Orphanage Day 2 | Erin Postma

Tuesday was orphanage day 2 and I was pretty exited I had a good day last time and I had already been there so I knew what to expect so I wasn't really nervous! The day started off with a 2 hour long car ride . The ride was fairly quiet most people plugged their headphones in and slept. I spent my drive looking out the window at the beautiful scenery, man the Dominican is a beautiful country!

When we got there our welcoming wasn’t as exiting because Anderson, one of the boys who last time we were there was yelling with his hands in the air, was still asleep, but we were still greeted by many familiar faces, lots of hugs and for some kisses! As we were walking through the courtyard kids would find one of us either someone they hung out with last time or just grab a random hand. Olivia was carrying a little boy Gregory. I recognized him from our last visit. I only interacted with him briefly because our last visit I bounced around from kid to kid. This orphanage visit was very different then the first one for me because I ended up sticking with Gregory for most of the day! He is a beautiful little boy Erika told me he is about 5 years old. He doesn’t talk but seems to be there mentally and is very physically able. He rarely smiles and is very unresponsive. He has big, sad, brown eyes with thick dark eye lashes. His hair is short and curly and his face is always covered in milk. Me and Olivia spent the morning out in the courtyard with Gregory. We would tickle him and make faces at him trying to make him smile and we were successful on a few occasions, we even got a giggle out of him. Gregory has 6 Q-tips, don’t worry they were clean, and we would play a game when he would pick all the Q-tips up and place them on my head then I would shake my head and they would fall to the ground and he would pick them up again and put them back on my head. Then we would switch I would put them on his head and he would shake them off then I would pick them up and place them back on his head. This game kept the both of us entertained for a long time! It was really cool to see that with just 6 Q-tips he was able to entertain himself! We walked around the courtyard in circles, sometimes he’d be in my arms, sometimes holding my hand and others I'd be pushing him in a wheel chair. He is very unresponsive and I knew he had no idea what I was saying but I talked to him the whole day! A couple times during the day he would randomly start crying he would cover his ears, pace back and forward then he would drop to the ground and start rocking back and forward. The first few times he did this is scared me so I would leave him when a nurse came, I would take a breather then go back to see him. I would say this happened about 5 times that day, it was hard because I didn’t know what triggered it and how to comfort him. Erika explained to me that he probably did this because he has autism. By the end of the day I was able to stay with him and with the help of a nurse we got him to clam down! We spent the last hour of the day rolling pieces of syringes back and forward across a table, then we moved to rolling them down a ramp. I wasn’t sad to say goodbye because I knew I would get to see him again, the next time I see him the goodbye will probably be harder, but I am thankful for the opportunity to get to interact with Gregory, I don’t know if I made an impact on him I don’t even know if he will remember me, but he made a impact on my life!

I had a pretty calm day just chilling with Gregory. He is a fantastic little boy that could probably scare someone at first, I was scared of him at first because he seemed very angry and its hard to interact with someone who doesn’t give you any reaction. he is a sweet heart and if you try to interact with him you might get a beautiful smile or a cute little giggle!

Today was an overall great day everyone seemed to be really happy the atmosphere of the place was really cheery, there was lots of smiles and laughs. I can honestly say that day 2 at the orphanage has been one of my favorite days of the trip yet! It was great seeing all the students and chaps interacting with the kids! They interacted in many different ways weather they were chilling on the grass together, playing guitar and drums, having wheel chair races or just chilling by a bed side holding a kids hand. Coming into the trip I was terrified to go to the orphanage! But the orphanage is a great place it is full of love. The kids love each other and most of the nurses love the kids! Don't get me wrong the orphanage is sad, seeing some of the kids and the disorders they have is really hard and knowing that some of them will spend there whole life lying in a bed staring at a ceiling, that’s the sad part of the orphanage but the building and place its self is a fantastic place if not for the orphanage most of these kids would be in worse condition they are now. At the orphanage they have a roof over there head, food to eat, a bed to sleep in and people who love them. It was an overall good day and I really enjoyed my time spent at the orphanage!