Description
Rihaan walks in very enthusiastic, and bursting with energy. This child has seen tragedy, but you wouldn’t know it if you met him. He used to live in Panadura, with his Mother, Grand Mother, and a brother and a sister. With his brother away at a ‘madrasa’, and him at GLH, he says his little sister keeps his Mother and Grand Mother company.
A student who professes to like English the best of all the subjects he studies in school, Rihaan attempted some simple English with me, in addition to Tamil. A cricket player in his free time, he does say he likes to study. In the home, his closest friend is Osama.
He says he came to the home to be able to study. He likes GLH and particularly enjoys the food. Beaming at the camera as I try to catch him off guard for a candid picture, he left me baffled when he said his ambition was to become a ‘mason’.
[The mother fills me in on that last bit later. Having lost his father at a young age, Rihaan has faced poverty as a child. His fixation with masonry apparently had come about as a result of his observation that masons walked away with about Rs.1000/- (appx. $8) at the end of work; a fortune for him. Here’s wishing that he’ll see a bigger and better vista as he grows up at GLH]
