And so it begins.I had thought of doing a trip like this for months. I had talked about it and mulled it over and talked about it some more. Then my family told me to stop yapping and start doing. “But I don’t have $4,500,” I said. My mother had an idea. She said it woke her in the middle of the night. I say the sound of her own snoring did. Anyhow, still not sure where I’m headed — Nepal with New Zealand-based Global Volunteer Network or India with U.S.-based Global Volunteers — this e-mail was sent. And only a little bashfully.Hi Family and Friends!I hope this e-mail finds you all well. I’m writing a mass-email to tell you about some exciting upcoming plans, and to ask for your help – the kind of help that could actually result in a happier home for you! Don’t believe me? Read on!
I’m in the final stretch of my 29th year, celebrating 30 this September. And I’ve thought much in the last few months about how I’d like to mark the occasion. Birthdays seem to always be about getting, but this year I wanted to give back.
I’ve been tremendously blessed in these 30 years. But in pockets of the world ravished with poverty, there are many who can’t say that as easily. So I’ve decided to spend a few weeks this fall in either Nepal or India, working through a volunteer organization to help at their overrun orphanages, teach English at their schools or help build community centers and homes.
Here is where you come in. The word “volunteer” on these trips refers not just to time, but money. All volunteers pay their own fee for travel, room and board, and it is surprisingly expensive – much more than I could cobble together over the next few months.So I’m asking for your junk!Clean out your closets, rummage through your basement, ransack your garage – all for a good cause. I’m collecting old furniture, gadgets and trinkets for a sort of virtual garage sale for charity. You identify the junk you want out of your house, small or large, and I’ll come by and take care of the rest! Think of it this way: your donations will leave you with cleaner closets AND help make a difference in one corner of the world.
In return, I plan to either put up a website or blog updating everyone with pictures and a travel journal so you can see how your help has helped me help others.
Thanks in advance for any contributions. I’m really excited about this trip, and feel really connected to doing this. Your support means the world to me.
Ok. So you’ve got some questions? I’ve got some answers.
This sounds great. But why do you have to go to India? Why not volunteer in the US? What about Poland?I have volunteered locally and find it really rewarding. But I think the opportunity to travel to another corner of the world, to leave my comfort zone and see how other cultures live is important. The need in these countries is so great and the poverty unimaginable. And why not Poland? I may one day return to Poland on a volunteer mission, but right now I feel called to visit another part of the world. (You can learn more about the organization I’ll be volunteering with at www.GlobalVolunteers.org).
Ok, I’d love to help. But what exactly are you looking for?I’m collecting those things that we all have taking up space in our homes, that are still in good condition but that we don’t use anymore, but other people might want. An old TV, a dining room table, a couch, a set of dishes you no longer use, electronics, old computers, home items. I’m not collecting clothing or shoes, however, and I’m not collecting anything unusable. Just slightly worn stuff you’ve been meaning to get rid of that could find a good home elsewhere.The plan is to sell the items through an online site like Craigslist, which my lovely sister has much experience in.
Great, I’ve got something I’d love to contribute. When can you pick it up?Thank you, thank you! You can email or phone me and we can arrange it. 
Who came up with this idea, anyway?The volunteering is something I’ve been thinking of for a long time. The brilliant idea of having people clean out their closets for a good cause was all my wonderful and very supportive mother’s idea. Think about it – cleaning closets and saving money? It’s got Ciocia Hania/Anna written all over it. (Besides, it’s quicker than her method of clipping coupons and store rebates to save for our plane tickets to Poland 15 years ago, right?)
I love this idea because literally everyone wins!If you have any other questions or suggestions, email or call at 860-xxx-xxxx. 
(Also, please pass this along to anyone you don’t see listed. The Klimkiewicz family seems to multiply faster than I can keep up with the e-mail addresses!)
Thank you all so very much in advance!
Love,Joann 

For the record, dear Susan Campbell, you and your juicer are the first to step up!! (And Baby Jesus thanks you for that, wink-wink.)

The emails and words of encouragement have been tremendous. So many people have offered to rifle through their closets and attics. Others have asked about monetary donations. My brother suggested his frequent flier miles. I have to admit, I felt a little uncertain and silly about asking for help (especially in such an unorthodox form as garage sale wares). But the response has boosted me I’m not sure how realistic it is to raise funds primarily through CraigsList and tag sales, but we’re gonna give it a go. My sister (a CraigsList devotee) swears by it.

So here we go, starting with $50 made through the CraigsList sale of my CD player. It felt good to get rid of it, not only for the starter donation, but also because it reminded me of someone I’d rather forget anyway. And that’s the other half of what I hope this method of donation does — encourage people to let go of the junk that is literally and figuratively weighing them down and turn it into a positive, in the form of a charitable donation.

Big difference, I had to explain to him over Easter dinner this weekend.

“I don’t know about this. Naples? Is that safe?” my father inquired about one of my potential volunteer sites. “Actually, yeah Dad. Naples is really safe. Nepal on the other hand…”

Blame it one too many shots of spirytus, that Polish alcohol he concocts around the holidays. Looks like cough syrup. Tastes like rubbing alcohol. Messes with your grasp of geography, among other things. (I know my mother is going to be mad about this post. Przepraszam.)

After months of hemming and hawing, of researching and peppering past volunteers with my long, long e-mail questions, I’ve finally settled on it: A September trip to India through Global Volunteers. It feels great to be able to say that — makes it more tangible, as opposed to this vague concept I’ve had kicking around my imagination.

It was a hard decision. Sisterly wisdom (in the form of a pro and con list) and e-mail exchanges with past volunteers (thank you especially to Carolyn and Bud!!) really helped me see it wasn’t a hard one at all. From the beginning, I wanted to go to India. From the beginning I wanted to work with children. The first organization I felt solid about was Global Volunteers.

It was pretty clear the whole time.

And so it is!

Got a call today from the good people at Global Volunteers. Seems that, while they usually have a sizeable group for every project, the September trip had only two people registered. Now the one that isn’t me has opted to cancel. So, there’s a very good chance I’ll be going solo.

One of the things I wanted out of the trip was a group experience — working alongside other volunteers, feeding off their energy and getting to know an entirely new crop of faces. I’m trying to decide if I should reschedule the trip to one that has a more robust crew, or go with the original September plan and surrender whatever will be, knowing that either way will still be its own rich, rewarding experience.

Thoughts, comments, concerns? Let me know.

I spent the better part of a gorgeous, sunny weekend in the back of my childhood closet and in the bowels of my parents’ basement in New Jersey. My mother, sister and I pulled a clean sweep to find junky treasures to sell for the fund at a huge, annual tag sale on the grounds of Rutgers University next weekend. We did a pretty good job of rummaging through years of dusty, forgotten items without veering off track and onto memory lane.

Alas, we’ve done this sorting drill so many times over the years.

My mother mounted regular garage sales in her day, so a good chunk of my youth was spent boxing and lugging our family wares up the basement stairs and onto our driveway. I was positively mortified at the time. (Though, just about anything is cause for mortification when you’re 12). Turning our front yard into an open flea market? Hawking our personal belongings for a few extra bucks? What would people think? I worried. (Little did I know they were probably thinking, We need to have one of these at our house. We’ve got a ton of stuff to get rid of).

So I kept my role in these two-day affairs to setup and cleanup. I hid in the house at the first sight of a bargain-hunter trudging up the drive. Besides, I couldn’t stomach watching perfect strangers pick so clinically through the items and questionable purchases of our lives.

It was all rather amusing in hindsight. My sister routinely let people walk off our property carrying items she let them have for free. “It’s good karma,” was her thinking, even a young thing back then. But her creation of the “karma box” — items people could take for free — signaled the good will giving had officially gotten out of hand. My mother came into the house to report my sister had just given away a set of folding meal trays we bought on vacation at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. It was time to stop the karma. Still on my self-imposed exile from the driveway, I dashed this scolding missive in pencil on the garage wall. (It’s still up there today). Note to Donna: No more free Magic Kingdom Trays! Must Pay 50 cents! She met us half-way. The karma box stayed, but she ceased the willynilly free-for-all.

But here’s the curious thing. Despite having a garage sale nearly every summer for a string of years, we still ended up with a basement stocked with plenty of “merchandise” for yet another one the following year. Our own Greek tragedy, doomed to a life of bottomless yard sale boxes. How could this be? Looking back, I see it was because my mother (and even her two daughters, at times) could never part with the old stuff that carried so many memories, or the newer stuff that held so much promise.

But this time around, we were all much freer in the letting go. The forgotten baubles and bits we might have clung to years before? “Sell it!” was our mantra this weekend. The motivation is certainly the fundraiser. But I think this has also inspired the idea of living simpler. Once you start going through your stuff, especially for the purpose of helping people without much stuff, you can’t help but be struck by the ridiculousness of it all. You realize how much excess there is in our culture, yet how much we’re encouraged to keep filling our lives up with still more stuff. But none of it really makes us any happier, does it? So finally getting rid of it is as much a score for the fund as it is for creating more space – physically and energetically – in our lives.

I’m hoping that anyone who donates will feel liberated in the same way.

