Author: 7 Sisters

Last week, a 7 Sisters teacher assigned one of her classes to make a “wordless picture book” of the kind they had been using in their spoken English class. The girls would work together over the weekend to plan and “write” a story, pick girls to draw and color the pictures, make it cohesive. The catch? It all had to be done in English. Knowing teens’ tendency towards dissent, the teacher had them elect a team leader and said that if they made her do too much of the work on her own, they would all lose credit for the assignment.

On Monday morning, the teacher went to class and excitedly asked to see the finished project. She was met instead by seven down-turned faces. “Where’s your project?” she asked. “Ma’am, no project,” responded the team leader. “No project?” “No, Ma’am. Too hard.” “I asked you if you understood the assignment.” “Ma’am, all girls were fighting.” “About what?” They then proceeded to each tell their teacher–in detail–about the stories they had wanted in the book. “Girls, that’s why you had a team leader.” “Ma’am,” the team leader piped up again, “no one would listen to me.” “That’s why I let you all vote!” Silence. “Can I at least see what you have?” “Ma’am, nothing.” “Nothing?” The team leader pulled out a stack of crumpled white paper with a few pencil lines on it. The teacher flipped through the stack and set it down on a desk. “I’m really disappointed in you girls.” She started in on a few sentences about working together and teamwork when she noticed some twinkling eyes in the corner followed by a sneaky elbow and a swallowed smile. She stopped speaking. At once, all the girls were giggling and someone called out “Just kidding!” These little jokesters are an endless stream of surprises, including this, the beautiful fourteen page picture book they presented that morning. Enjoy.

The End.

2014 has been a busy year at 7 Sisters Home. We were pushed beyond what we believed was possible for ourselves, our girls, and our home. It hasn’t all been easy but, looking back, we are amazed by how far we’ve come. Here are some highlights from our past twelve months:

Eighteen new girls came to our home this year, bringing the total since we first opened in 2013 to thirty-two, and we currently have twenty-one girls in residence. Two of our new girls were pregnant when they arrived and this past month both of them safely delivered healthy babies. We now have three babies at the Missionaries of Charity foster home awaiting adoption.

We dealt with persistent water problems. Monsoon-related floods brought contaminated water into our living room three times while at the same time, ironically, our well went dry. We needed thirty-six water deliveries (nearly 10,000 gallons) to meet our daily needs before the well was finally repaired.

We also required dozens of workmen to keep the house in good repair including electricians, masons, plumbers, painters, laborers, and well specialists. They constructed walls, lowered our well pump down to 360 feet, installed new water tanks on our roof, picked mangoes and coconuts, trimmed our trees, painted the outside of our home, emptied our septic tanks (twice), cleared out drains, and rebuilt our electrical system after a dramatic melt down.

As the number of our girls increased, our staff increased as well. We now have twenty-two part-time and full-time staff members—including a new psychologist, new case worker, and five new teachers. Sadly, we lost our dear friend and colleague Anupam Sharma earlier this year and as we go about our work we are constantly reminded of the void in our lives and how much he meant to all of us. To read more about Anupam and his legacy, click here.

Our staff traveled far and wide for home studies, investigations, social welfare meetings, court appearances, training programs, and meetings with key organizations. We went by planes, trains, buses, autos, and rickshaws to places like New Delhi; Shillong in Meghalaya; Phek and Dimapur in Nagaland; Nagaon, Diphu, Baksa, Tinsukia, Bebejia, and Dumdumma in Assam; and Chiang Mai in Thailand. We met with thirteen outside groups, visited nine hospitals, eight police stations, and went to the dentist forty-three times!

We also became an accredited YWCA extension school with uniforms, ID badges, exams, and official certificates. Our girls were invited to dance and sing at the YWCA’s Golden Jubilee celebration and they were the stars of the show. They performed One Billion Rising’s “Break the Chain” and were much complimented for it.

We took the girls to ride elephants and see rhinos, to swim, to hike. We went to the movies and the planetarium. We lost countless games of badminton at the park (our girls are champion badminton players).

We welcomed six visiting groups, both local and foreign, who taught our girls swimming, jewelry-making, drumming, self-portraiture, and also brought us craft supplies, legos, vitamins, books, and musical instruments. Our visitors have been a great encouragement to us.

Thanks to everyone who made 2014 such a remarkable year for us at 7 Sisters. We look forward to another year serving the dear children of Assam.

We try to keep our hospital trips as few as possible. This means that if one girl has a chronic bloody nose, another has fluid seeping from her ear, and a third needs her routine check-up, we load all the ailing girls into the van and head to the hospital. With twenty-one girls, this averages to about a trip per week.

