October 14, 2010

I am sitting up on the upper veranda’s that overlooks all the kids houses. It is such a beautiful view from up here. The kids are still in school and I am just waiting for them to be done so I can go and play with them. :)

I have been taking walks with the toddlers each morning and working on them obeying. Talk about a work in progress. Man sometimes I thought training new employees at Subway was hard, but hey they got nothing on trying to teach toddlers to listen. J The main problem is that the house moms don’t make the kids listen and obey. So I have been helping with some of the discipline while I have been spending time with them. Getting out of the house and going on walks is so much fun for the kids, but if they run off ahead and don’t stop when we ask them to stop, then there needs to be consequences. So the last few days what I have done is sat down with them, while the others go on with their walk. They know they are in trouble because they are crying and I have to carry them to the nearest step. Then we sit, I wait for them to stop crying and explain about obeying and listening. So I have done this with three of the boys and they actually have done so much better. It was so funny two boys the other day took off running in front of us and they wouldn’t stop. So I went after them and about 5 feet in front of little Godfrey, he started crying. He put his head down; he knew he was in trouble. Ahh, but he is just so sweet, but he still needed to obey. I am not going to lie though, it is harder to punish when they look up at you with those big sad eyes. I have been spending a fair amount of time with the toddlers. I taught one of the cleaning aunties how to really wash the kids toys. The toys have not been washed in a long time, and the toy chest, so I showed her how to disinfect the toys. So she is doing that every day, which was very much needed. So I have trying to help, show the aunties the correct way to keep things clean.

The feeding program was today. I did a little more research on the program. We originally had ten babies on the list, which was the max, and now we have 13, so definitely we are maxed out. Basically what happens is, we find out of a baby that is malnourished and if they can we provide food and some clothing for them once a week. Normally once the baby turns 1 they move off of the program and then there is always another child who gets on the list. This morning there was a little girl is was beat by her Jaja (grandmother). Her name is Sharon and she is four years old. She looks as if she is maybe a year old at the oldest. Her back is covered in scars from where she was beaten. One of our girls jaja, here at the orphanage, takes in these little kids. Apparently people know that she will help or at least try to help as much as she can. So today she brought two little girls with her, both are not actually related to her. There was another mother than came with her little girl Desire. She has a son Paul who is actually in our toddler home. She was not able to take care of him, when her husband left her and now she has a daughter as well. It was interesting to see how Paul reacted to him mother. We had to tell him to go to her and then he went running to her. It was such a sweet site to see. I don’t know that Paul really knows how to act, since he is not use to having his mom around. The feeding program is really an amazing program. We give formula, maze flour, soap, and whatever we can. The main thing is the babies need protein and nutrients, so we do what we can to help. It is one of those things that you wish the food never ran out, so you could feed as many babies as they could bring.

Well Saturday I plan to take two of the older girls into town to do some shopping. They need some personal stuff, so I figured I could help them. So we will shop a little bit and then go and have lunch together. It is always good to spend time with them and to show them that you love them. Most people don’t spend much time with them, cause they are older. So I love to be able to do this for them.

The next few days are really going to fly by. So I will enjoy the rest of my time here. Of course, I am going to soak up as much of this sun as I can before I head back to cold, snowy Kodiak, Alaska. :)