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22nd June
After a brilliant night out downtown with some friends, everything was about to take a turn for the worst…
Looking for taxis, I saw a black guy saying some stuff into one taxi. I asked if we could take it and if not, for the taxi driver to move on for the next ones. Well somethingsomethingsomething, next thing I collapsed into a bed of floors, bouncing off and falling to the ground hitting my head; The guy had head butted me in the face!!
A tissue held to my cut nose, we literally walked over bodies, as we entered some hospital that the taxi driver took us to. The lights flickered or were off completely as people moaned and whimpered around us. There were a few actual hospital beds, but were occupied by two people, everyone one else were on plastic chairs, sun loungers, blankets on the floor. It was like we had found an hidden establishment were people go to die.
The doctors wouldn't see us until the police arrived and even at this stage when they did, they took Andy (the only one of us, who can put together decent Mandarin sentences!) back to the 'crime scene' whilst Claire, Beth and I sat amongst a scene from a zombie film!
A doctor never did check me and when Andy arrived back after sometime, we just decided to leave this mayhem and return in the morning if my nose was still bad.
23rd June
I know if he had been one step closer, the small cut on my nose would have been a slit right across a broken nose! I was lucky this morning just to have a swollen nose and light bruising!
24th June
After two weeks of 'preparation' time, Linda and I were back at the Orphanage for our visit.
"This small clock tower was imported from England. It was made by the same people who made Big Ben" our guide smugly told us. I wondered if the children had ever actually ever seen this apparent worthwhile investment or the beautiful displays of flowers and perfectly cut grass outside.
Two children were stood inside a wooden pen, holding the side of it, rocking back and forth. Other children simply stood by the wall or sat on small wooden chairs. The room was silent.
One boy walked towards us arms outreached. I knelt down and he clambered on my lap, smiling as I tickled him. He didn't laugh, just smiled but then walked back basically as soon as he had come. I wish I had looked up at that moment to see the nanna who was in the room, as it felt like he was signalled to, as if he had been trained to walk up to visitors, be cute and return.
Still knelt down, I asked questions to our guide as a small hand had reached out to touch me. A young girl sat on the wooden chair next to me. I took her hand and she slowly put her legs around my waist, placed her head on my chest and held on tight. We were told that we should go to the next room, but I really didn't want to put her back in her chair. He hands gripped onto my side, longing just to be close to someone. I placed her back in her chair, were she just sat, looking at the wall were the paint had peeled off. She didn't reach up again or make any noise, she just sat there. We turned around to leave, when suddenly every child called, "Goodbye" and waved at us. What is this, some kind of show?
The corridors were dark, with the smell of urine. Many doors were closed or the windows blacked out. Rooms that did have large, glass windows, everything inside was clean, tidy. Too perfect. I didn't like the feel of it, how false everything felt around me.
In the next room, young children up to teenagers were sat in prams, apart from one girl who had been tied to the side of a wooden pen by some material around her waist.
We were introduced to a little boy, whose brain functioned well but unfortunately his skin had grew over one side of his face, covering his eye and half of his nose and mouth and so for this physical look he was abandoned.
The prams were all facing the tv and that was the only kind of stimulation source in the room. A lively boy watched the tv contently. He only had anaemia but was classed as handicapped. I wondered though, with the many years he would spend in this labelled way in the orphanage, if at some point his brain does mentally change to fit the description? Would he slowly begin to rock, like his mother used to do to him when we was a baby, craving for real attention and not just the voices from a tv programme.
Some children were severely disabled and just laid on the floor of the wooden pen. How long do they spend there unattended?
Again as we turned to leave, "Goodbye" and the children waved at us. I didn't even think they could move!
All of this took a merely 20 minutes and were back outside, walking the perfect grounds of the orphanage back to the main gate. With 500 children at the orphanage, did we even see 20 in total? It was crazy. Where were the scenes of children chasing after each other, shouting, smiling, just being children?!
I didn't like the whole façade that was put up. How more money seemed to be spent on the gardens and grand hallways, with the polished marble floors, yet paint was peeling off the plain coloured walls in the children's rooms, as the children sat or stood with no toys.
Yet despite this, I had forgotten that feeling of when a helpless child hugs you. When that little girl had her hands holding onto my ribs, I felt that need and want from a child again. My hand placed on her tiny back, pulling her in close to give her some safety and reassurance. Although sad, I just felt so happy inside to know that for that short amount of time I gave something so genuine to someone who had nothing, I gave them love.
Being at an orphanage before which was incredibly run, it's difficult to see the how the children were treated here.
Time and patience is key to the children in an orphanage on this scale but a routine but be kept so affection can't always been show and if the staff aren't paid enough, they won't really care and won't go out of their way for the children. I need to justify it all in my head, understand why but it's just comes back to the same thing, that is someone's life!
The guide said the orphanage didn't usually take mature students but would ask the members of the government who ran this orphanage about me helping there and he would get back in touch. I do hope they take into consideration my time at Sanyu Babies Home in Uganda and allow me to volunteer there.
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