On March 9th all of us went on our first orphanage adventure to a home for disabled children. The name of the place in Spanish is Angeles de Cornia. Cornia is an organization that does different programs for children throughout the island. To get to the orphanage we all loaded into a bus. The landscape of he drive was unreal. There were mountains, forests and tones of little towns. After a two and a half hour drive we arrived at our destination.
Walking into the orphanage a silence fell upon the group. We were all looking into rooms and absorbing all of our new surroundings. There were kids laying on the pathway, eyes peering through the windows, the scene was indescribable.
We were all split into pairs and given the freedom to explore the orphanage at our own pace. I was partnered with Shane Versteeg and we started our day off in the nursery.
The nursery was filled with cribs, some with children, some without. The ages of the children ranged from a couple months to around five years old. Some children had disabilities and some were just dropped off because of several different reasons. The nursery was one of the most visited rooms during the day, it was always filled with people from our group. I spent about half and hour in that room, going from crib to crib, holding hands and rubbing backs. Something that touched my heart was the fact that some of these babies will never leave their beds their whole lives. They will never go outside the gates of the orphanage, will never be loved by a family, will never experience normal day to day activities. It was hard to except the fact that that’s how life works, it’s not fair.
Shane and I then went down a couple rooms to find a small room of toddlers. There was about five boys and one girl. These kids all looked like they needed some love so we decided to spend some of our day with them. We sat on the floor and played with them, but it was only a couple minutes in that I noticed there was a little boy in his crib in the corner. This boys name is Gregory, he is about seven years old and has autism. I sat and looked at him but didn’t go over right away because he didn’t look “as fun” as the other toddlers. It took me a couple seconds to realize how selfish I was being and how the day was not about me at all. This day was all about showing the same love to all the kids despite their conditions.
So I went over to his crib and reached out my hand, he sat there and blankly stared at me. So I picked up his hand, and started talking to him. Every once and a while he would sit up and start crying so I would rub his back and it seemed to clam him down.
After about forty-five minutes I left for lunch and swapped stories with other people in the group. It was cool to hear what the other kids and rooms were like, since I stayed in the same room all day. There was a nursery, older boys room (which was the whole upper floor), older girls room, and a toddler room (the room I was in).
After lunch I headed back to see Gregory. When I came into the room he was crying and shaking his railings. I walked over and picked him up and he stopped crying as soon as his feet left the crib. For the rest of the day I sat on the floor with him in my lap, clapping, singing and sitting in silence.
The best part of the day was when I made Gregory smile. It was a two second smile, but it was all I needed. He smiled just because I clapped and made a weird sound, it was such a such a rewarding moment.
One more story from the day happened when I was sitting alone in the room with six little toddlers. It was raining, the room was dark, and the children were all sitting on the floor rocking back and forth, staring blankly at walls. The fact that these kids do this every single day, no toys, and no one to spend one on one time with was hard to grasp. One thing that I have to add is that these kids get amazing care, they are feed, bathed, comfortable beds, clean sheets, and clean clothes. They get attention and love but it was not the same kind of attention and love you would see in a family setting. It was sad to realize that these children don’t know or have parents, it seemed lonely. That was the hardest part of the day for me.
We only stayed at the orphanage for four hours, sounds like a long time but it went by really fast. Saying goodbye at the end of the day was really hard as well, seeing the kids faces when you put them back into their cribs was difficult. We all left the orphanage teary-eyed, but full of memories and stories.
That night we ended the day of with circle time and talked about how our experiences went. I loved this part of the day because I didn’t get to see what people did all day, so I got to connect with people this way.
Today was an eye opening experience for everyone, most of us pushed our limits and jumped out of comfort zones. It was a very cool thing to be apart of and I can’t wait to go back.
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