Hospitals can be intimidating places, but all it takes is a little confidence. When you go to a hospital, you need to know exactly what you want so you can demand it. If you need a certain test, just walk up to the counter and ask. If your ear is causing you pain, fill out a new registrant’s form and sign up to see the ENT doctor. If any other feminine problems are flaring up, fill out the form to see the OB/GYN.

Don’t worry about the potential crowds of people pushing to be heard first at the counter; there is some order to the system and the attendants will recognize when it’s your turn.

At first the hospitals seem like a never-ending maze of consultation rooms, testing laboratories, cash counters, and waiting areas, but once you’ve gone once or twice, you’ll start to get a lay of the land. The hospital staff begins to remember you and the frequent trips you’ve made with a girl whose ear infection just won’t cooperate.

Before anything can be done, payments will need to be made at the cash counter. Fill out a form and get referred to the cash counter. Sign up for an initial consultation and get referred to the cash counter. Let the doctor prescribe an additional test and get referred to the cash counter. Whatever it is, no procedures will take place until your bill has been paid.

The girls’ favorite part of going to the hospital is the television in the waiting room. One time the news was on and a girl leaned over to whisper, “Ma’am, different channel? This one, so boring.” We’d guess that their least favorite part is getting shots; most of our girls would do anything not to get stuck with a needle. They listen intently to what the doctors tell them to do, following even instructions they don’t like, which is why one of our girls now likes to announce, “Ma’am, I’m drinking water!”

Sometimes, a girl needs to be admitted to the hospital overnight, so we all pull extra shifts to make sure someone is with her at all times. We shift the schedule around so the girl can take comfort knowing she is not alone. These days and nights are full of little sleep, tests, and waiting as well as, you guessed it, more trips to the cash counter.

Since we tend to take multiple girls in one trip, sometimes things don’t work out and not all the tests we came for can be completed. One time, a girl needed a tuberculosis test, but there was no one at the hospital we took her to who could perform it. Thankfully, we had asked her to bring her schoolbooks for a little extra study time, but as we reviewed her long division in the hospital waiting room, she asked, “Ma’am… why am I here?” to which we responded, “to get a little fresh air,” which does us all good, doesn’t it?

Our girls love to ask about favorite things. Ma’am, what’s your favorite color? Ma’am, what’s your favorite animal? Ma’am, what’s your favorite flower? Ma’am, what’s your favorite fruit? This is partially because these are some of the first English words the girls can use with confidence—that and “Good morning, I am fine, thank you,” which they like to say in one quick stream every morning. They also love to tell us what their favorite things are, so we decided to make a study of it. We printed up some “About Me” surveys, which included questions on their favorite color, animal, food, ice cream, hobby, school subject, and flower. We also included questions about their dreams for the future and what adjectives they would use to describe themselves.

The girls who know how to read and write in English filled out their own surveys, which occasionally resulted in some creative spellings and answers, like the girl who insisted her dream is “to fish.” The other surveys were filled out by teachers who translated the questions into Hindi, Assamese, or Bengali and then translated the answers back into English. Some times the girls gave several answers—one said her favorite color is “green, blue, purple, and black”—and other times they gave no answer—our most studious girl said that she doesn’t like any games. Basically, there’s a lot of irregularity here, but with this many unique young ladies, irregularity is to be expected.

On some points, our girls are of one mind. All but four of them said their favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate. Thirteen girls also said their favorite candy is chocolate, though they specified different kinds (Cadbury, Dairy Milk, Silk). Nine girls said their favorite flower is a rose, while the others said a daisy, jasmine, lotus, pansy, or sunflower.

Other questions showcased the girls’ variability. Their favorite animals are, in order of decreasing preference: dogs, rabbits, lions, horses, cats, elephants, doves, peacocks, zebras, cows, and goats. Though six girls called red their favorite color and five girls said blue, we also saw pink, yellow, green, black, purple, brown, and orange.

After they listed all their favorite things, we asked the girls to pick three adjectives they would use to describe themselves. We love how many of them chose words like “happy,” “helpful,” and “loving,” but we found most touching the groups of words each girl pulled together. “Helpful, hard-working, smart.” “Happy, quiet, loving.” “Good, smart, silly.” “Happy, hopeful.” “Stubborn, helpful, thoughtful.” “Strong, good, helpful.” “Crazy, silly, strong.” “Helpful, studious, thoughtful.” “Courageous, jolly, easily-angered.” “Funny, loving, hard-working.”

The best parts of these surveys, however, were the final questions. What do our girls want to do in the future? They want to be doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers, engineers, dancers, singers, Seven Sisters caregivers, Zumba instructors.

And their dreams?

“To study.”
“To give all happiness to my parents and my elder sister.”
“To help other people and end illiteracy.”
“To look after my little brother.”
“To go to different places and help poor people.”
“To be a teacher and give time to little children.”
“To help girls who are in trouble.”