Yard Sale Day!

We woke with the alarm clock’s miserable 5:30 buzz, needing enough time to set up among the hundred or so my-trash-is-your-treasure vendors at the annual Rutgers yard sale.

My favorite moment of the long, sizzling day came courtesy of a woman as Jersey as they come. And I say that with total Garden State affection. With her big-framed sunglasses and bigger personality, she asked me to tell her more about the volunteer trip. (I taped signs to the edge of our tables explaining my mission).

I filled her in.  She told me I was doing a good thing, that I’d remember it a long time. “Just make shaw,” she said in her Jersey drawl, ”that ya get awl ya shots and things befaw ya go.”

With that, she toddled off to the next vendor. “And who knows?” she shouted over her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll come back the Mutha Theresa of New Jersey.”

I’m not sure about that. But this I do know. Slap on a price tag and people will buy anything. Even a large, gold-framed hologram of Jesus and Mary – priced to move at $5.

The electric-colored picture was among the dusty relics we thought for sure would never go. For years, and with great question, it hung on the wall above my parents’ bed. It mesmerized and frightened. I’d plant my tiny feet on their silky bedspread to get a close look, leaning from left to right to see Jesus’ face morph into Mary’s, and back again.

It was tacky enough back then. Who would buy such a thing now?

“This is lovely,“ a woman said, holding the picture out like a masterpiece. Her small son blinked up at it. I knew his pain, but prayed (to Jesus and Mary) that he wouldn’t utter a discouraging word. The woman handed us five dollars, not even a whimper about the price.

Oh, but the day saw its hagglers.

“Eight bucks,” sighed one woman, “is more than I’d like to spend on hot rollers. I’ll take ‘em for four.”

“I’m sorry. I really can’t,” I told her. “I’m trying to raise money for a volunteer trip to India.”

I offered them for six. She sheepishly opened her wallet. “Ok. I’m an animal rights advocate. I know what it’s like to try to raise money for a cause.” I thanked her, told her to enjoy the rollers and tucked six singles in to my uber-stylish fanny pack, now filling with bills and coins.

We baked on the hot asphalt, presiding over our tables of junk and tussling with the thrifty until 1 p.m. (Even our vending neighbors bought a few items. “Aren’t they here trying to get rid of their own junk?,” I asked my sister.)

We went home, our load lighter nearly by half. We were exhausted. But before we collapsed onto our beds, my mom emptied our fanny packs and counted every dime and dollar.

$234.

Not a killing. But not half bad, considering these were small-ticket items. It feels kind of daunting right now, but I think it’s all going to come together just fine in the end. I’ve got all kinds of fundraising ideas swirling in my head…so help me Jesus, Mary (and okay, Joseph, too).

The “junk” has been piling up over the last few weeks, and thanks to you all! The pre-blog support has been wonderful. I’m grateful for every donation and every bit of encouragement.

The CraigsList sales have been going… slowly. But I have a feeling things are about to pick up now. Life has been a little hectic for my partners in fundraising crime (my mother and sister). I think we’re all going to be able to refocus and give it more attention and effort  in these coming weeks.

We have to! The time is going so quickly. I’ve got just over two months before I leave. For now, we’ve definitely got another NJ garage sale set for early July. And plans are in the works for a joint tag sale at my place in Connecticut.

Stay tuned.

I bashfully hit the send button early yesterday on the e-mail officially announcing the launch of this blog to my family and friends. I had no idea what to expect. Some good-natured ribbing? Questions I wouldn’t be able to answer? Worst of all – silence? Well, I got some copy editing from Regine “Reply All” Labossiere.  And I got a lot of kudos passed along to my sister, the fantabulous webmistress. But mostly I got such great words of encouragement – and a big boost in donations! In the span of a few hours, the little red bar jumped 6.6 points! So exciting to see. And such a great lesson that it’s okay to ask for help when you need it. 

For weeks and weeks, I’ve had little bites on the hodgepodge of items I’ve been posting (and re-posting) on CraigsList. But there’s been nothing substantial to report. A few minor sales, a couple of snippy comments on our pricing. But mostly just tepid emails of interest, followed by painfully long stretches of silence.

So this past weekend, in the hopes of reinvigorating the online sales, I schlepped to my parents’ place in New Jersey. My sister and I snapped pictures and posted a bunch of the items that have been piling up, to my father’s dismay, in their basement. The poor guy. Here, his kids are all grown up and finally out of the house, mercifully taking the last of their college-era boxes with them. Here, he’s finally slowed his plumbing business and the stream of bulky supplies that for more than 30 years came with it. At last, the basement was starting to clear.

Then I all had to go and decide to volunteer in India, and temporarily get into the junk-selling business to get myself there.

“Boxes here. Boxes there. Boxes everywhere,” he said. “I want that cellar cleaned up. I’m tired of looking at these boxes.”

I swear the CraigsList fairies were listening. Because no sooner he said that than the emails started to stream in. Seriously – over Sunday night and this morning, multiple inquires about various household stuffs and the vintage rattan patio furniture that’s collected dust in my parents’ basement for years. (We got two emails on that one less than an hour after posting. That never happens). Then? A slick, brand new Cajun cookbook from my mom’s friend — snapped up! A circa 1970s Kodak camera — sold! I don’t want to jinx it, but I bet we’ll have a handful of sales by tomorrow.

“Wait a minute. A camera?” my dad asked. “Which camera you sold? My camera?”

I got worried. Did nobody run it by the man before we up a decided to hock his camera? My mother described it to him. “The instamatic,” she said. “The one we bought when we went to Niagra Falls.” The one, I wanted to say, that’s been sitting in the back of your closet for a good 15 years.

“Oh! That camera,” he said. I relaxed when I saw him ease back in his chair. “Okay. Good. For how much?”

Twenty dollars, I told him. He nodded his head.

“That’s what I paid,” he laughed.

My father, a little sun sleepy, explains the India trip and our quirky fundraising effort.

I’m telling you, all the cool kids were doing it on Saturday.

I decided to add a social element to the tag sale I had at my place this weekend – the latest installment of my fundraising effort.

Because, let’s get this out front: The truth is mounting a tag sale kinda sucks. Waking at 6 in the morning. Hauling heavy boxes and furniture. Swatting off early birds and haggling with the ruthless.

Yeah. Not so much fun.

But add burgers and beer, and suddenly your annoying yard sale is a summertime social event. So my roommate, Katie, and I invited friends to come over, hock their own stuff and cap it all off with some backyard grilling.

We got things started early, dragging the first of our items on the front lawn more than an hour before the 8 a.m. go time. And don’t you know, we had barely hauled out a table and a chair when the cars started pulling up? How much you selling this for? a woman asked about a bowl whose price I hadn’t yet considered. Another woman, who I had actually stood behind not an hour earlier for my 6:30 Starbucks, ambled wordlessly onto the lawn. She started rummaging through an unopened, unpriced box of items donated to the sale by Cindy. I had to shoo her away like a mosquito.

But at the crack of 7:59, we were a-sellin’. On account of my impending move, I had some bigger ticket items that helped – couches, tables and chairs. So the dollar bills started piling up fast. Still, make no mistake. It was not a breeze.

One woman tried to make off with a pair of Katie’s earrings tucked in her pocket. (Eagle-eye Melone stopped her in her tracks). Another customer’s young daughter came to the porch holding out her own plastic cup, demanding we fill it with ice water. And all around, we kept getting chided for our too-high prices. Our respective defenses fell on deaf ears. They didn’t care that Katie’s clothes and jewelry were barely-used designer items and that my sale benefited a volunteer service program. The thrifty mean business. (Example: A woman tried to get me to slash by half my price on a Lenox bowl. I explained the charity. Her response? “Yeah, I know, but…” A blink and a shrug and she said nothing more, just held out that Lenox bowl. What’s on the other end of that sentence, I want to know? Yeah, but what exactly? Yeah, but I’m cheap? Yeah, but I’m cold and unfeeling? Yeah, but I want this Lenox bowl for the price of dirt?)

There were plenty of nice customers to make it worthwhile, though. It’s so much fun to see people walk off the yard genuinely happy with their new treasures, and that really gets to the heart of why I chose this route to raising money. A lot of the taggers asked about the trip. And small world that it is, one had just come off a Global Volunteers trip herself from Ecuador. She gave me all sorts of pointers on what to bring, but also told a lot of the heartbreaking stories about what to expect, and about the children she cared for in the orphanage there. She said it was a life-changing experience for her, and said it would surely be the same for me.

Friends started to file in by early afternoon, with Kim and Mark getting some pretty swift business on the items they brought. (Except for that darn Goldfish tea set. I promise, we’re gonna find it a good home, Kim!)

With things starting to wind down sale-wise, and with Regine and Ted refusing to trek into West Hartford Center wearing sandwich boards advertising our sale, we packed it in somewhere around 4 or 5.

Our pockets were happily full. I’m so thrilled to report that I raised just over $300 for the fund! (Check out that red bar. It jumped nearly 10 points in one day. Sweet.) Thanks again to all of you who donated your items to today’s sale!

