Dipish & Manoj. Two boys I won’t soon forget. I’ve met them once, played with them once. Once. But they say that one moment can change a lifetime. We were playing soccer, or sitting by the field watching soccer and interacting with the kids; and by interacting I mean playing music on our phones for them, taking pictures of them, and putting them on our backs to run around. They jump on your shoulders, wave their arms back and forth yelling “running! Running!” so, we run! I sat there, not really sure what to do, not feeling well, so I didn’t want to run, but I desperately wanted to interact with the kids. Dipish came first, he saw my purse and asked for my ‘mobile’, then for my music, but I had my notebook out so I ripped out a page and handed him the pen. He couldn’t speak English so he didn’t understand when I told him my name. I wrote it down and pointed at myself, then pointed back at him and then the paper. He wrote down “Dipish” then started writing what I knew was an attempt at his ABC’s, but it broke my heart to see him try so hard but not get it right. I took my pencil and wrote the alphabet in big letter so he could copy underneath them, he quick fast grabbed the pen, and with his face almost touching the paper, he copied them down. I turned over the paper and asked him to draw a picture, he looked at me funny, and then drew a house with a flower, when I asked him to draw himself in the picture he started writing D-I-P-I-S-H. I didn’t know how to explain that I wanted to see him draw a little boy, but I smiled so much because he understood that I wanted him in the picture. Manoj came over and begged for paper, and it was pretty much the same scenario, he knew his ABC’s and then he drew a pretty impressive picture. While they were drawing another boy climbed on my lap sharing headphones with Allison beside me listening to worship music, his nose was snotty, and his feet were filthy, but if you tickled his belly he would almost fall over from laughing so hard.
It wasn’t long, maybe twenty minutes, then I had to leave to go buy lunch for the team and they were on to the next thing. It wasn’t until later that day that I realized what it meant to me, and to them. Earlier that morning there had been a couple fights between the street kids, we pulled them apart and told them they weren’t allowed to fight, but inside all I could think was “why?”. These boys fight everyday. They live to survive. Not fighting doesn’t make sense to them, they have to look out for themselves because no one else does. They have to make sure they eat, drink, and have somewhere to sleep, that they make it through the day alive and safe. That’s when I knew why it meant so much that they drew pictures, and names, and alphabets. They desperately want to learn, and grow, they want so badly to be children but hardly get the chance. I pray that for those few hours they are with us in the morning that they forget what their day is like, and that they are purely kids: laughing, running, drawing, tickling… whatever it is they want to be.