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Special thanks to singer/songwriter Chelsea Marie Davis for helping our girls draw these lovely self portraits and for sharing her excellent music with our song-loving sweethearts.

We’ve talked before about how important music is to our girls, but we thought you would enjoy actually listening to them sing. So this week we’ll be sharing four recordings of our girls singing four different songs in three different languages!

First we’ll share part of our morning assembly. Every weekday, right before school begins, the girls stand in three nearly-straight lines and they sing. One of the songs they sing is “Mur Apunor Dekh” (or, My Loving Motherland) about the state of Assam and it is sung in Assamese, which is many of our girls’ first language.

Next is from the first class of the day: spoken English. The senior group usually plays word games and reads stories while the junior class focuses mostly on songs and basic phrases like “Good morning!” and “How are you?”, but here we have a teacher leading the junior girls in an early attempt at an American classic: Bingo!

And the senior class leading themselves in “Baby Bumblebee,” which has taught them a lot about interjections.

Lastly, we give you the Indian National Anthem, “Jana Gana Mana,” which the girls sang as part of our Independence Day celebrations on August 15. They listened to Nehru’s speech and then stood to sing in Hindi with pride.

We hope you enjoy these sweet voices that fill our home every day!

Last week we told you a bit about what girls experience when they arrive at Seven Sisters Home. This week, we’ll be sharing about one of the most important things we do when we receive a new girl: home study.

As we try to understand our girls’ pasts and help them plan for the future, an essential step is to locate their family—if they have one. We try to gather as much information as possible from the girls themselves: names of family members, address, and neighbors. Often the closest thing we can get to an address is a village and district name, maybe a couple of nearby landmarks: a bridge, a store, a school. Relatives’ names are hard too because “house names” or nicknames are common in families. A girl may not know an uncle’s or even her father’s name. Using the information we do get, we check maps and call local organizations. For a country with 1 billion people, India is surprisingly well connected. Often somebody will know somebody who knows somebody in the girl’s family.

Of course, sometimes it’s more complicated. Like the time we travelled to a Muslim village of 10,000 looking for someone named Muhammad—one of the most common names in the world—and followed a few false leads before finally locating the right family. Or the time we travelled by train to another city to visit what we thought was a community on the outskirts of this same city, only to learn that what we were looking for was actually a remote town seven hours farther away! As we retraced the road back to our girl’s home, we wondered how our little bit of a girl managed the journey.

Once we reach a girl’s home, we try to put the family at ease while being extremely careful what we reveal. We want them to open up to us, speak the truth, help us to find out what role, if any, they played in getting the girl into the exploitive or abusive situation. Usually the girl’s story and her family’s story do not completely match, but we are learning to discern when it is in the family’s best interest to hide something. Sometimes on a home visit, the pieces fall into place, at other times we leave with more new questions than answers. Ultimately we want to know if it is safe for her to return home. Always it is a sobering experience.

We’ve only been able to restore two girls to their families, but we have hope for more safe homes and reconciliations in the future.

We’ve gotten to share a lot about the fun things we get to do with our girls here at Seven Sisters, but we also want to let you in on the more serious side of our work. Today, you’ll be hearing about what new girls experience in their first week at Seven Sisters.

As soon as a girl arrives, she is introduced to our other girls and staff. The older girls welcome her with folded hands and a namaskar (hello in Assamese) and tell their names and the new girl shares hers. Then, she is taken upstairs where her belongings are inventoried, cleaned, and stored to be returned in the future, when she leaves our care. She is given new clothes, toiletries, sandals, a diary, water bottle, and teddy bear (which always excites them). The new girl then gets a lice treatment, which we initially were afraid might be distressing. Instead, the girls find the head massage and de-lousing therapeutic, almost pampering. At the same time, a staff member finishes the inventory of her belongings.

Once the new girl is lice-free and in clean clothes, one of our older girls explains our home rules and daily schedule. Depending on the time of day—we receive new girls at all hours—she joins one of the girls’ activities: exercise, class, meals, or free time.

The next day, our case worker asks the girl if she has slept and eaten well and begins to understand the girl’s psychology and personality. She is learning how this girl will fit into our home, what kind of care she’ll need, and what kind of behavior we can expect from her. This continues during the girl’s intake interview. During this interview, our case worker will try to learn as much as possible about the girl’s life story, at least as much as she is comfortable and willing to share. The more we know, the more we are able to help. Often, a girl’s story changes over time as she grows to trust us with the details of her past.

Later during this first week, we take the girl to the hospital for a full health screening. She is checked for pregnancy, HIV/Aids, STDs and STIs, and infections. She gets a chest x-ray and full set of vaccines. We also take every girl to the dentist and optometrist where they have cavities filled, teeth pulled or cleaned, and sometimes glasses fitted.