And so, with Grillmaster McPadden firing up the burgers, Mark serving up his fabulous chicken and everyone steadily unburdening the heavy cooler of its beer, we feasted and chattered into the night. We learned that John Tesh has it out for Bob Costas and that Jon Bon Jovi is, indeed, from Sayreville, N.J. (don’t mess with a Jersey girl with Google at her fingertips). We learned the Bradford Pear tree has some serious odor issues. And we learned that, should you ever be arrested, it’s probably best not to reference the movie “Traffic” to the arresting officer.

Who knew tagging could be so much fun?

** Extra special shout-out to Katie, my partner in tagging-crime, for diving into this with me and for all the great set-up and signage. And thanks to the sale support squad, who helped in all sorts of ways, from donations to set-up to clean-up: John, Ted, Mark, Kim, Monica, Jesse, Bill, Regine and Fulvio.

Katie on a rare break from patrolling for tag sale thieves and defending her prices. (Seriously, $5 for never-been-worn Steve Maddens? We should have called West Hartford police, it’s a crime to sell ‘em so cheap).

Melonkiewicz/JoKat strike a pose. (Quick, quick — which is which?)

Little Red Riding Ted.

Moments after stepping onto the lawn, Mark “Priced to Move” Spencer makes a successful transaction. What is his secret?

Another happy customer. (Leave it to the Business editor to get us down to a buck for all this. He offered to sell it back for $2).

Even in this hat, Jesse, my mother still thinks you’re the bees knees.

It’s a beautiful day for tagging.

“John, my man, you drive a hard bargain. Here’s what I’m gonna do for you. I’ll give you Bill here for $7.50 and I’ll throw in his snappy hat for free. But that’s my final offer.”

Okay, turns out my sister was onto something with her garage sale Karma Box.

Someone sent me this link to a cool event I missed out on in New York last weekend, right in my old neighborhood. It captures, in a distant sort of way, the spirit of this fundraising effort. I love this concept. Love it.

It’s the Really Really Free Market. And its name basically says it all. People bring all kinds of stuff they’re trying to get rid of. Others can come and snap up what interests them. And it’s absolutely free – no strings attached. Apparently it’s a movement with roots in the anti-globalization demonstrations against the FTAA. I say it sounds like a punk rock version of Freecycle.

I love this, because it’s a smart solution to the excess stuff we’ve all got floating around. Because if we’re just junking our old things before buying new ones to replace them, if we’re not passing them along to someone else, where exactly do we think those old things are going?

(From ReallyReallyFree.org, the San Francisco RRFM)

Because there is enough for everyone

Because life should be a picnic, but it only will be if we make it happen

Ok, so. I’ve got a situation.

Looks like the September service program I had signed up for has been canceled, seeing as how I was the only person registered. I hemmed and hawed about it a few months back, wondering if I should take Global Volunteers up on their offer to send me solo, possibly with a staff member. I thought going alone might be its own unique experience. Then I got to thinking: I’m a pretty solitary person to begin with. Do I really need to go all the way to India for even more solitude?

Besides, I think a group dynamic is really important in these situations. You can feed off the other volunteers’ energy, meet some interesting characters and lean on each other when you need to. (We can call it The Real World: Chennai. Minus all the hot tubs and boozy shenanigans, of course. Is that show still on, by the way? Because I’ll tell ya, they lost me after that Chicago season, what with those freaky night vision cameras. And let’s be honest, it jumped the shark anyway after the original New York season.)

But I digress. Point is, after really thinking about what I wanted the experience to be, and after talking it through with the Global Volunteers staff, I decided to hold off a few months. I figure, why try to squeeze into something that doesn’t quite fit? I’m not rushing it just to say I went in September.

So, I’m going to bypass the rainy season and look to January. And good news, there are already a few volunteers signed up. No, it won’t coincide with my birthday month. But I’m cool with that and don’t think I need to be so precious about it. Like my sister said, I’ll still be 30 in January. It’ll be the new year. It’ll still be India. It’ll give me breathing room to settle in after my move this month and finish my fundraising. And I think it’ll be fantastic.

So to everyone who contributed: Don’t worry, I’m still going! I’ve got a special savings account that’s safely keeping all the funds raised. And it keeps rising, just as the little red bar here does. And you’ll notice it says we’re half-way there. (To think, I started this site with somewhere around 10 or 11 percent.)

Thanks everybody. And stay tuned. (Next up, a late August/early September garage sale in New Jersey).

So, I’m running along the dirt trail of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in Princeton this morning. The breeze is heavenly, the sun streaming through the lush greens as the merry speedwalkers pass with a smile and a nod.

And there I am, in the thick of the postcard-perfect calm of it all — cursing every pounding step. I’m thirsty. I’m cramping. I’m cranky. Even Bruce Springsteen, begging me as he is through my headphones to “Come on up for the rising,” isn’t doing me any good. Are you kidding me? is all I can think. I haven’t even hit mile 2 yet? My goal of 4.5 seems way too daunting on this morning after I downed two glasses of wine, and a frothy champagne concoction at my Aunt Maria’s surprise birthday party. I want to stop. And then, salvation. A glorious, if robotic, voice whispers in my ear: “Half-way point. Two-point-two-five miles to go.”

You’ve gotta love that Nike+iPod.

I hit another, even more glorious, half-way point today. With the sale of a fondue set (thank you, Amy!) the little red fund-raising bar hit exactly 50 percent! Daunting as it still seems (just like my run this morning), it’s reassuring to know I’ve only got left what I’ve already done.

And so we’ll keep chugging along.

But boy, I’ll tell ya. It can’t seem to go quick enough for my family. I think they’ve kind of had it already with these boxes and furniture and strangers coming to their house.

Today, my sister, Dad and I lugged two carloads of donated furniture to the house (thank you, Donnalynn and Nick!) And when our cars were emptied, my Dad looked at me with his loving, blue eyes and said, “Please. No more furniture. Sell this, and that’s it. No more.”

Hey, Dad — Half-way point!

Sweet Emotion, indeed.

Okay, so. A wave of CraigsList e-mails came in this week. Exciting enough, yes? Yes! Well, there was one in particular that caused its own hot stir. It came on Tuesday, in response to our ad for a donated espresso machine. It stood out for its impatience. Testyness, even.

do you still have the machine? i want it asap…please call me at 212

thanks…please call ASAP!

I dig the double-ASAP usage. Anyhow, it was all very curious to me. What kind of espresso crisis is being had in Manhattan right at this very moment, I wondered? So my sister, Donna, who has the machine at her apartment in New York, calls the number (ASAP, natch). She leaves a message with someone at the afforementioned noisy, busy office. Not long after, she gets a call back from a woman named Rainbow.

“Rainbow?” Donna asks.

“Yes, Rainbow,” she says. She wants the espresso machine, she explains, and needs it fast. Rainbow proceeds to ask all kinds of questions that Donna, she of decaffeination, doesn’t know. Double-shot? Umm…she checks the box and gives Rainbow all the details.

She’ll take it, she says. She’ll send someone to pick it up.

And so an official-looking truck pulled up outside Donna’s apartment. A man dressed in an orange Crew shirt and PA headset explained he works with a production company handling the Fashion Rocks concert.

Apparently the caffeine crisis was thus: Early that morning a manager-type person for Aerosmith, performing in the concert, called the crew to go over some details. “There’s going to be an espresso machine in their dressing room, right?”

Uhhhhh…..

So they had to make it happen. And our little espresso machine (donated by Malgosia and Miron!) made it happen. That means Steven Tyler’s mouth touched a cup filled with espresso made by a machine donated to me. So basically, I kissed Steven Tyler’s famous big lips.

I wish I could watch (it’s on right now) to see if he looks all hopped up on caffeine. But I don’t have TV in my new place yet. Boo.

Anyhow. I’m adding Aerosmith to my Thank You list. Kinda like getting an honorary college degree. They didn’t really do anything, besides demand espresso in their dressing room. And for that, I’m grateful by fifty bucks.

Had all gone according to design, I’d have been in India right now.

The thought crossed my mind yesterday — my intended arrival date. I got a little wistful about it. But it’s all good, I know. Gives me more breathing room, especially for fundraising. And speaking of which. Last week? Record CraigsListing. Epic, even. Thanks in huge part to Donnalynn’s furniture donations, the red bar climbed almost 18 points in a handful of days. (Thank you, Thank you!) My mom called me all giddy Friday night. I was at Target, standing in the bike section, a misfitting helmet squeezing my head when she called my cell phone.

Three people had come by the house that day to buy various items. But she was particularly proud about customer number three. He was swinging by for a single painting. Still, my mother instructed my father to bring the entire stack of donated framed pictures collecting in the basement. But he’s just coming for this one painting, my dad apparently protested. His crafty wife pressed him. Just in case, she said.

So she had them all out on display when he arrived and put on the hard sell. And, sure enough, the guy swept us clean of every one of them. High five, Mom.

