Surya

Surya aged 13 (English name: Jeff) is one of the older boys in the Home, and as mentioned previously, he stays in the Home with his younger brother (Chandra). Surya has been with the home for about 5 years, and he likes his English name aka Jeff a lot.

Surya is one smart kid, no doubt.

He knows how to use a camera and recording function just by observing how we use it once. He remembers my phone number and birthday at first mention. The best part is he reads a DICTIONARY in his free time – it was during my first day at the home, when I see him resting on his bed, holding a “Nepali-to-English” pocket dictionary in one hand. He have a strong thirst for knowledge, from knowing what we work as, how is Singapore as a city. Also, he acts as our bridge between the staff, children whenever there is a communication gap between the volunteers and the locals.

On the calculators that we bought for 4 of the kids (who are in Grade Six currently and had no calculators for their lessons), Surya had been particularly interested to use his calculator as a “Notebook”, using it to store our email address, handphone number etc etc.

Perhaps it is because he is grateful for what he has now – at least he can go to school. I have never ever heard him complaining about anything in his life, not even once. He doesn’t talk much, he doesn’t say Thanks too excessively, but you can feel his gratitude and appreciation from within. His level of independence and mature-thinking is also way-above that for a 13-year old.

Being one of the elder boys, he takes on the role of a Big Brother. He helps to run errands for the Staff’s wife, do the chores, help and teach the younger kids in their homework, act as a Barber to trim the other boys’ hair etc.

"I like to play table tennis and football. I like to be doctor. Sometimes I also like to ride bicycle. I like to eat pizza and momo. I like to read many book. Mostly I like to read science and english book. I like to watch many movie like English, Hindi, Nepali, chinese. I like to watch action movie. I like to listen Nepali music. I like to go school everyday. I like to visit Pokhara. I like to draw picture."

With your intelligence and diligence, I am sure you will go very far Surya! Just keep your eyes focused and move on!

Anita

Anita, one of the young girls in the home, studies at Grade 2. Generally, the girls in the home are still very young, aged around 8 to 9 years old, hence they can be quite in need for care and concern, which they do not get normally.

Anita is one interesting girl, in 2 aspects. One moment, she can be extremely mischievous and jovial, dancing her soul out performing for you, or trying her very best to convey her message to you in English. Another moment, she can be very quiet, sitting down just to help the girls hold anchor while they made a friendship band. On the other (worrying) side, her mood can sometimes swing to a rock bottom in less than a minute. She will lay down restlessly on the floor, with tears in her eyes. Unknown cause for her mood swings.

Anita carries this big bag to school everyday. But for her, it works in a slightly different way. She and Sunita goes to the same class, and hence they share the same big bag, which they take turns to carry to school everyday.

We look forward to watching you dance, Anita!

Gibon

Gibon (English name: John) aged 6. In fact, none of us really know how to spell his name, maybe apart from the Home staff. I think Gibon just came to the Home not long before us.

He is the youngest boy there, and is quite evident that he is still adapting to the environment in the Home. Not sure of his background, I know that Gibon speaks a mixture of Hindi and Nepali language, which is quite unusual as the local kids there mostly speaks pure Nepali language. This could unveil much about Gibon’s family background.

Naturally as a newcomer to the family, he is still trying to adjust to this environment. He is always sitting at one corner, singing Hindi songs to himself or watching others play. Sometimes, he has difficulty conveying his ideas even to the Nepali boys, and not to mention speaking English to us.

Gibon does not go to school. When all the kids go to school in the morning, Gibon stays at the home and hangs out with the Cooking Man. The reason he doesn’t go schooling is because the staff already owes the school 5 months of school fee (for the rest of the kids) and with that mountain of debt owing to the school, the school doesn’t allow the home to register another new student. Also, the home staff had difficulty in finding a sponsor for Gibon’s school fees.

*Explanation: There were a lot of our friends who were confused. To clarify, the school and the Home are 2 different, separte organisations. The Orphanage Home sends the kids to one school, just like the public schools you and me attend. The school fees we donate will be paid to the School directly.

Being young and small, he sometimes gets teased and bullied by the Staff’s kid – Babu (Yes the big bully in the house). Luckily, the other boys in the home will stand up for Gibon when this happens. Unity – we call it.

Gibon has 3 good friends Keshav, Niraj and Subas. Also, Gibon takes good care of the dog at the Home called Puppy.

Gibon does have a problem of scaly, dry skin on his arm. There’s when luxurious items such as moisturizer comes into “actual use”. Glad that his hands are so much better by the end of our trip.

Towards the end of our trip, there came a piece of good news - The home staff managed to find one sponsor for Gibon’s school fees.

Thus one morning, the home staff hurriedly rushed to the school and pleaded with the school principal for Gibon’s admission and paid him a sum of money to register Gibon for school. He came home with Gibon’s school uniform! And quickly, Gibon changed into his very first school uniform and left for school with the rest of the kids.

It was definitely very touching and pleasant to see that Gibon can finally go to school like the rest. The chance did not come easy, and education is probably the key to upgrading their standard of living in future.

Needless to say, Gibon has problem adapting to school because he did not know his ABCs at all, and did not had any prior education. He was sent back home, and was asked to practice his ABCs so that he could blend in with the rest of the class.

Needless to fear, because in his environment, help is always there from the bigger boys. They immediately took on the role of tutoring him ABCs. Thanks to Bijay, Surya and Chandra. At the end of the intensive 2 hours, Gibon could recite his ABCs, with confusion still at the M, N, Os.

It was definitely nice to see how Gibon changed during our short stay of 2 weeks there. From the quiet boy who sits at one corner and did not have a chance to go to school, to the boy who was able to blend into the home, laughed and finally got a well-deserved chance to go to school.

It also tells us how our little help could make a big difference to their lives. Thus, the help that was offered – giving them a chance to go school is definitely a priceless gift.

To end this entry with “Gibon’s entry” in my black notebook. Actually none of the words were written by Gibon himself, because he couldn’t write, remember!

His name and age was written by one of the bigger boys, Bijay, who was thinking hard on how Gibon’s name should be written.

And one fine day, there were suddenly more words that were added to my black notebook.

“I like to play carromboard. I like you very much. I like singing listening music like Nepali movies. But I like Chia Yong Koh. Thank you for helping us!"”

I matched the handwriting and asked Kiran if these were his words. He was shy to admit initially, but of course they were because they definitely are not the thoughts of a 6 year-old Gibon’s!

Study your ABCs hard, Gibon! I will definitely be looking forward to listening to it when we get there in October!