First visit at the orphanage

Yesterday, Andy and I went to the orphanage.  We were driven by Guillermo who is the Ecuador contact with Volunteers In Medical Missions, which is how the Erickson's first met him.  He is also a pastor and connected with the orphanage we will be volunteering at.  He had a director's meeting, but brought us along so we could meet the staff and kids.

The orphanage itself used to keep roughly 50-60 kids.  However, in order to receive funding from the government, the orphanage switched to caring for special needs children. Thus, in order to adequately address the increased needs of its kids, it has cut its numbers down (there were 20 yesterday, 10 girls and 10 boys).

The orphanage is a pretty significant distance from where we are.  We will have to learn to navigate a bus or two, and then walk a final mile or so to the orphanage itself.  The facilities are located directly off a highway on a short dirt road with a gate.  Inside, there are four main buildings.  One primarily for schooling, another for eating, and then separate housing for the girls and boys.  We only were inside the girls' building, which had good bones but was dusty and rather empty.  You walk into a small downstairs where there are two small metal picnic tables where a few girls were working on homework with a couple of tutors.  Upstairs, there is a common area and then two bedrooms with lots of beds.  A mural of the sea with a scuba diver is downstairs and upstairs there are mushrooms, fairies, and butterflies along the walls.  The curtains are a bit overkill with rainbow colored checks, but you could see how the varied illustrations and colors would provide some creative stimulation.

We first met the women who worked in the boys' cabin, and all the boys came flocking out of the building and literally just started hugging Guillermo and us.  It was really something to see these young boys, I'd estimate 7-12 years old, just holding on to you while they said hello.  Then they'd detach and come back again for more hugs.  Andy, who has been to the orphanage twice before, remarked that the hugging had been the most striking thing he had remembered about his times there.  We then went over to the girls' cabin.  Interestingly enough, they didn't flock to you quite as much but ran around eagerly outside.

Guillermo started speaking with people and told us to observe the homework session that was in place with really two girls, with another two looking on and cutting shapes into paper.  Then, the two tutors left (for a brief while we thought), and one asked me to help the youngest girl there finish her assignment.  We had to read about the importance of the sun and photosynthesis, then draw a picture illustrating it.  She did not focus too well, but we got it accomplished.  When other children descended from downstairs, all heck broke loose and the studying was done.

There is what could be a small kitchen area, except for it is empty and there are no appliances except for a refrigerator which might not have been plugged in.  I poked my head in the doorway hearing shouting, and found myself trying to calm down a girl, whose doll had been stolen, with a metal dust pan in her hand trying to hit another girl, squeezing between the wall and the fridge to escape.  However, after she relinquished the dust pan to me, she turned to the broom, then when the girl behind the fridge sprinted upstairs and hid in a bathroom, the other girl grabbed some piping and tried to get into the bathroom, while other girls started to grab and kick at her to keep her from getting to the bathroom door.  It was intense.  Somehow, I talked her down enough that she went to her room and started crying, and after reassuring her enough, I was able to get the doll.  Only to return to her room, and find her not there, but rather sitting in a corner in a rather isolated room off of the kitchen--pitch black, dirty, with raw metal edges on the door.  The doll, hopefully not dunked in the toilet, though most likely so, was sopping wet.  She wouldn't take it from me.  But another girl, who is deaf and mute and had been following me around, took the doll from me and placed it in another corner of the room.  The situation seemed to diffuse from there, but it was quite the introduction.

In the meantime, while I had been frantically chasing and calming the girls involved in that situation, another girl had gotten bumped into and her glass of bubbles had been spilled.  When the one girl went to her room to cry, I saw this one bawling on her bed.  Thus, I asked Andy, who had been making small talk with some girls at the picnic table, to keep an eye on the girl downstairs and went up to talk to the little one upstairs.  I rubbed her back, told her not to worry, told her everything was okay and started rambling on about her bedspread which had pink and white carnations on it.  e.g. Is this your bedspread?  Is that the name for bedspread?  It is very beautiful.  It is pink and white.  Is this a carnation?  I don't know how to say that in Spanish. I think it is.  I love carnations.  They are my favorite flower.  My husband buys me them for my birthday..." until she stopped crying and started chatting with me.  We then played some hand games and she wanted me to carry her on my back, etc.

It became obvious that neither staff member was returning, and we ended up using a long tattered rope as a jump rope for at least an hour.  The older girls hung out upstairs and we were downstairs with five girls, probably eight to twelve years old.  One of the girls, the one who I had worked with on the sun picture, was a durable and persistent little thing.  She insisted the deaf and mute girl have a chance to jump rope, and when one girl who kept acting up prevented this from happening, she did everything in her power to make the girl get off the jump rope, including taking some kicks and punches we couldn't prevent, until she sat on the floor crying.  I picked her up and told her she was a good person and not to worry and we walked around together for a while--though the ground floor is only roughly 12x30 feet.

We were extremely relieved and entirely exhausted when the meeting finally ended.  This promises to be a challenging, tiresome, yet rewarding experience.  And, at least to start, we are going to limit our time there to structured activity time in the afternoons. 

This is a picture of another building, probably more housing, taken by Andy on a previous trip.

Here is a picture of the school building also taken by Andy on a previous trip.