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I am becoming a student of human behaviour as I watch the children interact with each other and as they interact with me.  I have seen some wonderful exchanges of tenderness, caring and affection between children of all ages but I notice that some children get very little attention, some get only negative attention and others get a lot of affection.  In some cases children are hard to reach because they are so traumatized that they are "not there" emotionally and do not respond to the play and attention given by others.  There are also very definite cultural preferences among the children who come from various places. But I also think that personalities and cuteness for lack of a better word also play a large part in their interactions. 

Today as I walked back to the hostel after chapel I was as usual escorted out of church by two children who were holding my hands as three or four others shouted at me or walked around us.  Then something very interesting happened, the girls were as usual speaking to each other in their own tongue, whether it was Tamil or Hindi or Malarium or whatever else I do not know but they were talking to each other.  One of the girls who was holding my hand let go to get her shoes on (they take them off before going into the church) and another came and took her place, the one on the other side also left. Then the girl who already had my one hand took the other one as well. It dawned on me at this time that she was saving the second girl's place with me while she went to get her shoes.  The first girl arrived back and tried to wrestle my hand from the other girl, I told her they did not need to fight, that they could both hold on ( It is not the first time I have had girls pound each other in the back to get my hand) meanwhile the other girl came back to claim her place  at my other hand.  Try as she might the first girl was unable to get a satisfactory position on my arm and since the other girl would not let go she left crying and walking on the other side of the road.  These girls want so much to have my attention yet there is also this hierarchy among them that is hard to understand.  I try to stay available to all of them but these kind of exchanges are unsettling.  Sometimes by trying to settle things I seem to make them worse so mostly I try to keep peace without showing favourites and then wait and watch to see what they do. Since the conversations are a mixture of broken English and many other Indian languages it is hard to follow. 

The way the girls connect with me is also interesting, there is a kind of friendly hit on the arm, and they also like to pinch you as a sign of affection or sometimes to get your attention. I do best one to one where there is a chance to talk and get to know each other.  Most of the girls like a kind of flying hug where they grab my arm as they go past and pull in close then keep going.  Most of them cannot handle a full on hug so far. They will accept a small back rub or a squeeze on the arm, but I think they are always trying to guard their hearts because experience has shown them that everyone leaves again sooner or latter. 

When there are many girls around it can get a little scary as they vie for my attention.  As I already mentioned they may hurt each other or they can get quite rough with me, pinching me or hitting me on the arm if I do not respond quickly enough.  If I have candy or some other gift I can be very quickly swarmed because they are all so afraid that they will be missed.  I now try to only give them things when they are seated at their desks in the school, that way I can get to all of them without them grabbing and pushing to make sure they are not missed. I have to constantly remind myself of where they come from and always think ahead and explain things before I do them so that they understand I will not miss any of them.  

Last Saturday night we were all in the chapel watching a movie and after the movie ended we walked back to the hostel.  The hostel is always locked up at night but generally not until the girls are all in.  For some reason it was already locked so there were about 200 of us outside waiting for someone to unlock the door.  It took a couple of minutes but then some one came.  

When the door was unlocked everyone pushed for it at once and within seconds small girls were being pushed over as everyone tried to get in.  Thankfully some of the older girls started grabbing the littlest ones and pulling back the crowd as they shouted at them to slow down.  Why they were in such a hurry I don't know as they were only going to bed but there is always this urgency to get whatever is going first.  It was easy to see how people can very easily be hurt when there is no order to what they are doing. 

While there are many rules of organization set by those who oversee the girls, it is clear there is much more I need to learn about their own rules of organization as well.