After the medical clinic tonight we had dinner and then headed to the orphanage that is just down the street from where we are staying. We brought glow in the dark bracelets, a guitar, drawing material, and books. The children were very much drawn to the books and luckily we had a few people that could read French as the books we brought down were in French so that they could easily be used after we leave.
You could see the children focus and concentrate as they sat on laps and were read to. The would follow along with the reading by tracing along the words with their fingers. The were so gear to just sit and hear the stories. I very much get the feeling they don't get read to much. We do plan to leave the books with the orphanage and we hope that the caretakers continue to ad to the children, but we also understand it is different for us to come for a short time and spend that much time with the children as opposed to living with the children 365 days a year with far fewer staff.
One of our translators is spending the night at our guest house as the trip back to his house is quite long. He came along with us as well to the orphanage as well. He is a teacher besides a translator and is wonderful with both patients and the children. He spent the entire time reading to a large group of children.
As it turns out one of our team members, A, has some artistic talent. It was fascinating to watch as the children sat very still while he drew their portrait and then ran around proudly showing the portrait to anybody that he could. While many people have taken digital pictures of these children, the children do not really have pictures of themselves. We were not able to bring a Polaroid camera on this trip, so getting their portraits done was a special treat.
It was a good day and after yesterday we all needed a good, easy day.
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