Its About The Children

 
   I have talked about a lot of things, but not too much about the children here. They are fantastic in general, considering what has happened to some of them. The nuns are responsible for a lot of that by offering stability and good sense guidelines. But it is truly impressive how positive and resilient most of them are.
     There are two groups here. There are children that have nothing at all and no family. Two children just came here to stay, brought in by neighbors. Their mother dies in December and the day of her funeral min January their father died. They have an elderly grandfather that could not cope with the situation, so the neighbors took charge. Another girl here was left with a young sibling and mother in jail and was
begging for food  for both of them when pulled off the street. She does not wish to see her mother again, out of jail now but not interested. There are others that have had tragedy and abuse and one sweet little girl that is HIV positve. She appears healthy and they monitir her CD4 counts, but none can’t help but wonder what her life will bring her.
     The other group of children are considered vulnerable. They may have one parent or relatives they can visit on holidays. They may even have family support as occasional visits or clothes. They are here because they cannot be cared for properly.
These kids are counseled by the Sisters to act the same and never appear to be different or to have more. They seem to understand and pull that off, certainly everyone is level. Some of these children have fathers away mining and their mother is gone or deceased. It is different for each one, but in general the situation is so different that Canada we can’t imagine this sad reality. Funerals every weekend and a resignation to all that entails.
     There are three mother types here, ladies that live with the children in the dorms and uncomplainingly feed, cloth and clean up after them The menu is set every week and the kids get meat once, chicken on Sundays. Also they get eggs twice, vegetables twice and milk twice on the other days. Every meal has papa, the dry cream of wheat type staple food (maize meal) The children each have a cup, plate and bowl numbered on the bottom with white paint and they clean them themselves. There is no cutlery.
I say none of this to sensationalize, as they are used to it and there is no more or less significance or acceptance (or lack of it) to it all than we have to our every day routine. The kids are quite happy and the teens are very cool.
     I have to watch how much I show affection or favoritism. The few that really pull at me are the youngest here (the older girls command something more like respect
as they care for the little ones and work hard ) I realize and was coached to know it would only be harder for them and me when I leave if I were to allow too many feelings to show, so I try to be level, approachable and spread it all around. This is one of my biggest personal challenges – to not get too attached. All I have to do is to think about many volunteers coming and going to know how hard it would be for them and  I “get “ the necessity of boundaries.
    We are having a Brai ( bar b que) Sunday as a going away party for Phil and we are buying chicken and ice cream for all.  Afterwards, I will do another BINGO, very popular….this time with prizes to 10 places.