Using Our Imaginations

One of Anna’s favorite things about being in India has been watching Necessity act as the mother of invention. The children, stripped of their usual environment and toys-r-us, have had their imaginations unleashed to create and invent to their hearts’ content. Some of their recent games have included making a toy city under the table:



Creating a tent over their beds with the cloths rack:
And painting and drawing. Anna is particularly gifted in the visual arts, and has generously endowed them with water color pencils, color changing markers, roller stamp markers, coloring books and paints, which they utilize far better than I ever could. Their artwork is scattered about the house, bringing appropriate color to an Indian home. Jett isn’t as original as Rayne, but he finds great joy in asking any adult around to draw Spider man and the Green Goblin, over and over and over…probably a dozen times in a day, for him to color.

One day in the first week, we were able to go out to the market, where we found a beautiful sari dress for Rayne and a Spiderman costume for Jett.


They pretend to be the princess and the hero to no end. Jett is especially in love with his sword.

I have successfully taught the children to say “Its hot in Topeka,” randomly, just for fun. The phrase, from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, has at least half-a-million uses. For example, Jett has modified the verb to become a basic pronoun: “Stop it peeko!” and also as a ulternomen for our location: “you don’t want to go to the park today, you know why? Because its hot in Topeka today, it is.”

I would also like to mention, for my sister’s sake particularly, that we have watched “The Land Before Time” almost every day for two weeks :). I’m sure you’re jealous.

One of my favorite parts of this trip has been my reading time with the children. During our layover in Newark I was able to scrounge a copy of “Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” from a miniature Borders between the gates (thank God for Borders!). Although Rayne is five, a year younger than I was when my father first read the books to me, and Jett only three, they have both amazingly enjoyed the story. Rayne listens intently and picks up on new words, and Jett, although unable to understand the general prose, listens patiently and stays very engaged with the general plot, always one step ahead of Lewis in his predictions: Me—“Oh my goodness, what do you think Edmund is going to do?” Jett—“He’d going to do to the witches house!”; Me—“who do you think is going to save Mr. Tumnus?” Jett: “The Lion!”

These stories also seem to have taken on a very personal significance to Jett during our time here. He plays pretend and tells stories all day about being a prince, or Peter, with his sword, who goes to the witches house and kills her and breaks her wand and saves Rayne. He talks about how God is strong like a lion and how God is a warrior with a sword, much stronger than the witch, and how he wants to fight with God. Its really cool.

Next time on Nagpur Sojourners: bath time, buckets and bubbles: what it takes to run an Indian household!