Category Archives: Kaliyampoondi

GUEST POST – Keeping cool in Kaliyampoondi

Robin Cappuccino is currently visiting all of the Child Haven homes and programs overseas. He has been kind enough to share a glimpse of his journey with us.

 

Greetings from Kaliyampoondi, India and Child Haven’s largest Children’s Home, with 316 formerly destitute children. Once again I am travelling with my mother, Bonnie Cappuccino, Child Haven’s International Director, whose 80th birthday we recently celebrated.

Morning comes early at our Kaliyampoondi Home. When I get up to look around a little before 6, Tamil Selvi, a children’s care-giver, has already drawn a rangoli with rice flour on the ground outside our door. This swirling blessing will be appreciated and walked over the entire day, only to be swept away by Tamil Selvi before she draws another pattern the next dawn.

By 6, the kids are gathered for a morning non-denominational prayer in the dining hall, and then line up for cups of fresh soya milk, which Johnson has gotten up at 3 to prepare. Clusters of girls sit and drink their soya milk on the dining hall verandah, a few of them chatting with Pam Hellstrom, a volunteer intern from Ontario. Groups of boys prefer the big sand pile in front of the new girl’s dorm now under construction.

Taking advantage of the cooler morning air, some of our older girls, back at the Home for their summer break from college, help clear construction debris from inside the new dorm. We keep a watch out for scorpions and the small poisonous snakes that might have moved into the broken piles of bricks we are moving. The last time I was here, a boy helping move some fire-wood for the kitchen, was bitten by a scorpion and rushed to the health clinic down the road. We see only toads.

The girls, actually young women, are studying a range of courses; Juli is in the final year of a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and Nirmama Devi is studying English with the hope of becoming an English Teacher. In addition to Pam interning here, my little sister Kim Chi’s daughter Krystal is here for 3 months. In several days she has managed to learn more Tamil (the predominate language in this part of India) than I have learned in the past 14 years of visits. Maybe it has something to do with already being fluent in Vietnamese, French and English, or maybe, (probably), she’s just a lot sharper than her uncle. In addition to learning Tamil, Krystal has been hard at work learning names, helping Kuttiyamal and the other cooks in the kitchen and learning some interesting variations on jump-rope.

On the roof of the dining hall, where I go to watch the sunrise, a tarp of chilies from the garden, dry in the hot sun. I am told they will last for less than a week of cooking for the 400 or so people Kuttiyamal and crew cook for each day. This is my first visit in the heat of the Indian summer. I am discovering the rhythm changes the searing heat brings to activities in the Home. Heavy work, and strenuous play (cricket, volleyball) where possible, happen early and late in the day. On my first day in Kaliyampoondi I wondered where all the kids had gotten to around 2 PM, and took a look into the boy’s dorm to see everyone sound asleep.

As I often complain to the kids, the hot sun wreaks havoc quickly on my relatively useless skin which lacks the melanin present in darker skin to protect it from the sun’s rays. I don’t tend to get a lot of sympathy though, the $500 million dollar a year scourge of skin whitening and bleaching products speak to a pervasive prejudice against darker, more sun-resistant skin. Massive advertising campaigns of corporations such as Unilever, purveyor of Fair and Lovely, Pond’s White Beauty and the Vaseline and Dove whitening products capitalize on racial inequities and foster a sense of inferiority while marketing products that are dangerous and or ineffectual.

A Gandhian activist visiting the Home, described how darker skin can affect everything from finding a husband or wife, to finding a job, driving some misguided mothers to apply skin whitening baby oil to their precious infants. Perhaps vestiges of colonial or caste inequities, these biases are being strongly challenged by the Dark is Beautiful Campaign among others. Certainly whitening products are not welcome in any of Child Haven’s Homes, where, as the photos attest, each of our children is the most beautiful child in the world.

Until next time,

Robin Cappuccino for CHI

 

Stay tuned for another ‘glimpse of the journey’ as Robin continues his travels through the CHI homes in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Tibet.

GUEST POST – Vannakum from Kaliyampoondi

Robin Cappuccino is currently traveling to all of the Child Haven homes – here are some thoughts from road.

Greetings from Kaliyampoondi, Child Haven’s largest Home, with 257 children and a dedicated staff of 40. If only I had half the memory for names our father has. The first thing the kids ask me is “what’s my name Uncle?”, and of course I remember relatively few, (there being 1,300 kid’s names to remember in all our homes). Continue reading

Peace and Quiet

The following is a brief glimpse of what life is like at CHI Kaliyampoondi. Taken from her personal blog, it tells the story of one morning on Rene Cappuccino’s recent overseas visit to the CHI homes with Bonniema. 

You could not imagine a more peaceful or serene environment as this. The perfect temperature, a slight breeze, the crickets serenading in the distance… The catch? You have to get up before dawn to experience it.

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I once again find myself awake at 4:30 in the morning and instead of laying in my sweat soaked sheets within my stifling hot room, I venture outside. Lo and behold – perfection. Had I known it was so wonderful out at this hour, I would have gotten up even earlier. This tranquil atmosphere quickly dissipates once the sun begins to make her daily entrance and the world awakes from her nightly slumber. But, that is when the fun really begins.

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As the sky just starts to lighten, the first of the staff emerge to begin the daily tasks required to keep such a large and well managed home functioning; sweeping the grounds, washing the floors, and lighting the fires that will eventually cook the mornings meal. The night watchman makes the last of his rounds, and the birds begin to greet the day.

The youngest children are the first to rise and sleepily make their way to the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. My grandmother is not far behind. She is surprised to see me awake at such an hour and can’t resist a gentle scolding about my lack of proper sleep habits. As she hums and jingles away doing her bathing and laundry, the sky continues to lighten and the children continue to emerge. A motorcycle passes along the nearby lane, followed by an ox and cart. The world around is waking as well and beginning the activities of the day.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe temperature is already rising and the lovely cool breeze is slowly fading away. The children begin to pass by, calling out and greeting, “Good Morning Sister.”.

“Kalai Vannakum Child Haven.”

 

Until next time,

Rene for CHI

Kindergarten in Kaliyampoondi

Kids are cute, but these kids are ridiculously cute. Their smiles are infectious and their giggles quickly become viral. It doesn’t take much to start them going – a look, a sound, the slightest touch, and the giggles erupt. They rapidly spread from one to another until the whole room is vibrating with laughter. Continue reading

GUEST POST – How CHI Changed Me

This is a Guest Post from Adrienne Mavalwala. After raising money for CHI through a bottle drive that her children held, Adrienne and her family volunteered for a mini internship at our children’s home in Kaliyampoondi, India. She and her husband and their three children spent two amazing weeks with the staff and children – helping out, having fun, and learning a great deal. Here is a little piece of Adrienne’s story – read more on their personal family blog – Five for India. Continue reading