inventory of a tee shirt.

we've quickly realized that we cannot leave Marigold. it's with us. the children's smiles, the brawls, the learning of a new letter-it's just too real to fade. and we would never want it any differently. really though, we expected that. children have a way of leaving footprints on your heart. 

what we weren't so prepared for is that Marigold also does not leave us. in fact, it's all over us. literally. i think i'd forgotten what a tee shirt looks like after a day in Jamaica. i've been pleasantly reminded. and feel like an inventory of what leaves Marigold on our tee shirts is an appropriate way to recount the past few days. 

soooo we now present Tara and Elin's list of stains.

1. mush. the babies in the nursery eat different colored mush for three meals each day. it is usually in the oat-family of beige but sometimes it's mixed up with a rosey tinge to it. it likes to spew out of bottles.

2. mush spit up. 

3. boogers. SO MANY. the children are perpetually sick. it's the Marigold crud-runny nose, cough, drowsy eyes. their living conditions foster it; they share toothbrushes, pulling one to use from the communal cup in the bathroom after lunch and before bed. and they're just little kids-they play and poke and high-five and dig their hands into the bucket of crayons, spreading the love (and germs).  

4. drool. i think that some of the children might have a little bit of bulldog in them. they just love letting their mouths hang open, maintaining a nice little stalagtite of drool from their lower lip. and it's so, so precious. 

5. mango. we will never, ever forget the image of the children completely covered in mango this afternoon. there is a plant in the front yard of Marigold and the children absolutely light up when they see the tray of little golden fruits coming over to the blue cement table. i just imagine that for the children, seeing the tray coming must feel like when you are really little and realize that your mom is turning into McDonald's. win. happy meal. while the children ate their mango today, Tara's sweet little friend Ackeem went over to where his little sister was sitting. she was covered in the pulpous orange goo and held up her especially-covered meaty little hands to show her brother. seeing her mess, Ackeem lifted up his shirt and used it to wipe off his baby sister's hands and face. telling me this story, Tara was absolutely glowing with wonder over the love these little siblings share. some of the children brought their mangoes over to where Tara and i sat and offered us a bite. they offered us a bite of something they get as a treat. when we thanked and declined, they assured us that they were really good! really really yummy and sweet! it was one of those moments when i could just feel my heart warm. 

6. dirt. Marigold dirt has a strange consistency. it is something like a mix between pebbles and fine dust-like dirt. and it has this crazy ability to stick to everything. it's like glitter. it ends up absolutely everywhere. especially when Ronaldino has a say in it. he is a little four-year-old who loves to sweep. during school he gets up from his seat to grab the broom in the corner and sweep the tile in front of the steps. today i wandered from the playground during the children's break from school to find Ronaldino with another broom, this time just sweeping the dirt around. 

7. mud. this is a challenging one. in the back yard of Marigold there is a playset with two chains where a swing should rest and an unsettlingly slanted tree house and a yellow slide. a the bottom of the slide is a small ledge i would usually never notice. except that today i looked over at the slide to see Leisha bent down, slurping the ditry, gritty muddy water form the small puddle on the ledge. no complaining, no tears, just finding water where she saw it, unfazed by any other factor. 

8. pencil. Raymond loves that his little red pencil with bite marks all over it shows up on our skin and clothes. 

9. mysterious meat stew. for anyone who's ever been to Marigold before, you know exactly what this refers to. but no one knows what it is. every day for lunch the children are served a big plateful of rice and peas or basmati rice and a serving of strange meat. the meat is brownish and always on the bone. the children will pick the little hunks of meat up off of their plate and bite and pick away at the bone until it is completely clean, sucking out marrow and licking off sauce.

10. sweat. lots. of. sweat. our constant companion, good ole 99% humidity, gives us a big hug in the morning and stays with us the whole day. but, really, there's something so alive about sweating. it's such a reminder of what we are able to do. we're able to work so hard that our body has to turn on it's own little air conditioner to keep us going. and once it's on we are able to take as many laps around the school building as will keep Jahrain's attention and lift Bimbola up to the slide until break ends. 