So anyhow. Nattering Nabobs? Target bike helmet? I had no reason to mope in any September 8/India melancholy. I spent a gorgeous day with great folks, biking 25 miles in the Hartford Bike Tour. (Actually, make that 28ish miles. Thanks to Joe’s creative detour). That’s a coup for me, considering I haven’t ridden a bike in years. No joke — I couldn’t get myself to climb back onto one after childhood tumble that left me with bloody and burned elbows. Insanity, it was, that I signed my name when the office list went around for a group ride - let alone a 25-miler. We christened our team the Nattering Nabobs.

I had to re-learn how to ride a bike over Labor Day weekend in New Jersey. I swear it. And despite what they say, it was not just like riding a bike. Because I actually had forgotten how. My sister, crouching behind the backyard shrubs, caught the whole mess on video — my father running alongside me on the lawn, hand steadying the bike seat, me squealing, “Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”

Anyway. He eventually let go. I eventually pedaled on my own for a few minutes. And a glass of wine later, I went off on my own through the neighborhood streets for about 25 minutes. I even passed the spot where I took that awful tumble. (Take that, crumbly sidwalk curb!)

So, we nabobs did well on Saturday. Only two flats. One scraped elbow. And no broken bones.

But you know that’s not the story I’m telling in the office tomorrow. Weir and Shea — you are so going down.

Oh, they’re laughing now. But you should have seen them at mile 16.

The yogis don’t call it “horse pose” for nothing.

Looking for an escape route.

How did this riff-raff make it to the front of the start?

Last week, when all my birthday getaway plans seemed to be crumbling, I emailed my friend Regine and said this had to be the worst 30th birthday on record, in history, ever. Little did I know that when I met my parents in front of an Orchard Street “restaurant” Saturday on the Lower East Side, I was really walking into a burlesque club — and an incredible party my sister dubbed a celebration of “The Best Decade Ever.” (I guess that means I’m screwed after 39).

It was amazing. I’m still in awe. And I was truly surprised. A big Thank You to everyone. I love you all to bits.

Oh, and the icing on the chocolate vegan cake? A surprise visit from one of my favorite comedians, Christian Finnegan, he of “Best Week Ever” fame. He had us in stitches. I turned to look at my mom at one point and I though she was going to wet herself. My favorite line — his likening this fundraiser to the modern day version of strolling the beach with a metal detector. Fantastic. (It’s funny cuz it’s true).

Still processing it all.

Shock and relief, when I learned who the “man from my past” was (and was not!) The quick backstory? Two years ago, Donna decides to visit me in Hartford to see a traveling stage version of one of our guiltiest of pleasures, the VH1 show “Best Week Ever.” On the train ride in, she texts me: You’ll never guess who’s on this train. If memory serves, I eventually did. I guess she said something to him like, “Hey, I’m actually going to see you tonight,” and they chatted briefly. I think something fell through with his ride to the theater, or he was running late. I’m not sure. All I know is, I pulled in front of the train station to pick up Donna and, next thing I knew, I was giving Christian Finnegan a ride to the very show I was about to see.

The Klimkiewiczes — The Best Family Ever.

…because it’s so much better the second time around.

(This post totally digresses from the fundraising focus of this blog, but hey…it’s good times).

Anyhow, friends and family — and those who missed it — asked if there was a way to view the amazing video tribute Donna put together for my surprise 30th birthday party (with spot-on narration, of course, by the incomparable Ted). Click here to view it.

And thank you, again, sister.

Tag sale + windy, autumn weather = $11.

And one of those dollars wasn’t even pulled down during regular tagging hours. Some jamoke in flip-flops rang my doorbell a few hours after the 50-degree chill forced us to pack it in early. He was nice enough, this guy I’d guess to be in his late-60s. So I let him inside to rifle through a few boxes. He left after a few minutes with a $1 book about young Americans and financial debt — no doubt an obligatory purchase for troubling us after hours.

Either that or some Yalie maxed out on her J.Crew credit card is about to get a serious lecture from Grandaddy.

So, anyway. Duly noted. Tag sales don’t really work so much in late October. It’s hard to sell stuff that keeps blowing onto the sidewalk.

I kid, I kid.

For those of you who worried Christian Finnegan might be onto something when he joked at my party that you were all suckers whose donations had actually funded a new flat screen TV for me: Good news! Your generation contributions are finally en route to Global Volunteers. I just paid the balance of my service program fee, and the ball is rolling to January 5.

I also heard from the organization that 11 other volunteers are signed on, with a mix of ages and backgrounds. To borrow a phrase from someone I know, that’s aces. Seriously, I’m glad I waited for a bigger crew. I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone.

And so, with the sale of a purple fleece poncho and some rattan patio furniture our buyer informed us was not, in fact, rattan (he was thrilled with the piece anyhow)…onward we go, just spitting distance from the fundraising goal.

Next up: A visit to the doctor’s office for my travel vaccinations. Oh, happy day.

Dear Passport,

Joann

So my passport was in my car’s glove compartment the whole time, smooshed between some scratched CDs and napkins. I found old receipts, insurance papers, a hair thingie, face wash, a fork, gum wrappers and of course my passport. But not one glove.

I know. It’s like, Ok, we get it. You’re going to India. Would you just leave already and stop yapping about it?

Some people have even assumed I’d already gone and come back. In fact, cousin Suzanne asked the very thing at Christmas dinner. (Ahem…maybe a little less PerezHilton and a little more JoannVolunteers, Suzie?) But this is also the cousin who turned to a young Polish guest at the dinner table and asked, apropos of absolutely nothing, “Do you shave lines in your eyebrows like Soulja Boy? (He blinked back at her. None of us knew how to say “soulja” in Polish).

Anyway. Back to the point, yes? Yes!

So, looking back at this strange fundraising experiment, I have to say I’m totally in awe. That I was able to raise over $2,900 largely by selling donated odds and ends? That’s kinda crazy, if you think about it. So many of your generous monetary donations gave me a huge boost; but a bulk of the funds came from the slow, steady sale of housestuffs and furniture in the $10 to $50 range. It was a lot of work. It got annoying — fast. And I got some funny looks from people when I explained how (and why) I was raising the money that way. But I’m a believer in this method — so many people were able to clear their homes, offices and basements of accumulating, energy-sucking junk for a good cause. It’s a positive exchange of energy, really. I think it’s totally cool. And, as many potential “customers” flaked on a purchase or didn’t show up to look at the item they were desperately interested in on e-mail, it was really fun when you’d meet someone who was so thrilled to find the (fill in the blank) they had been searching far and wide for.

I mean, really. Who knew someone was actually on the hunt for a large, purple fleece cloak with decorative trimming?

So, thank you all. I couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help — and especially without my mother and my sister playing the roles of my sales associates in New Jersey and New York. They really jumped in when I needed them.

So, if all goes technologically as planned, I’ll be posting some dispatches over the two weeks and hopefully photo and video, too. If it doesn’t go as smoothly, or if time doesn’t really allow for it, I’ll post it on my return. (If you don’t already know about this site, check it out. It’s fantastic. And it’ll give you some idea of how this will work. www.WhereTheHellIsMatt.com)

*An important note about any items not yet sold. Most have, indeed moved (a fact my father and his basement are thrilled about). The plan is thus: any items sold between now and next week go toward (more) gifts and supplies for the children. When I come back, I’ll do a final push for what’s left and send that to one of Global Volunteers’ projects. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll donate what’s appropriate to Salvation Army.

They say coming down with a case of “Dehli belly” is pretty much a rite of passage for Americans traveling to India. Even if you do your best to drink only bottled water, avoid eating from street vendors and such, you’re bound to get sick at some point — so I’ve read plenty about.

As such, I’m fully stocked with all the pills and potions to treat said belly of Dehli (or in this case, Chennai). Only, I didn’t think I’d need to bust into the stash before the trip. Anyway, long story short, I spent New Year’s Day sick and bunched up in a corner of my couch. Which is a cruel joke from above, considering I barely drank on New Year’s Eve, trying to be the good girl who had so much packing to do the next day. I tried to blame Danton and his New Year’s shrimp cocktail, but considering I’m the only one who got sick that night (that is, sick in the non-hangover kind of way) I think it’s just a virus.

God has a wicked sense of humor. Either he’s giving me a preview of what’s to come, or getting it out of my system now so as to spare me in India. Well played, God. Well played. I hope I’m better by tomorrow.

Sitting at JFK airport, waiting for my flight to Brussels, I pull out a book and start reading. Two seats over from me, a French woman pulls out a bag of Lay’s potato chips. She and her companion start crunching away, digging their hands into the noisy bag over and over again. I try to refocus my attention on a sentence in the book, and then…crunch. I stare at them, as if my passive aggression will somehow stop them.

Believe me, I realize this is not a thing to get irked over. I know the good French people are entitled to eat their Lay’s in public. But for some reason it irritated me beyond, and that’s why it got me thinking. All I’ve ever heard or read about India is that it’s an “assault on the senses.” Now, if the harmless munching of potato chips tensed me up, how exactly am I going to handle said “assault on the senses?” I don’t know about you, but my senses generally aren’t big fans of assault.

