Day Four at Missionaries of Charity

I wrote a long message yesterday but the power at the cyber cafe went off just as I was about to send it. I had saved it as a draft and I haven't been able to figure out how to find it again and post it. Oh, well. In the scope of world problems that is not one.

Yesterday was easier for me. I spent the whole morning in the "handicapped room." My precious little one had made it through the night and was still there again today. The first hour yesterday was spent washing the breakfast dishes and pots and pans. They prepare a sort of gruel of rice, potatoes, carrots, greens, and milk. Some can eat it minced but most must have it put through a ricer/foodmill and diluted with additional milk to the consistency of junior baby food. They start feeding the midday meal about 10-10:30 and we all gather to help with that. Yesterday I spent about a hour feeding the diluted food to a child who was probably about 10. He was not enthusiastic about it but he ate most of it.

After eating the little ones are put on a mat on the floor and the noviatiates and neighborhood women who work there (and those of us who volunteer) do a sort of physical therapy with them. Then after helping the workers wash up the dishes and pots and pans from that meal we go sing and dance with the adult women who stay there. Some are retarded, some mentally ill, and some just old and sick. It has occurred to me that many of the "old ladies" are probably about my age. They seem ancient. Yesterday the one American man in our party got one of the old blind ladies up to dance with us and the others said they had never seen her so happy. The favorite songs we sing are Jesus Loves Me, This Little Light of Mine, Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes, The Hokey Pokey, and Jingle Bells.I'll tell more about today in a bit.

Today I spent my first hour and a half bathing and dressing toddlers and then going with them to their classroom at the school. Agnes works with at least 22 children who are probably somewhere between 18 months and 2 1/2. After time in chairs singing and chanting they march in a sort of conga line to the toilet...which is really just a drain into which they urinate. The only flush toilet in the complex is adjacent to the room where we volunteers gather to leave our belongings and then to eat our lunch. Back in the classroom we got out about 15 toys...mostly broken and faded Fisher Price items. The children squabble over them a good deal and there is not enouh staff to teach them to share.

By then it was feeding time again and today I fed a girl of about 12 I'd say, who ate with a coming appetite. Actually I think she reflexively opens her mouth at the sight of a spoonful of food. But she ate a whole dish and a half of food. The dishes are stainless steel bowls, plastic spoons, and plastic cups. I wish for metal spoons and cups for sanitary reasons but Josie (one of the group leaders) says they have brought things like that before and they were put away unused. These sisters take the vow of poverty very seriously...for themselves and the children.

I had brought some sheer neon colored scarves and we took some of those along with some tiny bottles of bubbles and balloons to the women's room. That was quite a hit...especially the bubbles. They were just those tiny little bottles that people use at weddings. They were so happy with those things they didn't even ask for the Hokey Pokey.

The two brighter of my ambulatory boys came up to me as I was massaging a little one and were very interested in the writing on my shirt. So we had a little "reading" lesson using the words (and numbers) Salmon Jam 2004. Jammin' in the Park, Cordova, Alaska.. Well, maybe it wasn't actually reading but it was letter and number recognition. I think tomorrow I will take them to a side room and use some of the flash cards I brought to do a little more.

I'd better post this before the power fails again. I continue to support the local economy by having a massage daily. Tomorrow we will go to a Women's Craft Cooperative to shop after "work" so I will miss my massage. I realized when I got to the shop today that I had only 800 shillings with me. There is a Bureau de Change near here but I didn't even have my debit card. The one hour massage costs 1000 shillings and I usually tip the young woman 50 shillings more. So I told her that I could only get a half hour massage today because I had forgotten to bring more money. She insisted that she do the full hour and told me that I could bring the rest on Monday. What a trusting soul! I hope I don't die over the weekend so she won't be sorry she trusted me. 1000 shillings is about $13, by the way.

We have plans to go to an elephant orphanage and some kind of giraffe center on Saturday and to Lake Nakuru on Sunday. I hoped to find a Methodist service to attend but I decided that I would skip it this week to see 10,000 flamingos.