Orphanage

Since we have been in the Philippines, I have desired to volunteer. Every once in awhile, our school hosts some street kids or visits Children's Chosen Village for kids with severe disabilities or helps build homes at a GK site and sometimes I participate in those events. But, I have been wanting to do more.

I did some research on organizations here in Manila that I could possibly work with. I emailed all four of them, more than once, that had branches in Manila and only one of them got back to me. I met with a representative from Save the Children, but didn't feel a connection to their work and neither one of us felt all that enthused. So, I scrapped that idea.

A fellow teacher in Grade 3 has worked with an orphanage about 30 minutes away from Makati and set up an opportunity for anyone who wanted to to volunteer on Saturdays for a couple of hours. It's a completely flexible thing and when you go, you basically hold and cuddle and play with the infants or you summon up all your energy to run around with the walkers or you summon up even more strength to play with the toddlers, who can be very rambunctious and slightly out of control. So far, I've visited the orphanage three times and each time, I've enjoyed it more and have wanted to return just as soon as possible. I usually stay with the infants since they need to be held and attended to more and the other volunteers typically spend time with the walkers. There is one little guy who I have just taken to. His name is Kurt and he's about six months old. Every time I have visited the orphanage, he has ended up falling asleep on me in the rocking chair. Which is pure bliss to me. He's such a happy baby for the most part and yesterday was the first time I had seen him so active, burbling away and laughing. Just touches my heart and I find that I miss him when I leave.

It's just such a positive experience to go to the orphanage and play with the children. There is usually no shortage of volunteers, which is a good thing. For Philippine standards, the orphanage is in good shape. But, each time I have gone, some little ones have been adopted out or some new little ones have been taken in. The kids are usually abandoned or brought to the orphanage from families who cannot afford to take care of them. Fortunately, they get adopted by local and foreign families often. Which brings up the question: when so much of your population is living in poverty, why are there still huge religious groups and government groups fighting to outlaw contraceptives? Isn't it worse to have children (usually underweight and with a slew of health problems) and abandon them to become a burden on society (of course they are only innocent children who do not choose to be born, I only mean this as a reality) than to have children at all?