The room I'm staying at is right next to the babies' rooms, so when I stepped outside of my room I saw them playing in the space between our rooms, right next to me. Sanyu is divided into three classes- the youngest, middle and oldest class. The youngest class has all the "baby-babies"- the ones who can't sit upright yet, are teething, etc. The middle class holds anyone who has graduated from the youngest class but isn't ready to join the toddler class. The third class are the toddlers. They don't wear diapers anymore, which is probably the most obvious factor separating the middle group from the third group.
These were the toddlers, running around outside my door, and this is when I met Miriam. Miriam is three, and she is as savvy as she is outgoing and entertaining. She was the first of the Sanyu Babies to approach me and I knelt down to face her beside an empty wheelbarrow, she said "Hello!" to which I in turn declared, "Hello!"
Without missing a beat she yelled, "wheelbarrow! wheelbarrow!" all the while climbing up into the wheelbarrow. Before I had a chance to stop her or say or do anything, I blinked and found myself surrounded by 5 scrambling toddlers all yelling "wheelbarrow!" and climbing over each other to get inside. Seconds later I found myself staring at a rusty wheelbarrow with no less than five shrieking toddlers sitting inside of it!
Enter Rafael, he has grown to become one of my personal favorites, but more on that later. Rafael is a stoic, solid boy, who rarely volunteers to speak, unlike Miriam. He walked up to me, we made eye contact, and he hugged my legs- he was the fist Sanyu baby I held.
Between the guesthouse (where I'm sleeping) and the house where the babies' house is a circular patio with a straw thatched roof, cement floor, and wooden benches lining the inside parameter.
the building from nearest to farthest:
my room, patio-thing, babies' room (to the right is an office building)
Sanyu children plus visitors under cool patio-thing
This is were the 20 toddlers who live at Sanyu were all playing, minus the few who escaped into the wheelbarrow. As soon as I sat down on the bench I was absolutely bombarded by babies trying to climb on top of me. Babies at my left arm, babies at my right arm, babies on my lap, babies pulling my hair, babies at my shins trying to fight each other off, using their teeth to hold their ground and climb up my legs. That was the moment the overwhelming reality of my situation hit me- the realization that the amount of physical attention and affection required to satisfy 20 toddlers is not within my capacity to give. I'm only here for three weeks but the kids have been here for years with people like me coming and going, and I knew no matter what I did in my short time here it would never be satisfactory.
I spent the next few hours playing with the the toddlers and getting a feel for the set up of the babies' home. It seems a toddler's nose is always running, and toddlers who ate crackers at snack time will drool mushed up crackers. I quickly gave in to the messy hands and faces and reminded myself to next time bring an apron to work. In general they were a happy, energetic bunch of kids playing in the sun who could never get enough of my attention.
That afternoon I fell asleep at 4pm and didn't wake up again until 3am! No dinner, no shower, no clothes to change out of, but the whole experience so far was so unreal I hardly even noticed.
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