, ok? Please don’t mind. When I come after big I am going to America and I get a good job and I buy one car and I take you in my village, okay? And I don’t like another girl, I just like you very much and I like your hair so big. I like so much. In my life also came many girls, but I also didn’t like any girl. I just like you and your family, ok. Don’t mind. And I like you and your face and your hair and very much. Thanks for you give me letter. I am also missing you I love you, okay? Bye bye. A lot of remembering to you too, Anjali.
Gopal.

Dear Gopal,
Hi. I am good. You know, I want to love you too much, but you know we are different caste. I am Gurung and you are Srestha, so my mother is not going to give me for marriage. But now, I am still loving you.
Anjali

Anjali,
Did you know that only Hindu people are following caste system? My family is Christian and we don't follow caste. We don't care about caste because Jesus doesn't care about caste. But it's okay, I still love you too.
Gopal.

This is our life.

2008-05-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

I came home yesterday at 4 o’clock. Fridays are half-days at school in Nepal, which means my kids had 3 hours of after school idleness. My 14-year-olds, Gopal and Arjun probably spent the first half an hour finding the money for their daily dose of glue, dendrites, and other household items to inhale for the rest of the time.

Bibek, the nine year old with the skeletons of being a ‘user’ in his days as a five year old, always says he hates drugs. I’m guessing it only took a half an hour of watching the eyes of his friends role back as they sucked in fumes from empty plastic bags before he couldn’t resist either the temptation of the high or the temptation to be cool and fit in.

Either way, there were still hours of daylight left, but three of my kids lay in bed with altered smiles and vacant eyes. I’ve smelled those lingering fumes in our house everyday for at least a week straight. It’s become something emblematic: even if it is just a faint whiff in passing, the minute I smell the rubber cement and the super bonds, I feel the pain. It’s as though every dejection of Arjun’s broken family, every stinging heartache of Gopal’s past and every layer of the fucked up nature of Bibek’s younger years still in the making, comes straight into my soul.

I said nothing. I couldn’t. Not this time.

I turned around and walked towards the door. Arjun was conscious enough to realize something was not quite right, that maybe I was going to leave.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” He said in a panic.

Silence.

He used all his concentration to gain enough bearings to pull himself from his bed. Beads of sweat formed around the edges of his crew cut hair and his shirtless body revealed his underweight frame. That lanky body ran in front of me. His hands extended to both walls of the corridor, blocking the way. I pushed him a little and he pushed me back.

“No Emma Didi! No! Where are you going? You can’t leave us. Don’t leave us. What are we going to do without you? No! Emma Didi, No!” Arjun threw all 32 kilograms of himself against me.

I kept walking.

After the kids sobered up for a minute, they went to my adopted mother’s house to ask where I was. She told them they had broken my heart so badly that I wasn’t around and that I might even leave.

“Waaaaaaaaaaah!” Gopal let out a sound of shocked helplessness.

I wasn’t going anywhere – but I needed them to think so.

The next morning Dorje called.

“Where are you Emma Didi? You just come home right now, okay?” He hung up the phone.

I didn’t come home. I knew the innocent one was more worried about getting his Saturday allowance than he was about anything else.

More than 24 hours of “Emma’s disappearance” went by and the kids came to a point of desperation that Gopal staged an overdose.

“He’s same like dead,” Bibek came to Sewa’s house drenched from walking in the rain.

“It’s from taking glue, you know,” Sewa said.

“We aren’t going to eat anymore! Really! All we want is our sister back!” Bibek said.

I knew he was lying about Gopal’s condition. I knew Gopal was fine, but no matter how many times your kids cry wolf, you just think, ‘What if today is real? What if he really is going to die and I ignored their cries?’

We brought a very conscious Gopal to the hospital. At first they refused to see him – the doctors were busy, they said.

“He’s been unconscious all day, they say. And he is seeing things,” I toldl one of the nurses.

“One white man, one black man in the kitchen,” Bibek told the story, “You know, same like Kitch Kante.”

The nurse told the doctor, who told another doctor, who told another. Then she told her friends. In a matter of minutes, ten nurses and three doctors huddled in the room to hear the tale of the boy who came to the hospital because he was seeing ghosts.

“They are going to have to operate on your stomach,” Bibek told Gopal who is waiting in the hall.

“No! No, no, no,” Gopal backed up. Apparently, he is afraid of getting surgery.

The doctors and nurses smiled and giggled at Gopal’s “condition”.

A young male doctor steps forward and turned to me, “What actually happened to him?”

“He uses glue. And cleaning supplies. Nearly everyday,” I said loud enough for all the staff to hear, loud enough for Gopal to hear.

The doctor gave Gopal an asprin and then the two of them talked not so much about the blach and white Kitch Kante in our house, but a lot about his addiction.

