Oh yeah, I have a blog

So, sorry it’s been so long since I last updated. The long of the short of it is I’ve been doing a lot of the same stuff, which I expected would happen once I started my internship. I go to the orphanage Monday through Saturday except for Thursdays. I get there at 8 am either by bus and foot or by moto (shhhhh, we’re not supposed to take those) when I’m running late and I’m greeted by a bunch of kids either running up to me, jumping up and down from afar, making some sort of “uhhhhh-UHHH” sound, which I know is meant to get my attention, or smiling :) Anddd it usually smells like a few diapers need to be changed, so I usually get to work on that or feeding them or putting on their leg braces. Here’s a quick profile on some of the kids:

There’s this one kid, Muhire, who is so smart but hates not getting his way. He has cerebral palsy, but his mind is perfectly fine. He can’t speak very well, but he can say oya and yego (yes and no) pretty clearly, and he’ll also raise his eyebrows to say yes (like everyone else here) and shake his head to say no. The second I get there, he starts asking me to take him outside to the playground. He loves to go on the merry go round, and he loves even more for me to take him on the slide and the swings. He’s about 7 though, I think, so he’s a big guy to lug all the way up the slide. And then once I do that for him, alllllll the other kids with cerebral palsy want to go too :P They only get one turn on each before I have to rest for a bit. But if I ever tell this kid no, lord help me. It’s meltdown time. I try to help him get around and help him do what he wants as much as I can, but there are about 15 other kids there vying for my attention as well, which he summarily disapproves of. He needs to learn that he can’t always get his way, but it’s so hard since most of the things he asks for, the other able-bodied kids could do without a second thought. One of the others vying for my attention is Teresa, and Muhire’s quite alright with me helping her. They’re best friends.   

Teresa also has cerebral palsy but is completely mentally fine. She’s….maybe four or five? She’s smaller than Muhire and slightly more physically able as well. And I’ve gotten to see them both graduate from having someone feed them to feeding themselves! Well, almost. Teresa is still working on that one. And she absolutely must stay clean while she’s eating. And she loves my sunglasses and the random headband that’s been floating around :) Pink and skirts—especially when put together—are her favorite, and she has the most adorable smile! And she wants to potty train—that’s right, WANTS to. Even though most of the time she asks to go, I think she just does it for attention :P She and Muhire are best buds—probably because they understand that they’re in the same situation physically and mentally. They always look out for each other (and others too!) and make sure that the other is ok or will tell me to get something if the other needs it (even at the expense of me playing with them). They’re great :) And I know they would do SO much better in families, especially ones who could give them proper treatment and education. God, they would thrive.

There’s this other guy, Jeff or Joseph—I hear him get called both, but I think it’s Jeff. He has cerebal palsy, is deafblind (with a residual amount of each sense), is mentally challenged, and has epilepsy. I have no idea what happened to this kid, because it seems so unlikely that he would simply be born with all of these. Maybe some sort of disease. Either way, I was ambitious at first and thought I could teach him sign language, but that proved rather difficult. I think he’s learned that when I sign an “S” into his hand, it’s me who is handling him, and maybe he understands that the “J” I sign represents him. I was working on yes and no, eat and toilet, but I’m not so sure those are going to sink it. He scratches really badly whenever anyone is in grabbing range, and I don’t really get to spend enough time with him to make that work. I also wonder how his mental condition affects his ability to learn.

Uzabaho is another of my favorites. This little guy is quite literally a little guy. I’m told that he’s probably 7 years old, but he looks like a baby. Like he’s maybe one year. Teresa, another volunteer here from Spain who has been here for 5 years said that he came in either 2 or 3 years ago and has only grown maybe a few inches since. I’ve combed the internet and cannot for the life of me figure out what he has. His body is very stiff, his legs cross and his fists are clenched, he has poor muscle tone, his face is normally sized, but his head is really large for his body—it looks like he has a big brain or something, and his head is really heavy. He also has the mental maturity of a baby as well, from what I can tell. Since he can’t move or sit up on his own, he spends his time either lying in a cot, lying on a mat on the ground, tied to a car seat, or in our arms. I love his smile though :) He’s ticklish and loves attention, so I try to interact with him when I can. It’s hard though when the CP kids are crying for something, Yvonna is stealing everyone’s toys, Innocent is hitting everyone (he by far has the most misleading name), and someone just peed on the floor…

So that’s work in a nutshell. Also, this dude with the most epic dreads just walked past me. Gotta love what I’ll assume is the only hookah bar in Kigali :) 

Update: So, I wrote this like 8 days ago. Just thought that I’d also add that the other day at the orphanage, it was the Annunciation (Catholic thing), so we had a party for two of the sisters whose religious names somehow related to the day. In true Rwandan style, it was full of dancing, drumming, and small children running everywhere. Some of the older disabled girls did a traditional Rwandan dance for us first. Some of them were actually pretty good! There’s this one girl, Mwiza (her name is actually something-mwiza, but I’m not entirely sure what, so I just call her mwiza, which means beautiful) who is the one that comes up and holds my hand and gives me a hug even when I’m walking the younger kids around. She was so happy, and even though she couldn’t get the steps and turns quite right, she thoroughly enjoyed stomping around with her hands in the air and smiling :)