Sitting on the hard, wooden chair in the corner of the room, I leaned my back against the radiator that was trying in vain to fight the flow of cold air pushing its way through the drafty window pane. I had a clear vantage point to see the children as they returned back from their day at school. Their coats placed on hooks, shoes stuffed into small, wooden cubbyholes and with backpacks slung over one shoulder they began the procession through the social room to the hall and up the stairs to their bedrooms, where the night-time routine of homework and chores would again take over, just like the evening previous.
Sipping the fruit tea that was given to me by the staff member dressed in a white frock and wearing slippers with white socks, I peered at the kids as they filed past. They were all sizes, ages, sexes and complexions: many were white, but a vast majority had the skin tone of a soft, earthy brown and obsidian-like hair, so dark that it shined—not a very common sight in the middle of Bohemia. They were Roma children; that was easy enough to tell. They stared at me, because I was foreign, and of course with anything new, the children—being glad to break the monotony of life—had to put on a show. They laughed, kicked, were obstinate and acted out a small theatrical play of disobedience as they walked diagonally through the room, to the door, which led to the hall; forcing one of the more sympathetic caretakers to playful apply a soft kick to the rump of about four them.
Many of them had to cock their heads slightly to the left to see my face, as their eyesight was obstructed by the haphazardly applied gauze and tape that covered their right eye. This gave them the look of children who had been through a war, especially the ones who wore glasses, as the nose pad was unable to snuggly place its plastic head on skin, but instead on gauze, which contorted the glasses fit, making them look ‘bent’—this was only exacerbated by the fact that their lenses looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. Their faces spoke of a silent apathy that descends upon those who are cast aside and told they aren’t worth much. I’m sure that they are violent kids too when it gets down to it. There is nothing worse than the rebellious rage of a child who knows their place in the scheme of society, especially when the rung is at the bottom.
Adriana was a robust girl with a light complexion and dark hair. She was the bouncy type—each footstep generating another round of jiggling centered in the breast and hip region of her body. Her hair looked a bit frazzled, but her eyebrows were elegantly shaped and dark, ironically giving her the most beautiful eyes in a house full of patched-up pupils. She spoke with an extreme slur that made most words completely unintelligible, claiming that the problem stemmed from the plastic, orthodontic retainer that covered the lower half of her jaw; finding out later—after hearing the high-pitched ringing of her aid—that she was in fact hearing-impaired. She informed me that her mother was Czech and her father was an Italian named ‘Antonino’, prompting the other Czechs in the room to shout “spaghetti” and “ravioli” in a most obnoxious over-played Italian accent. Adrian laughed at it.
Being 16 years of age, Adriana thinks and dreams for herself. In less than two years, she hopes to return back to the city and country of her birth, San Francisco, California, USA. And with this point, I guess I should explain how I ended up face-to- face with an anonymous girl in the most unlikely of places.
It was only two weeks ago that I realized there was an orphanage in Policka. I walked passed the road every day to work, but I never made the right-hand turn around the corner, past the old Skoda 110 parked along the curb and through the wire fence that surrounds the drab, square, red-brick building. There is a tin sign on the door that clearly states “Destsky Domov” in large blue lettering that sits upon the soldiers of the National Crest of the Czech Republic, more commonly known as the “Czech Lion”, but I guess I never really looked. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone in my ignorance.
I work as an English teacher and community organizer in the protestant church in Policka. Every Tuesday I have an afternoon meeting with the head pastor named Jan. Being a renaissance man, Jan is one who can speak five languages, has traveled to over 15 different nations and can tell you, with passion in his voice, about the plight of people thousands of miles away. He is an international-type with big ideas and the energy to get a lot accomplished; his church has become a bastion of creativity and relevance over the past 14 years. But nothing could prepare him for the shame that was about to come.
After about thirty minutes of discussing the ‘business’ that we needed to attend to on a practical level, Jan hesitantly asked if my wife and I could do one more ‘favor’. Recalling what had been sent to him the day previous, Jan told us about the plight of a girl living in the local orphanage in Policka. Due to the fact that she was born in the USA and had moved to the Czech Republic when she was around the age of 6, this girl still legally was an American citizen; she carried an American passport even though it had expired. Apparently, in a desperate measure to find friends and community, she contacted the American embassy in Prague and asked them if they could help her in anyway. Knowing that Jan travels often to the USA and had two Americans (my wife and I) working in his church, the embassy wrote a request to one of the members of our congregation with the hopes that the letter would somehow find its way back to Jan, which of course, it did.
“How many children are there?” I asked.
“I don’t know, maybe six at the most.” Jan said.
“What does she need?”
“It says she is looking for friendship. She has a hard time articulating words.”
“Have you been there before?”
“No.” Shame revealed itself through his eyes.
“Do you know anyone who has been there?”
“I know no one. I’ve never stepped foot through the gate.”
There was a heavy silence that fell over all of us in the room. Jan, a man who visits the sick, needy and the dying everyday, never made a trip to the children who have no families. Me, the American who went two-thousand miles away from home to ‘make a difference’, never thought once about reading the sign on the ugly building that I saw on my way to work. We both, at one instant, realized how short-sighted we had been in concentrating our energy on the ‘internationally-minded’ relationships that characterize our church. Concluding that we should call the orphanage immediately, Jan dialed the director and began making plans for a visit.
Adriana sat across from me and had worn a smile so large that I was able to see the color of the plastic retainer that lay under her tongue. She doesn’t speak English at all and my Czech is heavily accented, so her attempts to read my lips were in vain. My wife attempted to communicate as well, but that too fell flat on its face. Yet she still was smiling, even through the two-minute pauses in between sentences. We managed to find out a little bit about each other through halting, slurred speech. I began to speak loudly and attempted to accent my Czech words as best as I could. Getting up to leave, we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. My wife and I agreed that she would be able to call us whenever she wants and asked her if next Saturday was good for bowling. She emphatically shook her head up and down, expressing the hope that the orphanage wouldn’t have an activity already programmed.
When I left the main hall and went to the front door, I turned around to make sure I hadn’t misplaced my gloves on the wooden bench that lay beside the coat rack. The second-entrance door was slightly cracked open and through it, I could make out her face as she peered at me before she went back up stairs towards her routine of chores and homework. And, in her eyes I saw a guarded joy, as if she was challenging me to be true to my word.
