New Discovery

Friday was a holiday and so I had time to catch up on exciting things like…laundry. It actually was a tad bit exciting because I got to use the new washing machine purchased by folks from Grace (Thanks!). This was a new discovery for the HOJ girls for they had never seen one before. Imagine a kid in America who has never seen a washing machine...highly unlikely. So, I was showing them how it worked. They were fascinated at the clothes swishing back and forth and the water which drained out of the pipe outside. They even got a little fright when it rapidly started spinning. One of the girls joked with Sushmita, saying that she could go in there and get all clean. I was even joking with her and pretended to clean her. Some of the girls were too short and they couldn’t see what was going on inside the machine and so I lifted them up to see, but since there are several girls and I only have two arms, this wasn’t sufficient, and so they went to grab Sushmita’s stool from the bathroom. When Sushmita’s saw the stool she started crying and screaming and wriggled out of my arms! She ran out into the field and would run away further the more we tried to go after her. At first I didn’t know what had happened, but then I realized…she thought we were going to put HER into the washing machine!! Sushmita kept running further away and crying and screaming with even more desperation as I ran after her. My heart was pounding and it was so heavy knowing the fear that she must have been feeling. Since she was afraid of me, Shoba went after her and finally caught her. Then, I went out to the field, picked her up in my arms and just stood holding her, afraid that if I moved she would feel I was going to take her to the washing machine. Shoba and I tried to explain to her that we weren’t going to put her into the washing machine, that it was just for clothes and the stool was just for seeing. I took her upstairs to her room and she finally calmed down (as did I), but she didn’t want me to leave her for a while. In less than an hour later she ventured down to the wash room to jump on the same stool she had been so frightened by earlier to peer inside this mysteriously frightening machine, now assured that she would not go in.