St. Anthony's secret

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it was only out of polite obligation that we didn’t cancel on our new friend Jonas. But went we did. And as the equatorial sun moved toward afternoon, we made our way down the dusty red road out of town. It was true, a more beautiful day you would be hard pressed to find the whole worldwide. Sunny and breezy with shadows just now starting to flicker over the road. Soon we were leaving our hilly haven far behind and descending down into the heat of the open African bush.

I had to admit, I was not at all prepared. Startled even. St. Anthony’s school was a few squat brick structures with holes for doors wide open to the rolling grasslands surrounding. Sand, paling in the sun, covered everything in view. It had become hot and sweat was on our backs. They came to meet us in the neck of the path after we turned off the road - a whole pack of them, faces turned upward into a burning sun and big baby-toothed gaps for smiles. Their little hands reaching up to us, clasping our fingers and thumbing our shirts. What was left of their too large, dusty old clothes were drooping down their chests and off their shoulders. All sets of curious eyes were on us and we were - for the moment - the very center of the universe. Expressive little sounds replaced words and signaled their excitement. “How are you?” they signed.

All were deaf and none could speak. A few had known speech as small children and from them you could sometimes catch a word in their sounds, like “mama”. Some had been deaf from birth. Untreated malaria or other fevers had claimed the hearing of the rest and for an unlucky few, took other pieces of the brain too. Uganda had too many hearing and speaking children to educate and to-be adults to find work for already, so it had no use for these children. Their parents didn’t know what else to do with them or how to communicate with them. So they were sent here - a small school for the deaf funded by small donations of churchgoers and what little guilt-money the government would drop. Orphans of functional society. This Sunday in particular had been a very special day - parent visiting day. Out of 36 children, 6 parents came.

But this did not keep them from smiling this afternoon. Within a few steps of our arrival, we were mobbed by children, and all our hands actively held. As we took a tour of the school, we were flanked by barefoot escorts who were walking through the brush in order to stay right at our sides. We saw the vegetable gardens where they worked to raise a little money of their own and the well that had been overrun with red mud. We saw the bunkbed dorms where they slept, mosquito nets full of holes and little old suitcase at the foot of each bed not much bigger than a lunchbox or just a few plastic bags - their belongings were not so numerous as to require much more. We saw the classrooms where they learned to write and to sign. More importantly, they were learning small trades and skills - ones that could perhaps someday allow them an income for themselves. Every last child knew how to work - garden, carry large jugs of water, lift a spade as soon as they were able. We took group pictures of them and loved to see themselves afterward - marked by a series of signs we didn’t understand and subtle squeals. We let them play with whatever things we had on us - an umbrella, a ponytail holder, a watch - and all were of immeasurable fascination and enjoyment. And then, we all went out back to play.

What kind of things can one play in a big empty field when no one can hear or speak? Answer = almost anything. The favorite game when the mzungus came was to be swung around by the wrists so that their little feet were airborn and their heads thrown back in happiness. Some of the older boys had set up a hurdle of sorts made out of sticks and they were competing jumping over it. There were backflips and handstands and cartwheels, ranging from impressive gymnastics to imitative tumbling and somersaulting in the grass by the little ones. These were the things you can practice when you don’t have toys or Tvs or sports equipment. In an effort to divert a fight between four children who wanted to hold my only two hands, I started ring around the rosie but without the song - they would just watch me eagerly for when it was ready to “fall down”.  Oh this, this was a good game. And it showed on their faces - exploding with excitement and suspense, fixed on my every move so as to leap into the air when it was time to go round again. With children, it seems that one little smiling face can sometimes expand to three times its normal size when having fun. And African children especially get these huge happy eyes and this incredible irrepressible expression - that when fixed on you is perhaps the greatest gift anyone ever gave you. Nothing was too simple to be thoroughly explored and enjoyed. And when that got boring, something else would surely present itself, in whatever form the spindly African bush and its white visitors would provide. They rarely cried when scraped - which happened often in bare feet. Instead some would cry sporatically in an exaggerated fashion in order to be picked up and held. For these young ones, being held in the arms of an adult no doubt happened rarely if ever. So we obliged them, we the big white santa clauses coming to town.  Yes, we were the headlining entertainment for the day. And tomorrow, surely there would be something else, if you knew how to look for it.

Soon it was time to go. The evening storms were coming and could be heard roiling in the distance. Time to make the long walk back up the hill before dusk. Goodbye was a non-event. No cries or fits,  just a smile and a wave. Loss was normal, goodbyes quite usual and everyday attachments far too fragile to fuss about. Come back soon, said Father Anthony, one of the three hearing and speaking adults helping run the school. Yes, we said. Couldn’t wait.

Three hours earlier, I had arrived, broken my own heart over the scene and cried quietly all over their little heads. Children of a society that never wanted to know them, who didn’t even have the words to express what that must feel like. No toys, no parents, no clothes or shoes to ease the pain. But when I left, I dare say, I felt quite cheerful. Quite happy indeed. They had infected me. Set me straight for that second. Shared their secret, one that not even most poor Ugandans knew. A secret that we could never fully unravel or take home with us. A gift from your God to his “forsaken” that none of the “saved” could know. That life is not worth waiting for. Promises not worth making. Comfort and convenience not worth knowing. The future not worth planning. Because without all those things, even without hearing, the metric system of life measures only in moments. These ones. Right. Now. Not even memories are worth more than a few shillings. Life is pennies in a pond - out of reach as currency but so very pretty when the sun catches them like that under those gliding, glittering ripples.