Outside Bibek told me, “You know this hospital is not so good as the other one.”

“When did you go to the other hospital?”

“I am small and my big brother is broken heart from girlfriend. He’s eating one bottle of you know – cleaning things,” Bibek tilted his head back and makes gulping sounds.

He wiped his mouth as if he had really been drinking, “You know, not going hospital in five minutes, my brother is die. Going fast fast and my brother is not die. My brother is not die because we are fast fast.”

He told the story without any emotion, just matter a fact. It's the same way he once told me his biological father was either living in a village in between Pokhara and Kathmandu or he was dead. That’s it, he said and went back to his coloring.

I know the brother eating cleaning supplies incident did not happened in the time I have known Bibek. These are his memories as a three or a four year old. These are the memories he still thinks are a normal part of childhood, something most kids experience.

When we were in Sewa’s house, Arjun said to us, “It’s not that I don’t want to stop – I do. But I can’t. I’m trying, but I just can’t do it.”

You will one day, my Arjun. I have hope in you.

the day by days...

2008-05-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

i guess that's how it is with the kids... just taking it day by day.

i realised bibek doesn't like brushing his teeth. it's quite ironic though because when he was on the streets he had horrible, rotting teeth. those ugly baby teet fell out and now he has the best teeth of 'em all even though he hardly ever brushes. his breath is nothing to write home about, but his teeth, boy they are nice.

and arjun... he is so funny. he's entered into the stage of "emma is embarrassing in a mother type of way"....

the bookshop didn't have one of his school books for the new year (here in nepal new school years start in april), so a few days passed and i told him, "ok i am sure the shop has it now, i will meet you at school at 4 and we will go get it."

arjun: no no no, emma didi! don't come to school!
e: why, are you embarrassed?
a: no, no, not embarrassed... just you don't come in school, okay?
e: so you are embarrassed.
a: no.... just you come and everyone will see you! when school finishes, i am coming here and then we will go. (by the way, the book shop is next door to the school)
e: okay, fine arjun.

running out the door to school twenty minutes later:
a: okay, bye emma didi! don't forget- don't come to school! i'm coming home!!!

and.... a picture of this piece of art in barcelona.... got me in all sorts of trouble with my kids....

they wouldn't let me close my laptop without deleting it. i guess if i lived in barcelona i would have to walk around with my eyes closed seeing as it is in a very central location and very near to my dear friends' flat.

bibek told me, 'you looking this 'art' you are becoming a not good man'.... i guess i should cherish their overprotective little selves....

those are the cute stories.

the not so cute reality is that my boys are struggling with chemical and alcoholic relapses. they all used to drink, smoke up, use glue, and occasionally heroin in a form known as 'chasing the dragon', 'smack', or 'brown sugar'.... but they've been relatively good for the last few years... yet as of late, the glue bags are constant, the coming home late at night drunk is regular, and at the same time, their apologies are sincere. i know my kids so well, and yeah from the outside people wonder why i endure and why i don't just kick the little suckers to the curb, but the fact is i love them and i know this is not who god intended them to be... this is not even who they want to be... and although i hate what's happening to them, i know the struggle is more about something internal than it is about just liking to use...

a rough night.

2008-04-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if Karma really exists.

The concept of some external force that knows my actions and sends something in a different form but of the same magnitude of greatness or horribleness doesn’t seem to line up with the Christian faith. Yet, when I have nights like last night, I wonder if God doesn’t somehow take part in the practice of Karma not out of punishment or reward, but because He knows us. He knows how our past prepared us for our present.

Arjun’s head is lying in my lap, tears stream down from his swollen eyes, and his hand gripping mine with a tightness that seems it never wants to let go.

I remember the night years ago when Arjun broke his arm after he jumped from a tree. Back then, he was nothing more than a street kid and putting a cast on him ‘could wait’ because understaffed Nepali hospitals have other concerns. Come back tomorrow afternoon, the doctor said. With his brother Soraj by his side, Arjun tossed and turned all night, wincing in pain at the slightest movement of his broken arm.

The next day, we waited in the hospital many hours. With his head in my lap, tears streaming down his face, people wondered what this ghoranee was doing with such a dirty little boy.

If I could pinpoint a moment in the relationship I have with Arjun when I knew there was no turning back, when I knew he was going to be a part of my family forever, it was the time he broke his arm in the middle of the monsoon season.

Tonight we are not at the hospital and there are no broken bones.

Arjun is fourteen and just stumbled in the door of our ground floor apartment a babbling drunk. He is throwing words around that never come from the mouth of Arjun, sweet Arjun - the Arjun just hours earlier Sewa and I called the one most likely to succeed, the one most loyal, the one most innocent and the one most respectful.

Tonight he is not so sweet. Tonight he is the boy demanding to know why the fuck we care, and why the fuck should he.