Then, I got to thinking about some advice a good friend wrote to me just before I left. Besides being one of the wisest, most solid women I know, she volunteered with the Peace Corps for two years recently. She offered a lot of wisdom. But to completely paraphrase, since time is waning here in the Brussels airport, she told me to be open — open to a different culture, to a different way of doing things. Because, she said, our way is not necessarily the right way. It’s just one way. She told me to listen, to really listen to the local people I’m working with – what they need, what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Too often, I think, we try to direct or fix. Listening can sometimes be the most powerful, and needed, thing.

And, she told me to breathe.

Breathing. I think that could get me through the impending assault on my senses. Or, ya, know, annoying potato chip crunching.

Ok, they’re boarding us to Chennai now.

Here’s the thing about life – and traveling. You’re toast if you don’t have a sense of humor about things. I wish I was laughing more in the moment. But when it’s 2 am and you’re at the airport of a country you’ve never visited, your bag is missing, you don’t know the language, you can’t find your ride and then, just to spice things up, the cell phone number you have for him isn’t working? Yeah, the laughter comes only after the fact, when you’re sitting in your guest room, typing away under the cover of mosquito netting.

So, we’ll start on the plane in Chennai. I’m sitting next to an older fellow, who is returning to his home in Chennai for an extended work-related project. I tell him what brings me to Chennai, and we chat a bit about it before he gets to this question.

“So, does your boyrfriend or husband approve of this trip?”

“Yes. Yes, he does,” I say, offering up the little white lie because I have a sneaking suspicion that no good can come from answering this question truthfully. (Turns out I was right. He has a son in his mid-20s who he’d like to marry off sooner than later. “I’d like to be a grandfather,” he says. He wanted to know if I knew of any single women back in the states. So all you ladies, let me know if you’re interested in this nice chap who works in IT in Chennai).

Fast forward to the baggage claim, about an hour or more of waiting for my two pieces of luggage. I finally find the smaller one, mostly packed with gifts for the children. But no sign of the one with all my clothes. Then, it’s just me and a handful of people, and no new luggage being spit out onto the conveyer belt. A swarm of angry passengers collects around the baggage assistance. It’s so crowded I can’t get anyone to help me. And then I see my little airplane friend among the throng. He gets me the appropriate papers, helps me fill them out and get my claim in. And then he hooks me up with an agent, even staying to check that it’s all squared away. “Joann, I think you should be okay from here. Good luck!” he says. (I can’t say exactly if it is going to be okay, though. When I asked the kind Jet Airways agent if I’d get my luggage back, he said, “Sure.” I asked if I’d get it within a few days, he said, “Sure.”)

After a final round through customs, I head outside, to a crowd of people waiting for their arrivals. Up and down I walk, but no sign of my ride. I try to go back into the airport to fetch my kindly Jet Airways guy. But the guards at the front – the ones holding rifles — won’t let me back. I talked my way in, though (I seriously can’t remember how), and found the agent who had helped me. He whips out his cell phone and dials up the number I have for the program director who is picking me up. No answer. No answer again. Third try: “Wrong number.” It’s fair to say I was freaking out about now. Did I get this wrong somehow? What exactly am I supposed to do at this point? Am I sleeping on my carry-on tonight? I headed out to a payphone to call the organization’s office in the states. I hung up with the very reassuring woman who was going to track my ride down, stepped out of the booth and saw a man holding a Global Volunteers sign at me. He wore thick glasses, and a huge grin. It’s Stephen, the director here! And I am so relieved I could hug him. (The luggage delay took longer than I realized, and he was trying to track me down, too). We drove through the dark and crooked streets. And when we got to the guesthouse, where a faucet and bucket is a shower, and mosquito netting hangs over my bed, I was so happy to be home. (I won’t lie, though. I’d be happier if I got my luggage. Happiness is a clean pair of underwear).

I’m writing from the “Zoom” internet café, just around the corner from the guest house where we’re staying. On the way here, I met three pre-teen girls who live across the way. The children here are so friendly, and so excited at the chance to practice their English. They’ll ask questions like, “What is your name?” How old are you? Where are you from?”

One of the girls said, “You have beautiful cat eyes.” Her cousin added, “But you have no eyebrows.” I agreed my eyebrows weren’t as dark and thick and beautiful as theirs. They told me they had a cousin with bushy eyebrows who could spare me some.

They asked what other languages I know, and so I taught them a few words in Polish. They couldn’t get enough of “Dobranoc” (good night) and kept singing it over and over.

 And so, what else? I’m settling in more today. Still no luggage, but with two pants, two shirts and some clothes a volunteer who just left lent me, I’m making do. It’s a total lesson in going with the flow. There’s seriously no other way to approach it than with a sense of humor. So, my fellow volunteers will just have to get used to my two green t-shirts. Today was also our official orientation. There are 11 of us, of all backgrounds and ages – teachers, retirees, a college student, and an 80-year-old woman for whom this is her 9th GV trip. How fantastic is that? Stephen went over a long list of items, from general guidelines to cultural considerations to teaching us a few words in Tamil, the language spoken here. We are in Porur, on the outskirts of Chennai. It’s one of the most conservative neighborhoods in the region, and so we have to dress accordingly. No shorts for women, skirts below the knee and no sleeveless tops. That’ll make painting interesting.

Which brings me to our assignments. We chose them today. I’m spending my first week painting at the St. Joseph Social Service Center, a daycare/children’s home that hasn’t been renovated or painted in more than 20 years. My second week, I’ll be working at Assissi Illam, a daycare/children’s home with children between the ages of 1 and 16. I was more excited than I thought I’d be when we chose them. I’m really looking forward to starting tomorrow.

And so, I’ll leave you with this picture, taken earlier today as we walked the streets, so busy and frenetic with so many competing agendas – cars, children, motorbikes, animals. It’s so overstimulating, it’s exhausting to walk for just 15 minutes. And today, Sunday, we’re told, is a quiet day! “They saying goes that India can test the patience of a saint,” Stephen told us. “So be prepared.”

Writers hate to be cliche. But as I try to describe the feeling of first walking into Assissi Illam this morning, the quiet hush of the children inside, broken by their laughter and chorus of Hi’s and hand waves and shouts of “Auntie, Auntie!” when we walked in, I can’t think of anything but a cliche to explain it. Your heart just absolutely swells.

I didn’t want to leave, but it was a brief stop with the volunteers who are working there this week (I’ll be there next week).

So it was off to the St. Joseph Social Services Center for a day of door scrubbing and painting. The center, run by Franciscan nuns, hasn’t been painted in its 23 years of existence - and the wear and tear shows. The last set of volunteers did a fantastic job sprucing it up, and our job is to continue making it a more vibrant place for the children and the Sisters.

The center was opened by a Sister (whose name I can’t begin to try to spell, so I won’t — though I’ll get it tomorrow) whose mission is to serve  “the poorest of the poor.” It’s part day care center, part orphanage. Her aim has been to take in the poor’s children so both parents can go out and work to make a better living. 

The two of us painters (a volunteer named Rick and I) met Sister today. She has a beautiful presence and a warm, welcoming smile. She’s quiet, though, and doens’t speak much English, but we’re finding a way to communicate. For health reasons I’m not exactly sure of, she can’t walk very much. And so she runs the entire center from the small room she spends most of her day in.  

GV works under a philosophy of matched labor. Meaning, volunteers don’t just swoop in to do the work. There’s an equal, matched labor from members of the local community. So Rick and I worked today with Ravi and Gree (if I’m spelling that correctly). The former speaks much less English than the latter, but we managed to understand him pretty well as he gave us instruction to begin scrubbing and painting the five doors and one window of the dining room we’ll be working on this week.

But here’s a funny thing about working with them today. Whereas Westerners nod their heads “yes” and “no” to communicate those two messages, the people here have a head nod all their own. It’s more of a subtle wave of the head, as if you’re slightly bringing one ear to shoulder, then the other. And it’s used to convey, “yes”, “no” “maybe” and “okay.” So umm.. yeah. It makes communication interesting. Good luck trying to figure out the answer to your question if it’s returned with that head nod!

And so today, Ravi kept checking in on my paint job, inspecting it closely. I got worried, asking and motioning “Good? O.K?” And he’d return with that head nod that looks sort of like,  “Yeah, I guess. Nice try.”

But the work went quickly, and the Sisters are all so welcoming, spoiling us with coffee and biscuits and an amazing lunch. I’m really looking forward to returning tomorrow. We’re also  going to try to spend some of our break time with the children there. (They serenaded us with a spirited rendition of the “Hokey Pokey.”)

Ok. Off to a bucket shower before heading for an evening session at another local orphanage.

So, another day of painting at St. Joseph’s today. I have to say, it feels like something out of a movie. I’m squating on the floor, painting a set of double doors that open to a small prayer room, all the while the sisters and young girls dressed in saris shuffling by, smiling and nodding shyly. We try our best to communicate…but I’m telling you, with that head nod thing, it’s sort of comical sometimes.

Today, as I was painting the doors, Ravi and Gree come on over and take a close look. They start chatting back and forth in Tamil. And in my mind, this is the conversation.

Ravi: “Man, will you look at this paint job?”

Gree: “Yeah, should we make her stop?”

Ravi: “Nah. Let her feel good about it, then we’ll do a nice once-over when she leaves.”

