"You very good man."

Weird. I have 16 days left in Kolkata. The last time I had hit this point, I had been here, or at least outside of the US, for 7 1/2 months. It's so weird to think that this time I've only been here 14 days. It bothers me. It hurts a little. One month. It's not enough. I've just barely gotten comfortable exploring the areas outside of New Market, Sudder St., and AJC Bose Rd. Now I've only got 16 days left to explore further.
I am still very thankful for the time I have and do have, though. How could I not be? I'm incredibly lucky to have this chance.
It's just that my heart aches to be able to call this my permanent home. Don't get me wrong. I love my life in the States. I've got a wonderful life. But it doesn't feel right like this does. It doesn't fill my heart and then break it to pieces and then mend it and fill it again just to break it one more time like Kolkata does.

But on to the logistics. My children are beautiful. I think perhaps I caught Deepa on a bad day when I first arrived, because she's definitely come back out of her shell again. I don't think I'd realized before how musically inclined she is. She's definitely got better rhythm than I do, probably because her ears are better developed than mine are. When the Sisters play music on the radio, she rocks back and forth on her feet to the beat. When the mentally handicapped children are in "school" and you can hear them singing with the teachers, she claps along. She loves the tambourines. She doesn't sing (because she doesn't talk) but I'm sure if she did she would be a wonderful singer. It's really good to see that she's doing better than I had thought and that she has an interest in something.
Have I ever mentioned that I have a thing for pouty bottom lips? This little boy, Amrit, is pretty much the cutest kid I've ever seen with the sweetest big, pouty lip. He's one of the newer kids, so I'm just starting to get to know him, but it's not hard as he's extremely happy and friendly. He's not physically disabled like the rest of my kids, but his development is delayed due to neglect when he was young. He's a little over a year old. We're teaching him to sit on his own by bearing his own weight on his hands and working on crawling and walking a little bit. From the way things are going, it looks like he's going to walk before he crawls, actually. He's got a masi who does most of the excercis work, so I've been trying my hand (or mouth) at a bit of speech therapy while he sits. I'm not terribly good at it, as I've never done it before, but he can say "bababa," "lalala," and "aaaaaah" which is better than nothing. I'm working on "mamama" next, sticking to labials because it's easier for him to see how I'm making the sound.
My other little lovey is Ronesh, who has had a fever most of the time I've been here, though it's finally breaking. He's brand brand new so we don't really have much information on him. He's definitely not Cerebral Palsy or Hydrocephalus, which are the two most common disabilities at Shishu. I think it might just be another case of delayed development. In any case, he's had a fever. The masis don't let the ill children be around the other kids, for good reason, so he hasn't had a whole lot of interaction since he's gotten sick. And I have a thing for sick kids, too, apparently. So I've been keeping him company when I can, massaging his arms and legs and patting his back when he coughs and things of the sort. He's a sweetie, too.
Sonali and Jyotsni, the two who had arrived shortly before I left are doing so well. Jyotsni's a little diva and is always ordering the masis and aunties around and making demands. She can say a few things and understands quite a bit of bengali (nodding her head to show understanding). Her feet are still rather swollen and angled outward, but she is able to walk with support. Sonali is still rather shy and doesn't speak, but she at least lets the volunteers play with her without crying about it. She is also able to walk with some support and is definitely getting stronger. They make me happy.

BOLLYWOOD UPDATE!
I've seen two movies so far: Love Aaj Kal and Life Partner.
I really enjoyed Love Aaj Kal. It's the story of and Indian man and woman meet in San Francisco, start dating and it's implied that they start to fall in love. After a year, the girl decides to go to an art school in India and they mutually decide that they don't want a long distance relationship so they break up. They both go off and start to date other people, though it's clear that they're both a little upset that the other is dating someone else.
While all this is going on, an older friend of the man is telling his love to story to the man. The love story kind of mirrors the love story between the main characters (same same but different, y'know).
I'll let you guess what happens in the end. It's not that hard to figure out. It's Bollywood, after all.
The song and dance numbers were pretty awesome, especially since there was a bit of traditional song and dance mixed in from the older man's story. I really liked the parallel stories, too. It was really the best of both worlds - a bit of traditional Bollywood and a bit of modern Bollywood.

The second one, Life Partner, was pretty lame and not really worth talking much about. The story line was dumb. The main characters (two couples) meet, fall in love, get married, get divorced, then get back together when they realize that they still love each other. The songs and dances were the best part, but they were still just so-so. Lame.

I'm really excited to see Wanted. Salman Khan stars. The tag line is something along the lines of, "He talks casually, he eats casually, he ... casually, he loves casually, but he dances SERIOUSLY." Salman Khan is really the man's man in India. You ask any Indian man who his favorite actors are and Salman Khan is somewhere near the top of the list. I've seen him in a minor role in one other movie, so I'm looking forward to trying to figure out what all the buzz is about. It comes out maybe Friday and I'm seriously considering going the first day. We'll see.