His small mohawk already a mess from walking home unfazed by the heavy downfall of rain, I run my fingers through his hair. Dorje mutters something under his breath and hits his hand against the wall at his friend’s irresponsibility. He takes Khan outside for a smoke – they don’t always smoke, but tonight they just can’t handle life around them. Bibek rests his head on Sewa’s shoulder. She’s crying out to God in frustration, disappointment, disillusionment. Bibek is crying because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Soraj shouts at his blood brother who has renounced him a hundred times before, ‘I told you not to drink, I told you to change.’

Soraj looks at me with the seriousness he probably developed when he was still just a kid taking the role of a man, ‘I told him Emma Didi, but he doesn’t listen. He talks nicely to all guys and to me, Arjun says nothing but, ‘you aren’t my brother, who the fuck are you?’ He doesn’t even call me brother. Don’t I have a heart, too?’

This is where the Karma steps in. I was thirteen when I started drinking on the regular and fourteen the first time my parents knew. I got grounded for two weeks after they found plastic bottles filled with vodka in my bedroom closet. The first night free from grounding, they got a phone call from the mother of my friend explaining my projecting vomit had made its way through their kitchen, dining room, living room, and of course, all over their bathroom. My father cried and my mother tried to hold it together. Later, vomit extended to the desk of an officer at a detox center. The officer set a bucket at my feet, and I eyed the desk. I wanted to know why the fuck he cared, why the fuck my parents cared.

Tonight I sit with my own fourteen year old who acts out in defiance, uses words to cut those who love him, and drinks to medicate a heart broken by life. He pushes Soraj away because he really loves Soraj, and real love is something that scares him. In love, there is dependency, there is commitment, there is trust; and dependency, commitment and trust are three things my kids can’t handle. He lashes out in rage - he is too cool to care, too tough to admit the real reasons behind his belligerence.

Gopal, the instigator of the the whole drunken escapade, is still somewhere out in the rain. Arjun says he is getting a beat down from some other guys. Soraj says he deserves it. Right now, I’m glad he’s not home. If he was, I’m sure fury would win and words would fly out of emotion and not out of wisdom.

Arjun swings from anger to remorse. The tears are genuine.

‘I am such a big tension for you, Emma Didi,’ he gasps breaths between words and the hiccups of a throat of sorrow, ‘You sometimes saying, us guys give you a little tension, but Emma Didi, I’m not a little tension, I am such a big tension for you. You sitting here, me I am a drunkard, I am such a big tension.’

His head still firmly in my lap and my hand still tightly in his grip, the sobs get louder.

‘Arjun, you are the tension I love. I don’t like seeing you this way, I don’t like watching this happen to you, but tonight, Arjun, it’s the only place I want to be.’

‘But the money- I lied to you and I ate your money! 1600 rupees! 1600 rupees I am eating it all! You are soooo angry I am eating your money. You are soooo angry,’ redness flushes his face.

‘I’m not angry about money, Arjun. More than anything, I am sad about the pain of your heart,’ I put my hand on his bare chest, rising with each deep breath, ‘it hurts, doesn’t it, Arjun? It hurts so much and your drinking isn’t about drinking, it’s about forgetting the pain, isn’t it?’

He looks up at me with his barely open eyes and tears, honest tears, flood down. Tears of a pain locked away far too long, tears of suppressed trauma and of a wounded heart badly dressed; these tears Arjun cries tonight.

Twelve years ago, I cried the same tears and today, I see what some attribute as Karma, Christians know is God. It is not by some force of "what goes around comes around" that I'm here. It's because He knows where I have been, He knows the pain that I've felt and He knows where Arjun's been and He knows the pain Arjun feels. It's not because I tormented the hearts of my parents with my rebellious ways and the force of nature has sent it right back at me in the form of this 14 year old Nepali boy. Tonight God is letting me sit here because He knows us both - He knows how Love healed my pain, and how right now healing and Love are the only things Arjun needs.

random stories.

2008-04-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

yesterday i was talking with my girl, puja. she has known my boys since nearly the beginning of time and she loves them a whole lot. she was telling me stories about the funny things they have said to her in the past....

once dorge was asking her what types of jobs have pension plans. at 12, my kid was thinking about how to be secure after retirement.

bibek has had a few runaway experiences in the last 2 years. after the first run away experience, (when he was around 7 or so), puja went to visit beebs during his math class. she was watching him do the equations and praised him for his accuracy. bibek responded, 'oh, i used to be really good at math, but taking too many drugs has made my brain power go down a bit.' so sad.

a story of my own...
right before i left, arjun was mulling around the living room and i said, 'arjun, i cannot wait to see you grow up into a man... i just know some day you are going to be such a good man.'

without making eye contact, arjun looked down to the ground, 'no i am not, emma didi. i will never be good.'

in a letter from sewa...
ganesh dai had invited this guy (his friend) who works in Naulo Ghumti (HIV/AIDS/druge centre)... he was some kind of counselor or something..when i went to their house he was giving the kids a class. arjun, dorje n thisother kid (saroj's friend from work) were listening to him.. he seemed to be very calm n funny.. i mean a professional with addicts...thats why they were kind of comfortable answering his questions..