Joann: “Ok? Good?”

Ravi and Gree: Head nod.

They’re a lot of fun to work with, and it’s great as we try to get to know each other through broken English, Tamil and hand gestures — where we’re from, what our families are like, what movies we enjoy watching. (For the record, Gree really digs “Judgment Day.”) 

 I’m hoping to post more pictures at some point, when time allows. Actually, I haven’t taken many from the work sites yet, as we’re asked to wait a few days before bringing our cameras.

Now, I’m off to wash up before our evening session at a local orphanage, SEAM. Our first time was last night. The children range from about 8 to 18, and I’d guess there’s about 30 or 40 or so. When we came up to the gate yesterday, they rushed up to greet us with shouts of “Hi! Hi! Hi!” and questions of our names and where we are from. They sang us a few songs, we sang to them, and then we broke out into groups, each volunteer getting 2 to 3 children to play with and read to.  

I grouped up with Hari, 14; Sukanya, a 14-year-old girl; and Tamilvanan, a boy of about 8. We started going over the English words for head, eyes, mouth, etc, with them teaching me the equivalent in Tamil. I had them read from a picture book to me, and by the third page, I was losing them. As one of the volunteers raced by, with his trio of kids holding tight behind him to make a choo-choo train, they looked at me, then at each other sorta like, “How’d we get stuck with this bump on a log?” And that’s when I busted out Simon Says. Those kids, though, play a mean game of Simon Says. There’s no stumping them. Then we wrapped up with a little Hokey Pokey, we turned ourselves around…and before I knew it the hour was up.  But our group is heading there better prepared today.

It’s clear most of them aren’t in the mood for reading lessons after a day of schooling. They just want someone to play with, new people to interact with. So, we’re thinking relay races, jump roping and the like. I’m pulling out all the stops I picked up from Mr. Sandvikck, our gym teacher at Livingston Park Elementary School.

There was a knock on the door at about 9 last night and there it was…my luggage! I immediately took it into my room to have a private moment with it.

These were all taken on a walk around the neighborhood where we’re staying.

Back from another tour of painting duty. We’re chugging along nicely, and nearly painted a first coat in the entire dining area we’re working on this week. We also took along a suitcase full of our donations today, sorted and divided amongst the handful of sites we’re all working at these next few weeks. At St. Joseph’s, we brought clothes, diapers, soap, shampoo and hair ties and pins for the girls. The sisters were very thankful.

 As we did yesterday, Rick and I used one of our breaks to sneak down to the day care to say Hi to the children. Yesterday, they greeted us with total mayhem…screaming and jumping and clustering all around. The teachers were all very sweet, but we had a feeling we were interrupted the flow of their lunchtime to naptime, so we kept it short. One of the teachers, today, brought some of her children to visit us (they were around the ages of 3 to 6) after our lunch break and they sang us songs (”Teddy bear, Teddy bear turn around….”) and we went over the English words for eyes, mouth, teeth, etc.  They were a trip — so beautiful, so absolutely full of energy and excited for new company.

So as not to cause the same commotion as we’ve been causing, we’re planning to have 2 to 3 kids each during break tomorrow to play and sing with.

At the Southeast Asian Mission (SEAM) last night, I spent most of my time practicing conversational English with two teenaged girls, Sukanya, 14, and Rebecca, 18. They wanted nothing to do with the relay races the younger ones were enthralled with (kids games, the girls said). And they weren’t interested in the algebra lesson Ginny, a retired teacher, was giving the older boys. (The lesson was a sight to see, though. Ginny has such a knack with the kids. And I’ve never seen teens so excited, so eager to learn math — bouncing on their toes, reaching for the chalk board. It was really cool).

So amidst all that, I sat with Sukanya and Rebecca and did my best to strike up a steady flow of conversation about anything I could possibly think of. Sukanya told me that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up, and that her favorite subject in school is English. “Because I am good at it,” she says. When I ask what she knows about America, she thinks a moment, puts her hand to her chin, raises her eyes to sky and says, “Mmmmm.. Abaraham Lincoln! Good man!”

Rebecca tells me she has finished her basic schooling and is now in typing class.  She says she’s one of the fastest typers in the class and is confident she’ll pass her exam next month. She’d like to become a secretary, maybe for her sister, who is studying law.

“Sister!” Rebecca says to me. “Now we ask you!”

And so they ask where I’m from, what I do for work, what the stretchy band on my wrist is (when I use the hair tie to bunch my hair high into a bun, as I often do, they giggle as if to say, “Yeah, Dude. Bad hair choice.”)

“How old are you?” Rebeccas asks. I tell the girls to guess.

“Twenty-five,” she says. I raise my thumb up to indicate it’s higher than that, and her eyes widen. “Mmmmm….Twenty seven?” she asks, as if to say please, you’re not that old are you? Higher, I gesture. “Thirty?” I tell her yes, and the girls giggle.

“Sister, are you married?” Sukanya asks. I tell her no, and again they crumble into stunned giggles. They say in India, most girls are married by 21. “What about America?” Sukanya asks. I explain there is no real set age, a woman could get married at 21, 25, 30 or 40 — or maybe never at all. More giggles.

The girls are interrupted by a woman who works at SEAM to help prepare dinner, boiling over a pit fire outside.

And so we all wrap up the evening in the hall (used at night for the boys to sleep on the floor, on mats) playing sing-a-long games and Simon Says (can’t get enough of that Simon!) When we leave, it’s a chours of “Byyyyyeeeeee!”, and they run up to hug us and give us high-fives.

And we say to them, “Nallai Pakkalam!” (”See you tomorrow!”)

Just back from painting. We’re coming along nicely, I think. Stephen, our country director here, stopped in today to see how we were doing and see the progression of the work. He told us we’d never believe what the place looked like more than a year ago, before Global Volunteers starting working on it, bit by bit — painting, repairs and the installation of new bathrooms. And even though local laborers are helping us, the work only happens when GV volunteers are here. So Rick and I are glad to jump in to help wrap things up.

The yearlong facelift is nearly done now, with just our dining room (which is almost done) an upstairs section and Sister Backiyam’s tiny room. We’re doing that tomorrow, our last day of painting. They’ll be taking Sister to another room for the day so we can do it.

In other news, I spent the evening again with Sukanya and Rebecca. We practiced reading (which both are very good at) and tried some more conversational English. I pulled out every topic I could think of — We talked about their nailpolish, my ugly toes, about their favorite foods, about my family and work back home. I even pulled out my driver’s license as an opportunity for them to tell me about driving laws and licenses in India. But I’m running dry for topics. Today, I’ll bring my iPod and play some music. I’ve also torn out some magazine pictures and will have them describe the scene to me. But I’m desperate for ideas. Stephen says the main goal for these girls is to practice conversational English — so if you’ve got any ideas for how to engage them in fun ways, please send them along!!

This is what the dining room looked like, as of yesterday afternoon. It’s further along and nearly done.

Me and my boys, Ravi and Gree.

I’m trying to perfect Ravi’s technique. (Across first, up and down second, he instructs. But Gree seems to have a different technique. Just up and down. So, I just change ‘em up, depending on who’s looking over my shoulder!)

This is what happens when you sneak in to say hello to the children downstairs, toting a camera! It’s just asking for trouble. About 15 kids rush around you, nearly knocking you down. “Auntie! Auntie!” they shout as they reach up for the camera. I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of their little hands grabbing at the lens!

Lest my dear friend Carl think I’m actually sunning myself on the beaches of Goa, a cocktail in one hand and sun lotion in the other. This was taken Thursday, sanding the windows to the small chapel that is next in line for a facelift. That’s Ravi supervising my sanding technique.

It was appropriate that the last stitch of painting we did at St. Joseph’s today was the center’s entrance door — the one we exited through after saying goodbye.

Today was our last day of painting at St. Joseph’s for Rick and I. It was sad to leave, and saying goodbye to Ravi and Gree was an endless round of nandris, and their English translation, Thank you. The two said we did a nice job, with Ravi raising his fingers in an “ok” gesture and rendering our week’s work “Super!”

Dowstairs in the children’s home, Rick and I managed to cause mayhem again today. We took part of our lunch break singing with a smaller group of the children, playing patty cake and just generally letting them jump all over us like we were a human jungle gym. One of their teachers, whose name I never caught but who smile I always did, called me down just before we had to leave. She gave me a gift of pink bangle bracelets. When she tried squeezing them onto my right hand with the help of a teenaged girl with no luck, we managed to slip them onto my left hand with the help of some soap and water.

Sister Bakkiam and the others invited us into her temporary room to say goodbye. They thanked us heartily, hands gesturing in prayer, and left us with handwritten notes, that read in part:

Dear Joann Klimkiewicz,

Sr. Bakkiam, staff and children

Three other volunteers will replace us next week, as Rick heads home and I head to Assissi Illam. We made a lot of headway. The dining room is finished (allowing the sisters to move their things back in and catch up on their lunchtime Indian soap operas!). Sister Bakkiam’s room is well along, and Rick and I finished all the doors and windows of the small chapel.

