People may accuse me of writing with a jaundiced eye. In actual fact, I write with a conjunctivitis eye, or pink eye as it is more commonly known. This is a very common occurrence in this part of the world courtesy of dust, germs and the unbounded giving nature of the children. Lori is also looking at the planet through rose coloured eyeballs as opposed to the rose coloured glasses that she usually wears. The positive and mitigating factors of this condition are:1) it heals in a couple of days, 2) no long lasting effects, 3) anti-biotic eye drops cost about $0.95 for the two of us. Drugs here are cheap, but apparently smoking the wrong ones can cost you up to 15 years in jail for simple possession. No care packages, please.
I truly can’t overstate the pleasure of working with these children. They form a micro-community and, instead of our western perception that these children are without family, in actuality, they themselves comprise one large family of thirty siblings. Ages range from 3-15 with most in the 9-10 range, There are leaders and followers, responsible children and those requiring constant monitoring. Some children warm up to the volunteers other are a bit reticent. Some like being hugged and held, other more standoffish. All told they are a wonderful group who, due to the participation of volunteers from around the world and a caring local staff, have a significantly better chance of moving themselves forward in this world; not all will but enough to validate the time, effort and energy.
So here’s what our day consists of. 6:00AM is wake up for the children. A few volunteers show up to bathe them. Water is poured into pails, the little ones stand in what in African is called a Shissel, and we pour water over them and used a soapy rag to clean ’em up. Each child has his own rag and dry towel. Following the rinse cycle, I lift the little ones onto a bench where they are dried off by the elder orphans. This morning I looked up to see four little brown skinned bums standing in a row in various states of dryness. It was a National Geographic moment.
The kids are dressed in their uniforms as there are two more days until Xmas break, the shoes that you have seen in various stages of disrepair marked To Be Shipped to Africa in various malls and collection areas around town are the ones ending up here on the childrens’ footsies.
Breakfast is preceded by a washing up of the pots and bowls. Volunteers do some of the work accompanied by the local kids such as N’dia, Florence, or Jennifer, who are a few of the more assertive clan members. Note that the three mentioned are all girls. There is certainly a preponderance for matriarchal oriented societies here and it shows itself from the get go. Breakfast is served hot and is a form of oatmeal or other hot cereal. Yesterday was ground millet, corn and peanuts mixed together. According to Lori, it tasted like matzoh meal infused with peanut butter. A fairly accurate description and to be honest, I’ve eaten worse. Breakfast is proceeded by a closed eyed rote version of Psalm 23 and concludes with a vociferous Amen, the smaller kids get 2 little ladles full and the amount graduates upward based on age and grade.
By the time breakfast is done for the 30 residents, the outside students, some of whom walk 3 miles each way, begin to filter in. I have verified their routes and miraculously even in equatorial Africa, the paths taken by these children is snow covered and uphill in both directions so the stories they eventually tell their grandchildren about what they had to do to obtain an education will ring true.
The old hand wrung school bell goes off, the children enter their low, darkish, stuffy, ill appointed classes with limited protein but much carbs in their system and try to learn. Not easy. The teachers do their best, the volunteers are in charge of a couple of classes and the ABC’s and 123’s are meted out. The range of attention span within each class can go from rapt attention for a while until a few of the less-motivated, bullying, ADD, limited IQ children start disrupting and harassing. The cane is used on a regular basis for purposes of discipline. While abhorrent in thought, within half a day I was ready to carry one myself.Order is sometimes restored, sometimes not. One observes the classes and holds out hope for the future. Two thoughts reverberate. To quote Frank Zappa “The meek shall inherit – nothing at all.” Secondly, within the African reality, the class disturbers display all of the qualities required to become a local dictator and will probably end up on top of the social heap. As Sam, the main caner would say – The beat goes on.
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