....but saroj was not there... so i searched for him.. n caught him smoking red handed in the kitchen.. when i asked him what he was doing..

he said, 'i wont lie didi.. yes i was smoking'...

i just sat there with him and talked to him nicely..told him we knew that sometimes they smoke.. and we aren't angry... but we wouldnt want him to be smoking insidethe house freely.. not just because it's not good but also because it would make the younger kids think that if saroj dai's does it, it'd be ok for us to do it inside the house as well.. which would only be a beginning of breaching rules.. and i told him how emma didi wanted him to be good, not just cause she loves him, but also because she believes that he could set an example for the other kids to follow as the oldest one...

i asked him why he was doing it... and he said, "nobody cares... im tired.. didi, nobody considers us good so whats the use of being good?"

i told him, "because no one considers you good, you have to prove them wrong"...

he seem to be listening.. i tried my best... he did tell me he wont smoke inside house from now on...and also told me he'd try to reduce smoking....as i insisted he should......

2008-04-06T06:48:00.001-07:00

Three of my kids just got their report cards. They all passed. Dorge got third in his class. Because of his loopy semester, three weeks out of school, (two as a runaway) Bibek just barely passed, but he did get first place in the spoon race. :P (who knew spoon races came at the same time as final exams).

i love 'em. i miss 'em.

2008-03-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

i miss my family so much.

usually, i call my kids every few days here while i am out of nepal, but it has been a good 9 days since my last call when i had the following conversation in nepali with my oldest:

soraj: emma didi, the smoking has stopped! the smoking has stopped.
emma: really?
soraj: did you understand me? i am not smoking. did you hear me? not smoking!

and later... on the issue of why two of Soraj's friends have been sleeping/eating/existing at our place for the last three weeks....

Soraj: they don't have anywhere to go... they are having a lot of problems lately, emma didi, we just have to help them out.
Emma: yeah, i understand their problem.... but how are they doing at our place? are they doing good? behaving okay?
Soraj: no.
Emma: Okay, Sor.... well, can you just try to help them out a bit. :P Try to help them get on the right path, alright....

Emma: Are you doing good?
Bibek: Eh-es! (sing-son way of saying 'yes')
Emma: Are you going to school everyday?
Bibek: Eh-es.
Emma: Taekwondo in the mornings?
Bibek: (in English) no, Emma didi... sorry, going early morning time.... waking 6 o'clock.. verrrry difficult.

Well, I guess he shifted into English to lessen my wrath. :)

2008-02-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

the other day i left pokhara for katmandu to do some "work" (aka shooting the daft movie).... bibek (aka beebs) kept inquiring "why" i had to go... i told him "i have to go to buy you guys a tv since you keep bothering me for one... how can i buy it with no money?" his response... "emma didi, i don't want a t.v.... you just don't leave, okay?" soooo cute... melted my heart.

just an update.

2007-12-31T00:37:00.000-08:00

bibek is back. he is completely unfazed. was he ever on the streets? nope. he's just been sitting in our house everyday for the past month as the norm... or that's what you would think if you saw him today.

soraj is working at a job now. his boss is my friend and tells me that soraj is doing a fabulous job. soon soraj is going to be getting private tutoring in a fashion similar to home schooling so he can continue to learn.

san soraj decided to spend some time with his family and reanalyse his life. is he really doing that? probably not. i saw him today walking around the "Mayla" (fair) and he looked like he'd been sleeping street side and he hasn't washed his face in days. i asked him if this is all he thought he was worth. if he thought the only thing he deserved in life was what the streets has to offer. he smiled and said nothing. so what am i going to do with him? i am going to wait. and pray. but i will not lose faith.

gopal is back temporarily working in a restaurant called busy bee and sleeping there for the next week until i figure out what to do with him. i sent him home to his village in the far east two weeks ago at the request of his mother. turns out his mother thought i was sending gopal AND a large sum of money. no, lady. you want your kid, you get your kid. he is not an ATM and i am not the person who fills it. so his mother took a loan and shipped her son back to pokhara. gosh, that's love. he went to busy bee instead of directly to our house because he wants to pay his mother back for the ticket and then some. the guilt parents can fill a child with, man. i tell you. apparently even his boss can't handle him because today when i went to peel him off the table where he is sleeping at 9:00 a.m. his boss called me aside and said, "you know, gopal is not really that good..." and essentially went on to say something to the effect of, 'can't you take him back?' i told him i would take him soon, but not yet. the kid needs to learn that everything in life isn't just a free handout. gopal is a tricky one. i love him, but he thinks he is smarter than me. he probably is, to be honest... but he needs to be nervous for a minute to appreciate what he has. yeah, my parenting skills are probably questionable, but you come here and raise 6 of the smartest yet most frightened kids ever and see what plans you concoct.

