Play time at the Orphange

The chaplains on base set up a weekly trip to see the children at the local orphange here in Djibouti. I'm glad I had the chance to go there to interact with the children. That has to be the most eye opening experience, just to be there and see what it is like in an orphanage in a 3rd world country and to see how they live. Our group went to see the infants and toddlers.

When we first pulled up all of the toodlers came running up to the fence to see who arrived, but there were no smiles on their faces, they just blankly stared at us all as we approached. Once we were inside the gates we were informed to grab an infant a bottle and a bib and start feeding... I laughed but they were serious, so I did. I found this little boy named Ali, he was actually about 14 months old but was a little bit bigger than an infant, I was later informed he was born HIV positive, which struck a chord in my heart because you can only imagine what his life is going to be like. After feeding him we were instructed to grab a toddler or 2 and play with them for a while, while they prepared dinner for them. I found an 18 month old boy names Hanan, he was over in the one of the corners in his push cart. When I signaled to him that I wanted to pick him up he raised his arms and so I picked him up in the air and he enjoyed that. Feeding time rolled around...Hanan was not the kid to pick for feeding, he took about 45 minutes to eat everything, it was crazy. I was later informed that Hanan also was born HIV positive.

Early when I was walking around the orphanage it was sad to see 10-12 babies per crib, and the flies were HORRIBLE, but it seemed after you'd pick up a child the flies would go away. It was extremely hard to see some of these children, and it hurt to see what it was actually like here. It was also interesting to see some of the marines who had been going there for a while had bonded with some of the children, because when they walked in you would hear the mutter "wheres my little boy...or wheres my little princess". I will be making it a habit of going every friday to the orphanage, because I knew that if I were one of those children I would want somebody to play with and give me attention.