It was a few weeks ago I was telling you that I was going to visit another orphange run by Mama Catherine. And (as I say very often in these blogs) its was quite an experience, one I wont forget in a long time.
So I went on my day off with Joanne and Darren and their two children. They are a couple who stay across the road on Mark and Chris son's farm, they are an American couple who emigrated a couple months ago to start up a business. Yet when your working with 'South African time' you never know when anything will get done so they are still waiting for the plans to be set in place.
Joanne and Darren have known Mark and Chris for many years and have visited this area countless times and whilst they are waiting to get the business started they help out a lot at the orphanage.
The orphange itself is different to Tshepo Ya Bana in many ways and sadly not in a good way. They are in much more of a poverty state and have around 60 children. They range from ages as young as 1 years to early 20's. Im not sure on the exact amount of children there at this moment in time.
But so we arrived around midday and took some balloons with us to blow up as I was told the children absolute love balloons! They all speak Africanse so I couldnt speak with any of the younger children but the older girls I could talk to. They learn English from an early age at school, so it was great to be able to talk to some of the older girls.
Most of them were absolutely enthralled when I told them I was from England and just kept stroking my hair and complimenting me, which was so crazy. But it was nice to try and talk to them about life at the orphanage, most of them dont have much aims in life because they are into their late teens and still at this orphanage yet finished schooling.
But we sang some songs: Beyonce and Rihanna etc. and they adored it.
The younger children loved me even more as soon as I took the balloons out of my bag, sadly I only had about 20 balloons so some were left quite unsatisfied. But some of the children had such a sadness in their eyes, three inparticular did not let go of me. They were just holding onto my clothes or wrapping their arm around my legs and wanting me to pick them up constantly. Crying out for love.
You see, the orphanage works from local support from churches and contacts and largely runs on donations. They have lots of Mamas working there, I saw around 20 older African women there yet they are not paid. It is in such a poverty area that the people come and work to get a meal and food daily. So these workers actually do not care for these children in any way, practically or emotionally. Me and Joanne had just arrived as visitors but we were the only ones playing with the children, interacting with them, helping feed them. We were just in complete shock that these women are here to help in order to recieve food in return, yet they were sat drinking tea the whole duration of our visit.
That is one of the main issues that is happening at Mama Catherines.
So after playing with the children and the older girls for an hour or two, it was now lunchtime for everyone. Yet as soon as we started to grab some tables and chairs all the older children disappeared and it was just the children ages 8 or younger left. So we had around 20/30 young children with no supervision trying to feed themselves. It was horrific.
There was no cups for water and no bowl to wash their hands in. So firs and formost me and Joanne got a big bucket for them to wash their hands before they sat up. Then we noticed thta there were around 4 or 5 children just able to wak (so no older than 14 months) sat trying to feed themselves. All the children eat with their fingers as that is typical African, yet these young children had absolutely no Mamas helping them or showing them what to do so we grabbed them and started to help feed them.
After most of them had finished we suddenly noticed that there was one of the 1 year olds drinking the dirty water from the bucket we put out to wash their hands. Immediately we pulled him away and then noticed that none of these children had been given cups and there was no water or taps in sight.
So Joanne grabbed a cup for this little boy and a bucket of 'clean' water. Before I knew it they were running up to me drinking 3 or 4 cups each, having to take it in turns because we could not find any more cups. Children as young as one years of age drank 4 large cup fulls of water in one go.
How long had they been without water? We had no idea when they were last given the chance to drink.
The main problem we noticed when we were there was that these poor children do have lots of things... bed, blankets, plenty of donated clothes, food on their plates and taps for water. Yet they have no actual care. The older children disappear and dont help the younger children, and the Mamas and Papas who are there to work sit down on chairs and talk.
It was a very eye-opening situation as you can imagine and I cant write all the things I experienced there but this was the main thing I wanted you all to hear about my first visit to Mama Catherines.
Joanne came yesterday to Tshepo Ya Bana and I spoke with her briefly and she said that Pete (Mama Catherines side-kick if you will) has asked after me saying when can I come again. Its clear they need all the help they can get for these poor children sakes. And even last week there was news to say one fo the 7 year old boys had died. Mark and Chris attended the funeral, all anyone knows is that the boy began with a fever and by a couple hours he was gone.
If you are a believer please pray for this orphanage. Pray for Mama Catherine. Pray for these children. And pray that I may get another opportunity to visit and help in any way possible.
(Hope this hasn't been too much of an essay to read!)
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