Visiting a Rwandese orphanage, part one
Visiting a Rwandese orphanage, part one
Posted by : Holly in Africa Adoption Blog at 09:29 am , 646 words, 468 views
Categories: Country Specifics - Adoption, Rwanda
In June of 2006, I traveled to Rwanda with two friends of mine to go "check out" the adoption possibilities and what type of humantarian work we could do as "just moms". We stayed in Kigali, the capital, but one day, we drove to Gisenyi, about 3 hours away on some pretty twisty, turny roads. We ended up going north to Ruhengeri, which is the launching point for the folks who go to see the mountain gorillas. That excursion is somewhat tempting, but the cost pretty much ensures I’ll never do it - it’s $400 for you to climb up a mountain and watch gorillas for one hour - pretty dang pricey! You do get accompanied by well-armed guards, since interahamwe (Kinyarwanda meaning Those Who Stand Together or Those Who Fight Together and were the group responsible for the genocide in 1994) are known to frequent the area. Anyway, I was warned before we left that the road was really curvy - and I just don't "do" curvy roads. I spent the whole trip mostly staring straight ahead and trying not to move my eyeballs ‘cause it made the dizziness and nausea worse. At home, I would just take over driving, since I am much less nauseated in the driver’s seat. It was bad enough I thought about talking to our taxi driver, Marcel, about taking over but I never did.
It was a BEAUTIFUL drive. It is some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. It looks very tropical - many banana trees, many rolling hills “quilted” with gardens, green everywhere you look. The hills are AMAZING! The “land of a thousand hills” (mille collines)is a slogan well-deserved - they are everywhere and are just gorgeous. We passed many trees that are different than in the US, especially in the west. There were evergreens, jacaronda trees (a kind of eucalyptus that you could smell as you passed), the banana trees I mentioned and many others. We also passed rice paddies and tea fields and then field after field after field of cabbages, potatoes and beans. I find it interesting that in a place where things obviously grow so well that there is so little variation in what they actually DO grow. It wasn’t until almost our last day there that we saw any peppers or onions. I did see a few sweet potatoes as loads on people’s heads or on the backs of bicycles, but the vast majority of the time it was sacks of potatoes or beans or baskets of cabbages or tomatoes. The houses are small and without electricity for the most part. In the evening, the entire country smells like a campout. Dinners are cooked over a wood fire, sometimes outside and sometimes inside the homes. There are no discernible chimneys, but smoke rises through the tiled roofs in broad fashion, so you can see an entire roof top smoking. I LOVE the smell and know when I go camping later this summer it will remind me of Rwanda. I also wonder what breathing in all that smoke does to their lungs . . . Smoking cigarettes is rare - too expensive, I’m sure - but they are still being exposed to an awful lot of smoke. Anyway, the other thing we saw EVERYONE carrying was water. Even little kids 4 years old were carrying small plastic jerry cans filled with water. I watched people fill water from brown streams, to clear mountain streams, to a local spigot in the middle of town, but they all carry water (not just the women!) I also know am a spoiled, spoiled American . . . . I love to travel, but I love my “amenities”, like running water, electricity and Internet access . . .Even if I were to live in Africa, I’d still want those things. :) Much of the rest I could do without for a while . . .
Visiting a Rwandese orphanage, part two
Posted by : Holly in Africa Adoption Blog at 02:21 pm , 701 words, 435 views
Categories: Country Specifics - Adoption, Rwanda
Continued from here
Gisenyi is close to straight across the country from Kigali, but we went up and west, then down and west to get to it. The orphanage we were headed for is about 15 minutes outside of Gisenyi proper. It’s has a big sign on the side of the road that was very obvious - Orphenalinat Noel Nyundo. We were meeting someone there, but got there early, so we waited outside for a while and my friend M entertained a number of local children with her 10-month old baby, J. Everyone was fascinated with the muzungu baby . . . We finally decided to go in anyway and met the orphanage director (who spoke French, as did almost everyone we met) and a young man named Joseph. Joseph told us he had been raised in that orphanage, had been sponsored in his education through the university level and was now back working there, to give back to them. He spoke English relatively well and was our guide and translator while we were there. The director welcomed us and we were able to share our two-fold purpose - to find an orphanage that needed the kind of help we could offer, and to find an orphanage where we could adopt from. She was happy about both things. ;) They told us they have not done an adoption there since before the genocide (and yes, they actually said “genocide”!), but that they had gotten a letter from the Ministry and knew that adoptions were beginning to happen in the country again and were happy to work with us. From what we knew of the adoption process, once we get that little piece of paper from the Ministry that approves us as adoptive parents (and sadly, that's where all adoptions are currently stymied), we could then work with an orphanage and the local government (including the courts) for the area where the orphanage is located. We were invited to visit the children, so of course we did.
