Yesterday I visited a Catholic orphanage that is in the South part of the city. I wanted to get the chance to see how other orphanages are set up and run. This particular orphanage has about 70 children ranging in age from newborn to 16 years old. Upon arriving I was introduced to some very nice nuns. They escorted to me to a house where I was told to supervise a 13 year old boy who had to wash his clothes. So the boy and I chatted while he put his clothes in the washing machine and then washed some other clothes by hand. About 15 minutes go by and up comes the nun to check on the progress of the washing. She begins yelling at the boy when she sees that he has put his clothes in the washing machine. Apparently he was supposed to be washing all of his clothes by hand on the slabs of rock. She gave me an irritated glance, like I should have known better. His punishment was to wash more clothes by hand and then rewash the already clean clothes from the washing machine again, by hand. Shortly after I joined in for lunch with five 2-4 year old girls. I was amazed to see the kids cutting their own meat using a fork and knife at the age of 2! Before beginning lunch we all practiced praying and doing the sign of the cross, numerous times. Then the little girl sitting next to me, decided to put the sticker from the banana peel up her nose. It got stuck there. She started to cry. I told her to take it out. She took it out. Wiped it across the table. And stuck it in her mouth. As we say here, “Qué asco” – how gross!
The visit ended with me being left alone with about 11 kids, helping with homework. I finally left without a nun in sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment