Orphanage

Late Saturday afternoon (after culture classes, compound tours, last minute VBS, and soccer and crafts with kids on the compound) we went to visit an orphanage connected with HCM. There are nine children living with one amazingly loving mama, two bio kids and seven that have come to live there since the earthquake.




They were sweet and happy and, not unexpectedly, far too willing to cling to new people and soak up all the non-mama attention they could get. (And, I was impressed with how many of our kids cued into that as not a healthy thing.)
 
The baby in particular, Gigi, who everyone back at the compound is love with as well, registered on everyone’s cute-o-meter, and even the sweaty from soccer boys wanted a chance to hold her and, of course, get a picture.

She was sweet. They like babies. Their moms like pictures of them holding babies. There is nothing different or culturally confusing about a baby. Logical course of action at the end of a long day. (And, I love the
 smiles on their faces that come through in the pictures. Can you not tell that they adore her?)

 

[blunt honesty]

Happy moment for the rest of the team. Trigger moment for Jessica, who is suddenly back in South Africa in a “cultural village” (Dinseyland, but with “natives” on display instead of Minnie Mouse), watching as a white (non-English speaking) tourist, who has taken pictures with every prop she can get her hands on, bends down and scoops up a black baby, nearly as old as the ones I have been living and working with in Kenya, posing for a photo as if it were a tourist attraction and not a child, old enough that it ought to have an opinion, with a mother who is sitting mere feet away watching mutely, helpless to do anything if she wants to keep her job.

*Our kids were thinking NOTHING of the sort, but the human brain doesn't register that sort of thing in fight or flight mode, so I spent much of our time at the orphanage trying to smile at our kids, encourage them, and bite back the familiar feeling of mute, helpless, horror.*

From the ‘what was going on inside of me’ perspective…not my favorite moment of the trip.

But, it was a good, hands on reminder that we were putting twenty-three people through trauma, and there were going to be a heck a lot of triggers before we got done with this.

10 days worth of possible triggers * 23 people = much potential drama and re-entry shock.

[/blunt honesty]