dorje and arjun are still just kicking it, going to school as normal. they are in the process of starting taekwondo class every morning, but having consistency and follow through with anything is nearly impossible. but they are coming along.

house - well, due to the last month of chaos my kids have essentially been evicted on "bad behavior". the six women who have helped me out with these kids over the passed three years have decided that well, these kids will never change and it is time to move on to people who appreciate what you do for them. i told them i don't do things for appreciation and thanks very much for the help (in all sincerity, because they have been amazing through most of it) but now i'll work things out on my own.

so, i am looking for a new place for my kids and for amma. my friend, kiran, told me there really isn't a classified section or a realtor's office... nope, i just have to go door to door asking people if they have an apartment inside their house to rent out. gosh this is going to be fun.

2007-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

Over the past two years, our house has not been without its problems. Problems, oh, we’ve had plenty. Normally, the blessing to my sanity is that I’m defending one, maybe two problems at a time. I can return a serve and come up to the net when I have to, but six balls blazing out of the automated machine in all directions before I even have both feet on the court – a girl doesn’t even stand a chance. The best I can do is gather the unmoving balls from the corners of court, and one by one send them back in motion with the best serves I’ve got.

Before I returned from two weeks of work, I’d already received the news update of the chaos waiting for me at home and Gopal was first on my priority list.

It was 9 a.m. when I woke Gopal from the table of a restaurant with a reputation as a good place to buy drugs in town. He’d been doing minimal work for the owner – bringing wood to the fireplace and locking the door at 2 a.m. when the place closed – for the past few days since he was released from a holding cell at the local police station. One who never fails to give the most grandiose account of his experiences, Gopal showed me his feet, “Look at them, Emma didi. They beat me with a pipe. Just look.” I saw nothing, but I did my best to convey a message of condolence regarding the suffering he perceived as police brutality.

“I didn’t steal the TV,” he pleaded. “Really, I didn’t. It was Soraj. He even admitted it to me already. He came here yesterday with Ruktim. 3,500. That’s how much they sold it for. I can’t go back home. Everyone thinks I did it, but it wasn’t me. Really, Emma Didi.”

It was hard to believe. I already figured it was Gopal’s Eddy Haskle-esque smile and his endless story telling that landed him a place to rest his head and to eat his dal bhat within such a short amount of time. The way he uses his cleverness to get what he needs and usually what he wants as well is exactly the reason he was dubbed as The Cunning One.

As Gopal pleaded his innocence and shifted the blame to the boy with a spotless record, the only of whom knows the word respect and actually does it, the boy who is more the glue to our family than even I am, it was a bit hard to swallow.

I left unconvinced that Gopal was the only one caught yet the only one blameless for the event. There was only one logical answer for the chaos that kicked the legs out from beneath every member of my family one by one. Gopal probably conspired with Ruktim, the neighbor boy who often comes to our house in a state of herbal ecstasy, and somehow Soraj was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Gopal, Soraj was flopping from one place to the next since the TV incident blew up, only while Gopal was bouncing from work place to work place, Soraj was going between pulling all-nighters alongside taxi drivers to crashing with various heroin dealers around town.

Tulo Soraj wasn’t the only kid pushing his face into the muck and mire of yesterday. Almost as soon as the oldest, most responsible kid turned Street, instability paired with the ever strong force of rebellious adolescence pushed San Soraj into the welcoming hands of an enemy God long ago taught me to love. My boys lost track of San Soraj, but it was only a matter of days before word hit the streets that the police were holding the infamous drug dealer and San Soraj for a small amount of a heroin derivative known in this part of the world as brown sugar.

And then there is Bibek. Where to begin? Maybe I’ll start with the leech-like attachment he grew for me during our 10 days of continual quality time together 24 hours a day. Bringing Bibek to Kathmandu and on location for my movie was a glimpse into the real life of single motherhood. Of course, it was a bit different considering my Bibek’s past, because I don’t imagine that the smell of petrol surrounding the generators used for night shooting will trigger memories that send any child I raise from birth running around telling people about what kind of high is obtained from inhaling or drinking petrol.

