Babes (and bugs) in Toyland

On Saturday afternoons I open a large toy room in the Escola do Reino for the village children to come and play. I see these children during the week, and we exchange friendly greetings, but this is really the only time that I get to spend time and play games with them. The school was built in 1933 and is no longer in use. It is pretty much just a large storage building that houses the toy room and about a dozen old computers that don’t work. Fun fact: If you GoogleEarth Venilale, East Timor, this is one of the only 2 buildings in the village you can see a picture of online. I know you are pressed for time, so I have included a picture I took of the school for your convenience. Consider it an early Christmas present :P

Konde is the “keeper of the keys” that unlock the school and the toy room. He is also responsible for turning on the water and electricity at 6 p.m. every evening for the seminary, school and convents. He is not the most responsible man, and the electricity is rarely ever turned on at the correct time. Although he lives in a small hut behind the school, he is rarely there and is a very difficult man to find. He is nice enough to me, but I have heard rumors that he likes to bet, so on the weekends he is often at cock fights.  One weekend I was unable to open the toy room because he was out betting. That was difficult to explain to the children: “Sorry kids, I can’t open the toy room for you this week. The man with  the keys is out betting on cockfights. Better luck next week.” No, that’s not what I said. I just told them I was unable to find Konde so I couldn’t open the room. The looks of disappointment on their faces were almost unbearable.

Today I was able to find him without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, I had more trouble than usual opening the toy room, though. I entered through the back door, but the front door was deadbolted shut. For whatever reason, the deadbolt was stuck, and I couldn’t budge it! I tried using my hand, the base of my umbrella, and finally a tin can to move it. The children were peering in through the windows, and could see that I couldn’t open the door. I had never had trouble before. They were all standing there so excitedly and expectantly, and I felt so embarrassed! Why couldn’t I open the door? Thankfully, I eventually did get the door open, and the large group of kids rushed in.

I noticed that one boy remained on the porch, crying and jumping around. What was he doing? Was he joking around or was he hurt? He wouldn’t stop moving long enough for me to evaluate what was wrong with him at first. I finally saw that his toe was red, but it didn’t look like blood, it looked like someone had drawn on his toe with a red marker. As I looked more carefully I saw that it was, in fact, blood. But what had he done? Was he in need of help? The clinic isn’t open on Saturdays, I didn’t have any band-aids or other medical supplies with me, and no one else was around to help me. What to do?

As grace would have it, I looked up from my position on the porch and saw 2 nuns walking towards me (but heading to the orphanage). These nuns were visiting from another convent, and I didn’t know their names. I waved at them, and they waved back. Then I motioned for them to come to the porch. I ran out to meet them and explained the problem as best as I could in my broken Tetum. One offered to help and followed along behind me. She was able to ask the little boy what had happened. Apparently one of the other kids had opened a door and the boy’s toe got caught under it. She offered to take him to the convent to get Sr. Carolina (a nurse), but he didn’t want to go. He was starting to calm down and the situation was now under control. I thanked Sister for her help and she left. I was glad this boy wasn’t seriously hurt and that, while I wasn’t able to provide medical assistance to him, I was able to handle the situation effectively. Although the boy was fine, he didn’t stick around to play.

The kids are always so excited for me to open the toy room. Numerous children throughout the week approach me and ask me when and if I will be opening it again. I open the room every Saturday, so I am not sure why they ask me this, but I enjoy talking with them, so I don’t mind. I am glad they enjoy playing with the toys so much, but in all honesty, there is not a great selection to choose from, and many toys are defective or damaged. I don’t think American kids would be too impressed by the toys offered, but these kids are so grateful and excited for the chance to play with them once a week. There is a little kitchen play set with a few pots and pans, but no food. Despite this, today I had a delicious imaginary meal of eggs and kankun (a leafy green vegetable) that a young girl served to me. There is a damaged kid-size foosball game in the corner that is beyond repair. There are also legos, miniature dump trucks, memory card games, and cardboard dolls with cardboard clothes.

About three dozen kids came in to play with the toys this afternoon, which was more than usual. Some teenage boys were among the first to enter the room. They goofed around on a couple of the toys designed for little kids, but left within a few minutes. I was very grateful. The first few times I opened the toy room for the kids, they were very quiet and did not say much to me. I guess they were “sizing me up” and a little shy about the new “malae”. I felt awkward and unsure of myself, but I knew they enjoyed playing with the toys, so I continued to open the room every week.

I guess I have finally received their stamp of approval because this week many of the kids talked with me like we were old friends. I had a chance to chat with a couple of young girls for a while, which was great. I was a lot better at understanding what they said to me, which I was excited about.

Despite the lack of toys, we still managed to have a fun afternoon. Over the course of a few hours I built lego houses and monuments, learned how to draw and color the East Timor flag, sang and danced “This Time for Africa” with a group of boys (they really got into it and were so funny to watch), and was amused by magic tricks the kids performed for me.

“What were these fantastic magic trick?” you ask? Although a magician never reveals her secrets, I suppose I will tell you anyway. One boy had a button that was gold on one side and black on the other. With a flick of the wrist (and some pretty impressive dance moves thrown in there too), he “magically” changed the color of the button from black to gold. Every time he performed his trick I “ooohed” and “aaahed” enthusiastically. Another kid borrowed my rosary ring and put it on his middle finger. He then held out his middle finger and ring finger, which were side by side. He whipped his hand behind his head and then put his hand in front of me again, this time holding out his pointer and middle finger. If you do the trick fast enough, it appears that the ring is changing fingers because it is “moving” from the finger on the right to the finger on the left.  In reality, it always stays on the middle finger. The only thing that changes is the fingers that are extended: the first time the middle and ring finger are extended; the second time the middle and pointer finger are extended. I had never seen this trick before, so I was confused at first. I quickly caught on, but played along as each boy in turn showed me the trick. I was planning on using this trick on all my family and friends back home, but I guess I can’t do that now that I just revealed the secret to all of you. I suppose this will be a good way to gauge who is actually reading my blogs! 

