orphanage

For the last two weeks I have been volunteering a few hours each day at an Orphanage here in San Jose. There are about 4 or 5 different Tias who are mother figures for the children that live there. Some days there are only a few children, other days there are as many as 20 kids there. Some of them go to school, others do not and I have yet to figure out why this is so.

There are a few kids here whose stories just break my heart and makes me all the more certain that I will be adopting my children in the future.

Oscar* is 12 and he has been living at this orphanage for nearly a year. He doesnt talk much about where he was prior to that. He doesnt know all his letters, cannot say his alphabet and when we started, could not spell his name. He does not go to school and his 6 year old *brother* knows more than he does. At this point, he cannot be placed in school because what grade would you start him at? How do you have a 12 year old in kindergarten? He is so eager to learn and is just soaking up everything we are teaching him.

Jedrich* is 6 months old and has been at the orphanage for 2 months. His mother, an 18 year old, took him to the hospital to have surgery and never came back for him. He had surgery on his head and had a shunt put in because he has water pools in his head which have caused him to be blind. He is usually propped up in a stroller in a room by himself and cries whenever he is awake.

These kids absolutely break my heart. I cant help but notice how bizarre some of their behavior is. They rarely fight and when they do, its short lived and solved on their own. They rarely cry and when they do the Tias are on them right away. They don't play with toys with even close to the imagination that any of my preschool kids do. I am sure these are all a result of living in an orphanage.

I am learning so much being here and seeing firsthand what its like. The Tias dont speak very much English, nor do the kids. They love to tell us "Thank you!" whenever they can...even when it may not be the right word. They love to count in english and say their colors. These kids are all so fantastic it just kills you to think what they must have been through to have ended up here.

While I was working, a friend of mine had some money she had donated at home by some coworkers for the kids at the orphanage. To be sure our money ended up there we went and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of toys and food for our orphanage and for a community center.