Y'ello from da motha land! - Jean's Blog

I had my first full day yesterday and it was great! My sleep schedule is all messed up, so I was a little loopy… that mixed with the head made for an interesting mood and mind-set… but I remember being happy when I got to the orphanage! The second I walked through the huge iron gates there was a little girl named Deborah (pictured above) who JUMPED into my arms and exclaimed “What’s your name madam?!” All the kids asked me the same questions and proceeded to call me Madam Jean the rest of the day. There was not a moment when I had a free hand as they were always wanting to hold it and talk to me. I immediately fell in love with each and every one of them. They thought my skin was the coolest thing… poking it so it turned super white for a few seconds… they just giggled and giggled.  It was hilarious.

In the morning we bathed and clothed them… then we served them breakfast. I was in charge of the bread… I had 38 sets of little hands reaching for bread… worst part is, I was two pieces short and had to look into the eyes of two children and tell them I didn’t have any more… kill me now. Then they went to school… the school is a part of the orphanage, it is all in a compound together and neighboring kids come to school there too so it’s not just the 38 kids… it’s more like 115… so many! When we were serving lunch there were only 2 volunteers, me and Coleson, and it was a mad house. We tried to get it out as soon as possible but the kids were so hungry and crowded us. We had rice, tomato paste stew and each got ONE NOODLE! (can you imagine these kids at Hometown Buffet, cause I can… it would be the best day ever for them!) As I was putting the stew on it was spilling everywhere and it was scolding hot! I spilled it on my toe and felt like i was going to die but i had a line of kids so I couldn’t focus on it. Needless to say I had tomato stew all over me by the time I was done. Finally all the kids had their food and Coleson and I looked at each other like we had just survived a war. Haha. Over dinner they took the kids to a show in town… they didn’t tell us the kids were going so we showed up to an empty orphanage, one of the other volunteers talked to Patrick about it to which he responded “Oh, you wanted to go too?” Haha, we are working on communication.