I lived the first eight years of my life with my foster family and was loved very much by them. I got more praise from them than scolding. They taught me many useful life lessons, and I used them when I moved into the new orphanage. However, instead of getting praises, I got scolded.
During one night, the nannies gave permission to two of my friends and I to play in our bedroom while others were watching TV. One of us thought it would be a wonderful idea for us to get the nanny's bed ready as a symbol of gratefulness. We all agreed and started to get the blanket. Suddenly a boy, who the nannies considered to be a good boy and often let him watch over us while the nannies were chatting or doing some other things, came to give us fruit. He saw us and yelled immediately, "What are you doing?" We answered him, and the next thing I remember is that all three of us were told to go back to the TV room instead of playing. For some reason, they saw this as touching people's stuff and were completely ignoring that we were trying to make the nanny happy. We didn't get any positive comments from anybody. I never understood why they did what they did. From there I helped to get the bed ready for people three more times and was scolded two more times. Only once did a person see that I was trying to please people.
I like to help people because I like the feeling of usefulness, but some nannies refused to let me do things because they thought I was incapable, so I started to do things secretly. For example, I started to fill some nannies water bottles with hot water. I was so proud of myself that I told “my friend”. Suprisingly, she focused on the fact that I was doing things that I wasn't approved to do rather than the fact that I was helping people and proving that I could.
The nannies didn't always prevent me from doing things. These things happened after the accident I had in 2009 in a shower. I slipped and my head fell on the pointy edge of a floor that is taller than the rest. It hurt so much and I cried. A newly hired nanny named Xiang quickly checked and said my back part of the head was bleeding, which surprised me. I was taken to the nearest hospital and got stitches in my head. When I came back, Nanny Xiang was crying and three experienced nannies rushed to me and yelled, "Did you know you made the Nanny Xiang cry? " I forgot what they said after that exactly, but it was like if I didn't fall and got hurt, the nanny wouldn't be scared, and they said it in a way like I did it intentionally. Later, when I wanted to shower with my friends, a nanny who was very gentle and friendly with me before the accident, and I'm not sure if she was at the scene, yelled, "If you are going to have another accident, then watch me make your life worse." I laughed it off because it was an accident and she had no need to yell at me. From there, she became a little bit more gentle to me as times went by, but never as gentle as before the accident happened. Nanny Xiang was never gentle to me after the accident nor did she let me did anything that she would consider risky, even just mopping the floor.
Some nannies kept sending the messages that I am different than everybody else. One day when 15 of us were walking quietly to our building from where we were dropping off from school, a nanny suddenly said to me out loud in front of other people, "Alice, did you know that you walked differently from other people?" I was unhappy and simply ignore her question because it was out of the blue for me.
There were other times when I would argue with the nannies about my ability to do things, but they never listen to me since they always thought I’m different. Most of the times they would just told me to go back to watch TV with the other kids. However, one time they had enough with me disagree with them, so a nanny pull me in front of 30 kids and asked, “Is she different from you?” I heard a clear and loud yes. She then asked, “Does she walks differently than you?” The answer was again a clear and loud yes. She was satisfied and looked at me, “see, everybody said so.” Next I was told to go back to the seat and watch TV with other people. I was so unhappy and was not convinced.
The nannies weren’t only one who oppose my ideas. Once there were seven or eight of us were in a room playing with door close. A girl who has delayed problem stood outside and give us a look of wanting to play with us. I saw she was lonely so I suggested people of letting her join us. Many people, including the people who are like her, that has delayed problem, said, "Don't be too soft-hearted." Other people was silence. I didn't have the courage to do more at that times, so I let it be.
Despite the environment I lived in the orphanage, I always tried my best to walk my path without hurting innocent people. I use my own judgments to look at people around me and treated them as they have been treated me or be friendly with them if I didn’t know them. However, not all people does that and the nannies doesn't set a good example either. Sometimes the newly hired nannies would be friendly to us, until they were told by the experience nannies, “Don’t treat the children so nice, for later they would take advantage of you.”
I couldn’t understand why there so much distrust in the children from the nannies. Many times, when the nannies allow us to have fun, we couldn’t enjoy it very long. Yet despite all these things, the nannies told us when we were practice show for the orphanage director, “We love you so much that we will kiss you secretly after you all fallen asleep.” How odd that you announce loudly of something you did secretly? I was unhappy with the comment and now realize that they lies to us. On the night where I fell asleep really late when other people crashed much earlier than me, I never saw the nannies came to kiss us.
Of course, there many more examples of events that never made sense to me, and I will talk them in later posts. These are just some examples that don't exactly fit with any of the post themes that I’m going to write about later.
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