Home of Hope Orphanage

Madonna is back in Malawi this week visiting the Home of Hope in Mchinji where she found her son David. I wrote a little about Home of Hope on an earlier blog entry -- remember the little girl in the rain? I took these pictures and video right before that storm rolled in.

The orphanage is run by Rev. Thompson Chipeta, a retired Presbyterian minister who himself grew up as an orphan. He established the orphanage with the idea of the children living in “home groups”, each group of up to 25 children being cared for by a “mother”. The mothers are usually widows who are given accommodation, food and a very small allowance, if finances permit. (Medic Malawi web site).

This is Gladys. She waddled up to me when I first arrived at the orphanage. She's a baby. She's a brick. I picked her up, a ball of expressionless dead weight in my arms. Jeffrey Sachs' wife Sonia, a pediatrician, examined Gladys a few months before I met her in February. I understand from Nathan (the director on the Madonna documentary who was with Sonia on that last visit) that Gladys has a curved spine and as evidenced by her bulging belly, other internal problems all due to malnutrition. She's not going to outgrow these problems.

I could feel her bendy spine when I held her. Even before I picked her up I knew something wasn't quite right. Her eyes remind me of my friend Ananya from grad school, so I had a special fondness for her.

I met the girl in the yellow dress when she was off by herself playing with broken glass. She was throwing rock-sized pieces of glass on a concrete sidewalk, shattering them all to bits. I took the glass out of her hands and started to pick up the pieces. The kids were running over it in their bare feet. I kept saying, "nooooooo" to teach them that broken glass was very bad. Some of the other kids decided to help me pick up the glass. They scammed me, giving me random pieces of trash pretending it was glass, saying "nooooooo" and then laughing their heads off for tricking me.

Truth be told, these are wild children! They reminded me a lot of the kids in Lord of the Flies.

They need so much. Parents would be a good start. Someone to be with them; teach them that it's not a good idea to smash glass for kicks. It'd probably help if they had a toy or two, but first things first. I mean, there are 500 kids here who are very much loved by the Reverend and his wife, but they don't have anyone really watching them and certainly no one to give them undivided attention and care.

Such is the dilemma with orphans, I guess.

Janja told me later that my little glass-breaking friend was new to the orphanage. She had arrived 8 days prior with her twin sister. The police brought them there after their mother hanged herself in their home. Sure seems like a heavy burden for a little girl to have to carry. I don't know that I could carry it....No friends. No mom and dad to love me. No one to explained to me why I was abandoned in such a horrible way. I suppose I would smash glass too.

On the upside if there is one, these kids are easily entertained. This little girl was fascinated with my toenail polish. I looked down and she was rubbing the color on each of my toes. I suppose little girls everywhere like to dress up and be pretty. They just don't have "stuff" to dream with -- no dolls, no feather boas, no fingernail polish, no nothing. I want to see that change.

I let a few of the kids take pictures with my camera. It was remarkable to witness. First, I gave my camera to this little boy here. He was grabbing it and touching the lens. Just crazy handling it. So I taught him, saying "nooooooo"... as I'd take his fingers away from the lens. I showed him to look through the viewfinder and put his finger on the top button. Then I explained, "PUSH". And I would press his finger down. A few more times of taking his fingers away from the lens and strategically placing his index finger on the button on top with the instruction, "PUSH" (an English word he had probably never heard before) and he quickly got the swing of it.

Then another little guy grabbed the camera away from him and was fumbling and being rough with it. To my delight, the first little boy taught him how to take a picture. My god it was so inspiring. He showed him the button on the top and said, "PUSH", just like I taught him.



Then I got the idea to let the girls try on my sunglasses. I would place these blingy-beauts on their eyes and say, "FABULOUS"!

There were a lot of kids, so I had to move fast from face to face. Put the glasses on their eyes and say, "FABULOUS"...then off to the next kid.

Then I noticed something that totally rocked my world. As I put my jumbo glasses on each coffee-bean-sized head, I looked at the eyes behind lenses.

The children were looking through the lenses as if they were a filter on the world. They clearly marveled at what they saw, taking it all in, looking all the way to the left and then all the way to the right before I pulled the glasses off and moved on to the next kid.

It was a such a wonderful metaphor. I wear the "rose-colored glasses" all the time. It's fun to wear, but it's just a perspective. It's not reality. Meeting these kids reminded me of that. They were teaching me as much as I was teaching them.

FABULOUS!

Here's a 3-min clip of the kids singing. Enjoy!