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Srijessh buried his face into his folded arms trying to ignore everyone. All the other kids sat happily coloring pictures, holding them up to us seeking “wow!”s and “how beautiful! You are an artist!” from us. They laughed and made silly faces, humming and chirping little phrases, winning over our hearts. I was determined to win over Srijessh.
He looked up, hand smooshed against the side of his face holding up his head, stale face. I copied him and made the same face, hand smooshing my face. He dropped his head again, and I did the same. He barely raised his eyes to peek up at me, realizing I was copying him. Our eyes met for a second and then they fell back down quickly. He hid his face under the table. Me too. Eye contact again, this time I could’ve sworn I saw a tiny grin, maybe not. He came quickly back up, stale face again. Me too. The other kids caught on and were laughing. Srijessh was trying really hard not to seem amused yet he kept playing along. I gave him a huge grin and laughed, “you don’t wanna color?” I slid over a piece of paper and some pencils for him. He took a pencil, scribbled across it like a crazy animal,crumpled it up and threw it across the room. Okkkk. I started drawing my own picture. All of a sudden he ripped it from under me, crumpled it up and threw it. I went and got it then threw it at his head playfully. He smiled a little and threw it at me again. It became a war. He won. I started drawing again. I was drawing a tiger face. He calmed down a bit, climbed on the table and bent down to my picture. This time he started actually drawing. He made a circle head around my tiger face and gave it a body. Then he drew another figure right next to it and told me it was the mommy and that the first one was the daddy. He was talking to me! So I said “well they need a baby too!”. He drew what looked more like a human baby in a little crib in the corner. We both wrote our names at the top of the page. A masterpiece combined effort! He then took the pic and started drawing on the other side. He said, “look, its a man being attacked by an octopus.” Haha all I could say was “wow” laughing on the inside. I helped give the octopus some tentacles. After that we played some games with the other kids. Srijessh followed along and then told me he was a tiger and we were the monkeys he was chasing. It was fun seeing him all happy and crazy. We ran around making noises, taking turns of who was the tiger. We pretended to be lots of different animals too. After, we all formed a circle of seats because our team was gonna perform a skit. He pulled me over and told me I needed to sit by him. This made me happy. We got up to perform our skit and Srijessh put his hand down saying he was saving my seat. We performed a skit about Jesus walking on the water- I was Peter and tried to act the part, looking really scared and drowning until Jesus pulled me out. As we walked back to our seats Srijessh was laughing and said “you’re funny”. The other kids started doing a dance performance and wanted to practice their own skit for us. Srijessh refused to join because he is a stubborn one. I can relate sometimes.We even played a bunch of games like Simon says but he still wouldn’t join. So instead I went to him and we started playing our own little game. We were pretending it was nighttime and I was tucking him into bed. “Goodnight sweetie. Sweet dreams. Mommy loves you.” “No I’m not tired!” He thew off the air blankets. “But you have to go to sleep now. Its way past your bedtime.” “No. You go to bed.” He gave a devious smile. “Uh! You can’t talk to your mother this way. I’m gonna go get your father.” I switched voices to a deeper man voice. “Son you need to go to sleep.” “OK fine I will go to sleep.” Then he pretended to sleep and said on the side “OK now wake me up.” “Time to get up! You have to go to school!” “No I want to sleep more. You go to school.” “But I’m an adult. I go to work not school. You need to go to school.” “Go get grandpa.” I then shifted to my best old man voice and played along. I ended up being grandma and the sister as well. He finally went to pretend school. After that we had tea time and he ran and pulled up a chair making sure I sat next to him again. He had to get up for a second and made sure that I saved his seat for him. We had tea and lots of snacks. His favorite was the little chocolate wafers. I kept sneaking him more of them. Our adventures continued until it was time to leave. I played with many of the other kids too while we were at the orphanage and made special bonds with them as well. I seriously love these kids, they are amazing. I wish I had more time with them. But for some reason Srijessh just really stuck out to me and captured my heart. He was my best friend that day. I don’t know what his story is or how he became an orphan. I dont know why he put on that outer stand-offish attitude at first. Im glad I was able to see his walls break down though, where he could be his happy, crazy, mischievous self, because I love that boy. I thank God for the gift that he was to me that day. I’ll always remember him. (That’s Srijessh photo bombing the pic) |
