Week 3 with Compassionate Clowns

The experience this week was different from last week. The ward was a bit quiet as many of the children were asleep. I went up to a boy as he was about to start a game of snakes and ladders, and asked him if I could join him. He agreed and we ended up playing a fun game with everyone getting eaten by really long snakes and starting right at the bottom. 

Next, I met two kids, who made all of laugh so hard. The first one was a boy, who had a smile that was permanently fixed on his face. His smile was so infectious, that I ended up smiling by just looking at him. He spoke Kannada, so I tried conversing with him and his father using what Kannada I knew. I used a lot of sign language, and also slipped in some Malayalam. The thing I loved the most was, all through our conversation the child did not stop smiling for even a second.

 The second child was a girl who was really shy in the beginning. She would look at us and smile, but didn’t reply to anything we asked. While I went to talk to a family with a baby who was there the previous week, she got more comfortable with another intern, and I saw her play hide and seek with two of them. I joined them a little while later, and before we knew it, the whole ward was laughing looking at all of us running around. We also ran around both the wards playing “train train”, and were joined by another girl who, up until then, hadn’t spoken to or even smiled at any of us. The happiness on the faces of the children and their parents was so contagious. 

For me, the emotions that I felt this week were exactly opposite to last week. Last time I felt overwhelmed, but this time I was able to put that aside and just be there with the kids, absorbing the happiness of that moment. 

PS: Kids have a lot of stamina! 
Location: Sarjapur Main Rd, Beside Bank Of Baroda, John Nagar, Koramangala, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560034, India

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