The
Orphanage
by
Sophie
CliffordP
ulling up to the settlement I
could already see the difference
in surrounding, from the
desolate, dusty landscapes, to
the compacted shanty village.
The rickety houses seemed to
only be upright by the others leaning on them,
a reflection on the people, as they all seemed
to live by the help of others, sharing everything,
from washing lines to water pumps.
On arrival we met our co-ordinator, Chris, a white
South African who helped with the building of
community houses. After a hasty greeting he
ushered us into the food room with a quick prewarning
of "It's lunchtime, so try to help out a
bit".
Well when we entered it was lunchtime like we
had never seen it. It was almost as if the whole of
the southern hemisphere had crowded together to
welcome our arrival and been squeezed into the
smallest of rooms. It definitely sounded like it.
Their pre-lunch warm-up was a jumble of African
songs, which they sang so enthusiastically it was
like double the amount of people were in the
room, and they were trying to lift off the ceiling.
When the conductor of the chorus, a large black
woman with a huge welcoming smile saw us, she
became so excited she broke down into tears, as
she was so happy to see us. The younger children
who were not so familiar with the songs came and
crawled all over us like we were lions at the zoo,
interested mostly in our sunglasses, which they
liked to try on upside down, and then ram them
back onto our heads again, usually missing and
prodding us in the eyes.
We became the after-food entertainment when
we had helped with the feeding of the five
thousand, and spent an hour playing with the
kids. It was a fantastic experience to pass our
few years of childhood fun onto these poor,
underprivileged children who had absolutely
nothing. We taught them games such as 'Duck
duck goose', and 'Old MacDonald' which they
seemed to enjoy as much as we did.
I can remember as a child playing all these
games on our lawn at home, at birthday parties
from five till ten years old, but we never seemed
to get quite the same amount of pleasure out of
it as they did. The children really taught me a
big lesson, which was, however bad the
situation is, if you smile about it, it will always
get better. On visiting one of their houses, there
were seven children living with their
grandmother in a house so small that even my
horse would struggle to sleep in it. Their
mother had died of AIDS three months earlier,
and their father had died seven months earlier
of the same disease. This is the common case
in Africa, but you would never believe it by
seeing and meeting this happy race.
In the next three days we
made a huge impact on the
lives of the children, as we
redecorated three classrooms,
a small amount of hard work
for us, which will provide
those children with better
means of learning equipment
for years to come I hope.
I wish that we could have
changed the lives of more
people in our short stay, but
little is better than nothing,
and as Tesco famously say
"Every little helps!"
Aluredian
44
Will Sharp