Orphanage Month: Saying Goodbyes

When I wasn’t tearing up or crying, I had a lump in my throat most of my last Saturday in Zim.  I barely held it together as I took one last trip to the grocery store, walking through the aisles in search of the perfect bargains to stretch my money as far as it would go for what I dreaded since we decided to move out of the country: our last visit to our orphanages.   It was the day I had to say goodbye to “my seven” and a number of special others that we came to care deeply about during our time in Zim. 

Goodbyes are always hard, especially when you wonder about eventually seeing someone again.  But what felt even worse, on this especially cold and windy day, was being another adult that was deserting these kids for my own personal green pasture, which did not include them. 

The visit to our remote orphanage -as it often did- interrupted a barefoot game of soccer.  As we drove in one last time we were surrounded, as always, with familiar happy faces and too many grabbing hands.  We laughed with the boys one last time, gave them special treats and pictures (the ultimate), and handed out bags of homemade trail mix as a last attempt at shoving protein in their malnourished bodies.  We gave the boys our only solid contact info: email addresses that got quizzical looks and raised eyebrows.  “Just keep it,” I said.  “In a few years you may just see a computer here.”  

We hugged, and Kudakwashe let us out the gate, waving as we drove away one last time.   I cried as we turned onto the paved road that would take us back to the city, while our car randomly pumped the croonings of Regina Spektor into the air.  At first it felt weird, like driving into my 21^st century life while I left children behind without so much as electricity for the night.  The upbeat music was ironic and awkward as we sat there with such heavy hearts and quivering lips.  Then Spector’s words suddenly felt more appropriate than any I’ve heard before.

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

 

 

 

 

 

Orphanage Month: Getting Babies

One of our little guy’s favorite activities in Zim has been something he calls, “Getting babies.”

Whenever we arrived at this particular city orphanage, after being mauled by too many children to count, Jonas and I always wound our way inside to find the babies hidden in the recesses of buildings.  The babies of this particular orphanage lie in their beds, untouched, for most of the day.  Well, I try not to think about it.  But let’s be honest.  Most of the week.  Most of the month.  Most of their first few years.  If they are lucky, their diapers are changed at most twice a day. For many of them it is the only interaction they will get.  The stench of old urine and diarrhea is gagging at best.

 

Children flock around me, excited to watch and help.  Some just want to touch the rubber gloves I have brought.  

 

(Above) are two of my many favorites: Pretty, and Fortunate.  My son Jonas and I always brought our own supplies. Each visit we changed, clothed, and carried as many babies outside to be held as we could. The orphanage children loved passing the babies about once the babies were cleaned and outside. 

Above is Emmanuel and Mary, with Martin in tow.  Like Mary, many of the girls put the babies in berikas on their backs, pretending to be mothers themselves. 

Above, Martin, who is now actually a three year old but at the time could barely sit up, is misguidedly being pushed on the swings by some very well-intended children...

    

Meet Tendai, the first baby I ever met at the orphanage.   When I first started working with Tendai, his fists and arms were clenched to his body and his legs would not move from the fetal position except when stretched.  This was the result of never leaving his crib during his first year.  

(Above, I hold Tendai with one of my favorite little guys, whose journey I followed through two orphanages, Lovie.)  

 

When Tendai and I first met, he did not reach for things or smile, and - like all of the babies at his particular orphanage- he was silent.  They never cry, which I have come to conclusion must be because no one ever responded to their crying and now they do not bother.  Though some of them probably can, I have never heard a child here speak before three.

 

Tendai was my special project.  I knew absolutely nothing about how to do proper baby-massage, but whenever I came to the orphanage I found him first, working on moving his legs and arms as much as possible, stretching him and forcing his hands open.  My long term goal was initially to get Tendai to smile at me someday.

If you know me at all, you know that only since having my own child, I have a weird, terrible ability to cry at anything.  Anytime.  For any reason.  You can imagine how much I cried the day Tendai looked up at me and smiled a cooing bubbly smile.  It took until Tendai was two years old.