Last night as SEAM, I spent the hour talking again with Sukanya and Rebecca. I brought along pictures I had ripped out from American magazines that I found in our guesthouse. I figured they’d be a good way to spark a conversation about American culture, and also a way for them to practice their English by describing what they saw in the images.So we sat cross-legged on the concrete of the dusty courtyard. I pulled the tattered pages from my bag and we went through them, one by one. Now, my options on pictures (and appropriate ones, at that) were slim. Most of the magazines I found here were of the celebrity tabloid variety. So that explains why the first picture was of singer Gwen Stefani holding her baby, wearing his birthday hat and clutching a red balloon. There was all sorts of stuff going on in that picture that they could describe, and they did well. Through the pictures we went, of smiling babies, of a woman eating a chocolate ice cream bar and of best girlfriends running in a field under a blue sky (it proved a good opportunity to go over the words “flavor”, “grass” and “cloud”).When we had finished, Sukanya flipped over one of the pages, ripped from an US Weekly magazine. She scanned the red-carpet snapshots of celebrity women, pointed to one and said, “Ajalina Joly.” I was stunned. How did these girls know about the actress Angelina Jolie? I asked her if she knew this woman, and she smiled and nodded her head emphatically. “Ajalina Joly!” she said. What did she know about her, how did she know about her, I asked. And then, Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the caption, that in big block letters read: ANGELINA JOLIE. They erupted in giggles.Snookered by a 14-year-old!We took off to the kitchen, where I asked the girls to give me a tour and tell me about all the things they cook and how they do it. It proved a great way to get them talking, and teach them some new words (”pour,” for instance). They showed me the steel covered pot they use to make rice cakes, showed me the shelf stocked with cardamom and pepper, and flipped through Rebecca’s cookbook (a chance to teach them the word “recipe”).Dry of anything else to talk about, I whipped out my iPod and let them listen to some music. It happened to be cued to a song by Madonna called “Little Star” (quiet, Danton!). And they listened, each with one ear piece in their ear.They were so quiet as they listened. “Cool,” Rebecca said finally, using the word I had taught her.”Little,” said Sukanya, putting her hand low to illustrate the word. “Star,” she said pointing to the sky.Sukanya gives me a tour of the kitchen at SEAM.
That’s Sukanya up front in blue next to Tamilvannen. That’s Rebecca in the green in the back, right.

I had a feeling running in the dusty, chaotic streets of Porur wouldn’t be an option. Still, after a few days I had the itch to run and ran it past Stephen. He said I could do it if I kept to the streets hugging the guesthouse, and as long as I wore long pants. But he said to expect strange looks. I went yesterday morning for about 15 minutes, making sure to go really early — about 6:30 — with no trouble. Some of the neighborhood kids were outside playing badminton before school, and we chatted before I took off. They said my jogging was indeed a highly unusual sight.

My painting buddy Rick is a runner, too, and agreed to join me in a run this morning. We were ready to go at 6:30 (the street just waking and still calm), and outside the same children were playing badminton. We joined them for a few minutes before setting off on the run, when one, a 15-year-old boy named Abishek, said he’d like to join us.

“Ok. But we’re going to run for about 15 minutes,” I said.

“No problem,” he said.

“But what about school?” I asked.

He pointed to his imaginary wrist watch and said, “I go late.”

He asked to give him a minute. He ran home and returned with a plastic flower rose bud for me! I tucked it in my shirt, and off we went. Through dusty streets, past lazy cows, in between motorbikes zipping crazily as they do. We ran by women dusting and washing the pavement outside their doors, and decorating it with the chalky white substance they do in the morning to invite good luck and wealth into their homes.

A few minutes in, he said to me, “Never run on this street alone.”

“Why?” asked of this street that looks like every other.

He said it wouldn’t be safe. “Bring one man. Better two,” he said.

And then, a guy on a bicycle past us, looking at this strange sight of a trio of runners.

“See?” the boy said. But we get quizzical looks all the time, so this didn’t actually seem out of the ordinary.

Still, Abishek snapped his fingers at the guy and shouted something in Tamil until he moved on.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I say, ‘Would you look at sister and mother like that?’”

We rounded the corner to our guesthouse and he left us for school, while Rick and I went on for a little longer.

Me and my new running buddy, Abikabesh.

So, I had no time for blogging over the weekend. We used our two days off to do some traveling and sightseeing in southern India.

We visited the ancient Hindu temples in Kanchiporum, where we also got to sit atop an elephant and later overwhelm ourselves shopping in a tiny silk and saree shop.

At first, the shopkeeper sat us quietly down in a line of plastic chairs in front of a long table. One by one, he unfurled a silk scarf or a saree across the table — each in a more vibrant, rich color than the next. They were all so gorgeous. How could we choose? And then, there was this palpable moment. With the silks spread out before us, the indecision and excitment swelled..and then BAM! With our chairs pushed back, we were bent over the table, sorting and sifting through the gorgeous silks like mad people, claiming our items in heaping piles. I’m pretty sure each one of us left with at least one well-stuffed bag.

Then it was onto Pondicherry, a beautiful part of the country whose architecture shows a lingering French influence. Right along the Bay of Bengal, it was a lovely place for a morning run on Sunday. And at 8 am, it was already packed with activity. Tourists and locals walking up and down the strip, and a buzz of activity outside the massive bazaar. It was refreshing to finally not be the only person running. But I was still the only woman, and received my share of stares.

From there, we stopped off at Auroville and quickly visited the ashram there, the Sri Audobindo Society. We were only actually able to tour the visitor’s area and see from afar (but not enter) the ashram’s giant golden sphere (imagine Disney’s Epcot Center). Called Matramandir, it was constructed in the 1960s, and is really a strange sight to see out in the middle of a grassy field.

From there, it was onto Mamallapuram to see the ancient stone carvings, get hissed at by a clutch of unfriendly monkeys and watch an amazing sunset from high above a lighthouse.

A great weekend — and I’d have great photos to show you. Only, I can’t seem to find my little flash USB stick that’s allowed me to upload photos here at the Zoom internet cafe. I’m really bummed about it. I had even managed to put together some video from last week’s work at St. Joseph’s and was excited to post it up. If it doesn’t turn up today, I’ll go into town and buy another.

So, you know…Please standby while we’re experiencing technical difficulties!

This morning, I awoke to an ashy, burnt smell.

I assumed it to be remnants from the incense we burned last night to freshen up our musty guesthouse. I had forgotten that today is the start of a three-day harvest festival here, called Pongal. It began last night with a ritual burning of all the old materials from the home. Clothes, brooms, linens, whatever needed discarding was burning in small piles in the streets — a ritual cleansing to start anew. I find myself really attracted to the concept, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. Because, I suspect every one of us volunteers has something old we’d like to burn off, some pattern or hurt or way of thinking we’d like to leave behind here in India, so that we might create more space to invite something better and new into our lives when we return home.

And in the spirit of inviting something new into our lives, I had my first day of work at Assissi Illam. It was quite a change, going from painting with Ravi and Gree, to tending to children under the watchful eye of Sister Rose. The facility is beautiful compared to some of the others we’ve seen, built only three years ago and run by a Sister who so clearly loves these children as if they were her own. And, really, I suppose they are.

We arrived at Assissi later in the day on account of our morning stop at St. Joseph’s Catholic School. They put on a wonderful dance performance in honor of Pongal, and served us a wonderful, warm sweet rice treat that’s traditionally eaten during the festival.

At Assissi, with most of the daycare children at home for the holiday, we three volunteers had about 8 orphaned children of varying ages to preoccupy — from babies to early teens. Now, I think I’m pretty okay with kids. I have four wonderful nephews who (I hope) will attest to the fact that my sister and I mount pretty good Easter egg hunts, and the like. But I have to say, this was challenging for me. With these kids at such varying ages and levels of English, with each of their attention spans running very short, I was at a loss for how to keep them engaged — and to keep up with them — for four hours! We played every game you can conceive of that can involve a tiny tossing ball. We read books, sang songs and counted numbers and the alphabet more times than I’d like to remember. But still, the clock moved slowly. I just hope I can be of some use to these children…but I have to remember what Stephen told us — that a lot of these children simply need our love and attention. And I have to say, I think I’m pretty good at love and attention.

With the festival going on, it’ll be the same drill until Thursday. So I’ll have to use tonight to get really creative and plan some activities with my fellow volunteers there, Roma and Anne, and get a good night’s sleep so I’ll be raring to go for a longer day tomorrow.

Happy Pongal!

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.

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.

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.

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….

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).

I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a tough few days for me at Assissi.

With these children of such wide-ranging ages, it’s difficult to keep them all engaged and active. Roma and Anne, of course, are naturals. They instinctively know what the kids need, and how best to lay some boundaries and transition them onto the next activity. Me? I’m more than a little insecure about my knack for younger children. I’m totally winging it, going from Dr. Seuss to Simon Says to math equations in the span of 15 minutes. “Auntie!” one boy screams, motioning to toss a ball with him. “Auntie!” another screams, holding up a pack of flashcards. And all the while, the little ones crawl and coo all over you.