The whole experience was intensely suffocating to the Emma that places a huge value on her “alone time” but as soon as I took him back to the house in Pokhara during a twelve-hour gap while shifting shooting locations, I felt a huge emptiness. The next two weeks of shooting, a number of times I found myself starting so many sentences, “If Bibek was here…” I missed the little one. I missed hearing him say things like, “Manche ramro, tara, bani no ramro” when talking about my alcoholic friend who frequently dropped by the house. I missed how he looked up at me for approval, how he told strangers Kathmandu was dirty and they should see how clean Pokhara was, how he fell off his bicycle 15 times within ten minutes, and even how he put his dirty little feet on my apartment wall as his antsy little self rolled around on the couch. I missed my kid.

I know the ten days had a huge impact on Bibek as well and whether he admits it or not, I know he grew a fondness for me that tough street kids aren’t supposed to have for anyone. Just how attached to me he was became very evident during the 46th hour of shooting inside of a cave. I don’t know if it was the darkness or the irregular sleeping patterns, but for some reason Bibek had a personal epiphany that it wasn’t only Lusi and Mohit that were “in love”, but that their respective actors, Emma and Laxman, had also sunk deep into love and that sometime between the contract and the cave, a secret wedding took place. I’m not even sure how or why Bibek construed this idea, but it sent him on a fit of rage for nearly two hours. He ran around the cave swearing at every corner while my poor crew attempted to continue shooting.

It wasn’t until I explained to Bibek that not only did I have no intention of marrying Laxman, but that I had no intentions of marrying anyone because I already have six kids and what do I need a husband for? I told him that I made the tattoo on my wrist – a word with six Nepali characters – as a reminder of my love for my six kids, and that the ba in balidan was exclusively for Bibek. Only after he realized the permanency of my tattoo and commitment to the kids, did he believe I was in fact, still unwed.

On our way home to Pokhara, he even told the bus driver I wasn’t getting married because six kids was enough. Right, Emma didi? He looked up at me for confirmation that my words were true.

I left him in Pokhara, knowing one of two things would happen. One, the tightening of our bond would give Bibek the will to stay home in order to please his Emma Didi, or two, our separation would cause Bibek enough rage that he would runaway just to hurt me and to convince himself he still didn’t need anyone, not even Emma Didi.

Unfortunately, I was right and the latter came true.

After his breakout, my friend Jay “caught” Bibek and pulled him to Varsha’s house for a night. His guard was up and he projected his toughest self as he explained at the dinner table how it’s all a big game, how really Emma Didi is nothing more than another gullible foreigner tangled in his web of deception, how really he was in control, dangling me along and milking me for all I was worth.

My friends bought it and they served up handfuls of discouragement when I returned.

Just leave Bibek, they said. He’s got you and you don’t even realize he is using you. Cut your losses while you can.

The sad thing is, for a minute I almost felt that I had invested too much. Too much money. Too much time. Too much energy. Too much of my heart. All in all, I’d given too much and it was time to walk away.

Yet, I still needed to see Bibek. He was after all, a boy I called “mine” for nearly two years.

The minute I saw “my” Beebs in the dark of night with the forces of a much greater Darkness all around him, Truth became so clear.

The thing my friends and I failed to realize is that truly conniving people don’t let out all their secrets. The truth is, Bibek knew deep down he wanted to need a motherly figure and that scared him because to need someone or even to want to need someone is a sign of weakness and vulnerability and if there is one thing a kid learns on the streets, it’s that survivors are neither weak nor vulnerable. The only way to bury any evidence of even the earliest buds of dependency was to do anything and everything to demonstrate an unhindered independence. He spoke reels of lies of his disregard for Emma Didi not only to convince others, but also to convince Bibek.

I’m sure that when my friends read this, they still might be shaking their head at the girl who is getting duped by a kid. Friends, I know you are trying to protect me, but you don’t know the Bibek I know. You know his quirkiness and his feistiness but you don’t see what I see.

You don’t know the kid who I visited two days ago on the streets who picked up a 3 feet long fluorescent light littered in the park and then asked me for permission to send it cascading into a dried up water fountain. “Do what you want Bibek, you live on the streets,” I told him, “do I look like your mother?” He put the tube light gently on the ground.

You don’t know the Bibek who in an unguarded moment responded to my question, “Are you okay?” by sulking his head in his lap and whispering, Hoina. Dar lag cha. - No, I’m afraid. Afraid of what? Taha chainna. – I don’t know.

You don’t know the Bibek that in Nepali told his street friends that were insisting he squeeze me for a morning meal that he had no intentions of asking for food because I already gave him everything – all of his clothes, all of the food at our house, all of his old life.

You don’t know the Bibek that again recounted my stories of singleness and balidan to a circle of street kids, ending the story with the same need for reassurance he as on the bus - “Right, Emma Didi?”

