Saturday, Reflection Day
Off to Mother Teresa's orphanage in Columbo. There are many locations throughout the world.
As the bus pulled in there were about 10 children playing at a small playground that was enclosed by a chain link fence. They ranged in age from 4-7 yr old. the children ran to the fence and waved and yelled to us. The facility is old, it looks like the 50s. A lot of small rooms surrounding courtyards. Statues of Mother Teresa, Jesus and Mary were placed throughout. There were about 100 children there we saw only 25. Most of the children had short hair, but they still had a problem with head lice. Laughing, crying, runny noses, just like our children. There was an area for children with medical needs. A few babies with hydrocephalic heads, cleft palates and other anomalies. I was drawn to this poor child laying on a baby blanket under a screen shield. It's a net on a small collapsible frame that opens up like a small umbrella. it was pink with a few ruffles. Used to keep the flies off.
This baby was hydrocephalic, blind, cleft palate, deformed hand and foot. And those were just the obvious. She was about 6 months old. I just can't imagine how that baby could still be alive. Anyway I thought the baby needed to be touched, and because I see children like this at work I am comfortable to do that. So i spent most of my time talking to and touching that baby. On the way out I noticed that the little bikes and trikes had a lot of rough edges and broken metal. We are so safety conscious in our society that all of theses things seem so dangerous to me.
A dirty long gray haired man approached me. He was trying to get a comb or brush from me, motioning with his fingers thru his hair. I was digging through my back pack to get my hair brush to give him and a nun approached, when he saw her he acted like he didn't want it, so I assume he was not suppose to be there begging, a few moments later the nun brought some bread and water to him.
