The Fayre couple visited India to adopt a 5-year-old boy who was born blind, abandoned at a hospital gate, and who had subsequently spent the last five years isolated in an orphanage with virtually no human contact.
Reading this blog gave me cheer and hope…. Lots of hope. Read about this loveable family and the adventurous journey they have Raising Pandu. I hope you will make an effort to drop a comment to cheer this family that stepped up lovingly to adopt a special needs child.
Here is an excerpt on their first meeting with Pandu
Wow! It finally happened. We went to Ashraya and met Pandu today! And… he’s not nearly as bad off as we had orginally thought he might be. He is walking around on his own, playing with toys, and oh my god, full of energy! He is still in the todlers room. He isn’t speaking, as we suspected, but he is deffinately understanding some words. We were able to spend around 2 hours with him before the children were put down for a nap. We then went back to our hotel for about 2 hours and then came back to the orphanage for around half an hour.
Pandu seemed to be really interested in me. I’m not sure if this is my magnetic personality, or just that he has been around very few, if any, male caregivers. He came up to me several times and grabbed onto my leg. He also let Lalena and I hold him for a while. Lalena played with him and got him laughing. He does have a long way to go, but I’m sure he will improove exponentially once he gets some one-on-one attention. It was very obvious that the orphanage is very understaffed. They just don’t have time to give each child the attention they need. As one of the workers put it, “the volunteers tend to gravitate towards those children who are the most vocal in seeking attention.” Pandu just isn’t one of those kids.
All the children in the todlers room were very fascinated with us. I’m sure they are for any new adult that comes in and pays attention to them. Because I’m blind, and carying a cane, they were that much more interested.
After we left the orphanage, we went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant downtown. The bill came out to 1000 rupees, which is around $20. That was for a restaurant on the 13th floor of a shopping complex with an incredible view of the city. I am now sitting in our hotel room writing this posting. Lalena is fast asleep. 22 hours of traveling and then 4 hours of sleep will tend to do that to a person. I’m gonna as soon as I finish this posting, if my head doesn’t hit the keyboard before I’m finished!
So, that was our day. I’ll let Lalena describe the hair-raising auto-ricshaw ride downtown to the restaurant. She’s much better at that sort of thing than I am. She did see her first cow walking down the middle of the road though. Well, not her first cow, but the frst cow in the middle of te road amoung tons of other traffic. Anyways, good night everyone out there in blog land! We’ll post more tomorrow.
Follow the Fayre family at their blog Raising Pandu
