Maria's Children Pt. 2

I am sorry it has taken me so long to write this next blog. I find when I am in the full throws if traveling I really want to enjoy the act of the travel. It I'd only in the empty spots in-between when I have a moment of reflection that I really want to sit down and write.

I talked about the form and history of Maria's children in the last blog, here I will try and boil down the feeling. With some time and perspective the feeling truthfully was what I mentioned in that it takes a village to raise a child, and this village was one of the most beautiful I've experienced, and it would all happen in less than two weeks. It was steeped in love, and from the moment I arrived I felt like I was visiting distant family I had always heard of, but never met before.

I was greeted exhausted and weary off the ten hour airplane ride by two of the Maria's family team, former orphans now staff. I arrived an hour later by bus to the resort where Maria's children had rented twelve houses, subdivided into four families and each house holding a mix of staff, orphans and volunteer. These kind open hearted humans would so quickly feel like family, although many spoke little English and I spoke next to no Russian.

I was ushered into Elephant (Slone in Russian) house. I'd name everyone in our family of about 25 or so, but for fear of missing someone or horribly misspelling Russian names I'll speak in generals. Our family consisted a few American volunteers, a few adult and younger orphans and the Beslan contingency. Our mother and our father were the world renowned photographer super duo couple of Oxsana and Aurther who I became fast friends with.

Over the course of but a few days each morning would be met with hugs and much pantomime, seven meals a day, so many sweats and even more tea.

We all began to create theater together, daily.  Each morning I offered a clown class that ranged from 3-10 participants from the whole camp,  and the afternoons we each family worked on a family film. Ours was about children getting lost in there Phones and Pokemon Go, and three children went on quest to find a fairy queen (played by Maria) who released everyone from their screens and everyone danced together. We had a big theater day, where the whole camp took parts of a smashed together Wizard of Oz and Wicked, and rehearsed, did costumes, make up all in about an hour and a half, and then performed it for each other.  We also had a big game day, where the whole camp went on quests to find the lost parts of a song in an Alice in Wonderland world, I played the queen of hearts.  Towards the end of the camp we rehearsed a few classic Gould and Sterns clown Sketches such as the Running of the Clowns, They Are Naked And They Do Dance (Monty Python), and Howdy Buckaroo.

Each day was filled with hugs and piggy back rides, so much affection that I found my eyes brimming with tears daily, there was always at least one moment where a kid would just want to hug me while I led my clowning class for a half an hour, or another would want a piggy back ride every where we went, that it was impossible to not be swept in by the closeness of it all.  I taught kids slight of hand, how to make a red nose disappear and  reappear behind your ear, and then gave out red noses to the entire camp.  Kids were running around pulling red noses out of each others ears, I probably showed the trick a hundred times but they always wanted more, to see it again. 

In the evenings we would have big dance parties, then my house would settle in and watch cartoons together, kids fitting to get the best spot to snuggle in between adults.  Afterwards myself and another volunteer Kate, a college university teacher from Virginia, would sing lullabies for the kids in our house.  The boys would usually be passed out asleep, but the girls from Beslan would always wait up to hear us sing.  It quickly occurred to me that I could not remember that many lullabies, so I sang rounds, and motown and gospell songs, anything we could think off.  Many of them could not speak English, but they had there favorites they wanted us to sing each night. A few nights when Kate could not make it I sang to them myself, there favorites were "Wade in the Water" as part of a spiritual round, and "someones rocking my dreamboat".  Each moment felt precious that if i thought to hard it would melt away, so my only choice was to just be with them.

Our final night and day ended with a cabaret of the whole camp, and a circle of love where each family spent time telling what they appreciated about each other.  There were many tears and many more hugs, and we each were given Elephant stuffed animals, one of Besland girls named hers Dory, so I named my Leyra after her.  Everyone packed into vans, there were more tears and hugs, and waves and fairwells, and then the experience was over.  Most of the kids say they dream of these two weeks all year long, even though many see Maria and hers staff throughout the year, they do art at the studios, do a winter camp and field trips, this summer camp is among the most important to them.  They get a super dose of warmth and love to take back into there grey lives.  To know there is more in this world, that they do have a big silly non biological family out there that loves them very much.  Maria asked me upon the end of camp when I would be back, I said as often as I could.