Day 3 (this is going to be a long one, but please bear with me!):
Okay now I’m really antsy. Rohit said I would be picked up at 10am to go to my job and where I would be staying… so, naturally, we left at 2pm. We went to the AIESEC office and here I met some really cool AIESECers from Hyderabad and interns from Portugal, Russia, and Mauritius. I freaked out when I met the girl from Mauritius. I said my cousins lived there. She asked their names. I said Espitalier-Noel. She said they are very rich! Hahahahahaha but can you believe what a small world… I meet a girl in India and she knows my cousins from Mauritius!?!
Finally, Teresa (19 year old from Portugal) and I headed off to the orphanage! It is at this time I am told the first of many shocking and unexpected pieces of information…
-Teresa says we will live at the orphanage. Well I was promised an apartment with other interns, but living at the orphanage wont be so bad, right?
-Teresa says we sleep on the floor without blankets and pillows. I love sleeping on the ground when I camp, so this wont be too bad, right?
-Teresa says bathroom is infested with bugs… Spiders. Ants. Flies. At this point, I’m getting a little uncomfortable with this living arrangement.
-Teresa says the orphans have lice and fleas and love to come and lay on our “beds”. Definitely definitely definitely not okay. I don’t want lice to be the reason for cutting off my dreads!
So you get the picture, right? I was trying to be optimistic and brave so although this was not the ideal living situation, I would survive. Welllllllllllllll, it was 298457092847502948570298457 times worse than I could imagine! After seeing 5 cockroaches, an ant infestation, 6 gigantic spiders, 103453 million flies, and 1 lizard in our bedroom by 9pm, Teresa and I said decided we would talk to AIESEC in the morning and demand the living situation we were promised. More on this in a bit…
The orphanage: It is called Gracious Paradise Orphanage, and within 5 minutes, I realized it was anything but gracious and a paradise. It is home to about 40 “orphans” (some have parents, but I guess the parents cant afford to keep them, so kids live here and see their parents on Sundays during visiting hours and the orphanage) and the place is a dump. The dirtiness I understand is Indian culture, TO AN EXTENT, but this place is disturbing. Bugs (all the ones I mentioned were in my bedroom) all over the building, the children have lice in their hair (they look like monkeys when they wait in line to get food and are picking the bugs and lice eggs out of each other’s hair), the kids sleep together on the floor or in the kitchen or wherever on ratty blankets (if there are enough blankets to go around), there is no toilet paper so they wipe with their hands I assume AND there is no soap to wash hands THEN they use their hands (no silverware) to eat, they wash the dirty dishes simply with water and scrub them with their DIRTY hands (and each child does not have his/her own plate, they are shared and switched), the plates are stacked in a pile on a shelf covered in bugs and ants until the next meal, they cut all the vegetables and prepare the food on the floor (with dirty hands), and the food is left uncovered on the floor of the kitchen all day and night.
This place is also disgusting in a more social sense, rather than physical. This fat old man owns the orphanage (I say fat just because it is disturbing to see an over-gluttonous person among these extremely skinny children) and he is called the Founder. He has 3 awful minions that basically run the place. They scream at the children and beat them with sticks and rulers multiple times throughout the day. Can you imagine my shock and horror and absolute hate for these men when I saw them whack a little 3-year old boy’s hands because he wrote his alphabet wrong? Or when little Briyanka got smacked with the ruler four times because she was praying on her knees instead of being cross-legged? THAT’S ANOTHER THING: here are these men forcing the children to pray 3 hours a day and sing hallelujah and God is good and loving and then 5-minutes later, they are hitting little children. Its awful and by day 3, I’m already counting down the days I have left in this hell hole.
And the worst part of all this? THIS IS NOT EVEN THE INTERNSHIP I WAS PROMISED!
Yes, I can spend the next 6-weeks teaching this kids how to add, spell, and play patty-cake, but when I leave, what good will I have done? The reason I chose this job was because I wanted to teach and work with children, but more importantly, I wanted to work with an NGO to improve the conditions of orphanages and get more children off the streets. I love the kids at the orphanage (and I have known them for about 1 day!), but I don’t know if I can spend the next month and a half doing nothing that will improve their lives in the long-run.
Back to how day 3 panned out: Upon arriving at the orphanage, three little girls ran to the taxi, shook my hand, said “Hi Maam” and insisted on carrying my bag to my room. How cute! I quickly met all 40 of the adorable orphans (ages 3-11), learned the orphanage handshake, gave 193847 piggy back rides, told the story of Cinderella in English as one of the children translated it to Telugu (local language), and recited the Our Father in English upon request. I even went to a 12 year old’s birthday party! Anoragh and his little brother Nani (they both speak very good English) live across the street from the orphanage, and they invited Teresa and me to their house to eat cake and celebrate his bday with his family and some of his orphan friends. It was really fun and his mom told us to come back to eat mangoes and dinner in the future!
After the birthday party, we ate a dinner of rice and spicy sauces. That’s the only meal served at the orphanage: rice and spicy sauces, three times a day, every day. It is very delicious but I gag at the thought of seeing it 120 more times. The men insisted Teresa and I eat in our room in chairs with light in front of the fan, but we said no, and instead ate on the floor of the kitchen with the other leaders in complete darkness because the electricity was out. I guess this is a typical occurrence. Everyone that works at the orphanage is quite nice, but I just could not get over the fact that they beat these children on a regular basis.
After dinner, I took a “shower” in the nastiest bathroom ever and tried to get comfortable for a not-so-cozy snooze.
I can only hope for a better day tomorrow…
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