SPONSOR
The first room we went to was actually the “clinic” room for the babies (which seems to be defined as kids 4 and under). We met two nurses there and I said I was also a nurse. I also told them I was a midwife and one of them smiled and nodded and said she was too! Wonderful. ;) It’s always nice to meet other midwives. We then went to the infant room, where they have babies from birth to age one. I was impressed that they seem to have a much better idea of children’s ages (and have actual birthdates for them) than we experienced in Ethiopia. There was a blackboard on the wall that listed their names and birthdates - good idea! Anyway, we went into a relatively small room with wall-to-wall baby cribs. There were what we would consider bassinette-sized beds - no need for a “full-size” crib! There were at least 5 workers in that room, for 19 babies. Every one of them had a baby in her arms. We got to see and touch and hold those babies - there was no hesitation on their part (unlike the first orphanage we visited). I held a beautiful doll-baby of a girl named Mohoro, or “Peace”. They told me she was two weeks old and they found her abandoned in a pit latrine. She had scabs on her face and hands that made me wonder if they were from injuries before they found her. Life is pretty darn fragile for Rwandese babies. . . Truly, all of those babies are ones who need families and every one of them is just cute as can be. There was another baby girl who had the cutest, most kissable little baby lips you ever did see! There were also a couple of tiny babies I learned later were twins that were only two days old. They looked very tiny and underweight - skinny, skinny arms, skinny little faces . . . I hope the nannies there in the orphanage are able to plump them up and get them healthy. I am still SOOO sad that one government worker is able to prevent the adoptions of any of these kiddos. Hopefully that can change in the future.
Visiting a Rwandese orphanage, part three
Posted by : Holly in Africa Adoption Blog at 02:04 pm , 416 words, 719 views
Categories: Country Specifics - Adoption, Rwanda
Continued from here
From the baby room, we went to the room with the one-year olds. Most of them were lying down for naps, but there were a couple standing up in their cribs. Most were not sleeping yet, either, but were lying quietly. We didn’t take many pictures or interact with them much, as we did not want to mess up naptime. There were 20+ in that room. The next one was - you guessed it - the 2 year olds. They were in bigger cribs, but they also were taking naps. There were more than 20 there as well. We then went outside again and the three and four year olds were waiting to sing to us. They sang a number of songs, mostly in French and had little hand actions for them. Cute as buttons! They loved seeing themselves on the video camera and the digital camera screens, as ALL the kids have in each African country I’ve been to. Understand that we did not make an appointment and they were not expecting us - we just showed up! They took the time to get all the kids outside and ready to perform. They were friendly and kind and very gracious, as were most of the people we met.
SPONSOR
After the children sang several songs to us, Joseph led us back to another office that turned out to be the office of the medical director for the orphanage. There were two women there and both were very friendly. They spoke French and a little English. We also met an American woman there. She has taken 5 Rwandese children under her wing (she’s lived there for 12 years or so) and we were able to meet 3 of them. She was very nice. After she left, we visited some more with the women there and were able to share again our desire to help and to also adopt. I showed them pictures of our family and then our home and one of them did say it was like an orphanage. I just laughed and said “a very SMALL orphanage”! She also asked if I would adopt her and take her to America to live in that big house of ours. ;) Anyway, they both said our family was wonderful and seemed to have no problem with the idea of us adopting more. If only we could get our dossiers approved! Most of the orphanages and the judges have no problem with international adoption, from what I could tell.
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