   

I stopped visiting Tendai’s orphanage on a regular basis after another one of my babes died.  I was heartbroken and bitter and so very angry at people who, in all honesty, I realize could not have cared less whether I was there or not. I had so many other orphanage options that despite recognizing the need of the children at the Harare Children's Home, I stopped attending such a terribly run place.  Upon one of my last visits to Tendai’s orphanage with my visiting sister Caryn, I recently found this little guy toddling around and it was all I could do to hold it together.  And he will never know what he has already overcome in life and how proud someone already is of him. Tendai is now a gorgeous toddling three year old.

Often babies in orphanages do not crawl, let alone cruise, like most babies in the US do.  Many of the babies in the orphanage system are extremely delayed from malnutrition, lack of care, lack of interaction, disease, etc, and are not given opportunities to explore their surroundings or to chose where they go.

Tendai is pretty much at the age of being un-adoptable.  Though a child of any age can be adopted by a citizen of the country (I am not allowed.  Gasp- a foreigner?!) most babies that reach the age of 18 months do not have hope of adoption.  People want infants, if they want any child at all. Adoption is not common in the culture of the Shona people.  People with the ability to take in others often have extended family members to support instead.  Adoption rates are low in country with more orphans than you can imagine...

Orphanage Month: Country Kid, City Kid

I will admit it.  I got along much better with the city kids.  But this is ironic, as I’ve spent most of my time in rural orphanages.  Let me explain the differences –the stark differences-- between rural orphanages and city orphanages in Zimbabwe…

The Rural Orphanage:  It was a few days in advance that I learned we could stop by my favorite rural orphanage an hour outside of Harare during a harvesting trip some students at my husband’s school were taking to the nearby village of Juru.  I debated whether or not to contact a few people who had previously donated to our orphanage work.  It was so last minute, and I felt terrible for asking for anything after their previous generosity, but something in me said to try in the event I could scrape together something small.  But I have to confess that it was really about hating to arrive empty handed more than thinking I could make any difference.  Scraping together a little over $200 worth of donations of noodles, rice, and cans of veggies and peanut butter ended up being surprisingly easy, but the impact was where the real surprise came.

When we arrived, I had the high school students carry the food into the kitchen.  It was 1:00 pm, the usual time lunch would have been served. I had expected to see everyone in the dining hall, but instead found all of the children sitting outside. There was no evidence that lunch had taken place; no dishes, smells, etc. As I went to put vegetables from my garden into the fridge and some sweets from a donor into the freezer, I realized something that immediately set a huge lump in my throat. 

There was nothing. 

I opened cabinets, one after another. I opened the closet, then looked behind the building. I tore through everything I could.  There was nothing. No food.  Anywhere.

I checked with the cook, standing outside.  There was nothing.  No food.  Anywhere.

An ignorant local I spoke to later, who had lived in Harare her whole life, listened to me tell the story later and said, "Well that's ridiculous.  Why didn't they just call someone?"

"And who would they call?" I had asked innocently, while wanting to rip her head off.  I suppose I should give them my phone number.  Oh, but Sister D. doesn't have a cell phone, so I'd probably have to give her that, too.  And if I did, she'd only have a few days of electricity a month to charge her phone. But then I'd probably need to provide her with phone minutes, too, because how would she pay for them?Oh, but they don't have cell reception out there anyway.  The local had stammered and then changed the subject.

As I told our donors later, you just never know when a gesture will hit someone at exactly the right moment.  There was no way those rural children, surrounded by farmland of all things, would have eaten dinner without the generosity of random far-away people willing to pitch in small pieces at the last second.  We rode home from the orphanage knowing exactly what those kids were eating for dinner because it was what we had carried into the kitchen that afternoon.  My prayer is that someday when our donors find themselves in such a clutch position, they will feel the same deliverance I saw on the cook Angela’s face that afternoon.

The economic challenges of the rural African orphanage are much more significant in general than that of a city orphanage.  I have come to the conclusion that although the orphanages in Harare are very very needy, too, the real starvational poverty happens in places like Juru.  There is a smaller surrounding population to donate time and provisions and in places where everyone is trying to survive, organizations like the Juru orphanage have few people to ask for help. In laymen’s terms, the physical and social isolation of rural orphanages is often great. Health care is harder to access.  Fewer nearby businesses and companies mean there is less of an economic base and upper class to support the workings of the organization.  Rural orphanages are often needier and lack even basic necessities, like water and electricity, that city orphanages enjoy.   Rural orphanages often grow their own food in gardens near the orphanage, but there are almost always too many mouths to feed for these crops to provide sustainability. 

