The Orphanage

I know I usually post about the weekends because they are different than the day-to-day, but here is some more information about the work in the orphanage.

The orphans interact somewhat differently than other children. One girl chews on everything, including crayons, dirt or trash. Many of them are overly violent. They reach their hands under the gate into the sewer and eat things they can find, including remnants of fruit. This is in spite of the fact that they are well fed; if anything, overfed. They also eat some of the plants in the yard and tell me it is ¨gum¨. They moms constantly yell at the kids to ¨eat faster!¨, though they are served more food than a person should eat, even a growing child. One mom, because the two year old boy wasn´t eating fast enough, took his bowl and shoved his mouth full to the brim of rice. I was terrified he was going to choke. Today, the same mom, angry that the one year old was crying in the shower, left her, shivering in extreme cold, covered in suds and bawling for over 20 minutes to teach her to stop crying. A couple of days ago, I faced quite a predicament when I went out with about 5 kids to the blacktop. It was early in the morning, so we were the only ones outside, and the kids started to build something. Soon I figured out it was a fire, a nice one at that, but thinking they wouldn´t have anything to light it with, didn´t stop them. Soon thereafter, one of the eight year old boys pulled out a match. My heart dropped. If I went to get help, they would be left alone, if I tried to grab the matches, they would only be more inclined to light it. I was able to get one match away from him, and stop them enough times that they gave up and went back to the front yard. I ran inside with the match, and showed it to the mom, telling her they were trying to make a fire. She looked slightly mad, but told me simply to ask them where they got them from. Ha. The kids who, when I stopped them from making the fire, started to pelt me with rocks and sticks, will for some reason tell me where they got something they weren´t supposed to have? Logical... (I didn´t bother asking). I´ve had quite a few incidents where, after enforcing rules, I end up being tormented in some way or other... the other day after pulling the bigger kids off the smaller ones, one of the older girls (who up to that point was my ¨big baby¨ who sat in my lap) pelted me in the back with a ball several times before I ended up going inside to tell her mom. The next day when I saw her she said nothing and we were fine again. It makes for long days when these kinds of things happen multiple times in a day. The last volunteer has her final day on Friday, and then I will be the lone volunteer once again. I want to ask if I can leave earlier than 4:00 to get in some more rest, but I feel like a quitter. I´m going to wait and see how next week goes...

On a more positive note, there are lots of good memories, too. Most of the kids know my name now, which is exciting, because they never learned the other girls´ names. They also have the tendancy to yell it in the morning when I come in, which helps to brighten my mood after an hour and half bus ride. There are four year old twin boys, who, before I even arrived, I was warned about because of their tendency to misbehave, but now they are especially attached to me and love it when I play soccer with them. They also tend to listen to me better then the other kids, and even yell for me because they know I will settle the matter fairly if there is a dispute. (And there is always a dispute!) Their names are Ricardo and Rinato, and sadly I still have to wait until someone says their name because I can´t tell them apart. (Darn that twin idea!) I am surpised, but even the older boys.. maybe nine or ten, love to play with me, one in particular tries endlessly to be stronger than me and knock me down, but thank goodness I am still stronger than him. Another loves to have tickle fights. At first, I was a little taken aback, but I´ve come to see they are not being inappropriate, they are simply starved for physical affection. With nine kids per mom, the younger ones are usually the only kids to get attention, the older ones are simply expected to help out and be useful. We made dirt soup today, and I was the chief taster, telling them what ingredients they need to add. I added some more photos courtesy of Gillian because I still can´t figure my camera out. So for those techies out there: I bought an older camera online so I wouldn´t be sad if I lost it. The batteries died soonafter, and since then I have tried two different kinds of batteries and neither work. (Energizer being one of them.) The brand that did work is random and I haven´t seen them here. So far my plan is: steal pictures. Ideas?