The Pooj

Pooja is a seven-year-old wild card with abundant personality.

Emily has the pleasure of having her as a first grade student. She is super smart and super naughty. She loves story time, learning to read, using her imagination, breaking crayons, eating erasers and pencils, and pretending to have a fever.

She is also persistent. There is a set of parallel bars at the playground here at Shunem. Most of the little kids just beg to get picked up and allowed to hang from the six foot high bars. In just the past two months Pooja has learned to climb. Every day she practices and gets a little bit better. The first time she made it to the top when we were around she shouted our names so shrilly we thought there had been some sort of accident. Nope, just Pooja’s victory cry.

She is also really loving. When I wasn’t feeling well one day during class she went and found my chunni and covered me up with it and gently rubbed my hand. Every once in a while she decides she wants to be picked up. She grabs on to my legs and climbs up them like one of the poles on the playground. She latches on like a koala bear and gives me lots of squishy kisses. Everyday when she leaves class she shouts back, “bye akka, I love you, God bless you.”

She is also crazy. It was haircut day this past Saturday. A few of the kids ended up bald as a result of their lice issues. Pooja was one of them. We later found out that she did not have lice. Rather, she said that she liked being a goondu and asked the barber all on her own to shave her head.