Still in the land of babies
Trip Start
Sep 14, 2007
1
39
Trip End
Ongoing
Mwanza, Tanzania
Saturday, March 1, 2008
I (along with Emma and Chloe) also currently employ 2 houseworkers who work part-time, and a baking lady who bakes for us 5 days a week! All in the name of giving someone a job and skill for the future!!
Anyways, the baby home is absolutely wonderful!! Have been here.....3 months now. So over half way! Yaozaa it's gone fast!!!
Currently we have.....34 babies. Well, 13 of them are toddlers. All the rest are screaming babies under the age of 1! It's crazy! It used to be lovely walking into the room seeing all the cute little things! Now its just so crazy with so many children everywhere!!
We have managed to avoid any serious illnesses with children that would require hospitalization in the last few weeks. Normally our HIV kids get very sick very often. Anyways, yesterday Chloe (one of the other volunteers) took Mary (a baby) to the hospital to get an abscess drained and she discovered 4 tiny babies waiting to be processed by Social Welfare before coming to us!! So, by early next week we could have at least 38 children. It's ridiculous!!!
They are all so cute and adorable, but I definitely have my favourites! The children aged between 12 and 14months are my favourite. Probably cos they are so active, yet easier to control than tantruming toddlers!! Seba is currently my favourite. She's very manipulative, but just soooo adorable!!! She has a twin - Omari. Most of my pictures are of those two!! She has just learned to pose for the camera, which is hilarious as she is also the only child who will NEVER perform on command! But when there's a camera near she grins continuously incase she's snapped!
A normal day starts at 6.30am when I go over and help wash, dress and feed all the kids. This would be an easy task. However here diapers are too expensive, so we use cloth nappies. Therefore, per child we put cream all over their body, get a cloth nappy fold it twice, put a nappy liner on top, fold it up, get a nappy pin to hold it in place, put a waterproof cover over the top, dress the child then move onto the next one. This is a feat in itself, however i also have to contend with the bigger babies who LOVE undoing nappies, and pulling liners out of the packets, and steal dummy's out of tiny babies mouths, and crawl over tiny babies, and escape out the gate, and fall off toys. So, I have very high blood pressure in the morning. However when i return home it will be very difficult for small things to stress me out!!
So from 6.30 - 9ish i am with babies. Once I've finished shoveling porridge into mouths, i go and start on the medicine. Some weeks this takes 1 hour every morning. However, right now most kids are sick, so the medicines take all day long while going back and forth and being called in different directions for different emergencies.
Things quieten down when the toddlers go for a nap at 11.30am til 1pm. Lunch is served at 1, then things get crazy again. Middle sized babies (10 - 14months) are ideally sleeping between 1pm and 3pm. After that, they are kept awake so that they can sleep through the night (as there are only 4 night staff from 7pm til 7am!!). Keeping grumpy children awake is not a very fun job!!!
4.30 is baby feeding then bathing time when the drama starts all over again! Then toddlers at 5.30pm. Bedtime is 6.50pm. 6.50pm is generally the highlight of my day as i know screaming children get to go to sleep!! Haha!
How awful I sound! It's not at all awful! But days are long and some days (for example this morning) are testing. The children make it all worthwhile though!!
I have no idea how I'm going to leave them all. Currently trying to come up with a plan on how to fit them in my suitcase!!
The hardest part is the fact that i feel like their parent. I bath them, dress them, feed them, put them to bed, comfort them when they are crying. But I also witness the 1st time they crawl, 1st time they walk, 1st words, etc. It's just going to be a horrible experience leaving them behind!!
Luckily I have a long-ish time left and am trying to make the most of it! All the children have changed so much even since I've arrived here! I love spending most of my time with the children and watching what ridiculous ideas they come up with next.
Comments
Amazing :)
Hello sweetness! I just want to say that I think you're amazing for doing what you're doing, and I can only imagine how incredibley hard but at the same time rewarding the work with your babies must be, this ecperience will stay with you for life! I know you're going to hate leaving them, but I am sooooo looking forward to seeing you and your big smile again!(and not just in a photo) :)
Love Always,
Jen
(MooBaaBaaMoo)