Married with children: Sitcom or Epic Journey?

We went up to Poughkeepsie yesterday. The early morning train on a Sunday surprisingly full and the twinge of fall in the leaves just outside the city, turning more and more colorful as we got farther north. By the time the train pulled into Beacon, my trench coat and downtown accessories had become completely obsolete. After sleeping off the fuzz from the house party in Harlem the night before, I suddenly woke up in upstate new York – and Manhattan sounded more like another native-inspired train stop among the trees than the spitting city I lived in.

We had come to visit family, family he hadn’t seen in many many years. No one recognized the driveway at first, but we figured we were in the right spot based on the yard sale of children’s toys, plastic vehicles and cartoon reading material haphazardly decorating the entire space of the garage– apparently the garage was reserved for children’s parking— all adults must park outside in the driveway.

We let ourselves in and were immediately greeted by a warm, very full house, teeming with nearly 10 busy young children and their very friendly parents, potato chips in every room and walls stocked solid with family photos. Now this was a family who prioritized just that. Immediately after a few friendly introductions we were plopped down on a lengthy blue courderoy couch in a darkisk den with a heavy maroon carpet, laden with years of big and little feet, knees, snacks, playthings – the weight of many a lifetime, started and passed, day by day over its maroon fibers. A countdown to Christmas ticked over the mantle. After shaking hands with several of the sons-in-law, I took off my brand new navy blue trenchcoast and settled in next to them on the couch to watch the Bills game in florescent green light from the TV – not much need to get to know someone when you have football, I mean really.
The afternoon progressed as such – children crawling in and out, on laps and under chairs, being cooed and sometimes scolded, the adult conversation spoken in a tone half an octive underneath that which is used for the children so that all of us, big and small, know when we are being spoken to and what jokes are not intended for us. I ate half a bag of potato chips, not because I was that hungry but because they tasted so good eaten one at a time. If you eat potato chips fast they are too salty. Thus nothing like a Sunday afternoon to eat your potato chips slow.

Ultimately, we watched the Bills deliver their usual turnover in the last few minutes that led to their usual loss, followed by the usual heartbreak and banter between football fans. The sun was setting, the children were taking it up a notch taking turns crying, running, sharing and refusing to share with one another. If youre not used to kids you have to watch your step as they are almost always underfoot. Their worlds quite simple and never peaceful - remove an item they are interested in and they scream. Give it back to them they are quiet until they want something else and then they scream. Lesson - constantly look for alternative things they might be intersted in. They never really stop moving and when there are many of them, its like a relay race - one rests for a quarter second while playing with something and the others take their turn to run and laugh and tumble around the house. They are always the loudest when fighting over and item of mutual interest among them - apparently possessions and envy are two values that even the youngest of the human species can appreciate.
While the whole situation had me practically seeing spots and counting the seconds on the clock as it lorded over the afternoon, their parents remained relatively cheerful. They had learned to have pleasant conversations with each other that are frequently but not permanently interrupted by scolding or holding or shooing or beconing to or dressing or undressing a child – like doing a job interview while on another phone call, or shaving your legs and flossing your teeth at the same time, kind of thing. Parenting is clearly about patience, but also about negotiation, especially among more than three kids all with their own agenda– “everyone who is sitting in their seat at the table gets a juice box”. I truly think parenting might be the most admirable and noble career path, especially if you get a good ROI out of it in a few happy, healthy young adults if they grow up to be relatively normal and without any prominent social issues.

Eventually we made our way outside to the back yard, flanked by pleasant smelling smoke from the meat cooking on the enoumous BBQ. The sun was going down between the skinny yellowing trees and I heard nothing when I listened. We stood over by the covered pool, which was collecting dead leaves in a tiny puddle drooping in the center.
“Do you want a house like this?” He asked.

Ha do I want a house like this. I had to think about it. Do I want a life like this? Do I?
Part of me said yes – the trees, the smell of barbeque, the silence when you listen for it, being flanked by family who loves you above all others. The other part of me said, only if in this, I find more than a few pieces of myself. When you wake up in the morning and you hear nothing out the window, do you rummage among your dishes just to find some clatter to drown out the voice in your head? Or do you fall slowly back to sleep for 15 minutes, feeling the warmth of the person next to you knowing that you love that person more than every other person you have ever loved, and that really means something. The spouse and the children, do they fill your life with the racket you left behind when you left the city or do they give you a reason to live in the first place? Do they fill your life with doubt or with joy, or both?

Do you have to fight for each one of those big loves in your life in order to stay with it and know its price? Should I lose him first before I decide I just cant live with losing him? Should we meet with sickness, discomfort, all kinds of noise, messes, diapers and, heck, just the pure pain of childbirth in order to know how far we’d go to protect that little life we've helped create? Is it because we created it that we love it, or is it an inherent beauty of human living? Is that the magic of family – some if it you choose and some of it you don’t, but at the end of the day there is always football. What should I fight for, what should I wait for and what should I hope for when I picture myself in my future adulthood?

We boarded the train home in the dark. I tried to sleep but fitfully, clinging to his arm and wondering what time I would make it to sleep once we got home, what would I do when I grew up that I could be passionate about, and how much did he love me before returning to my previous ponderings of family, sacrifice and choices. As the orange lights of the Bronx and upper manhattan bounced off the black of the Hudson, all these questions would have to wait. I would fight hard for the loves that needed fighting for when they needed it – and I’d leave the rest for after my midlife crisis… a crisis that I had decided to push back (lovingly) by at least five years.