Little Palmer arrived with the batch of 20 new kids who arrived at the home three weeks ago. He was about 5-6 years old. With his short black hair and missing rotten front teeth, I at first mistook him for one of the kids already at the home. He soon caught my attention, however. He was a trouble-maker, that one.
The first time I noticed him, he had a little stick in his hand and he was violently punching holes in one of the cardboard boxes. With a wicked grin, he cried, “Akah! Akah!” Sister! Sister! Hey look, I’m doing something bad…come catch me!..
Of course, I ran after him and after quite a tussle wrenched the stick from his hands and threw it away.
The next day, as we were playing with the new kids, one of the boys kept hitting the other kids and grabbing their toys. I quickly recognized Palmer again. What a kid! Take him away, and he comes right back, and the first thing he does is grab a kid’s toy and bashes their head with it. After several repetitions of this, I carry him outside the room. At first he is complacent, then when he realized I didn’t mean to put him down. He started to fight. And did he know how to fight! He pinched, grabbed and pulled hair, bit my arms, stole my hair elastic and threw my glasses onto the floor. I held onto him and put him into a chair. He continued fighting and trying to bite my arms, as well as spit on my pant legs. One of my teammates came and tried to help me, but he kicked her right in the face. I finally let go of him, and he ran into the room to cause trouble again, this time messing with the clothes-bins. Unlucky for him, another teammate had had enough of him and was much stricter on him than we were…
A few minutes later, I saw a very angry Palmer coming out the door. Looking around, he spotted the hoses at the side of the building and started messing with the tap, his little teeth gritted with vengeance. Trying to think of a way to stop him, and knowing he was acting out to get attention, I tried to give him positive attention instead. “Come on Palmer…you don’t have to be so bad to get attention…come here and Akah will give you a hug…hm?” I put my arms around his shoulders, and to my surprise he didn’t resist. So I picked him up and walked him around, trying to calm him and keep him out of trouble as long as possible. I sang some children’s songs and prayed over him. After a while I dared to check on his face, only to find that…he was fast asleep.
The next day, I kept wondering what I would find. Would Palmer be the same bad boy again? Surely my one action couldn’t change him? When I spotted him, I was surprised to find him well-behaved – a little out of it, in some thought-world of his own, but sitting and not hitting other kids.
The next few days I saw both sides of him again – but he was never quite so violent again. He let me pick him up three more times, and fell asleep once. He only hit other kids occasionally. The one day I piggybacked and played horsey with him, he was cracking himself up with laughter! And the second last day we were there, he even came and gave me a hug (though he did throw his slate out the window right afterwards and went up the ‘forbidden’ stairs to the third floor – all the while grinning that naughty grin at me).
There were many adorable kids at Sarah’s Covenant Home, but the one I will most remember is little Palmer. As we leave SCH and move on to Nepal, I wonder what will happen to the kids. At first when I arrived at the Home, I thought that the kids were very happy and that they had finally found a place to call “Home”. But as the month ended, I realized that though this was “Home” for them and they are much, much better off than they were before, they are still missing something and still craving the love and attention that only a full-time parent can give. How can you measure what a month means in a child’s life? Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell as in Palmer’s case. Although I may not see the fruit now, I hope the seeds of love we’ve scattered will continue to grow strong and mean something in each child’s life.
