Birthday party for Roxy

This afternoon Anna, Rodesh and I had a birthday party for Roxy, one of the kids with cerebral palsy that Anna helps care for. Anna is a brilliant woman from England who has lived in Cape Town for a few years teaching bead work to groups of refugee woman as well as caring for a few of the girls we had to her house this afternoon. Rodesh, her boyfriend, is a photographer and architect whom all of the girls we had over are in love with. We pushed the four of them in their wheelchairs from their live-in-home a few blocks away to Anna's home - the girls giggling and squirming with pleasure during the ride. We spent time in the backyard with chickens, inside we listened and danced to music and ate lunch. This was my first experience with kids with cerebral palsy and I became acutely aware of a few things:

1. The level of output does not indicate the level of input. The group of girls ranged from having around 30 vocabulary words to almost none and were not able to express themselves well verbally. It was so clear, however, that they understood exactly what was going on all the time. They burst into laughter when Anna bumped into a piece of furniture or when one of them had food tumble out of their mouth while we were helping them eat. They have fantastic senses of humor. When asked any question they would provide some sort of response letting us know they understood - a nod of the head, a facial expression, a word or two.
2. The four of them were as different as any other four people. All of them had vastly different personalities - joyous and hyper, calm and smiling, pleasant but bossy, and quiet and homesick. Additionally, each of them are very differently affected by cerebral palsy.
3. Stimulation and interaction have a huge impact on them in even small doses. After even a few hours together the birthday girl, who speaks almost exclusively in single words, said a new sentence, "I want more," uttered while I apparently wasn't feeding her samosas fast enough! Another one of the girls called Anna by name for the first time.

I learn so much with each new experience I have here in Cape Town but this was a particularly rich one.