Orphanage Adventures

21 de Octubre

I have returned!

It has certainly been long enough since I have contributed to this blog – and I apologize for my absence. I think that I’ve been a little silent on the blog front as I’ve been trying to process all that I witnessed in the past week. But, it’s been long enough. I am now ready to share about my first week at the orphanage…

This past week has been unbelievable. I spent everyday, Monday through Friday, at the orphanage working with the kids. Perhaps it would help to start from the beginning…

When Dylan and I first started planning this trip, I knew if I was going to be serving down here, I wanted to be working with children that were not regularly receiving visitors and support – children that were in need of being shown some additional love and attention. Back in June, when I first met the children from Hogar de Douglas orphanage, my heart melted. I knew that was where I wanted to be spending my time. In June, the orphanage was located in a very small setting – overcrowded and understaffed. The majority of the children were sick, had head lice and ringworm and had never even seen a toothbrush.

On Monday morning, when Keren came to pick me up to bring me to the orphanage, she informed me that they had relocated. Much to my amazement, when I arrived at the new orphanage – I could not have imagined a greater blessing. The orphanage itself is enormous in comparison to the old grounds. The children look so healthy, clean and happy. It was as if I was looking at an entirely different group of children than I first saw four months ago.

Immediately upon seeing me, the children scrambled to give me hugs, shouting “Tia! Tia!” again and again (tia is aunt in Spanish). There was such simple joy in their faces at the prospect of having a visitor, a new playmate – and their excitement just continued to grow when they learned that I would be working with them through the end of January.

Since Monday, I have come to learn the names of all 13 children currently living at the orphanage. They range in age from about 15 months to 8 years old.

Poncho, the man who runs the orphanage, thankfully speaks some English and so we are able to communicate with one another. On Monday we established a basic schedule that I should work from around 10-3 or 4. The older children attend school about a mile-and-a-half away from the orphanage from 7-12 in the mornings, so I work with the younger children in the mornings. That means that we spend about an hour practicing colors, counting to 10, learning how to say please and thank you. Granted, you must realize that this is as much a school lesson for me as it is for the children – as it is entirely in Spanish. Except I am the one teaching the Spanish. After their school lesson, we usually play with legos – allowing me a chance to quiz them on the colors they practiced that morning and then spend a bit of time sitting in the front room – me with about 4 small children piled onto my lap in a rocking chair and the rest scattered about my feet chattering with each other. During this time we attempt to practice simple English words like mom and dad; however, if I’m being honest, it generally deteriorates to rounds of the face game.

Then, around 12 or 12:30 I leave to pick up the older children from school. Sometimes I walk by myself, sometimes Poncho or one of the other women from the orphanage come with me. As I said, the school is about a mile-and-a-half from the orphanage, and by the time I arrive at the school, the children are never done with their lessons. So, I usually sit on the steps to their school room and listen in. I am not really sure how they determine who attends the school or not, but I have discovered that anywhere from 5 to 8 of the children from the orphanage attend the school on any given day. Once school is over, we spend a few minutes getting everyone situated, piling me up with everyone’s schoolbags, and then we all hold hands and get started on our way back to the orphanage. It has become a bit of a tradition that we stop at this little man’s shop along the way home to get a small snack. The shop has a big covered, marble porch where we all huddle together eating snack and everyone goes around the circle and tells me – in very slow Spanish how their day went. Once everyone finishes, we continue on our way back home. If it’s nice out, we make another stop in the park that we pass through on the way home. We usually spend about 30 minutes or so there playing on the swings and racing around the park until everyone’s too hot and sweaty and ready to head back.

By the time we make it back to the orphanage it’s usually time for lunch. While all of the children sit down to eat, it has become my responsibility to feed baby Kevin. Kevin is somewhere around 15 months old and absolutely priceless. Around 12:30 on the dot, regardless of whether lunch has been brought out yet, he finds me and climbs up in my lap (we usually eat in the rocking chair). So, I spend lunch time feeding Kevin and then we rock until he falls asleep with a full belly.