The City Orphanage:  City orphanages sometimes receive more challenging children, as they are often the receivers of street kids, those that have been affected by drugs or the drug industry while trying to survive, or those who have been involved in prostitution in some way.

Our personal relationships with most of the kids we have worked with come from children in city areas or children that have been relocated to rural orphanages after being in the city for a time.  This is because these are the kids who know English.   The farther one goes into the rural areas, the harder it can be for people like me to communicate without a good knowledge of Shona or Ndebele. 

Though city orphanages also often face financial struggles, surrounded by a larger population base, city orphanages get corporate sponsorship and donation drop-offs often.  The children at one of my favorite homes in the city used to scramble and shriek madly whenever I brought bananas or vitamins to them and I was often puzzled by how thin they were despite watching these donations happen.  Not only were a number of the donations going out the back to be sold by “mothers” working at the orphanage for their own personal gain, but the donations that were getting to the children’s lips were often not in a nutritional form. 

While sitting down to read books with a group of little ones one day, I asked them what special treat I should bring for them the next time I came to visit. “Uggh,” one of them said. “Please, just don’t bring us any more cake.  Everyone brings us sweets.”

“Yes!” said others. “We want fruits or vegetables. Please!”

I was floored.  But how fun it has been to introduce these little ones to their very first pineapple and blueberries and strawberries since.

The transition for children from city orphanages into adulthood is a hard one compared to that of the rural orphan.  In the rural areas, children live like the largest populations of Shona and Ndebele live: growing their food, dealing with electrical and water shortages, washing clothing by hand, and living on sadza and other carbohydrate staples.  At the city orphanages children are often raised with televisions blaring in the background, donations of already prepared foods and sweets, and generators.  Though the city lifestyle sounds better, studies are beginning to show that unfortunately these children are less prepared for the lifestyle of poverty they most often find once leaving the orphanage system.

Above the boys at a rural orphanage learn how to clean a chicken coop.

Above some children at a city orphanage play on their (albeit dilapidated) playground equipment.

Above is the freezer from the rural orphanage I mentioned.  Empty except for empty bread bags (their only form of tupperware) and old soda bottles of ice, used to keep the freezer cold during severe ZESA outages.

Above two of the older boys fill pots with water from a spigot above the stove to be taken to the garden.  The borehole was broken and the orphanage was relying on water piped from a neighboring school.  But the water does not work when ZESA is out, or when the school shuts it off to use it for themselves, so daily children help carry pots to the vegetable garden. On the counter sit some of the donations from our donors.

Orphanage Month: Random Pieces of the Orphanage System

-We classify the orphanages we know by two factors: 

One factor is the provision going to the children in the orphanage.  All orphanages here have great needs, but it is clear that the needs of some children are being met in some orphanages more than in other orphanages.

The other factor is the quality of care. Children at some orphanages are supervised and being raised under higher standards than others.

-Donations go out the back door in some orphanages, sold by the staff instead of being given to the children for which they were intended.  In some places it is hard to give unless we place the donation directly into the child’s hands or place it on the child’s body. 

-Children learn what behaviors get them results; thus some orphanages have the most unruly children that behave like animals whenever visitors arrive, in an attempt to receive as much as possible. The loudest gets the most. 

-Orphanages are often full of disease.  Imagine one hundred children sharing a bathroom with no toilet paper, toilet seats, soap, or towels.  Fungus, hair loss, malnutrition, colds and flus, athlete’s foot, and lice are all more than common.  Aside from the questionable behavior mentioned above (and "questionable" is a generous term here), disease issues always left me wondering if I was being a good parent by having my own little one at the orphanage.  Upon returning home after a visit, the first thing we always did was bathe.  Thoroughly. Everything in the wash.  The orphanage bag was relegated to the floor of the same closet, and was washed weekly.  Even in lovingly run places, an orphanage is a dirty space.

