Chapter Two

The next stop  

The military trucks were heading off to the location where the battles were taking place. They were deployed there to maintain peace and order. They were told that the rebellions were hunting down the victims even though it was already midnight. There were dead bodies and injured people lying around helplessly. The nuns and the volunteers from the red Cross army were there to give help to the destitutes and injured people with the help of the soldiers who were assigned to oversee the whole situation. The dead bodies were taken to the local mob for later mass burial. The children who survived the battles and were left without parents were taken to the Roman Catholic Mission where they were packed in an old hall as a safe house. The local organisations and the Red Cross Army donated food parcels, clothing and mattresses for the children to eat and sleep. 

Maria woke up in a mattress next to the two other girls. She looked around and noticed that the hall was full of other children. Some of them were strangers while others were well acquainted to her. There were some girls she went to school with. She remembered the incidents that took place the previous night and she sobbed again. She missed her mother, her father and her younger brother. They were all gone and she was left all by herself except the children who were around her.

While she was still crying,  a tall slim woman with silky grey hair came in. She was wearing a long while dress, a black veil in her head and a rosary was hanging in her neck. She looked at her with much curiosity. It was her first time to be closer to a nun. She usually watched them at a distance while they were at school. Her mother used to go to the convent some times to help with the household chores and she would get nice delicacies and second hand clothes from the nuns afterwards. She would bring them home and they would enjoy eating food that was eaten by educated people,  (according to her father) who was a non Christian. He would argue against the idea of going to church when her mother asked him to go with her to attend the church services. Her mother would sometimes make excuses to go to church to avoid the squabbles that would come along with that. She ended not going to church anymore.

Maria would sometimes wish to go to the church building to see what was inside. Her hopes of ever going there were about to be fulfilled when sister Mary asked her mother to prepare for her baptism. Her mother was about to go to classes for baptism when the battles took place. Now there she was, looking at sister Mary who was going to be incharge of the orphanage. She was a bit excited and scared at the same time. She wondered how it was going to be without her mother. She looked around and other children were crying. Some were asking for their mothers especially those who were still breast-fed. The crying of those children made her to cry too. It became a moment of shedding tears for everyone. Some were intimidated by the presence of the nun in front of them. They never encountered one before.

Sister Mary did not sympathize with any of them. Her sharp eyes were roving around as she diverted her gaze to all directions in the hall as if she was studying each and every one of them with much vigilance. They were panicking and crying and she seemed not to be purturbed by any of their actions at all. After a few minutes she raised up her hand to try to stop the commotion that was taking place to no avail. The children seemed to be scared even worse. There were louder screams and sobs. She took out a whistle and blew it very loud in an attempt to call for attention. Some of the children tried to run while others were seemed to be confused by the whistle blowing. They did not know what to do. One of the toddlers ran  to sister Mary and cried for her to give him the whistle. He cried while he was waving his hand to get the whistle from the nun. Sister Mary did not pay any attention to the young fellow instead she blew the whistle again. Other children were looking with curious eyes as the toddler was battling to get what he thought belonged to him. He was definitely used to blowing the whistle as it was the habit of young boys especially those who were the herdboys. His brothers who were older than him used to give him the whistle and taught him how to blow it. The struggle to get the whistle became worse as the young fellow was crying uncontrollable while he was grabbing sister Mary's long dress. Sister Mary thought of her stockings that they might tear up and her while dress would get dirty since the children had not had bath since the previous day. The boy's clothes were heavily soiled. It was obvious that most of them were collected from the streets while they were playing and there was no time to clean then up. 

Now sister Mary was beginning to be agitated by all that commotion. She tried to speak up but the situation was out of control. She yelled to try to make them listen to her. Seeing that sister Mary struggling, Maria jumped forward to help her with the toddler. She took him away from sister Mary and gave him a toy to calm him down. The toddler became distracted and was playing with the toy. Mary helped by distracting other children too. She found a piece of bread and gave to those who were crying. Some stopped crying and ate the bread because they were hungry. Sister Mary was impressed by her sharpness of mind. She appointed her as one of the girls who would supervise other children and make sure that no one was misbehaving. 

Maria was a deligent young girl. She would jump to give assistance whenever there was a need to offer one. She earned the trust of the hard to please sister Mary. Maria would go to sleep very tired every night because her duty to supervise her peers was not an easy task at all. But she would perform her duties whole heartedly and she learnt that lesson from her late mother who was not hesitant to give a helping hand whenever she felt it was necessary. " Charity begins at home", her mother would say those words when she taught her to help others. The youngest of the children were starting to recognise her and they would call her 'mama'. She would laugh when they address her as their mother although she was still a little girl who needed to be taken care of as well. Life taught her to be strong for others to lean on her.