On the ride back the other day, I confided to Anne that I felt of no use to these children. And she made me see how I am — and how we all are, working together there as a team. If we weren’t there, they’d likely be sitting inside on the tile floor of Assissi these quiet few days of Pongal, probably bored with themselves and not getting much stimulation.

And a few days in, I can see what Anne means. It’s in the way they greet us so happily at the front gate, the way that Lakshmannan is just a tad sharper in his addition and subtraction, and in the way they remember the singalong songs or phrases or games we only just taught them the day before. The teachers here call it “seeing the light go on” in the kids. And they say that’s what’s kept them going in an often thankless profession for all these years. Seeing that light. It’s pretty cool to see, I’d agree.

And I see it the most with little Augustine, who I find myself most drawn to. Just over three years old, he came to the orphange about four months ago, given up by an unwed mother he still sees in church on Sundays. She never acknowledges him, though — which actually may be the best thing for him to move on.

Augustine is an adorable, gentle little boy. But he’s listless, detached and often unresponsive. Sister Rose tries in vein to get him to play with the other children. And there are times I’m speaking directly at him, waving my hand near his face and he barely flinches — staring off in the distance. But I keep trying with him, singing to him, reading to him, showing flashcards with alphabets. Yesterday, I attempted a hand-clapping game with him that I used to play when I was little. In his slow, hesitant way, he’s actually starting catching on, which was a joy to see.

This morning, Augustine gave me the best gift. He actually ran up to me at the gate, in that stiff-legged way that little kids do, not yet knowing how to bend their knees. He nuzzled in close to my leg and I bent down to give him a hug. He actually smiled, and it was so lovely to finally see what that sweet little face looks like with a smile. And then, he stuck out his hands — gesturing to play the hand-clapping game we had done the day before. He remembered!

He stayed lit up for a good part of the morning, and I actually heard his soft, little voice for the first time. He repeating the words written on the flashcards I raised and read to him. And when “ice cream” came up on one of the cards, he pretended to feed me. When “elephant” came up, he made his arm as an imaginary tusk. He even started jabbering away to me in Tamil. Is this the same Augustine I met just three days earlier?!

But then, before lunch, it was as if he shut down again. I have no idea why. He was staring again off into space, and no matter what I sang to him, or how many times I called his name, it was as if he didn’t hear me at all, lost in his thoughts of who knows what.

Little Augustine, sitting outside in the small play area.

David stands by his chalk drawing of a church and the symbols of Pongal — a pot boiling over with rice, and the sweet sugarcane the kids love to chew on at this season (it’s like eating Peeps on Easter). Isaac stand on the right.

Hi all!

Just a quick note to let you know how touched I am that so many of you are reading. I’ve gotten all your emails and comments, but with my internet time becoming more limited as a result of our schedule this week (and with the owner about to kick me out), it’s too hard to answer everyone in the way I’d like.

So just know I’m cherishing every little email and comment I get from you all, and get so excited when time allows to scurry here to Zoom Cafe to post my latest adventures. And THANK YOU for taking this great adventure with me.

Joann

Eating sugarcane on Wednesday, (still) in celebration of Pongal. Lakshmannan and Isaac (left) taught me to pull at the bark with my side teeth, bite into the white, juicy flesh and then spit out the pulp onto the newspaper on the floor.

The sweet smile, captured on film. Augustine was a trip today, so much more animated than he was on Monday and Tuesday. He giggled a ton and actually let me pick him up and hold him without wriggling to the ground; he gestured for the hand-clapping game, and when I said “Vanakkam” to him (”Hello”), he repeated it, pressing his hands together, prayer-like, as is custom.

I’m feeling hesitant, feeling all sorts of things about leaving. This trip is wrapping up faster than I had imagined. While the other volunteers have at least one week left (some have another 3 to 4), I leave here late Saturday night for an early Sunday flight. As much as I’ve gotten out of this trip in such a short time, a part of me feels like I haven’t yet gotten all that I needed to get out of it. There’s so much more I want to soak in, and deeper work I’d love to do here. On the other hand, a hot shower and a grande Starbucks with soy milk would be nice.

Yesterday, after a long and tiring day at Assisi, we spent the afternoon touring three churches in Chennai, including the Santhome Cathedral Basilica. A popular pilgrimmage site, St. Thomas was buried there. It was lovely to tour around in the warm sun, but I was feeling dizzy and woozy — maybe from the nonstop day at Assisi — and so I had to go slow.

After chugging some Sprite and eating a few tea biscuits, I felt good enough to continue onto Marina Beach — the second largest beach in the world. With it being the third and final day of Pongal, the beach would be a popular destination for people. Stephen suggested it would be a great place to “go see the crowds.”

Now, when he said this, I imagined it’d be like the colorful people-watching on the boardwalks of the Jersey Shore. But Stephen’s “crowds” actually turned out to be about 400,000 people, as estimated by the local newspaper. Throw in us 10 Westerners into the mix, and it got interesting.

We attracted curious stares and wild waves as soon as we stepped out of our van and onto the street. As we walk the long way down to the water, crowds of people surrounded us, shaking our hands as we wished them a Happy Pongal. Groups of folks followed us, asking to take our picture, and for us to take theirs. By the time we got down to the water, we were fully encircled by at least 100 people — maybe more. Finally three horse mounted policemen had to come to break up the crowd. It was so trippy — a lot of energy to take in, but a lot of fun to be a part of.

I ended up taking more video of the experience that photos. (And uploading video hasn’t worked for me). So here are a few that don’t really illustrate the Pongal Beach Madness, but are fun nonetheless.

This group of teenagers was one of dozens of clutches of people who stopped us along our walk.

A shot of one of the policemen breaking up the crowd. That little blonde head with the clip of flowers belongs to our dear Roma, an inspiration at 80 years old. She’s a retired nurse from Australia, and this is her 9th (and likely final) Global Volunteers trip. She says our India team (team #60!) is one of the best she’s experienced.

Check out our team blog, at http://indiateamjournal.blogspot.com

I felt just awful today — stuffy head, weak and woozy. I stayed home from Assisi (look at me, calling in “sick” even in India). I thought it was my last evening session at SEAM, and I wanted to rest up to make sure I could make it there to say my goodbyes to all the kids. (It turns out that while today was officially my final day, I’ll be able to tag along tomorrow night, too, before heading to the airport).

So I spent the afternoon tossing and turning in bed, my bangle bracelets catching on the mosquito netting around me. I couldn’t fall asleep. And I couldn’t quiet my mind. I thought fresh air might do me good (*fresh* air being relative here, of course). So I went up to the rooftop of our guest house.

When I got there, I sat in the little plastic picnic chair, as I’ve done every morning. But instead of praying or meditating as I usually do in that chair, I just found myself bawling. I’m talking weeping — as if my last friend and my dog had just died. (Let’s pretend I don’t hate dogs for that analogy to work).

I can’t explain what came over me exactly. The rush of the entire experience flipping through my mind, like a slideshow. The feeling that I only just got here, only just scratched the surface and I already have to leave. The guilt of having missed out on Assisi and not seeing those kids one more time, and not meeting the regular crew of kids who returned to day care there today after the long holiday break. I don’t even know if it’s exactly all that. All I know is that I was absolutely overwhelmed with sadness.

I cried it all out, following advice my father gave me not long ago after I’d had a particularly rough day: “Cry it out. Clean it out.” (He’s a plumber, so he likes drainage, ya know?) So, I cleaned it all out, wiped my runny nose, dabbed my puffy eyes and pulled myself together to go to SEAM.

Stephen suggested I bring my laptop to show the kids all of the pictures I’ve taken here, especially the photos and videos of them. And so we huddled them together, cross-legged on the floor. I sat in (another) plastic picnic chair. (This time, no tears). I scrolled through all the colorful pictures I’ve taken — of packed streets and vibrant colors, of sweet little faces and gracious people. And it was a chance to reflect back myself, to see where I started and where I came — sitting right there in the hall I had nervously entered two weeks ago, feeling blindfolded and uncertain of what to expect.

And when I got to the pictures and videos of them, they stood on their knees to see — pointing and laughing, thrilled to see their own images reflected back at them. It was pretty cool.

The group then serenaded me and Lucy, another volunteer wrapping up this week, with….The Jesus Song! It was lovely, and I did my best to sing along. (I’ve got it all on video, so I’ll be sure to post it when I return so you can all get a listen). Two of the children presented us with Thank You cards. On the inside is a class portrait-type picture of the group, with all of their little signatures. I told them I’d hang it up on my wall to remember them.

Rebecca did a quick change into a white dress to perform a “candle dance” for us. Her sister, Mikla, stood solo to sing a beautiful little song. And one teen boy (whose name I can’t remember, but whose signature tough-guy laugh I’ve got down pat — and torture him by mimicking it to him every chance I get), pulled out a box of matches, lighting them and putting them out in his mouth. (That prompted Ginny, one of the volunteers to shout warnings to the younger ones, “Now don’t you go trying that!”)

One by one, the kids came up and shook mine and Lucy’s hands, offering us the memorized goodbye, “Thank you. Please come again.” And I told them that yes, I’d like that very much.

The kids huddle around to see my photos.

Transcribing from a re