Friday, August 26, 2011

Strays (into my life)

"Stray cats and stray kids are soo 2011." This is what Chat said the other day after reading my blog about the kids. I wonder if she meant that by 2012 I would have killed all of them... or that they'd all kill me from stress. I never hide the fact that I am not maternally norturing like most mothers. In fact, I don't remember raising Chat. I woke up one day and found her raising me. "Mom, you don't tell kids 'behave or I'll kill you' Benadryl should be good enough."

If you followed my blog you'd know what I got into....God given assignment to these street kids. (I say God-given because I am not mother Theresa's relative, so on my own I would never choose to do this) Kids whose bodies have been damaged by the elements from living in the street day and night and brains diluted with the intoxicating effects of glue. Sniffing glue has become a lifestyle for them. When I get frustrated about my memory being gone,I don't dwell on it for so long now, I just have to look at these kids. I could never make them stick to a simple plan of meeting on a particular day or a specific time---they will never remember. They live in the moment and that's it. Planning for the next hour or the next day is so foreign to them, that in the 3 months that I've been meeting with them, I have yet to find them in the specified place we planned to meet the day before. I have to go round them up each time.Santino is the same way even after 3 weeks with me. He has no perception of days and time. Every morning I have to remind him of his simple task of bathing and keeping clean. He now has a morning job with my friend Tom, yet, after a week of being there, he'd still forget to go if I don't remind him. But he never forgets to go swimming, all day every day if I let him. Fortunately, my pool membership allows me to add him as my dependent even if he doesn't have my last name. Remember him? In the middle with empty glassy eyes...drunk from glue. To the right is Jack, his parents are both dead and he's been living in the street after a relative made him a workmule and the beating got to be too much. His eyes are now yellowish and am hoping he'd still be alive until I get back. Some friends brought us jackfruit and coconuts.


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