Day 3

Internet is still not working well, so I am "borrowing" this blog update from Beth--part of the English team, and a 5 year veteran! She has an amazing blog--entertaining, insightful, and very heartfelt! (Beth, hope you don't mind!)

From Beth:

Today has been a challenge! This morning was preeeeetty hot already! I started off with the middle kids (no babies this year, so 7-13 or so) making tambourines, which was fairly calm, and then moved indoors (phewww) to do some window colours with the older ones. I discovered these in Germany when I was visiting my German pen friend with school, and developed a bit of an obsession. The Parents probably wish I hadn’t, as nearly every door in our house has an immovable sticky sign on it after a good eight years, and we’ve chiseled them off my bedroom windows! The idea is to draw an outline in ‘leading’ paint, and colour it in, peeling off the finished dry picture and sticking to a glass surface. The kids found it quite tough even though Susan and I had prepared some outlines for them. Those who persevered came up with some good stuff, so the windows should be looking pretty soon!

We brought out the staple entertainment (beads), with varying levels of complication depending on the age of the kids, and I spent the time with Gloria, a tiny little girl whose story is one of the saddest I’ve come across. She is frighteningly skinny, with problems with her eyes, an infectious grin and little awareness of what is going on. She and her brother were left at the orphanage a month ago, as their family cannot afford to feed them as well as their two younger siblings. They have already had two siblings die. The other kids push her around, although one of the highlights of my day was watching the usually mischievous Sashka keep her place in line and push the other kids away! Benny, sweet and friendly Benny, asked me why I liked Gloria while I was helping her pick up all of her beads for the fifth time; I don’t think he thinks that she is worth our time. I can’t really articulate how awful that moment was…he really couldn’t understand why anyone would bother with her. I didn’t know what to say. She just really really needs to be loved…but how do you tell that to a boy who doesn’t talk to his older sister because she has gone home to the family who don’t want to see him, and who he doesn’t like to talk about? His English is the best in the orphanage…because his Italian Dad told him that if he graduated school fluent in English, he would let him go to Italy.

Enough of that for now, we have to deal with the kids as they appear at the time, not their back story, otherwise we’d be consumed by heartbreak and unable to function! After some wash cloths (the expanding ones, an old favourite) and tattoos, I got down to the serious business of dancing. Not my strong point, but I had a little dance off with Angel, melted under the sun and will never let the videos see the light of day. Soulja Boy is NOT going to be inviting me to appear in any of his videos after I ruined his superman dance!! A bit of basketball followed, with a knee high cutie wiping the floor with English David and I, before Radi appeared and we spent some time having photos. She looked older, a little bit more girly, and smiled as wide as ever. She’s spending some time with her Mum at the moment, which is quite a development.

Iskra had given Krasa a horrific black eye, which was barely dealt with by the staff, who are currently missing their director. As a group we need to decide in our own sanctions, as we need to protect Krasa from her, ensuring that she feels safe during our activities. Apparently Iskra was demanding money from Krasa, who did not oblige. Iskra is moody and rude on occasion, but this was really shocking. Krasa seems very upset and is probably in a lot of pain.

We have a lot planned for tomorrow, and may have the Internet back…