"Try Not To Get Too Attached" . . . Easier Said Than Done

Leaving a volunteer project is never easy for me. Perhaps it is the masochist in me, but I rarely leave with a feeling of upliftment or satisfaction in "a job well done". Instead, I generally leave in a state of frustration, knowing that there is so much more to be done. This project has been no exception. Only this time I am leaving with a huge hole in my heart as well.

After six weeks at the Baphamulele Children's Home, we have become very close to many of the children with whom we have been working. After days spent feeding, bathing, singing, dancing, and playing, you would have to have a heart of stone not to fall in love with all our kids. Yes, there were days when we were all ready to retreat up to our flat after listening to Nikita and Zam whine all day (all day) or after struggling with Lithemba to feed him his food, but most of the time I had a hard time leaving at the end of a shift.

While each child has earned a special place in my heart (even Nikita and Zam), one child has completely stolen it. His name is Litha, and even as I sit here typing his name my eyes are welling up with tears. I could go on and on for pages describing how special Litha is: how much I love his curiosity, his love of singing, his original dance moves, his intelligence (he is so bright), his kisses, and just the feeling of snuggling with him in my lap as we watched Barney at night, but I don't think that's necessary, and to be honest, I can't write too much about him without totally breaking down in tears.

Though both Jeff and I have agreed for some time (much to my mother's chagrin) that children are still a few years off for us, I would take Litha home with us in a heartbeat if I could. Unfortunately, South Africa's misguided adoption laws make it next to impossible for people from other countries to adopt any of the many, many children here that need homes. To even be considered, a person must be a resident of South Africa for at least two years. From what I have been told, this law was created with a desire to keep South African children "South African". While I have no problem with the spirit of this law, I find it to be incredibly unrealistic and downright irresponsible given the number of children that are parentless in this country. I wonder what these children would say if given a choice.

We are not permitted to publish pictures of the children in a public forum, such as a blog. We are, however, permitted to put them up in private areas, such as Facebook, so I am putting up a few of the many pictures that I have taken on Facebook, in case anyone is interested in seeing them.

The Not-So-Beautiful Side of Cape Town

The last few posts focused on the visually stunning setting of the Cape Town area.  However, the city is not without its blemishes, and at least one book has stated that it is perhaps the most economically unequal city in the world.  We see this first hand every time we go on shift at the orphanage.  Our drive from the comfortable Cape Town suburb of Observatory to the Baphumelele Children's home takes us past miles and miles of the ramshackle shanties of the township of Khayelitsha.  The main road we take into the township is completely littered with trash; we've been told that this is the residents' way of protesting their living conditions to the government.  If you think this cutting-off-one's-nose behavior is drastic, you should see the road on its worst days.  In a more extreme form of protest, some Khalyelitsha residents will take to burning vehicles.  On our last shift, we drove past a city bus that had been stormed by protesters and then destroyed.

Driving through Khayelitsha

How Do You Say Peekaboo in Xhosa?

We've spent a month each in Trujillo, Peru and Paris, but Cape Town will end up as our longest stay on this trip.  Why did we decide to stay here for so long?  In addition to being ridiculously beautiful (we'll have pictures up at some point), the city is also home to our second volunteering project.

For six weeks, we are volunteering at Baphumelele Children's Home, a sanctuary for orphaned, abandoned or neglected children.  The home is located in Khayelitsha, the largest township (in South Africa, a term referring to Apartheid holdover non-white settlements on the periphery of urban centers) in the Cape Town area with 1.5 million people people living in shanties.  The residents here face poverty, some of the highest crime rates in the developed world, and frighteningly high HIV infection rates.  In fact, HIV/AIDS is the reason many of the children are orphans, and a number of them are infected themselves.

Baphumelele looks after over 200 kids of varying ages, but Magge and I focus on the "Baby House", a group of nearly thirty three month to three year olds.  We, and four other volunteers on our shift, assist four full time caregivers in this task.  The primary chores are helping to prepare bottles and food, feeding, brushing teeth, bathing, but most of all we play with them.  We're supposed to "attempt to carry out at least one activity" per play session, but anyone who has dealt with kids that age knows a structured activity is an unlikely event.  Thirty kids that age that barely speak or understand English (their first language is Xhosa) running around a room makes it extra unlikely.  If I can get a kid to play catch or sing a song with me, I chalk one up in the success column.

