As with the dispensary, on the days we worked at the children’s home we would arrive just before eight. We entered through a back gate, went through a courtyard where native women in blue uniforms were already busy washing clothes in large tubs of water, and climbed the stairs. Here, we would pause while our eyes adjusted to the dimness of the inner rooms.

Ahead of us was an L-shaped corridor with painted walls and cement floors. The first room on the left was the kitchen and pantry. Straight ahead was a room where the older children slept. As the corridor turned to the right, there was a large room that opened into an alcove facing the street. This room contained a picnic table where the children often played.

Two more rooms opened off the corridor and were filled with cribs and beds. We called the first one the sick room. It was where the most seriously ill were placed. The second we called the baby room as it housed the smallest children. Many of them looked like infants, but the children were up to four years old. A smile might reveal a full set of teeth.

The first time I walked into this room, my eyes were still adjusting to the dimness as I glanced at an emaciated child propped up in a sitting position against a wall. I saw some movement in front of him and his hand reached out to pick something up. He put it to his mouth and just as I heard the loud crunch my eyes focused more clearly: it was a two inch long cockroach.

We had to walk very carefully when proceeding down the hallway. In the dimness it would be easy to step on one of the tiny bodies that lay curled up on the bare floor, some asleep and others with eyes open in a staring gaze. We also wanted to avoid stepping in the little piles and wet spots left by not yet potty-trained children who had not been diapered or had managed to slip out of a hastily tied diaper. The floors were washed thoroughly once each day, usually after breakfast, but were soon littered again. After that the workers, not trained in cleanliness or hygiene, cleaned them as time or inclination allowed.

We would go to the baby room first to check if breakfast was underway yet. A small table in the corner held a large bowl filled with cereal and small bowls stacked around it, along with plastic spoons. If there was time we would make a quick survey of the room, changing the most obviously dirty diapers.

Then feeding would begin in an assembly line fashion. Babies who could sit up were lined against a wall. Bowls of cereal with spoons were placed in front of them and a worker would squat down and scoot through the line depositing a spoonful of food in each mouth. There was no time for fussiness. Babies swallowed fast and opened their mouths for the next pass. The weaker or smaller ones who remained in cribs lay on their backs and were fed individually. What didn’t go in, as spoonsful came in rapid succession, dripped down in front of them.

When the babies had been fed we would to the sick room to help with the feeding there. I flinched every time I saw a worker place a spoonful of food into one sick child’s mouth and then proceed to another child, placing the same spoon in his or her mouth. Malnutrition was not the only ailment being treated. The children suffered from typhoid, TB, dysentery, and a large variety of fevers and germs. The head nun often chided the workers and tried to correct their bad habits. The workers would listen and nod their heads in acknowledgment, and then smilingly continue as before.

When the older children finished their meal on the back covered porch, they would wander in with smiles and giggles and sometimes tears. They were mostly a joyful, motley crew of ragamuffins. They would throw their arms around our legs, plead to be picked up, pull on us, and converge to swarm us if we ever sat down.

With the first feeding over, workers would shuttle the older children out to the courtyard were they lined up and waited for morning showers. Inside we would move the little table from the baby room to the corridor in front of a shelf that was filled with clothes and powder and ointments. One worker would kneel next to a small tub of heated water while we went around collecting babies. Starting in the baby room we would pick up a dirty child, remove its diaper and top, and deposit it in the waiting worker’s arms. She would poor water over the child, then suds it from head to toe before pouring water over it again. The squalling child would then to handed to one of us to soothe and powder and dress.

It was my favorite time. For at least this moment each day all the babies smelled good and were clean. Boys got a T-shirt, girls a dress, and everyone got a diaper. There were never enough clothes of the proper fit, so most of the children wore garments that hung from their tiny frames.

Sister Georgia, a figure of stability and loving warmth, was in charge of the children’s home. The workers tended to the children’s needs, but I didn’t see any displays of affection. Sister Georgia, in contrast, beamed love. She had the utmost patience with the children, even special ones who could be very tiresome and difficult.