11. pee. apparently there's a thrill to be found in peeing in your pants. 

12. "doo doo." Marigold does not have any diapers. the children are changed a maximum of two times a day and only if they've "doo dooed"in their current diaper. children sit in dirty diapers for hours at Marigold, trapped in their own waste for lack of funding. yesterday Tara and i walked into the nursery to find Victor sitting in a puddle of his own diarrhea, more of which was leaking out of his diaper with every shift he made. since it wasn't time for the babies to be washed, Victor had to stay in his crib with his leaking diaper on until bath time came fifteen minutes later. and as we stood by him and played with him to keep him from playing in his diarrhea, we witnessed a child completely resistant to the horrific reality of his situation. because for him it is just a situation. that is just where he is. he does not have any concept of being defined by something. to Victor, he is not in an orphanage. he does not live the same schedule every day. he does not have to sit in his own waste. he's just Victor. and he loves to laugh and looks a lot like a mini-Mike Tyson. he's beyond resilient; he's present. he's just loving the way Tara tickles him in the middle of his rib cage and the way he can bend over to the side she is tickling and giggle and she'll move her hand to rub his head. he plays with Deja over the rails of their cribs. but the diarrhea trickled down his leg. and it got on his arm. and he's just a baby. 

13. rice. Rodge is pro at catapulting rice. while the children were eating lunch in the school room today Tara and i looked over to see Rodge flinging his rice from his plate, sprinkling it all over the ground, table, refrigerator and Ackeem and filling his little pocket with it. he experimented in the way rice looks when you smear it on the table with your finger and came up with new shapes to mold it into. he laughed so hard when he stood up and stomped on some of the rice on the floor and got to see his foot print in it. joy. 

14. glue. today the children did an art project to accompany their lesson on air transportation. their teacher asked them to use little squares of paper to fill in an outline of a plane in their activity books. Raymond tore up the little squares even smaller to make them fit perfectly into the outline, completely coloring in the body of the plane red and the wings green. Kelina and Joseph worked together to put a total of six squares on the outline of their airplane. and Bimbola just played with the glue. their work was beautiful. truly. it was like their hearts were captured on the paper. i could see the little quirks and habits of the children that make their personalities so unique and special demonstrated openly and purely on the sheets of white paper. Raymond is such a fixer. when Tara and i needed to take a picture of a child who was on the playground, Raymond immediately jumped up and returned minutes later holding the little girl's hand. he makes what he has work. he rips up the little squares and fits them within the lines. and Kelina and Joseph are so wonderfully goofy. both incredibly spirited and playful, the lopsided squares of pink and orange and green pasted to their picture were perfect to them.   

15. water. water. water. water. it's incredible to pause and realize the flow of blessings that carry you without your even realizing it. despite the end of Jamaica's six month drought, the children of Marigold are still deprived of water. the shortage of diapers at the orphanage has posed an extreme and obtuse challenge; the children cannot have as much water as they need because there are not enough diapers to support changing the children more than twice a day. so, until a solution comes, not much goes in with the hope that not much will come out. and the children are so thirsty. on Friday the children had apples for snack. i looked over while sitting on the porch to see Rodge holding his half of an apple between his legs and peeing on it, then lifting it up to his mouth to lick the liquid off. today Leisha drank mud and Ronaldino dipped the core of his mango into puddles outside and sucked the water from it. every time, it just feels like my heart has been grabbed and squeezed and forced to face truth. and i want to run and hide from it and laugh and say that they're just children and children like to play and aren't they so silly to dip their mango cores in puddles? silly ronaldino! but it's the thirst. and the deprivation. and the raw denial of human rights. there are buckets of water sitting outside of the home, but circumstances have them under lock and key.

we get to do a craft tomorrow! 

wooo!

eeb