If I Had a Big Enough Suitcase...

We have lists going and are beginning to move in the direction of packing. It feels more final since hearing that we did in fact lose the contract on our current house and will have to move out of this yard all-together. It is sad and we wish that we could have stayed in our current house, but we are glad to be done with the indecisive drama that our current landlord family has become synonomous with.  

We are still in that awkward phase of wanting to pack and feeling the itch to pack, but not having a lot that we want to pack away and lose access to for the last 5 weeks we have here.  This time is the worst part of transition for me.  I am actually motivated, but currently have few outlets for that motivation. 

One thing is for sure, though, I would pack up kAkA and bring him home with us in a heartbeat.  Either A.P. or I comment each day on how sad we are to think about not having him as a part of our daily lives in the near future.  We are deeply reminded of it when we watch he and Little t interact, and especially when Little t pra-ys for his ‘toe-toe’ several times a day. 

We find it somewhat remarkable and sacredly beautiful that we have been blessed to have him working in our yard.  Guards (chowkidars) can sometimes be seen as a necessary evil in this place. They are essential for safety and as a practicality (shopping, dealing with people at the gate, pumping water, etc) but a bad egg can really make it an awkward situation. If you have someone creepy/nosy/lazy/greedy/bossy/etc, working in your hard, it puts a damper on your home-life.  So, to have kAkA has really been a very pleasant surprise for us. 

To give you a few examples of why he is so great:

A few weeks ago, Little t was teething hard-core. He was a cranky mess and driving me crazy. Thankfully the weather was nice and we were spending lots of time outside.  When he is miserable, he usually wants nothing to do with kAkA…even though when he healthy, he can’t get enough of him.  That particular day, he had finally warmed up to kAkA who was pushing him around on his scooter while I hung laundry.  It was a welcome relief for a few minutes. 

The quiet was interrupted by more screaming from Little t. Apparently kAkA had tried to chop his leg off…or something like that.  kAka carried a wailing Little t over to me and handed him off.  Little t eventually calmed down and I put him in his swing. I took turns pushing him and hanging socks. 

kAkA showed up 5 minutes later with a piping hot bag of popcorn. He asked if Little t could have it. The second Little t saw it, he went crazy (he loves him some ‘pokern’).  kAkA handed Little t the bag and said to him in his very gentle voice, “I know your teeth hurt you don’t feel good, but you need to be nice for your momma. Eat some of this and maybe it will make you feel better.”

I just about melted and wanted to hug the man. 

A few days later, he came to the rescue again.  Little t and I had been playing outside and had gone to visit the office (a regular occurrence for us). We watched the lady who cooks there make rice for lunch. It is quite a fascinating process and we both learned a lot.  At the end of our time, Little t noticed that Office khAla (that is what we call her…no idea whatsoever what her real name is…she is just Auntie Office to us) was chewing gum.  He pointed out her “gumma” as he calls it.  She caught on and because she was feeling generous decided to share.  She plopped it out into her hand, rinsed it under the tap water in the sink of the kitchen and stuck it in his mouth.  It all happened so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to stop it. By the time I picked myself up off the ground, he was saying thank you and chomping away happily.  I ushered him into our yard and out of view of Office khAla and promptly engaged in wrestling the wad of community gum out of his mouth.  He was having none of it. Screaming like a stuck pig he tried biting and kicking and hitting, anything to keep his prize.  The whole time I was trying not to gag as I made an attempt to reason with him (it didn’t work) as to why he needed to surrender his ‘gumma’. I finally won by force and threw it into the compost pile. 

This led to HUGE theatrics, which led kAkA to come out and make sure that Little t was okay.  As he lay on the ground kicking and screaming, I tried to reason with both he and kAkA as to why I threw the gum away.  kAkA acknowledged that she had washed it off before giving it to him…

I told Little t that I would go into the house and get him another piece of gum...that hadn’t been chewed by anyone yet.  By the time I got back out, he had recovered and was even happier when kAkA brought him gum from a shop down the street.  In his gentle way and with a twinkle in his eye, he told Little t that his momma didn’t like it so much when he chewed gum from other people (even though it really was okay if they washed it off before hand).

And most recently…

A few weeks ago, Little t heard a donkey bray outside our gate as we ate lunch.  He got all excited and wanted to go see it.  We went outside, but kAkA was busy saying his noon pr-ayers in his room so couldn’t take Little t out.  As a general rule, I don’t hang around outside our gate…Little t will sometimes go out with A.P. or kAkA to watch the boys play soccer or play with other kids, but I try to be culturally appropriate by not hanging around out there.

So, because kAkA was pra-ying and A.P. was at work, I told Little t that we would have to find the donkey another time.  We went in and he laid down for his nap. When I went to get him from his nap, he immediately asked about the donkey. We went outside to ask kAkA who searched the street, but couldn’t find one. 

For a few days after that, all Little t could talk about was a donkey. Unfortunately we had a lot of snow and rain in that time and kAkA explained that the donkeys don’t usually go out when it is so slippery. I am not sure if he was feeding us a line, or if it was true….I believed him either way, but Little t was really sad about this. 

At the beginning of last week, kAkA asked if it would be okay if he brought a neighbors donkey on a nice day so Little t could ride it.  Of course, we weren’t going to turn an offer like that down!  Wednesday dawned bright and clear and a donkey showed up in our yard!  Little t was beside himself with excitement and A.P. and I took turns snapping photos like faithful dorky parents.  kAkA’s two sons had brought the donkey and they got in on the action as well.  We had a good time taking turns on the donkey and posing for photos.  kAkA was totally humored by us and how much entertainment we got out of the shaggy animal.  In exchange for hauling around this large pregnant lady, the donkey was treated to all the grass it could find in our yard.  A.P. came back from the office several times throughout the morning as we hung out in the yard and played. He just chuckled at the sight, the boy rolling in the mud, the bunny munching away, the donkey grazing, kAkA's boys playing soccer, and the neighbor’s rickshaw that was parked in our yard for the night…we have really acclimated!

As I was chatting with my parents on Skype the other night, I was raving about kAkA and how great he is. I know that he isn’t perfect, but he has been a significant blessing to our family in this last year.  My mom (who visited a year ago) said that she wishes that everyone back home would get a chance to meet kAkA…a realistic glimpse of a normal person that lives in this place. I couldn’t agree more.

 Interacting with kAkA and others like him have helped shape our heart for this place and it’s people.  We know that there are bad things being done here by bad people here. We aren’t stupid or ignorant to the fact that evil rears it’s ugly head here far far too often. But we are so deeply grateful that we get an inside picture into the reality of life here for the majority of the population. We are thankful that we can step beyond the brainwashing and one-sidedness of the Western media to see the whole picture. We are able to come face to face with people who are good and hard-working and trying to make a living to put food on the table for their family.  Some people here have been subjected to some pretty awful things. Some people have chosen to do some pretty awful things.  But many of them are grossly misunderstood as being who they are not – terrorists, beasts, murderers, traitors, haters, I could go on and on. 

If I did have a big enough suitcase, I would bring kAkA and his lovely family with us…so that friends and family could rub shoulders with our friend, a true picture of the majority of people in this place. And so that we could continue to have them as part of our daily lives.  And most importantly, so he could get Little t special things when he is throwing dynamic fits!


Extensive photographic evidence of how great kAkA is...and maybe how ridiculous we are...to follow in the next post...but a small taste for your here...