Oh the Babies!

I have been assigned to volunteer in a government run orphanage. The orphanage is a former royal palace donated by the royal family for this purpose. It is run down and houses two hundred children from infancy to age ten.

There are room after room of babies! Although they desperately lack supplies, there is no lack of affection between the staff and the kids!

Oh my goodness! I was assigned to work in the toddler room housing thirteen toddlers! I have a whole new respect for parenthood!

All of them recently learned to walk, and are learing the art of sharing although far from perfected yet, and they are also all potty training! Imagine a handful of little ones lined up on training potties!! I laughed so hard!

Their personalities are strong, with quiet ones and adventurous ones! The common denominator is that they all want desperately to be held. If you try to put one down they cling to you and if you actually put them down, they cry!

They have no toys and manage to play with pop bottle tops and sticks. I am going to try and buy some toys before my next shift. I heard the older children take the toys from the toddlers because they have nothing to play with either.

For lack running water, the babies need to be bathed. There are health problems too, chronic coughs, ear infections, a thrush of some sort. Cross contamination is a problem with everything including beds and utentils being shared. Regardless, there are endless smiles here and lots of love to be shared.

International adoptions, as I understand, are on hold by the Nepalese government because some babies were being taken illegally from parents for adoption purposes. Sadly, however, this law prevents many of the children at our orphanage from finding the loving families that they deserve! Only Nepalese families may adopt for the moment.

One of our volunteers, Sam, an American citizen, was an orphan in the orphanage that I am working in when he was adopted at two months old. Sam has returned for his second visit to Nepal to give back. He is wonderful and I can't imagine what runs through his head when he is in the orphanage!

I miss you all and wish that you were with me! And cheers to all you parents who do such an amazing job!