Orphanage

Oh man. What a tough week. These days have tested my hearts ability to love and my ability to hold myself together in the face of sadness.

HODR has a couple of orphanages they go to during the week and Wednesday morning was "baby orphanage day." All of the kids are under 7 years old and live in the same two bedroom house. There's 30 kids and three staff members. I've been planning on going over for the last couple of weeks because the girl that leads the team keeps telling me how sick all the kids always are. Wednesday was my day to go. I got together with Amanda, a 3rd year med student, we packed a box full of meds and bandages and got ready to head over. As we jumped in the back of a "tap- tap" (basically a pickup truck with seats in the back) I started to think about where we were actually going. Orphanages in Haiti are filled with kids that have no parents at all or have parents that aren't able to financially support them, economic abandonment. '
We pull up and as we go through the gate, the kids start singing a welcoming song. It immediately took me back to my time in Uganda. Singing as you came and singing as you left... the way I think everyone should be loved on. I was almost in tears just from listening to the song of 30 children then I began to look at their faces. Almost all of them had conjunctivitis. Almost all of their eyes looked like someone had rubbed vaseline and green goop all up in their beautiful eyes. And then the way they looked at you, ugh break my heart. They had this way of looking at your with these super sad puppy dog eyes. They also tried holding you and being held by you if they saw that no other child had your attention. I was completely overwhelmed. To my left I saw about 6 smaller, younger babies in crib type things. One crying, a couple sleeping, one getting picked up by a volunteer, another with its face being smothered by the side of the crib... I fixed him. It was craziness.

Long story short... Amanda and I along with Margot (a lawyer thinking about trying out something in the medical field.... I've been taking people with me to the hospital who think they might want to "try out" nursing and haven't had enough exposure to know for sure. It's been super cool. ) set up shop in one of the two rooms of the house. We brought in some chairs and just started seeing and treating little ones. We would give them all a deworming pill and a children's vitamin and the treated each like it was gold. They took each one and sucked on it to make it last as long as possible. I tried one of the vitamins later on and it tasted awful. That didn't matter to them though. They just wanted to taste something.

As we tried our best to see the kids throughly, we were constantly distracted by them coming back in trying to get more vitamins or just wanting to be check out again. We had tons of conjunctivitis that we treated with Gentamicin drops, a bunch of scabies so we rubbed Permethrin cream on almost half of those kids and changed their clothes, and then a few with what sounded like Pneumonia so we gave them Amoxicillin. One girl had a wound on her head that was covered in gnats. Another little boy had a huge abscess over his right ear that we didn't have the equipment to drain. Another little girl probably has Hepatitis but we'll never know cause we don't really have those testing capabilities. One of the first ones we saw was terribly malnourished. Marie Carmel. She is 10 months old and only about 10 pounds. Her grandma had dropped her off two days before because she couldn't take care of her anymore. We took her back to the hospital with us cause we knew she needed treatment to be re-nourished. We have a small NGO that runs out of the hospital that does that so it was perfect.

Each kid I saw looked sadder and sicker than the last. Each looked absolutely miserable and sick. Like they each just needed a mommy to hold them and sing them a song. When you would pick up the little ones they would drop their head straight onto your shoulder and nuzzle into your chest like it was the most familiar place to them. Kids back in the states would never do that. They would scream and cry and loose it if you even tried to pick them up. These poor little tikes wanted nothing more than to just be held by you and cuddled. I almost lost it several different times as I listened to lungs or handed out vitamins or just sat and snuggled with them. It's a world very few of us know and to be part of it for just a day was so moving and heartbreaking. It's another reminder to me of how and why the important things are the important things for a reason.

I came back to base and the first person I saw asked me how my day had been. It was John, he' s a 65 year old grandpa type and I felt all too comfortable telling him how sad my soul was. I was in the courtyard eating lunch and pouring tears into it. It was much needed. Another couple of friends asked me later on and I was able to process with them as well. By the time I needed to go to bed, I felt fully processed and at peace.

I got sick after that day and have been spending time on base resting and drinking gatorade. This morning though, I knew I needed to go and check up on the kids. As I walked in, I saw no eyes that looked sad and greasy. I saw kids full of energy and not miserable and smiling and ahhhhhhh.... it was such a beautiful morning. They still seek out your hand and they still want to be held but at least they're healthy and a bit happier now.

Basically.... I still love being here and can't imagine being anywhere else right now. I can't imagine letting those little ones go one more day without proper medical attention and how miserable they would have been. So another beautiful day through my epic journey of life. I can't believe this is my life. I'm so lucky. Thank you for your love and support!!