Juan Pablo 11

no images were found

I loved my work with the Orphanage and I really loved the children who were very affectionate and give you lots of kisses and cuddles when you arrived and sneezed all over you (Hence my recent cold!!). Initially I helped the Mamas who each have about six to eight children to look after. The orphanage is divided into Casitas (little houses) and each house has a Mama and children who range from age 6 months old to 16 years old. The children consider each other brothers and sisters and the older ones look after the younger ones. The Orphanage is a state run orphanage and although a lot of help is given, the kids lack a lot of basic necessities. One girl, Mika from Holland, organised her friends and all the children got new shoes as they only had shoes with holes in them. Sandra, one of my friends from Edinburgh, came out with a wide variety of kids trousers as most of the trousers of the little boys were threadbare . My friends Debbie and Mo came over to Cusco and bought crayons and paper for all of the Casitas. The Mamas only have one day off a week and so another Mama has to look after twelve to sixteen kids when that day off occurs so I helped the Mama with the extra kids by taking the youngest off her hands either playing in the park with them or drawing with them. The children love stickers so I often brought stickers with me. There was a German girl Sandra helping in the classroom with the homework and when she left Cusco it was obvious that the teacher Jenny needed help with the homework so I changed my hours and helped with the homework in the afternoons and taught English to the older kids in the mornings. Extreme patience was needed to teach these kids as some of them have severe psychological problems. One child had seen a member of his family stabbed fourteen times. Some of the children are true orphans and some have been taken away from their parents for their own protection. Many of the children have no concentration and there are ten year-old kids who cannot even add two plus three. Sometimes it took me three hours to get one child to complete his homework. Having said that there are also some bright kids that it is a pleasure to teach but they are in the minority. One two year old, Jesus (would you believe) is an angel one minute and spitting and biting the next for no obvious reason. He is also very scared of crowds, I discovered, when I saw him shrink at a party. I really miss the children as I grew to love them.