At one point among all the kids laughing and playing I heard a really weird noise. It sounded sort of familiar, but I could not quite figure out what it was. Was it the sound of insects? Where was it coming from? I soon discovered that several of the kids had caught bugs on their way to the toy room and had brought them along to play. One boy was holding a handful of cockroaches! When he opened his hand to show them to me, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Somehow I managed not to scream or look like I was disgusted and absolutely creeped out by them. I would like to think I am getting better at handling shock, fear, fright and confusion. I don’t know how to really test this hypothesis, but I find that I am a lot less jumpy than before. This doesn’t mean I am less disgusted or creeped out, I am just better at hiding it (I think). I didn’t want to give these kids (who outnumbered me at this point about 25  to 1) a way to tease me. I was the authority figure here! I moved away from that kid and walked towards the door. A girl came in carrying a long string. At the end of the string was a cockroach! She was using the string as a leash! Yuck! At this point I was thoroughly disgusted! Out on the porch, I saw one kid slowly squishing a cockroach with the front wheel of his dump truck.  Later, as I was putting away blocks, I found another cockroach among the legos. Bleh!

Perhaps because it is the Christmas season, the kids must have thought I was feeling particularly generous today. A small group approached me and asked if they could each take a dump truck home with them. I told them no, they had to stay here. Truthfully, I would love for the kids to take the toys home. It doesn’t seem fair or make much sense for the toys to be locked in a room and only played with once a week. But if I gave all the toys away NOW, there would be no toys left in the room for the children to play with every Saturday. I told the kids they could take the toys home in May, but for now they needed to stay here so that everyone could play with them.

These sound arguments were not satisfactory to the kids. They continued to approach me, asking if they could take toys home with them. First one kid would ask me. Then another kid would follow after him. Then another. And another. And another. Literally every kid present asked me at least half a dozen times if they could take the trucks home. I became very exasperated. What part of NO didn’t they understand? Despite this, they kept approaching me with various motives for why they wanted to take the toys home. One kid reasoned that his toy was defective and he would be happy to take it off my hands for me. Another kid explained that he wanted to give the toy to his younger sister. I told him it was very generous of him to want to bring something to her, but I suggested that SHE should come to the toy room instead.

I was getting frustrated because they would NOT stop asking. They weren’t even PLAYING anymore-they were all just standing around asking me. I contemplated closing the toy room right then and there. If they were going to act that way there was no reason I should keep it open. I looked out the window to see that it had just started to rain. It had been beautiful and sunny when I opened the toy room an hour and a half ago. I figured the kids probably didn’t realize how frustrating they were being, and it wasn’t really fair to punish impoverished kids for wanting to have a toy. It would be especially cruel to send them home in the rain.

When it finally stopped raining, I decided to close up shop. When I announced I was closing the room, everyone just stood there, as if to say they weren’t ready to leave. I thought this was odd since only a handful of the kids were playing. The rest were just asking if they could take toys home. If they weren’t going to play with the toys here, why should they be allowed to take them home? I was surprised to find that the kids nicely helped me to pick up the entire toy room, which had understandably become quite messy from such a large crowd. Some of the boys had jokingly picked up the kitchen set asking if they could take it home. As you might expect, as we were putting up the toys, I was repeatedly asked by the kids if they could take the trucks home.

Finally the place was clean and I ushered them out. I was surprised to see two bigger boys stand at the doorway, guarding against any kids who might try to sneak out toys. I was so surprised to see the honor system in effect and being enforced with and by these kids. Yes, I had told them they couldn’t take a toy out of the room, but it would have been so easy for any one of them to grab one and run away. They must have known that if they tried anything like that, they would be banned from the toy room, and even worse, shunned by the other kids. At one point, one older boy DID sneak out a little toy by hiding it in his pocket. Many of the kids had jokingly waved goodbye carrying toys out of the room, but they all brought them back. The other kids saw this boy sneaking out a toy and chased after him, but he ran away. It was clear they were all very angry with him for breaking the rules. As I said, they all COULD have taken a toy if they were really determined, but they DIDN’T. I was very proud of them. They have very few material possessions, but they have been raised to be good, Christian kids with morals and values.

The two older boys stood guard at the door, and it became a kind of game for the younger kids to try to break through the barrier with toys. Even if a kid did make it through, they promptly gave me the toys back before leaving. Wow, truly incredible, generous kids.

I locked the room and started on my quest to find Konde. As I was approaching Konde’s hut, I saw 2 dogs laying on the ground in front of me. No big deal. Stray dogs are commonplace here in East Timor, and besides a few barking as I passed by them on my morning runs, I haven’t had a problem with them yet. As I moved closer, they got up and started barking at me. I stopped in my tracks, but they started running towards me, growling and barking even louder. I was really scared at this point, but again I didn’t scream. I just turned around and started walking quickly in the other direction. I wanted to run, but I knew there were a lot of seminary boys around and I didn’t want to look even more ridiculous than I already did. Why, in such dangerous situations, do I think more about how dumb I look than the actual danger present at hand? Thankfully, several seminary boys from several different buildings all ran out and shut the dogs up by yelling at them. I had tried that in vain before turning to escape, but it hadn’t worked for me. Regardless, I was IMMENSELY grateful to these kind boys who had come out to rescue me. Everyone is just so kind to me. I am truly blessed and grateful.

It looks like I survived another Saturday playing with the village children. Hopefully next week will be less terrifying.