Friday (the 18th) was my dad's birthday. We went to a restaurant called Barbecue Nation and had dinner with some close friends. After dinner, we went to their house and had cake, which was delicious. We were out really late talking and eating and having a grand time, and by the time we finally got home it was close to 1 in the morning. I didn't get in bed until around 1:15am, and I still had to wake up at 6:35 the next morning because it was a working Saturday on the 19th. I was fully planning on going, though in a very sleep deprived state, because Indus takes working Saturdays very seriously. However, sometime in the night while we were all sleeping, the power went out and nobody's alarm went off. For some reason, my internal body clock (which usually wakes me up on its own at 6:45 am anyways, regardless of the day of the week) didn't work either, so I didn't wake up until around 9am. Neither did my parents or sister, so we were all kind of behind on starting our days. At Indus, if you use your own transportation to get to school and you're late, you aren't even allowed in the school. If you take the bus and you're late, that's different because it's a whole lot of kids, so you're still allowed to go to school. Since we woke up so late, I had obviously missed the bus and therefore couldn't go to school since I wouldn't be allowed in anyways. This was good and bad. It was bad because I would be missing classes, and who knows what we'd be learning/reviewing in those classes. But it was good because I would be able to go volunteer at an orphanage with the rest of my family!!!
There were pretty much 2 main things that I wanted to do while living here for a year: learn Hindi and volunteer as much as possible. So far, because I'm so busy with school all the time, I haven't had time to do much of either. Anyways though, yesterday we went to a place called Angel's Orphanage to do physicals on all the kids. There were around 75 kids total, ranging from age 3 all the way to 18. When you first pull into the orphanage, there's a courtyard like place with trees and concrete benches and mats on the floor for people to sit on. Then behind that, there's a small building that probably should have been a 1 story building but somehow they stuffed two floors in there. The first floor if where they do laundry, cook, eat and hang out. The second floor is where the kids sleep. The lady who runs the orphanage will be referred to as S. S is a big lady who always has kids roaming around her. The kids love her a lot--you can see it in the way they act around her.
Our plan for the day was to set up stations for vision tests, height/weight/temperature, blood pressure, heart/respiratory rate and a general examination (ears, nose, throat, stomach, etc). We set up a table with 75 files for boys and girls, which was where the kids would start the process. I was manning that table, and they were to give me their name, date of birth, and age. It was amazing to me how many of the kids didn't know when their birthday was, and when they didn't know, S had to look through her files and find their DOB. Even then, some had nothing listed for date of birth. Anyways, after I wrote down their information and circled their age on the growth chart, they took their file and went to the next station, which was height/weight/temperature. Two girls who came along with us (the children of some family friends) were taking down the numbers at this station. After they had their height, weight, and temperature recorded, they went to my mom's station, which was vision tests. She told them to cover one eye and read some lines off the chart, then cover the other eye and do the same. The littler kids were really cute, and they would help each other by whispering the answers to the kid in front of them. They all knew at least some English, and when we were taking a break later in the day, a few kids went over to the vision chart and pretended to be my mom, saying "What is this? Can you read this? Cover the other eye. Hey, don't tell him the answer!" It was adorable. After they had their eyes tested, the older kids went for their general examination behind some curtains so they could have more privacy. The little kids had their blood pressure taken, then their heart and respiratory rates, then their general examination (which my dad was doing). At my dad's station for general exam, the kids were REALLY fascinated by the otoscope (the thingy that you look inside ears with). All of the kids, especially the older girls and younger boys, wanted to look inside everyone's ears. My dad was pretty tickled by that, and he always had a big crowd of ten or fifteen kids crowding around him. After they went through all these stations, they took their big brown file folders back to my table and we filed it away. It was really shocking to see how many of them had lice--probably around 55 of them had lice, and the other 20 were sure to get them sooner or later. It sounds bad, but my dad and some of the other volunteering doctors came to the conclusion that there was pretty much no use in treating it since it would be nearly impossible to get it out of that many kids. Once their file was safely returned to the first station, they could go sit on the mat and wait for my mom or sister to repair their torn shirts or pants or school uniforms.
