| Mamita's first smile | Dhaulagiri House, Kathmandu, Nepal, February 2007 |
Our littlest is a girl named Mamita. She’s probably about five-years old and tiny. Mamita did not smile, ever. It is not uncommon for recently rescued children to go for a week without cracking a smile, and longer before they start really talking to you. And believe me, you never forget the moment they do. You can’t force it: all you can do is sit beside them silently or leave them alone until they’re ready.
But it was more difficult for Mamita. She never smiled, never said a word, not once, not even to the other children. November, December, January—not a word, not a smile. Day after day, she sat quietly. She didn’t look sad, just as though she had lost the ability to feel anything. We were concerned.
Like everyone here, she wears a woolen hat (Nepal is chilly in the winter and there is no indoor heating). Hers is kind of funny looking: deep maroon and tube-shaped. Her head is so small that the top of the hat contracts into itself, and so it appears as though as though she’s wearing a funnel. Better yet, it has a puffy ball on the top, resembling an antenna.
When she sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, eyes wide open, among the other kids who were horsing around, she looked like a little robot sent from outer space to gather information about Earth children.
Then one afternoon, I walked into the house and I saw Mamita standing at the door, looking up at me in her serious way. For some reason, I took the top of her hat and starting pumping it up and down like a plunger, making plunger-sucking noises.
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| Astonishingly, she laughed out loud, pulled her hat down, and ran away. It was like watching a statue in a museum suddenly leap to life. I chased her into the house and found her hiding behind a doorway peeking back at me. I pretended I didn’t see her at first, then lunged at her as she giggled madly and ran, looking back to make sure I was chasing her. |
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And I did—for twenty minutes. I was afraid to stop for fear she’d stop laughing and her smile would never come back. But something must have clicked for her, because it’s appeared again and again and from the looks of it, seems to be here to stay. —Conor Grennan, Executive Director
For more articles about life with the childen in Nepal, check out Conor Grennan's blog about his years in Nepal. |
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