my little moments

This week has been filled with tiny moments that have reminded me why I absolutely love India so much and most of all the kids here at Rising Star Outreach. It’s always the little things that reassure you the most that you are on the right track. Here are some of my favorite happenings from the week…

1. You may know that my family sponsors the sweetest girl in the world, Maryiambee (maybe I’m a little biased?). She also has a sweet older brother named Basha; who, unfortunately, struggles a lot more than some of the other kids. He has been asking the principal for a math tutor for some time now and she had been looking for someone to help out. I very hesitantly accepted, but since I am the one who has the most flexible schedule it worked best for me. Now, you may know that I am terrible at this voodoo magic that people call math, so I was a little scared that I would mess this kid up more than anything. My first session with him was a little rough, since I agreed to tutor only 20 mins before I needed to be over, so I didn’t have so much time to “mentally prepare” myself. The next day I had this incredible assurance that I could help him out. I started focusing not only on math concepts, but on answering with confidence. He is so hesitant to even say an answer that it’s hard to get anywhere with him. And I think that maybe if I push this enough with him in tutoring that maybe I can help him have more confidence in general, something that he greatly lacks. He is so awesome and has the capability to learn so much. I just hope that I can help Basha see that. We are only a ½ week into tutoring so we’ll see what he and I really can accomplish. Hopefully a lot. Confidence in your answers!

2. For many of the volunteer sessions we have a water fight with the kids. I wasn’t really feeling like getting soaking wet this time so I was mostly hanging to the side, but I did have a battle to pick with one of my boys, C. Vignesh. C. Vignesh is hilarious. He attacked me with a water bottle as I was walking to lunch on Tuesday, and I made a promise to get him back at the water fight. Unfortunately he has tutoring during playtime and LifeDance practice right after. So I waited. Yes, I waited for 2 hours with a bucket of water so that I could drench him. I had to steel his shoes and have another kid hold him down for me, but have no fear, he was properly paid back for drenching me.

3. You may remember Ismail who I dedicated a whole post to. He is a bit of a punk. Sometimes, his way of showing his love for me is by punching me as hard as he can as he walks by. Not necessarily the most loving thing, but trust me, it's his way of showing he cares. But, he truly did prove his love to me tonight when he punched me as hard as he could (he is only 10 so it doesn't actually hurt...usually), and then just stood there and hugged me for about 5 mins. It was awesome. Another volunteer also walked up and said "You love your Dani don't you?" He smiled huge, nodded, punched me, and walked away. Yup, I need no further confirmation. 

4. And my favorite memory for the week, happened one night during family time (my favorite time of the day if you remember my last post). I was snuggled up with one of the kids, Sanjay (also pictured in last week’s post), and he asked me to start singing to him. It was so precious, as I kept singing more of the little boys kept on gathering around me. The best part went a little like this...

Sanjay: Auntie, sing a Christmas song.

Me: Well what Christmas song do you want me to                 sing?

Sanjay: Jungle Bears!

Me: …I’m sorry Sanjay I don’t think I've ever heard the song Jungle Bears.

Sanjay: Ok, it goes like this Jungle Bears, Jungle Bears

Me: Uhh, Sanjay? Do you mean Jingle Bells?

Sanjay: Oh yeah! Could you sing that one?

I died laughing. Maybe someone had taught it to him as Jungle Bears to fit in with India, or maybe he just really misheard that one, but it was hilarious. He also asked me to sing him America songs, songs my mommy say to me when I was his age, and Jesus songs. It was absolutely precious, and knowing that I was lying on the floor, with kids on top of me, with a fan and dust blowing down my throat I probably wasn’t sounding my best. As I got up to leave, Sanjay grabbed my hand pulled me down, gave me a big kiss on the cheek, and whispered “Thank you for singing to me Dani.” I couldn’t of possibly felt any more warm and fuzzy inside as I walked home that night.

I love these kids. I love Rising Star Outreach. I love India.

peace. love. and jungle bears.

p.s. if you are interested in sponsoring a kid from Rising Star, or want to know more about what that entails check out www.risingstaroutreach.org or shoot me an e-mail at danicronquist@yahoo.com or send me a message on facebook!!