 

-Most orphanages have a couple of staff members exhaustively working for a hundred children, or have a large number of staff that never leave the break room.  Either way, the result is often anarchy: children raising children.

-We have seen children talking to or playing with the following in place of toys:  a door, a wooden bench, a brick, a metal rod, a seed, a shirt named Alice, a paint chip named Henry, and a tree called Isador.

-It is a tricky thing to decide which orphanage we should help more.  An orphanage of high quality care that provides loving guidance and good facilities to its orphans. Or an orphanage that provides terrible care for children and thus has needier children desperate for any drop of food or love.  Which would you choose?  We never quite decided, but found ourselves torn between the two.  Our methods of giving became very different, dependent upon what orphanage we were visiting.

 

Orphanage Month: Redefining Definitions

My list of learning among the orphans of Zim goes on and on, but at the heart of it all lies deeply-rooted differences in the American understanding of orphans verses the African understanding of the same.  These are important to share as we process what “neediness” and “family” looks like in different pieces of the world.

We will admit it. We were taken aback when we came to realize that some of our definitions for words like “orphan” or “mother” or “husband” seemingly meant nothing in our new country.  We had moved to a complicated new land with blurred concepts of familial definitions and it was irritating. And messy. “Her mother is sick?  But I thought she was an orphan…” 

In Shona culture, relationships are often referred to as "family by choice."  They are not nuclear and put little emphasis on blood.  This can be irritating because a person can have twelve uncles or five mothers.  And every time a mother is sick, an employee gets time off... It's hard when we enter as Americans trying to actually understand who is related to who.  But in the end, our need for a definition on who's related doesn't matter.   Family by choice is such a strong bond here, that if two people claim each other as family, they take on responsibility for one another with a bond that is beautifully un-separable.

And in the case of an orphan, this is often a good thing.  It often keeps orphans out of an already unmanageably large institutional system.  But it gives those in the system little hope of being adopted, as most capable people in Zim already support large extended families and do not consider taking on other children.

The concept of orphan in Africa is different than in the US.  In the US it typically means that a child does not have a parent or guardian to provide care.  In Zimbabwe an orphan can be a child without a living relative.  But it is often also a child who does not have a parent or guardian willing or able to provide care.  Many orphans have family members that pick them up on holidays and special occasions, then drop them back into the orphanage afterward as a cost saving measure. 

I’ve often asked myself, “What is worse?”

To be a child optionally dumped back into the system after a holiday?

To be a child with living relatives that choose not to pick them up?

To be a child with living relatives that cannot afford to pick them up? 

To have no relatives at all?

We came to appreciate the blurry lines that define a true orphan in Zimbabwe. Because of blurred linguistic definitions, orphaned children fall under an umbrella of receiving help more easily than in the American system of technicalities and definitions that often decide whether a child should be adoptable or fostered.  (Please do not get me wrong, I absolutely still think the no-orphanage system many first world countries have adopted that forgoes the institution in place of foster is often the lesser of two evils… But that is a different conversation for another day!)

A Double Orphan is a term in Zim used to describe a child who has two dead parents. A Single Orphan is a term in Zim used to describe a child with one dead parent, and one living parent that is not involved.  In a single orphan situation, often the living parent is a mother.  In the Shona culture, if the mother remarries (often with the intention of providing for her children), the new father has the right to deny and refuse all of the children from the woman’s previous marriage at any point that he likes.  When this happens, the children from the first marriage are thrown out of the household to fend for themselves. Though they technically have a living parent, children in this situation are entirely orphans.

An orphan we recently worked with named Maxwell is an interesting example of this: Maxwell’s father passed away when he was a toddler.  His mother remarried a man who said he would keep her children.  He later changed his mind, and dismissed all the children from the household.  Maxwell’s mother did the unthinkable; she left the husband to be with her children. This is extremely rare in the Shona culture.  They all lived in poverty, homeless, since. Already Maxwell is expected to eventually provide for his two mothers and three younger brothers. Below, orphan Maxwell introduces us to his two mothers: