On Monday (07.19.10) I began my volunteer work at the Clinic. In Peru a clinica is essentially a private hospital, while a hospital is a public hospital. We had the options of working in the clinic, the girls' school next door, or around the clinic doing maintenance or cooking or other stuff. I decided to work at the clinic, because I would get to work with children with physical and mental handicaps. When you walk into the clinic, there's the pharmacy to the left, and then some other stuff on the right that I wasn't paying attention to because the floors are really slippery. You walk through the clinic and down a ramp into the children's ward.
I asked how many children lived at the clinic, and one of the nurses said that there were forty children. Almost all of these children are confined to wheelchairs; a good majority of them have mental disabilities as well. Most of their parents don't visit, because in Peru, having a disability is considered socially unacceptable.
Our job as volunteers is basically to play with the children until 4:00 PM, which is their dinner time. On Monday, I took a little girl named Mayelin outside, and we played with a pelotita (small ball; it was a ball that you would ordinarily find in a ball pit) for two hours. She couldn't get enough of throwing it and then chasing it in her wheelchair. Then we picked some flowers (which technically we weren't supposed to do, but who is going to tell this three year old child that she can't have the yellow flower), and picked off all of the petals.
There aren't enough nurses to help all of the children, and even though there are about eight volunteers there, the ratio of helpers to children isn't enough to give each child the attention he needs. Most of them stay inside, while the lucky few are taken outside for a few hours by some strange American kids.
During dinner time, all of the children crowd around tables and eat. Most of them need help eating, so it takes a while for everyone to get fed. Afterwards, around five, everyone is put to bed.
It's hard to believe that most of these children don't know or see their parents. They live in this place with forty other kids that they may or may not like, eating food they may or may not like, and only knowing the nurses that take care of them but can't possibly give them the attention they deserve, to no fault of their own.
It was difficult the first day to get acquainted with their schedule and rules and customs. But I was looking forward to go back the next day.
However, a monster virus hit our entire hostal, including me and my roommate. My poor roommate was sick all night, but I didn't get hit until the morning. I went to school for an hour and then came back and slept almost all day. There were six other people in our hostal who were sick and a few others in the other hostal. Luckily most people are feeling better today, but I missed out on three hours of volunteer service that I need to make up later.
Today was much better for most people. Class was fine, and then I went to volunteer at the clinic again. Today I worked with a little girl named Nazareth, who couldn't walk, but decided it would be great fun to collect all of the broken balls in the park and put them all together, while I carried her to and from the designated ball area. We did this for almost two hours, and then it was time for dinner.
She really liked my dinosaur bracelets that I was wearing, so I gave them to her and told her she could keep them para siempre. She told me that I was her amiga, and then she blew me a kiss. Tomorrow I'll be wearing my hippopotamus bracelet, just in case she likes that one too.
I haven't done any sightseeing or taken many photos in the past few days, so here's an alpaca for your time:
More entries to come,
Victoria
No comments:
Post a Comment