You don’t know the Bibek that looked at me in all sincerity and said, “Sorry, Emma Didi.” “Sorry for what?” “Sorry for smoking last night when I saw you. I don’t like smoking.” “I’m not mad, Bibek. You sleep on the streets, you do what you want.” “I only smoked to make you mad.” “I know, Bibek, but I’m not mad.”

Four days ago, my hands were up in the air in defeat, lies blinded my eyes and I was ready to leave all of my kids to the streets. For Good. Today, five of the six are for the most part, functioning in a semi-stable manner… and well, as for Bibek…I’m fighting for him with all that I’ve got.

Dear Good-Intentioned Tourist,

2007-12-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

I know that if you really look at a street kid as they convincingly tell you their grand stories of being orphaned so as to squeeze you for as much as they can, it's nearly impossible to say "no". Believe me, I know. But you have to. Call me cruel hearted, cold and unmerciful, that's fine. But please do not think that good intentions are without consequence.

How can you look at that child and walk away, denying him or her just a daily bread? You argue.

I don't give them money, just food or clothes, you say.

"Contributing back" to the country you visit soothes your guilt and maybe even makes you feel like a bit of a do-gooder.

But here is the reality.

Your giving makes it impossibly harder for the people who stay behind to truly do the labor of helping a street kid.

You give them sweets and pizza and western goodies when a normal Nepali lifestyle forces a street kid to adapt to a life of dal bhat 98% of the time. You give them everything they demand - clothes, boating trips on the lake, days at the movies, and rented cycles - because you think "these kids deserve to have fun just like every other kid"... but when an organization or an individual truly tries to intervene in their life in a permanent fashion, school and normalcy will never compare to endless fun and scheming of tourists.

You create a "safety net" of sorts that allows a street kid - no matter how long rehabilitated - the liberty and reassurance that at any time it is possible to throw everything away for the streets because a tourist will always be there to provide the day to day essentials.

Your good intentioned gifts to the kids of the street make the labor and toil of the ones dedicated on a long term basis one hundred times harder.

The words I speak are harsh and probably perceived as callous and loveless, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

On the surface, yes. But in reality, the love I have for the kids of the streets is much more than one day of bread and jam. It's much more permanent and when you have returned to your home with nothing more than a laptop of pictures you took from the day you spent with the cute street kids, I will still be here. I will still be fighting their urges to return to the days of 100 rupee hand outs and sweet rolls for breakfast.

Easing your own conscience by a day or a week of entertaining the desires of a street kid is often a root of havoc. Please don't see face value and throw your emotions at the problem. Understand the situation.

If you cannot be involved in a child's life in a long term fashion, please don't give to street kids.

If you would like to help, the best way to do so is through a local organisation committed to continually providing support to the kids of the streets.

bibek.

2007-11-16T00:33:00.000-08:00

i wanted to wait to write this when i could gather my thoughts and actually write something eloquent, but i realised that if i wait until that day, i will never write anything.

after a month of festivals and holidays, bibek realised that soon school was going to resume. only problem is that he hadn't done most of his homework because yours truly has been in and out of the house due to some untimely shooting that hindered me from helping the boys sort out their homework. bibek's solution? run away three times and sleep in the road. whenever any kind of dilemma arises, streetlife is always a viable alternative in the eyes of this 9 year old. three times he went and three times we pulled him back home. the last time involved me jumping off a moving vehicle, accosting the kicking and screaming child, and pushing him into the bus with my sis, sewa and my kid, arjun on the receiving end.

since i had to again leave the house for the shooting, i knew bibek was just going to run away the minute i was gone, so i decided to bring him to kathmandu/on location with me. either way he isn't going to be in school, so might as well be not in school and with me then not in school and around the temptations of the street.

being with my youngest tough kid 24 hours a day for the last five days without any of the other kids around has been quite the experience. he is and always has been a tough and assertive kid. that happens when you start sleeping on the streets at the age of 4. yet, the realisations about how much of a child bibek really is and how much of the fundamental stages of development he missed in the process of "raising" himself have been even more confirmed in the last week.

he walks around this foreign city like he owns the place, directing me to places he's never even been to, yet at every opportunity he holds my hand when we are walking. the first night, i told him to sleep in my room and sewa didi and i would sleep in the living room. he wouldn't do it because he has never slept alone at night because even on the streets he can sleep alongside other kids.

between my crew and my roommates, he's had more attention from adults in the last week than he has probably had in his entire life combined. he's come to realise just how much he loves being loved that he threw an outright temper tantrum in a restaurant when my friends and i were not giving him 100% of our attention. it was the kind of temper tantrum kids have when they are 4, not 9 - something i have never in my life seen bibek do.

we were on the micro bus and a man asked bibek if i was his didi (sister). he responded, "hoina, mero mommy ho." (no, she's my mother). that was the second time he's ever said that - the first being the day before.

although he is normally an independent, free-wheeling child, he refuses to leave my side here. if i am going somewhere, he HAS to go. he will not stay with anyone, no matter how much he likes that person. he's not afraid of others - quite the opposite. bibek is a natural born extrovert and explorer even here in kathmandu, but he has seized the opportunity to fully lap up the exclusive attention of a motherly figure.

we worked on his homework which i realised must've been completely baffling to him.

true or false - everybody needs a house.
true or false - we cannot live without our houses.
true or false - everybody needs a house.