One such mentally disabled child was about twelve years old, tall and lanky. Sister told us he had been born normal; his disability was the result of a beating by his father. When he had first arrived he was unable to even walk. Sister had manipulated his arms and legs until he was able to get up and move about by himself. When we met him he wore a diaper and followed the other children around. His coordination was poor, his intellect was severely limited, and he was often a target for the other children’s frustrations. Before we left, his family came and took him home.

Though I tried to be impartial, I couldn’t help developing favorites among the children. My heart will always flutter at the memory of Maxi. Maxi came in one day, a beautiful boy about six years of age, with an angelic face. His body was thin though not as emaciated as some. His expression was forlorn. The workers had little patience or empathy for the new arrivals. They rather rigorously indoctrinated them into the routine from the beginning. My heart went out to the little boy and, feeling my concern, he stuck very close to me that day. When I was busy feeding the babies or dressing them, he would stand beside me and hold onto my leg. When I wasn’t busy I would hold him and give him hugs.

I didn’t realize at first that the workers took exception to my special treatment of him. I began to notice that when by back was turned they would poke at Maxi and whisper. Whenever possible they would force him away to another room. The were harsher on him than they would have been if he had not clung to me and if I had not encouraged it. As the days went by I learned to be more subtle in demonstrating my affections.

I continued to adore Maxi and I knew he understood. For a while he tried to manipulate me by pouting whenever I showed up. When that failed to get my attention or approval, he turned flirtations and irresistible. With the language barrier we communicated through facial expression and touch. He adjusted well to his life at the home and became a natural leader among the children.

The home was a temporary placement center for sick and malnourished children, not an orphanage, and on Sundays special clothes were brought out for greeting visiting parents. I will always remember Maxi’s face as it beamed one Sunday morning when we uncovered a bright red top with matching shorts to dress him in.

We nicknamed another child “Sleeper.” The first time we saw him he was sitting on the floor with his face tilted upward, eyes closed in sleep; he was rocking back and forth. When he was awake he would sit in the same position, observing the world with he head tilted back and a grin on his face. After a while, as he began to recognize us, is arm would fly up in a one-arm salute the grin on his face extending from ear to ear. In time his one-arm greeting evolved into a two-arm salute and his smile filled my heart.

On another day a beautiful little girl named Michelle arrived. Her hair was the reddish blond color that is one of the signs of malnutrition in black children. Her little body was emaciated, and she was so ill and weak at first that she had to be fed through a tube down her throat. At three and a half years old she was the size of an infant. She would lie quietly in her crib each day, her face expressionless.

After she had been in the home long enough to gain some strength, I picked her up and carried her with me while I went around visiting other children. We even sat on the floor of the bathroom and watched A.B. work on a broken pipe. The next day when we came in, I caught her eye as I surveyed the room. And her face lit up in a beautiful smile. It was the first of many. In time she was sitting up and even feeding herself.

The cycle of poverty and disease is hard to break and on some days it seemed futile. Yet even at the children’s home, sounds of bright laughter rang out in sharp contrast to the dark dimness of the inner rooms. Children romped in brightly colored tattered clothing down the halls, while others filled rows of beds, ravaged with fevers or weak from dysentery or TB. Some lived and some died. It was with a mixture of sadness and relief, sometimes, that we would witness little bodies that had known only struggle give up their pain and succumb to death. The tiniest was buried in a shoe box.

It was easy to slip into the pervading belief that we were somehow privileged and invulnerable to the poverty and disease all around us. We drank bottled water and bought and prepared our food carefully. I remember a particular American volunteer who arrived with all her own food, prepared to eat nothing fresh for the three-week period she planned on staying. We all laughed when I offered her a banana and she shook her head adamantly, reminding me she intended to be extra careful. At the end of the first week she came down with a fever that landed her in bed for several days. After that, I noticed she was eating bananas.

Cheryl Canfield, CCHT, 2024