True Life - I'm an Orphan

Let me put a disclaimer on this blog post, it is not family friendly and for all of my criers out there go ahead and get your tissues. The more time I spend with the kids the more they open up, not always about themselves but always about others. I would say within the last three days or so I have heard some stories that you only hear on Oprah. They have shocked me and rocked me to the core. In America it seems that most of the time I know what I am about to walk into, for example if I was going to meet someone for the first time and they had cancer more than likely someone would tell me to prepare myself before I got there. In this case I was not prepared. I was prepared for the children to have AIDS, for their parents and friends to be dying of the same disease. Disease is something that cannot be controlled, something I feel to be out of my hands where the only thing I can do is make them as comfortable as possible. However, most of my children are healthy, happy-go-lucky children until they start talking about their life outside of the orphanage. The oldest girl in the orphanage is 18 her name is Rose, which means I automatically took a liking to her. From the first day she has been nice but rather quiet. Very much the mother figure, always washing clothes and doesn't like the kids to be loud after dark. I knew that something wasn't quite right with Rose after the first week of school when I noticed that she was in the sixth grade, 18 in the sixth grade. The head master had asked if I would tutor some of the kids that were behind in the evenings, one of them being Rose. After making a comment about her being so shy the head master told me that it is more of the communication barrier. She explained that Rose came to Heritage when she was eleven, she was reported by neighbors and rescued by the head master. Rose had been a sex slave for a few years after her parents died of AIDS. In the tribe she comes from if the parents die the children go into the care of other family members until they are of age to marry. Which was what was about to happen to Rose, married off at the age of eleven after being sexually abused for years before. When she came to Heritage she had no language skills. She did not know Swahili or English and showed no desire of talking to anyone. She was a very angry child and would often lash out. Now her Swahili is perfect and her English is coming along. She is behind in school but tries hard and will make it one day. Rose is still emotionally unattached and struggles with trust and the concept of love but even so she has warmed up some and is starting to let me hug her. I have found that her love language is acts of service, I always ask her if we can do our laundry together and say that she can teach me something she is good at and I will help her with her homework. She is a sweet girl and truly believes that her life is in God's hands.

As if that story was not bad enough this place is full of them, 97 of them to be exact. We have two new comers to the orphanage, Zawadi and Gabriela (Gabo), cousins that got here two weeks before me. Zawadi and Gabo are from the Congo, the only children here that are from outside of Kenya. Their aunt had escaped the Congo a few years back and recently when back to get the girls because of the constant civil wars. Zawadi's father is still living but is off participating in gorilla warfare. She is ten and was staying with Gabo's family. Gabo is five and knows very little English but is absolutely one of my favorite children! Every single morning like clock work she is at my door to shake my hand. Last night she fell down and hit her mouth and came to me crying, I just picked her right up and rocked her to sleep. (I hate that she fell but it was so nice to hold her) Anyway back to their story, Gabo and Zawadi were playing close to there house one day when some solders came and killed her parents, her baby brother, and took her 15 year old sister. They both witnessed the deaths. The neighbors took the girls in and sent word to the aunt to come get them. The aunt having no way of supporting the girls brought them to Heritage. Gabo seems to be fine, she shys away from most affection but that is typical for the little kids here. Zawadi is a disaster, she is bitter and mean one moment and sweet and kind the next. She is the only child that was visibly unhappy to see me when I got here. She often takes things from the other children or will dominate over the young ones. The children are very patient with her knowing that most of them went through the same thing. Could you imagine the emotional torment the child experiences. In Swahili Zawadi means gift, she was around when one of the children told me her name meaning and she spit on them. She does not feel like a gift and it has been a struggle for me to figure out the best way to approach her. She sometimes comes and sits in my room even if I am just sewing but as soon as you acknowledge she is there, she will leave. She is a puzzle, pray for her, if you have been praying for me and my emotional state stop and use that time to pray for her. I had great parents who loved me, she has had everything stripped from her. Pray for all of my kids, there are so many other stories I could tell you that sound so much like these two. These kids are strong, true warriors.

I will try to post again at the end of the week a much happier what we have been doing kind of post. Hope all is well and Thank you for reading!