Even though the ratio of adults to children seems good, being in the Baby House can still be overwhelming.  The kids are all craving adult attention, and they swarm anyone that walks through the door.  If I sit down, there are immediately three rugrats squirming their way into my lap.  There are always a few kids crying, and they don't listen to the volunteers very well (probably due to a combination of the language barrier and the itinerant nature of the volunteers).  Some of them have behavioral or even neurological issues, and dealing with them can be taxing.  One child, whom Magge guesses suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, lacks coordination and has to wear a helmet as he stumbles around the room, knocking others down to the floor.  He's taken a liking to Magge, and she does a fantastic job of showing him attention when some of the other volunteers prefer to ignore him.

Thankfully, the long, intense days are balanced by a schedule that allows us to recharge and explore the Cape Town area.  We work in three day shifts; when we're on shift, we stay in the Baphumelele complex, and our off shift time is spent in a house just outside of Cape Town.  Aviva, the organization that administers the volunteer program at Baphumelele along with various other programs across the country, organizes activities for its volunteers and provides plenty of resources.  Both Magge and I have been impressed with how well the operation is run and it is definitely a nice change from our disorganized time with Bruce Peru in Trujillo.  We've already been here for one week and are very much looking forward to the next five.

Deeper Into Alto Trujillo

Bruce Peru is throwing a Christmas party for all the kids this Friday, and in preparation, the teacher at my school and I spent time after class yesterday tracking down parents to sign permission slips.  I haven't done much exploring of the barrio (to give you an idea why: I have to wear a green tunic to school so that the residents know I'm there to help and will leave me alone; by leave me alone, I mean not rob me or worse), so the only parts I have seen are those that are visible from the bus ride.  I had no idea that the school was in an area of the neighborhood that is relatively nice and that some of the children live in even worse conditions.

To get to one girl's home, we had to cross a wide strip of desert that was uninhabited due to the presence of power lines (which don't supply power to most of the nearby buildings).  It was somewhat surreal to be walking across the hot sand, surrounded by jagged mountains with a view of huts scattered few hundred meters in the distance.  The juxtaposition of the stark beauty of the natural surroundings and the despair of the sporadic trash heaps and ramshackle homes was jarring.  Magge has used the term "post-apocalyptic" to describe her barrio before, but until yesterday, I had thought that was too severe a description for my barrio.  However, as we walked, I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to describe the area.  I wouldn't have been completely shocked to see Mad Max come out from one of the homes, which are made from reeds and plastic tarp, rather than the concrete slab constructions closer to the school.

The most amazing part, however, is that the kids were completely oblivious to the conditions.  They were running, laughing, playing tag and using abandoned contruction sites as play complexes.  I'm sure that as they grow older and become more aware of what they do and do not have, most of their attitudes will change, but for the moment, it is refreshing to see their innocence.

That's enough of clichéd, heartrending prose for one week.  I will try to get back to my usual schedule of eating weird animals and making fun of other tourists.

* Note: This picture is of a home in Magge's barrio, not mine, but it is typical of the homes in the barrios surrounding Trujillo.

Our First Week of Volunteering, or: Where is Charles Dickens When You Need Him?

Since we arrived in South America, we have been amazed at the ages of the children selling goods in the street. There seems to be no limit to how young they must be to push candy and trinkets to strangers; as long as the child can walk and hold objects in their hands, he or she is deemed fit as a vendor. Magge likes to tell me that I am a cold, emotionless person, but I have a hard time seeing an emaciated five year old with tattered clothes and hands nearly black with grime begging passersbys to buy suckers and gum.

Education is constitutionally compulsory and free in Peru, but many children, especially those from the barrios (poor neighborhoods that typically rim major cities), never make it into schools. Supposedly, the matriculation rate at the primary levels is 97%, but I rarely ever believe data released from the U.S., so I'm not inclined to believe any statistics sourced from the Peruvian government. A number of children are born in their families' shanties without birth certificates or other records, so I don't think the government even knows how many children they are supposed to have in their schools.