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Published: September 28th 2007
This week I have started walking to and from the orphanage I volunteer at 4 afternoons per week. I could tell you that the walk is lovely and brisk, that the vista is incredible but that would snap the truth. The exercise I´m glad for, the extra layer of black sludge adorning my lungs. The oil stains are unlikely to come out of my shoes and, if you have ever watched the early-90s animated movie 'Fern Gully', you will understand when I say I half expect the pollution monster to slide past me on his way to work. Garage after garage lets leak oil and gas in the soil, onto the streets and all over the stray dogs. My excessively white skin draws comments and some stares in the grungier parts of this tourist-savvy city. Often, in an attempt to train my mind to operate in Spanish, I begin to describe my surroundings under my breath, filling in my grand gaps in knowledge with 'uh, no sé la palabra'.
El Hogar de Menores San Judas Chico, directly under the roar of planes taking flight, is home to about 42 parentless girls. I´ve known since 'Annie' and 'Feifel goes West' what
Out of Arm's Reach
Many women will often leave their children bundled on in a doorway on a busy street while they take care of the family fruit cart.an orphan was, intellectually. Actually being pulled back and forth, called at 'Señorita, señorita, help me with
my homework', pushed away and fallen asleep on makes it more real; more obvious that all they want is attention and that when I leave, and it gets dark the nuns will turn off the lights as they lay side by side, 20 to a room. The ones over 12 don´t beg for attention any longer; partly out of cynicism, knowing that all the volunteers will eventually be replaced by new faces, and partly out of selflessness, allowing the smaller ones to glean all the security, reassurance and affirmation they can. No one comes to take them home at night, the unfair thing is that they deserve to be taken home just as much as any other child.
On another note there should be more photos here to share.
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