Babies!

Each day begins at 7:00. It is still dark, but if you look out the window you will see men and women slowly walking to and from work.  Down stairs most of the children are still sleeping. Some of the babies are awake, peering over their cribs or crying despairingly.  The older boys dressed sharply in their uniforms of a red jumper, grey trousers and daily shined shoes head off to school as the younger kids are bathed and dressed for the day. For breakfast they are usually fed various forms of mush, sometimes strawberry flavored, sometimes portage, sometimes something brown and odd smelling. Most of the children eat more like wolf pups than children. Some of the sick babies don't eat very much and if they do they usually don't keep it down. 

After breakfast, the ruckus begins! There is screaming, pushing, potty, "mama me", fighting for a spot on the my lap, fighting for toys, pushing each other and helping each other. It is always very sweet to see how much they actually do look out for each other. If a baby is crying one child will usually pick it up or get the bottle. 

By lunch time, I am exhausted and hurriedly feed the babies and take my lunch up stairs for my break.  In the afternoon the children "go lala" or in other words they have nap time and when they are sleeping I am usually sleeping too. 

The rest of the day goes by pretty quickly. We help the older boys with home works and keep the children occupied by swinging them around in your arms or doing an activity with them such as puzzles or clay. Bed time is at 7:00 but you can usually hear little voices whispering from their beds long into the night. 

I am of course attracted most to the children who are "naughty", "very angry" or "autistic." Basically I always feel myself drawn to the most tortured of the tortured. There are a set of trip boys, I don't know their history but I think they are HIV positive. They are very "naughty" as the CC's would say and they have a lot of social issues in terms of interacting.  I just want to wrap them up and treat them well because I think they are treated poorly by nearly everyone. You have to remember with children that are future members of society. Those twins are little men  and they will grow into big men.  So, hitting a young man with who already angry (and fragile emotionally) does not help the problem instead I think it only add fuel to the flame and damages them more; I think it only makes them angrier.  I try to pick them up and hug them and squeeze them as much as possible...

Last night a new child was brought in by some social workers. We weren't expecting it, we are already full. She is about 10 months old( we guess)  and was found with a bag of nappys strapped to her. She cried all night. Shrieking and looking around wondering where she was. In the morning I picked her up  and she shrieked some more. The kind of crying that nothing can console. I don't think she'd ever scene a white person before. I imagine anyone from another race must be quite a shocking alien site if you've never scene or conceptualized anything like it. I don't know if she'll stay in our home because she has no papers and like I said we are already full.  But I think about her parents and the night they abandoned her. It is easy to say "how could they do that" but imagine being that desperate that you had to give your child up...

It happens everywhere. Yes, they could have done it in a more responsible fashion but you never know what the situation was and anyone who has been truly desperate can at least imagine the extremes you can go to.