Magic Maya

Having written just a few days ago how wonderful I thought Charlie and Lola (Maya's latest fad) were, I could now quite happily wring their giggling cartooned necks. The reason for this is because for some reason there is a particular episode that Maya has become obsessed with, when Lola is, in her words, feeling 'really, ever so not well.' As a result, whenever I now ask Maya to do something, she suddenly pulls the corners of her mouth down, puts on her best folorn face and often dives into her infamous horizontal position, claiming that she's not feeling very well. Hmm....perhaps I'll have to introduce the story of the boy that cried wolf to her a little earlier than I'd imagined...

Last night however, Maya was not feeling unwell and when I asked her if she'd like to come out with me she jumped at the chance. I've started volunteering one evening a week at a Leonard Cheshire home (an international network of homes and centres for people with various disabilities). The reason I chose this place is because I was a volunteer for a few years back in England at a Leonard Cheshire home and really enjoyed it, and although the Bangalore home couldn't be more different, I thought it would be interesting to stay with the same organisation. Maya and Lily nearly always came with me back in England and at the start, Maya was pretty scared of going but by the end, just before we came to India, she referred to the residents as 'our friends in wheelchairs.'

The residence here is home to females aged between 5 and 80, the majority of whom have polio. It's the younger ones, particularly those in their teens, that want to chat the most. When I turned up with Maya last night, they were very, very over-excited and of course Maya had to deal once more with lots of cheek-pinching and dozens of faces about half an inch from hers calling her name again and again. Naturally this was all just too much initially, and I had to explain in the gentlest way possible that she was happy to be here but didn't really like too much attention. We spent an hour there and I was really proud of the way she dealt with it. Whilst the girls were surprised that she was so 'shy' and didn't want to get up and sing and dance for them (seriously, that's what everyone seems to do here!), as her mother and someone who knows her well, she handled the inquisitiveness and excitement with a great deal of courage and grace. I could almost see her making a physical effort, and enjoying the feeling of bravery that came with this. She knew she was a 'big girl' as normally she would have been tucked up in bed at that time and she kept asking 'Is it night time? Is it night time?', a big grin spreading across her face when I told her that it was.

The girls told us that Maya means 'magic' and at one point we sat on the grass, eating mangoes with bats swooping over our heads whilst they serenaded Maya with a song in Tamil actually all about a girl called Maya. Whether or not she wants to return with me is another matter, I'll leave that one up to her. But here, like at the home in England, she is witnessing the incredible strength and creativity people display in the face of their disabilities and it's definitely never too young to be exposed to this.