Little Princes Read Online Free Page A

the two youngest boys in the house. But otherwise, the only identifying features to my untrained eye would be their clothes.
    Before daal bhat was served, Sandra asked the children to stand and introduce themselves, beginning with the youngest boy, Raju. He was far more shy now than when he had been clinging to my face. The other boys whispered loud encouragements to him to get up, and his tiny neighbor, Nuraj, dug an elbow into his ribs. Finally he popped up, clapped his hands together as if in prayer, the traditional greeting in Nepal, said “Namaste-my-name-is-Raju” and collapsed back into a seated position flashing a proud grin to the others. The rest of the kids followed suit, until it had come full circle back to me.
    I stood up and imitated what they had done and sat back down. They erupted in chatter.
    “I do not think they understood your name,” Sandra whispered to me.
    “Oh, sorry—it’s Conor,” I said, speaking slowly. I could hear a volley of versions of my name lobbed back and forth across the room as the children corrected one another.
    “Kundar?”
    “ Hoina ! Krondor ho ! Yes, Brother? Your name Krondor, yes?”
    “No, no, it’s Conor ,” I clarified, louder this time.
    “Krondor!” they shouted in unison.
    “Conor!” I repeated, shouting it.
    “Krondor!”
    One of the older boys spoke up helpfully: “Yes, Brother, you are saying Krondor!”
    Trust me—I wasn’t saying “Krondor.” The children were staring earnestly at my lips and trying to repeat it exactly.
    “No, boys—everybody—it’s Conor !” This time I shouted it with a growl, hoping to change the intonation to a least get them off Krondor, which made me sound like a Vulcan.
    There was a surprised pause. Then the children went nuts. “ Conor !!” they growled, imitating the comical bicep flex I had performed (instinctively, I’m sorry to say) when I shouted my name.
    “Exactly!” I said, pleased with myself.
    Sandra looked around and nodded in approval. “I think you will get along with these children very well,” she predicted. “Okay, children, you may begin,” she said, and the children attacked their food as if they hadn’t eaten in days. They spent the rest of dinner with mouths full of rice and lentils, looking at each other and growling “ Conor !!!” flashing their muscles like tiny professional wrestlers.
    There was no way to keep up the blistering pace set by the kids when they ate. They had literally licked their plates clean when I was maybe half finished. I would have to concentrate in the future. No talking, no thinking, just eating. There was far too much food on my plate, albeit mostly rice. The worst part about it was that I couldn’t give the rest of mine away, since once you touched your food with your hands it was considered juto, or unclean, to others. The very idea of throwing away food here was unthinkable, especially with eighteen children watching you, waiting for you to finish. I force-fed myself every last grain as fast as I could, guiltily replaying scenes from my life of dumping half-full plates of food into the trash.
    When I had finished, Sandra made a few announcements in English. The children understood English quite well after spending time with volunteers, and the little ones who didn’t understand as well had it translated by the older children sitting near them.
    The big announcement of that particular evening was the introduction of three new garbage cans that had been placed out front, one marked “Plastic and Glass,” one “Paper,” and one “Other.” Sandra explained their fairly straightforward functions. She was rewarded with eighteen blank stares. Trash in Nepal, like all Third World countries, is a constant problem. Littering is the norm, and environmental protection falls very low on the government’s priority list, well below the challenges of keeping the citizens alive with food and basic health care. Farid took a stab at explaining the concept of