Yesterday, when we three volunteers arrived for our scheduled day at Assissi, the children greeted us at the gate with their tiny palms raised up. They were showing off the burnt orange swirls of henna dye that an assistant there did for them, in celebration of Pongal (and oh, is Pongal in full swing!)

The young assistant offered to paint the Mendhi designs on our three “Auntie’s” palms, too. Anne and Roma wisely declined. (Have you tried chasing after children with one useless hand, caked thick with paint?) But I offered up my right palm, and when I did the woman gave a tentative glance to another assistant there. I asked if it was still okay. The two exchanged a few fast words in Tamil, gave me the old head nod and an “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

And then, the woman set to squirting a tube of the brownish paint onto my skin. The children stood on tip-toes to see the curls and loops and dots filling my palm. And when the woman finished, I was left to write awkwardly with my left hand on the chalkboard, as I worked on math equations with one of the children, Lakshmannen, my right palm outstretched flat to dry. Just about then is when another woman came out to see the finished design on my hand. When I raised up my right palm, she burst into laughter. “It should be left,” she said.

Left?!

Now, wait a minute. Everything I had heard thus far about the left hand is that it’s virtually shunned, used primarily to assist with just one singular (and very uncleanly) chore. Know what I’m talking about? Exchanging money, shaking hands, even painting the walls at St. Joseph’s – we had been told none of these things should ever be done with the left hand. In fact, when I first met Sukanya, I shook her hand with my right and mistakenly patted her shoulder with my left. She and the smaller children shuddered, looking as horrified as if I had just wiped my runny nose on her shoulder.

So what gives? Why all of a sudden are we adorning the taboo hand with beautiful paint?

The woman explained that since the right hand is used for eating, with your bare fingers basically used as your utensil, you wouldn’t want to have that hand painted. “You using fork?” she asked me. I said yes.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said.

My henna-painted hand, next to little Sophie’s (she’s one of the babies at the orphanage).

There’s a song the children at SEAM sang to welcome us on our first day, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the main hall as they do, clapping their hands while one boy steadily beat his hand against a drum – a drum, it turns out, that Stephen gave the children as a gift. On his last day, the children sang this same song as a farewell to Rick, who stayed just a week.

It’s a devotional song to Jesus, a lovely one with such a sweet melody that it stays in your head for hours. We hum it on our way back home in the evenings, and even find ourselves unconsciously singing it as we set the table for dinner. But without knowing the Tamil words to go along with it, we reduce the hymn to a series of “Na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na…”

We liked it so much, Stephen suggested we ask the children to teach it to us. And so Monday night, I sat with the older girls and had them transcribe it for us. They sang it line by line, as one of the girls wrote it down in Tamil script in my reporter’s notebook (all the way in India, I still can’t seem to put down the reporter’s notebook). Then they transcribed it phonetically into the English alphabet, so we could sing along with them.

I explained to the girls that we were doing this because all of us volunteers loved this song so much and wanted to be able to sing it with them. They were wide-eyed and so thrilled at this. Here we were, coming all this way to help them with their English…and we were just as interested to learn their Tamil. And when I told them how, because we didn’t know the proper words to the song, we all went home singing “Na-na-na-na…,” they laughed hard and exchanged jokes with each other in Tamil. And then, they joined me in a round of “Na-na-na-na…”

A few mintues later, they sat on the floor, cross-legged. And with the volunteers all clustered around my notebook, we did our best to sing along…

Anbu Yenravar Yesuvanavar

Yesuvanavar Inru Thonrenar….

Morning remnants of the Pongal ritual of Bogi, the burning of the old to start anew.

The children at St. Joseph’s School this morning, waiting for Pongal festivities to begin.

The children perform a traditional dance for the celebration.

The finished product. All the better to have lunch in (and to watch Indian soap operas in). Word from this week’s painting volunteers is that Sister Bakkiam’s room is all finished, and work on the chapel has begun.

Taken on the last day at St. Joseph’s. It was just after lunch. And all was quiet when I went to the bathroom. I wasn’t in there a minute when I heard the shouts of “Auntie!” Rick had just been sitting on the steps downstairs. A few children saw him, and that was it. We were surrounded by these wonderful little faces.

Walking home from SEAM tonight, one of the volunteers, Elyse, had the good fortune of stepping in cow poop. Good fortune, you ask? I feel like I’ve heard from some Polish relative (Aunt Vicki!?) that stepping in cow poop brings good luck. Or maybe that’s just something you say to make someone feel better for stepping in cow poop. Kinda like rain on a wedding day. We tell the bride it’s good luck. But let’s be honest. It actually really sucks.

Which is all to say, Elyse’s cow poop brought me good luck, too. I had the good fortune of finding another stick to use to put some photos up. The unflappable, and ever generous Stephen, is letting me use his for the remainder of my time here.

So, standby as we resume our regular programming.