A visit to the orphanage ......and finally some more pictures

LOOK HOW MUCH MOMMA IS FEEDING ME

Today Dominic and I WALKED to the orphanage....bruce trail is a breeze compared to that trek. Gladly all the sisters were there and I got a tour and they allowed me to take pictures for memories. It was very emotional to see all 137 children all under the age of 5 but 1 little girl who was 5 yrs and awaiting for placement to another orphanage for older kids with little hope for a bright future.

When you walk in there is a very clean and tidy courtyard with a large sanctuary and statue of Mary and the picture of Mother Teresa beside it. She was in that orphanage serving the the 1980s. The courtyard is surrounded by gardens of flowers and vegetables. I walked down a path into a large building that houses all of the children. The first room had 40 or more cribs, all filled with infants 12 mos and under. When it gets full there is 2 extra long cribs against the wall which sleeps 3 or more infants.

The next room is the area that the children 18 mos to approx 3 yrs sit and eat. On saturdays they fortunately have lots of volunteers to feed all those children. Normally they have young teenage girls that help look after these children along with the sisters. There's about 14 on staff to cook, clean, wash and look after these children with no luxury of machines....amazing. The laundry hanging outside is overwhelming. Cloth diapers all washed by hand. The 2 rooms next to that is where Dominic was. Again filled from wall to wall with slightly larger cribs. The last 2 rooms are filled with toddler beds, when they are old enough to sleep in one. There is a little 2 room nursery school and a little playground. Outside I saw the biggest playpen I've ever seen with about 10 or more crawling and barely walking toddlers. The most amusing thing I saw and heartbreaking at the same time was a room with no less than 20 walking toddlers all sitting on potties at the same time. I found it hard potty training 1 child at a time never the less 20. AND they do this 3 times a day. I can't believe how all the children sit there and don't get off with only 1 young girl caring for them all.

Farther down the compound there was still another 2 buildings (one for men and one for women) housing older adults with handicaps (blindness,etc). Like I said, it was very emotional.

Despite all the sorrow I felt for these children, I felt a joy seeing the love of God being poured out through their care and dedication for these children. When I entered the orphanage the sisters and the young girls just hovered over Dominic calling out his name. A couple of them really wanted to hold him but surprisingly he started to cry and hold out his hands to me. Despite his crying I was so pleased that he felt secure in my arms and is starting to recognize me as his momma. Hopefully I can upload the picture... but in the final picture I took with Dominic and the sisters he was beside himself. The sisters were happy to see that as well. We also saw a family from Switzerland with 2 boys who adopted a little girl who basically grew up with Dominic which was neat to see.

Well tomorrow I go to Nairobi. Hopefully I can update you then. Kenya is 8 hours ahead. So far I ve been able to upload a few pictures but I think the server is starting to slow down again. So I will try to show more tomorrow. I apologize for the layout of the pictures....I should have gotten a quick tutorial on how to put together a blog.