After lunch, everyone gets a bit of free time. Generally we all sit in the front room and the older children like to teach me silly Spanish songs that I do not understand while the younger kids continue to play with legos, calling out the names of the colors of the blocks as they build. As they get bored, we move on to reading one of the books that’s usually lying around – this almost always winds up being an English copy of Jingle Bells. I am not sure what the fascination with this story is – but the children love to admire the colorful pictures of Santa – despite the fact that they do not understand the words I read to them; however, the colorful pictures provide a perfect opportunity for us to practice the colors that we are learning.

When free time ends, the children again split into two groups – younger and older – and sit down at their respective tables for homework time. It is my responsibility to work with some of the younger children (ranging from 3-6). Each of the children has a blank notebook that I write their daily lessons in. Last week we practiced writing the numbers 1-20 and then learned how to do la suma (addition), subtraction and multiplication. Again, I must remind you – this is all in Spanish. Imagine how difficult it was the first time you were learning how to count or add and subtract – and then imagine if some random person who didn’t speak your language tried to teach you. Precisely. As much as I am struggling to teach in Spanish – these children are showing remarkable intelligence. They are grasping the concepts much quicker than I would have imagined – especially considering my very broken Spanish instructions. Once our number lessons are over, we work on the alphabet for a little bit and then practice simple Spanish sentences. In order to do this, I write sentences (or numbers or math problems, etc.) at the top of each page in their notebooks and then they work through them each day. We do this for about an hour-and-a-half until the children begin to lose patience.

Then – we move on to the English lessons. All of the children above 3 gather together and we practice a new English lesson each day. Last week we focused on learning the numbers 1-10. The children have made remarkable progress – and are so eager to learn. In addition to the numbers, they have also learned the primary colors, mom, dad, please and thank you.

Poncho has explained much to me about life at the orphanage. Almost all of the children have parents that are still alive. In fact, every Friday is parents’ day. Friday mornings the parents come to visit their children and see how they are doing. The majority of the children were placed in the orphanage because their homes were violent/abusive or their parents could not afford to care for them. On Thursday, I witnessed my first parent visit. The mother of two of the boys at the orphanage came a day early for her visit. She came weighted down with bags of popcorn, candy and soda. I watched as she sat outside with the boys, chatting with them as if this was normal. I suppose it is, but I just couldn’t understand. Along with the boys and their mother was a girl – I would guess about 12 or 13 – the boys’ sister; apparently her mother had decided not to give her up, only the boys. When they left, the older of the two boys sobbed and sobbed, questioning how God could possibly do this. “Doesn’t my mother love me?” he kept asking between sobs. I watched, teary eyed, as Miguel, his younger brother, hugged and comforted him. Miguel calmed his brother and whispered to him that he loved him, no matter what happened. Then, the brothers came over to me and we just rocked in the rocking chair together as I tried to understand how this all made sense. How is it that a 6 year old boy should have to comfort his 7 year old brother? How does a mother come to keep her daughter and abandon her sons? I witnessed this and just struggled to find God at work.

Then, on Friday, Poncho told me that I should come a little later in the afternoon so that the children could have time with their parents. So, instead of arriving around 10, I delayed my arrival until noon. When I arrived I found half the orphanage in tears. No one’s parents showed up for the parents visit. The majority of the children were crying, asking again and again where their mom or their dad was. “Why would God do this to me?” I listened to one of the older girls ask. “Why doesn’t my mother love me enough to be here?” How do you respond to that? What words are there to comfort a five year old child that seems to be repeatedly abandoned by their parents? And where exactly was God in the midst of this?

But as I held the children that afternoon, I started to realize – he is in every one of them – he is in each one of those children. I watched as the older children went around and sat with the younger children, hugging them and whispering consoling words to them. I watched them see God’s love in each other. Slowly, they each put aside their own struggles to care for those of the younger and the weaker. And despite the enormous disappointment that they faced that morning – they still had so much love to offer to one another.