September 10, 2014
Today was an emotional day. Happy, sad, discouraged, joyful, and everything in between happened this morning. Today was the day we went to the Hogar Madre Teresa de Calcutta which is a home for mentally and physically disabled children and adults.
We brought a few donations with Celeste to the orphanage and then met with Mercedes, the co-founder of Manos Unidas and waited in the courtyard for the nuns to finish mass. We were kept company by two people, a young man who was sitting and rocking in the sun by himself and a young woman with CP who had been a former student of Mercedes and was very happy to see her again. We were then led to the children's area and given a brief tour of two large rooms with 9 beds and 9 cribs. Our first interaction was with a small boy who was tied with a bathrobe string to his crib so he wouldn't climb out and repeatedly banging his head on the side of the metal crib. He had extensive scarring and some hair loss where the head banging had obviously been his habit since he had head control. As we entered the main eating room a worker at the home and two volunteers (one from France and one from Mexico) were already hard at work beginning to feed the younger children. There were 17 kids we worked with of whom about 14 were extremely involved and needed almost constant attention during feeding. Nine were wheelchair bound and a few were malnourished. Three-quarters were nonverbal. All of them showed some sort of secondary complication to not receiving early and appropriate intervention. We got busy helping as it was rare to have five extra pairs of hands for the morning routine. Even with the extra help it took us about two and a half hours to feed everyone, brush teeth, change diapers, clean dishes (and floors, tables, and chairs) and then put everyone down for naps.
Feeding the kids at the orphanage varied widely. For two kids it was to put food in front of them and remind them to eat. For many others it was alternating between feeding one spoonful at a time and wiping chins to clean what they couldn't swallow. A few others needed games to eat and repeated reminders that spitting in faces, throwing food, stealing food, and hitting weren't quite the manners we were aiming for. After the cleaning routines they were put down for naps. We then learned that the rest of their day was a repeat of the morning. Two of the kids with Down's syndrome went to school but the rest stayed in their beds until the afternoon. There were no lessons, no games, and no outside play time. One of the volunteers said they get some good outside time about every two weeks but there just weren't enough hands to do it all.
I would love to show some of the beautiful faces of these kids but unfortunately there are no written consent forms there and many are involved in ongoing court cases. Many of the children were brought via the police or abandoned at the gate of the orphanage.
While it was difficult to see how the kids could benefit from so much more attention and help and therapy (many needed physical, occupational, speech, feeding, respiratory, and behavorial as well as other medical help) than was available, it was also amazing to see that all these kids were fed, clothed, warm at night, and safe. Each kid showed amazing responses to caring interaction and our head banger turned out to be a very good cuddler and imitator. It was also a good contrast to the village we visited in the campo the day before. There was one PT who worked at the orphanage and while supplies and time was limited, they were still receiving services that were totally unavailable if they were in the campo.
After the orphanage we came back to our sanctuary where Rossana supplied us with a delicious lunch of stuffed chiles and Peruvian coffee and passion fruit juice. We had a good debriefing with Celeste and (via Skype) our UW faculty liaison, Cheryl.
After dinner (the main course being pastries-- And I thinking more and more moving to Peru would be a sensible decision) we were very lucky to have Celeste's husband Calin come and show us his work. Calin is an artist who works with different materials to create gorgeous and unique pieces of jewelry. All of us had to get at least one of his works to remember our trip!
Rather exhausted and very full we turned in for the night. (Although there seems to be a domino effect of uneasy stomachs while we are here.)
Cheers and until tomorrow,
Abby
tl;dr We helped at an orphanage and learned more about feeding.
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