The orphanage I’ve been working with these past few weeks is mainly for older children (average ages between 4-12.) The other orphanage HODR has been working is the “baby” orphanage where children range from infants to a few children around 9 and 10 years. This morning was the first time I visited the baby orphanage and I saw how opposite the two orphanages were. This second orphanage is exactly what you think when you think orphanage – the children sleep there and spend all of their time there. I wish I could say wonderful things about it, but I left there feeling incredibly low.
The top floor of the orphanage was destroyed; a piece of scrap metal covers the hole to the roof that the stairs lead to – the only thing keeping the children from climbing onto the “roof.” All of the children and staff sleep in a tent in the front yard. There are around 30 children in the orphanage and I can’t imagine how more than 15 people sleep in this tent. The structure is one big room, a small room with a few metal cribs that are completely full of clothes and junk and one has some files in it which I assume are the children’s files, another room for clothes and food (all of which are thrown about in heaps and piles because there isn’t a single shelf or storage unit anywhere), a bathroom that the children don’t use (they go to a hole outside behind the house), and another room we weren’t allowed to see. The children do not go to school. The people who run the orphanage claim that another NGO comes in to teach them English a couple times a week, but another volunteer said she has yet to see that happen. Even if this NGO came, they would teach the children English which is a futile attempt in my opinion because a majority of the children don’t even know how to speak in Creole yet.
The children literally spend all day in the one big room where they simply lay on the floor and roll around. Remember that these children aren’t all babies, and yet they have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go so they just roll. The infants don’t get enough attention so their muscles are tight and they only stretch when our volunteers come. Children who wet themselves stay wet unless we adamantly point out that they went to the bathroom in their clothes. At that point if they do take notice, the staff only take off the soiled clothes and let the children run around naked, still dirty.
All of the kids are starving for attention and love (and food - they eat some sort of mush military meal that is mainly a sugar rush from which they quickly come down hard.) Many have developed mental and emotional dysfunctions and anger problems. Some of the older children operate on a far lower mental level then their age would deem appropriate. And a chunk of toddlers still haven’t learned to speak or communicate at all. One boy about 9 years old lays around all day with a blank stare, not communicating with anyone. I fear for the thought of his life when he is too old to be taken care of in the orphanage anymore.
Before I go any further, I don’t want you to think this is all the fault of the people who run the orphanage. They are under-staffed, with limited to no resources, no money, and not enough space. They are doing the best they can with what they have and are always trying to learn more to help the children and themselves. But how do you support 30 children in Haiti when you can’t even support yourself?
I walked into the orphanage and lost my heart right there. One little boy walked to me instantly, put his hands up, and crawled onto my lap not to leave again until the end of the day. Each time I tried to put him down he’d cry and scream. So I didn’t put him down. Truthfully, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to ever put him down. I could’ve walked out with him and brought him home with me without ever thinking twice. When it came time to leave I finally had to free myself from his grasp which was one of the most heart wrenching things I have experienced in the past month. I laid him on the floor, kicking and crying, and he caught hold of my finger with his tiny fist and held on for dear life. I nearly started balling myself.
I left the orphanage very low. And very overwhelmed. There’s so much to do. Shelves and storage to be built. Chairs and tables to be made (there is one tiny picnic style table for 30 kids and no chairs.) They do not have nearly enough books and the very few they have are not even in Creole. How can children learn when they don’t even have books in their own language? Or books at all? And our program with the children needs an incredible amount of structure. Overwhelmed indeed.
The afternoon was spent building a new, more structured program. It took some persuasion to convince the other volunteers who work on the class that structure is possible. It is easy to find excuses why children can't learn or why something won’t work. This orphanage offers a million and one reasons why these children could never achieve anything. But excuses are just that. Children can and want to learn. They crave structure, no matter how far “lost” they may seem. Yes, it would be difficult. Yes, it would take a lot of time and patience. Yes, it would be a long road. But, yes, it could happen. With all my heart I believed this program could run as smoothly with as many educational components as the orphanage we run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s just a matter of faith. It’s holding children to higher expectations, because rolling around on the floor all day is not their greatest achievement. It’s difficult, though, to expect so much from children who have so little. But indeed it is through expectations that they can and will succeed.
It makes me want to stay even longer, thinking of how much work needs to be done and how I could help re-format our time with the children. And yet, it also makes me glad to leave thinking about how much work needs to be done and how heartrending it would be to walk through those doors each week. I get to leave. In a few days I will get on a plane and leave this all behind, leave all these children behind. They don’t get to leave. They don’t get a choice. This life has been handed to them. How easy it would be for me to leave and forget all of this sadness, because oftentimes ignorance is bliss. But the feel of that little boy’s hand gripping my finger has left a permanent imprint on my heart. I couldn’t look the other way now even if I tried.
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