The children at the orphanage were all adorable, and they were really friendly. As soon as we got there, the little girls and boys immediately came up to me and said "Hi akka, what is your name? Why you are here? You can play with us?" 'Akka' means older sister, so they were calling both me and my sister that. They were really good at entertaining themselves; they had a multitude of random games that they played with each other. The boys were a little rowdy with each other and they would sometimes mess around and slap each other or hit each other, but they weren't being violent, they were just being boys. We were all really surprised at how well all the kids got along. Considering that there were 75 of them, all in different age groups, they got along really well. The older girls were very motherly to the younger ones and were willing to play their games and draw on the whiteboard with them. It was amazing to see how perfectly happy these kids all were, but we found out that some had ran away a few times. I wasn't quite sure why you would do that if you were an orphan who had known nowhere but Angel's as home for your whole life, but then again I'm not really one to think that I have a clue what their life is like. When we were about to leave, the older girls made up a really cute rhyme for my mom--"curly curly hair and oh so fair." I thought that was really sweet. :) The kids even said that they wanted us to come back for Christmas, and I think we might just do that.
More later, thanks so much for reading!
There were pretty much 2 main things that I wanted to do while living here for a year: learn Hindi and volunteer as much as possible. So far, because I'm so busy with school all the time, I haven't had time to do much of either. Anyways though, yesterday we went to a place called Angel's Orphanage to do physicals on all the kids. There were around 75 kids total, ranging from age 3 all the way to 18. When you first pull into the orphanage, there's a courtyard like place with trees and concrete benches and mats on the floor for people to sit on. Then behind that, there's a small building that probably should have been a 1 story building but somehow they stuffed two floors in there. The first floor if where they do laundry, cook, eat and hang out. The second floor is where the kids sleep. The lady who runs the orphanage will be referred to as S. S is a big lady who always has kids roaming around her. The kids love her a lot--you can see it in the way they act around her.
Our plan for the day was to set up stations for vision tests, height/weight/temperature, blood pressure, heart/respiratory rate and a general examination (ears, nose, throat, stomach, etc). We set up a table with 75 files for boys and girls, which was where the kids would start the process. I was manning that table, and they were to give me their name, date of birth, and age. It was amazing to me how many of the kids didn't know when their birthday was, and when they didn't know, S had to look through her files and find their DOB. Even then, some had nothing listed for date of birth. Anyways, after I wrote down their information and circled their age on the growth chart, they took their file and went to the next station, which was height/weight/temperature. Two girls who came along with us (the children of some family friends) were taking down the numbers at this station. After they had their height, weight, and temperature recorded, they went to my mom's station, which was vision tests. She told them to cover one eye and read some lines off the chart, then cover the other eye and do the same. The littler kids were really cute, and they would help each other by whispering the answers to the kid in front of them. They all knew at least some English, and when we were taking a break later in the day, a few kids went over to the vision chart and pretended to be my mom, saying "What is this? Can you read this? Cover the other eye. Hey, don't tell him the answer!" It was adorable. After they had their eyes tested, the older kids went for their general examination behind some curtains so they could have more privacy. The little kids had their blood pressure taken, then their heart and respiratory rates, then their general examination (which my dad was doing). At my dad's station for general exam, the kids were REALLY fascinated by the otoscope (the thingy that you look inside ears with). All of the kids, especially the older girls and younger boys, wanted to look inside everyone's ears. My dad was pretty tickled by that, and he always had a big crowd of ten or fifteen kids crowding around him. After they went through all these stations, they took their big brown file folders back to my table and we filed it away. It was really shocking to see how many of them had lice--probably around 55 of them had lice, and the other 20 were sure to get them sooner or later. It sounds bad, but my dad and some of the other volunteering doctors came to the conclusion that there was pretty much no use in treating it since it would be nearly impossible to get it out of that many kids. Once their file was safely returned to the first station, they could go sit on the mat and wait for my mom or sister to repair their torn shirts or pants or school uniforms.
The children at the orphanage were all adorable, and they were really friendly. As soon as we got there, the little girls and boys immediately came up to me and said "Hi akka, what is your name? Why you are here? You can play with us?" 'Akka' means older sister, so they were calling both me and my sister that. They were really good at entertaining themselves; they had a multitude of random games that they played with each other. The boys were a little rowdy with each other and they would sometimes mess around and slap each other or hit each other, but they weren't being violent, they were just being boys. We were all really surprised at how well all the kids got along. Considering that there were 75 of them, all in different age groups, they got along really well. The older girls were very motherly to the younger ones and were willing to play their games and draw on the whiteboard with them. It was amazing to see how perfectly happy these kids all were, but we found out that some had ran away a few times. I wasn't quite sure why you would do that if you were an orphan who had known nowhere but Angel's as home for your whole life, but then again I'm not really one to think that I have a clue what their life is like. When we were about to leave, the older girls made up a really cute rhyme for my mom--"curly curly hair and oh so fair." I thought that was really sweet. :) The kids even said that they wanted us to come back for Christmas, and I think we might just do that.
More later, thanks so much for reading!
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