pain

The Disabled Asylum is on the other side of town in Puxi. Lee, a Canadian expat from the local church, took Kristen, Suz, and me to the three-story stowaway of an orphanage. On the top floor, at the end of the hall when the stench gets most potent, we enter the nursery section of the home. Little ones sit in wooden chairs, strapped in by fabric rope. Each has a different bulky fleece on and looks away from us as we enter. We sit, play, sing and clap with the kids. Some are blind, others are crippled, some have Downs Syndrome, and others have seriously malformed bodies.

There's one little girl that has sat on the third going left both times I've come to the home. She tilts her head to the right all the time and continually drools out of her mouth. I hold her left hand because her right one is always tightly clenched shut into a fist. She smiles when I sing and talk and clap. Her whole face lightens and her brown eyes flicker. Her stiff legs twitch.

I am not the most compassionate person in the world and I am enamored by some of this three-year-olds. I cannot explain this home and the affect it has had on me.