tend your garden

Early morning, before my eyes have adjusted to the light and the hot milk chai is cool enough to drink the girls creep into the courtyard, an area forbidden to them, to watch me take breakfast. I hear them whispering, and as I peek out through green plastic curtains and make a face they burst into suppressed giggles. All except one, who frowns and holds up four little ashen fingers. Only a few days she says softly, and I run across the square and lift her up in my arms and spin her slowly, telling her, "but how many hugs we can share in four full days," fighting back the tears that slip into my eyes, trying to be brave, for her, for me.
There is an expression in the Pashto language, You are not a man until you give your love truly and freely to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return. I'm falling in love with these children, one by one, learning their names, they're ticklish spots, their favorite ways to be held and swung and danced with. Not all of them, arbitrarily, but certain ones. I worry they've become too attached to me, and I find myself fantasizing about staying, or worse asking them to run away with me, showing them how to build sand castles and search for sea shells. They know I'm leaving. The girls at the orphanage say goodbye every time I walk out of a room. I just hope they realize it has nothing to do with them. They've been abandoned their whole lives. They will forever feel unwanted, and now I'll be another ghost, a person who passed in and out of their hearts. Is it better to have loved and lost? Did anyone ever ask a child that? I find myself whispering "I love you, over and over," into the tiniest ear. I have to stop myself. But now, looking back, I wonder if she's ever heard these words before. She is six, but the size of a two year old, the one who came to the sisters crawling like a chimp. I want to repeat these words over and over until she understands what they mean.
Some compete viciously for my attention, clawing at each other's hands and hair. Everyone wants to be wanted. Maybe that's why I've fallen so hard. I need their love just as badly. But still, it’s frightening to see so much anger, so much jealousy, so much emptiness in such small hearts.
It's time to move on. I'm running out of material, patience and restraint. At school, the children take advantage of me. I've come to realize that violence is self perpetuating. The class gets out of control and no amount of yelling and clapping will stop it. Another teacher always comes in to beat the students, and I have to turn away, feeling inadequate for my inability to discipline without a stick. But I think it's the stick that causes the chaos. As long as it’s absent, the children have no boundaries. Other methods don't work because punishment is the most immediate and efficient means of control.
I've become frustrated with the absolute austerity of control here, in India and in the convent. Children live in fear. From preschool on they are driven to succeed, not by their own choice and desire but by the stick. Even the youngest ones live in angst, to the point of teachers confessing that they don't want to tell parents how their five-year-olds are performing. The chellis I live with are afraid to break the rules in any way. I understand the importance of structure, of school, of goals. But these are kids. I brought the girls temporary tattoos, expecting pure rapture, but instead every one worried about the beating that might follow should they be discovered. The next morning, one girl's skin was rubbed raw. I asked what happened, if she'd gotten into trouble. No, she replied. Sister said it causes skin cancer. I told her that was a lie. Flat out. I know I'm going beyond my boundaries but so are they.
At first I was content with silent acquiescence, but that has never been my way, only theirs. I'm trying to find a compromise between teaching my classes what I believe is true and right and empowering and allowing them to live with the socially accepted modes of behavior, within webs of manipulation and domination--by their parents, spouses, teachers, and their sisters. I feel like I'm being monitored, censored. I discuss with the students primary differences a between American and Indian cultures: food, language, dress, appearance, religion, appearance. I tell them that in America wives and husbands have equal opportunities and equal power. I teach them that we fought hard for these rights; I talk about the Women's Liberation Movement (without the burnt bras). The boys aren't really paying attention, but one girl replies that this inequality, this disparity, is what makes India a developing country, even with all the drive and technology its people possess. I'm not trying to start a revolution but a little dissent could be quite progressive. Still maybe it’s best that I sow the seeds and let the fruit ripen on its own, in my absence, like the first missionaries did with mustard.