Day 3: Chaclacayo-Be Grateful

I slept in this morning of course but luckily it was only by 10 minutes.
I sleep on the top bunk which creeks every time I move so it wakes me up but other than that its great. We wake up at 6:30 and head downstairs to help with breakfast. Everyone eats bread with avacodo spread. It isn't bad actually. We had also bought some yogurt and fruit from the market to supplement our diet here. After breakfast I managed to sneak in a shower. We have to ask the nurses on the second floor to turn on the water 30 minutes before we want to shower. If it wasn't for the fact that I was significantly unclean from my travels, the shower would have been an unpleasant experience. The water is luke warm and has zero water pressure so it just trickles down and you get creative about how to clean yourself. The shower floor is clean but broken and old and the shower curtain is moldy. Anyway I survived and then we had baby hour from 9-11. My heart melted during this time. We each grab one or two babies who are disfigured from burns, malnutrition, congenital issues etc. There are babies in body casts, dressings all over, cleft palates etc.A few of their faces are so disfigured it's shocking at first. But they are all babies and act like normal babies and need love and care as such.  They wear torn clothing and their toy box contains old broken pieces of what were once ( a long time ago) a toy. We packed the kids up into dirty broken strollers and brought them to a pretty park. They appear very happy, they laugh and play like "normal" children. But will they have the same opportunities that kids back in Vancouver have? No.
By chance these kids were born in Peru to poor parents who did not have the resources to take care of them. They were lucky enough to be brought to this home where they can survive. But this place needs help. The couches are old and torn, everything here has been donated, nothing matches but they make due ok. They eat a lot of rice and bread but very little meat or fruit. They run around and laugh and play. We play a lot of cards and UNO. They love it. The kids are very friendly and social. We are picking up enough Spanish to get by. After baby hour the babies go back into their cribs where they stay for the rest of the day. Try to compare this to babies back home who have hundreds of dollars worth of brand new toys approved by a thousand companies before sold. Kids have thousand dollar strollers and car seats. They wear a new outfit everyday....Seems a bit unjust when you see the vast differences.
The kids here, have adapted to their handicaps very well. A boy with no arms eats and drinks with his feet. He plays with toys with his feet. The kids with crutches climb up the stairs with unreal arm strength. Kids with burns don't seem to mind the way they look. They all help each other.
The doctor is very respected here. All the kids wait for him to arrive for meals before they sit down to eat. They pray before every meal and thank the doctor often.
I brought my laptop downstairs to type out my blog..bad idea! Every child wanted to touch it. I wonder what these kids will do when they are older....
We have another baby hour at 15:00. They cry when we try to put them back into their cribs, it's hard to leave them.
Every day at 16:00 all the volunteers go out for coffee with the doctor. The coffee here is delicious and under $1 for a great cup of hot coffee. The desserts are also wonderful. We had a shortbread cookie today with butterscoth/caramel filling covered in powdered sugar. It cost 1 sole (about 45 cents).
The doctor told us about one of the girls here who has one leg and other physical abnormalities. Her father had tried to kill her when she was younger, he tried to smother her with a pillow, the first few years that she was in this house she screamed through the night every night from PTSD. The doctor told us about some of the other kids who are serverely compromised on the inside. One kid's heart is located on the right instead of the left. Other kids have organs that are unreckognizable to doctors but they still survive. The clinic pays for everything: schooling, food, clothes, accomadation, surgeries and medical care.
Now I have to heade downstairs for a st. francis holiday that is very big here. The kids are all dressed in traditional outfits abnd will be performing dances and singing. It's quite a bit deal. I'll have the camera out tonight!!