After this first week, we continue monitoring her personality, behavior, and health to make sure she is fitting in and thriving. We work together—through counseling and life skills—to start her on the road to healing. She is now a part of Seven Sisters Home.

Whenever there’s a holiday or celebration at 7 Sisters Home, our girls like to put on a “program.” For Christmas, Children’s Day, Bihu, the girls love to plan dances and skits and songs, to have a chance to show off their artistic side.

Today, one of our friends—one who has been with us for the last six months getting to know this country and its language, our girls and our staff and our city, one who has helped us learn about English and pregnancy and germs—left to return home. Though we are sad, we are thankful and we celebrated the time we had together with a “Farewell Programme” in classic 7 Sisters style.

The girls have spent days after school preparing their “acts” to celebrate their dear Ma’am. There were props and costumes and music and scripts and way too many balloons (which would occasionally pop during the program and scare both the performers and the audience). We planned to begin at 10:30, so—after a flurry of costumes and stage make-up and props—we finally sat down to the first performance around noon.

The program began with a group Hindi dance and the girls’ enthusiasm was infectious. With more than half a dozen girls on the “stage,” we can tell that some have more grace and rhythm than others, but none are lacking in energy. Even those who couldn’t even clap along to the later rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” kept up and kept us beaming with pride.

Following the first dance, we had a selection of solo and duet songs in English, Hindi, and Assamese—with harmonies! And guitar! Three girls performed poems and our senior English class put on a small drama that they wrote themselves. Our girls are so talented! Some girls also performed a traditional Assamese Bihu dance, another Hindi dance, and a partner-disco dance before lining up to shake hands, cry, and hug their departing friend.

Some staff members offered words of thanks and encouragement and the girls offered a gift of hand-made flowers. The cake (chocolate) was delicious and followed quickly with a crowded and uncoordinated dance party. Those with grace and rhythm and those who couldn’t even clap along to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” kept up with each other, enjoying this chance for celebration and joy. Because everyone loves a little celebration, a little joy, even when we’re saying goodbye.

Life at Seven Sisters Home isn’t always easy to describe. It’s loud and sweet and energetic and emotional and fun and so many other things. We decided to document one weekend day so you could get a little sneak peek into what’s so hard to describe.

First: homework! One of our girls is putting the finishing touches on her space project.

Other girls are scanning the newspaper for English words they recognize.

We’ve got a girl who likes doing ball-point henna art and the other girls’ hair.

And one who’s trying to perfect her yoga poses.

They also like to just hang out together and relax after a long week of school.

But when relaxing isn’t enough, they make human hurdles and run around the house until they tire themselves out.

Eventually.

Our girls love to play games.

When we go on outings, we pack bags and bags of badminton rackets, Frisbees, and soccer (football) balls. The girls could spend hours beating every staff member at badminton (often a rally only lasts two or three hits) and they’re getting increasingly better at catching—not dodging—the Frisbee.

Indoors, the games are slightly less active, but just as noisily competitive. These are kids, after all.

Bingo is popular, with the girls and staff laying out on couches, chairs, and yoga mats listening languidly to someone calling out numbers, letters, shapes, or colors. Hours pass in hazy entertainment with only an occasional shout of BINGO!

Twister is a new addition as the girls are beginning to understand English names for body parts (Assamese has no word to separate “foot” from “leg”). Left leg, um, red. This game—like it does all over the world—always dissolves into giggles on the floor.

Our girls are remarkably good chess players. They win far more than we do—have we ever won?—so they often prefer to play each other; it’s more of a challenge. There were a few rounds of girls advising while we moved the pieces, but then we decided to cut out the middleman. This is the girls’ quietest game.

 

The loudest indoor game is Spoons, which we play with a deck of cards and a dozen tongue depressors. When we first taught it to them a couple months ago, the girls had a hard time figuring out when to pass cards and when to keep them (the goal of Spoons is to get a set of four and not be the last to grab a spoon—or tongue depressor—sitting on the table) but now they pass with vigor and are unable to avoid knocking depressors, cards, and other players to the ground in their enthusiasm.

Rounding out the 7 Sisters game cupboard is a table game that reminds us of Sorry! and another of chutes and ladders with a Disney twist. There are zip top bags of puzzles (Dora the Explorer; Winnie the Pooh; Aurora, Belle, Cinderella) the girls could put together over and over and over again. There is also a notepad of hangman games, which the girls love to fill with words like “sisters,” “leopard,” and “flowers.” We’ve played marathon games of Uno and hands of War that lasted over an hour.

For the girls at 7 Sisters, free time is game time, and they certainly love to play. Anyone for chess?