Why do beggars live in the streets?

i had to bring him to thamel yesterday despite my lack of desire to do so. thamel is the touristy enclave for backpackers who come to nepal but never really come to nepal because they do nothing more than bounce from one shrouded tourist district to another. i hated bringing him there because i knew the minute eyes - both foreign or nepali - saw this western girl with a nepali child on her arm, the presumptions would start. they would see bibek as a crafty street kid who duped a bored tourist into entertaining his material desires of the day. i was right.

we went into the office where i had to pick up a friend's plane ticket and the man inquired about bibek. he lives in street? he's a khawtee? the man used a derogatory word for those children seen as nothing more than rubbish littering the streets.

the store keeper who shouted at my bibek for merely standing next to me at the counter. don't worry, that man was not free from my wrath of motherly anger that bit back at his audacity.

the comments didn't stop there.

the sandwich man.

the police officer.

two men walking by.

as we left thamel, i turned to bibek in nepali and said, 'you aren't a street kid, you know? many bad people are calling you khawtee, but you aren't khawtee, bibek. you sleep in a house. you have a family. you are not a street kid.'

pray for my little guy as i continue to try to work out how to raise him. he's come so far and for that i am thankful... but he has so much farther to go.

interview with Arjun part 2

2007-10-31T05:21:00.001-07:00

2007-10-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

2007-10-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the biggest day of Nepal's 10-day holiday, Dashain. Bibek, the only of my kids whose mother lives in our town, had gone home a for a few nights earlier in the week, but surprised me by coming before the climactic day. However, yesterday morning little Beebs got a case of the hiccups - something that Nepali people translate as "someone is thinking of you". In a matter of minutes, Beebs jumped up and told his house brothers, "My mother is remembering me because it is Dashain! She misses me!" With that, he was out the door.

This is the kind of family healing I dream all my kids will some day have.

New Pics of Grown Up Kids

2007-09-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Love and Compassion

2007-09-10T01:33:00.000-07:00

It’s nearly Dashain, one of Nepal’s biggest holiday seasons, and at my house that means only one thing: Gopal’s already preparing for his annual trip to the far flung reaches of Nepal to visit his mother. I still don’t know how the boy I share with a woman I’ve never met made the 14 hour bus journey alone at the age of 8ish to find his way to Pokhara the first time around, but he did. Maybe it’s just a case of survival instinct.

Gopal’s excitement to go home and proudly display his reformed life to the villagers who once saw him as a goodfornothing seems to have been contagious because both Arjun and Dorje have a newfound desire to go home for the first time in more than three years.

As family healing is part of the complete dream I have for these youngsters I adore so much, this makes my heart sing... but it also intensifies the pain I have knowing that now Soraj will be the only boy who has yet to see his family. He says it's been more than five years.

He’s fourteen.

I know Soraj's village of birth is near Arjun's, but I approach the topic gently. Are you sure you don’t want to go home with Arjun?

A scowl paints his face and under his breath he mumbles something in Nepali before turning to me in English. You know gutter, Emma Didi? My life at that home is gutter.

Gutter? I repeat not sure he is saying the English word I think he is.

Gutter. He confirms turning away and mumbling on a bit more.

He fiddles with something in his hands in hesitation to continue the conversation, but knowing I never drop a subject, he looks up.

No maya, no daya, Emma Didi. That’s gutter. My life is gutter.

When I met Soraj he had a reputation amongst locals as the boy who brought other kids down into the peril of street life not because it was true but because he was the oldest. Even to me, from a distance it seemed only logical that the oldest boy that shied away from the attention of curious onlookers must have been responsible for teaching the others to spend every rupee earned ingesting chemicals instead of rice. Yet, as I took a step closer into their lives, I realized Soraj was the fence that held the younger boys just safe from plummeting off the cliff of self-destruction by means of the street. He was the voice telling them to kick the habits, to stay away from the dealers, to buy toothbrushes not sniffing glue, to share not hoard, to extend a hand not a fist.

He is love and compassion – maya and daya – yet, somehow he feels his own life is devoid of it.

My eyes well up as his pain strikes some inner memory of my own.

Soraj, you know I have maya and daya for you, don’t you? I ask, all too afraid of the answer.

His frown of pain loosens into a half smile of full belief. I know you do, Emma Didi. And I have maya and daya for you also.