More Pictures!

Finally, the rest of the pictures! These shots really show the kids living conditions, a little of their personality - they certainly weren't camera shy! In fact, I think they look down right sassy! ;)

The baby I'm holding in the picture was one of the more recent arrivals, and was HIV positive. I don't know if you can really tell from the picture, but the baby was so tiny! It made me glad I brought all the formula - he needs as much nutrition as possible - though they explained he is most likely underweight from the HIV more than malnutrition.

In the background you can see the woman who takes care of all these children, Claudia Namises. I can't imagine it is easy to be strong for so many children, and as she spoke of her hopes for expanding the orphanage, I was overwhelmed by the fact that she does this with help from only a few volunteers - the orphanage has no government assistance.

I really want to go back, or at the very least send more to them (It's a mighty expensive trip over). It's very easy to go there and play with the children, bring them some clothing and food, and then come back to a cozy heated apartment with a stocked fridge. That said, I'm going to continue collecting baby clothes to send over, and stay in touch with Claudia to find out what else they will need. As I said before, if anyone else is interested in donating, please email me or post a comment and I will send you the orphanage's address.

I hope everyone enjoys the pictures!

Photos!

Here are the first of the pictures that I have from the trip. I took these at the orphanage right after I arrived and after unpacking. They are a little blurry, but these shots give a pretty good idea of how many kids are living in such a tiny amount of space, and the conditions of the township. You can also get a sense of the size of the donation, when you see how much is spread out on the table - and that isn't even all of it!

As I look at these pictures now, I am reminded how underfed and deprived these children are. At the same time, I remember how playful and beautiful these children are as well. For children who have endured so much they are still joyful and full of life. In addition to living in poverty and being malnourished, most of these children were orphaned by AIDS, and many have HIV themselves. Worse yet, some of the older children are victims of sexual assault, and are in the orphanage because they have been ostracized by their communities as a result of that assault.

As soon as possible I'm going to upload the pictures that were taken of the children playing, and the distribution of the donations. I want everyone to see what they helped make possible! Thank you again!

I'm back!

The trip was nothing short of amazing, and despite all that I saw - lions and elephants, the Cape of Good Hope - the orphanage was definitely the highlight. Although going into this I was well aware that these children lived in poverty, there was no way I could have comprehended what that meant for their day to day life untill I saw it for myself.
Before I began this project, I thought of a township as some sort of variation of a suburb, never imagining that they are actually communties of shacks; vestiges of aparteid where most of the population lives in conditions we would consider below the poverty line. The Orlindi Orphanage is in the Katatura township, and is a small green building with four rooms: a small common room, 3 bedrooms and a patio. Of the 30 or so kids who live there, most are divided between two of the bedrooms with the babies in the third.
Whe we first arrived the children were unusually quiet, but as soon as we passed out some oranges and began playing with them, they perked right up!
After we met all the children, I put out all the clothing, baby food, toys and books I brought for the kids for the house mother. Seeing how excited she, and even the kids, were over these simple items made the difficutly of carrying everything over - and being repeatedly searched by the TSA - completely worthwhile. My hope is to send more books and toddler clothing in the future. With so many children, I can't imagine everything lasting very long.
Later on we got a chance to really play with kids, which was incredibly fun! And though it is a contradiction, it was In a way a little bit sad at the same time: All they wanted was to be picked up and held, which broke my heart, because I realized how little one-on-one attention they get. Once they were in your arms, they did anything they could not to be put down. Eventually I just sat on the ground to play with them, and let the kids climb all over me
Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon, since so many of them are not on my camera.
A huge thatnk you to all who donated their time, clothing and money to help me make this donation possible. In the coming weeks I'll post more about the orphange so that any one who wants to make a private donation can. Thank you again!!!!

So long, Farewell....

Today I am leaving for Cape Town. I've packed everything I need for 17 days in a bag smaller than my carry-on. More importantly I have two large bags filled with donations!

Even though I'll be in Cape Town for four days, I can't wait till Tuesday when we get to go to the orphanage. I'm excited to meet the kids and find out what else we can do to help. It will also be nice to see how Namibians really live - not just the countries' ecological wonders.

My flight leaves at 4, and I'll be back on November 9th, when I'll post pictures of my trip to the orphanage (and highlights of the trip.)

By the by, I realized I never shared the name of the orphanage! It's Orlinidi Place of Safety.
See you all soon!

The Houdini of Packing

Now you see it, now you don't.

I'm not really sure how she does it - it's a gift. But my Mother is an expert packer and can fit almost anything in to a suitcase. So, when I stood in my living room looking at 8 bags of donated clothes, 2 bags of new children's clothing, bedding, 12 containers of powdered baby formula and cricket gear, I called her.

Some how, she managed to fit it ALL into two suitcases: one carry-on sized suitcase, and one huge one. The only thing I have to give someone else to carry was a small plastic bag of the lightweight cricket gear. (I had maxed out on check-in luggage and items I could carry on). Hopefully the airlines won't charge me for the excess weight (pretty please!) , but even if they do, it would still be cheaper than shipping this many items.

I'm still going to use all the money I raised to ship items over, , but I'm going to do it once I get back and have a clear idea of exactly what they still need.

I already know I'm going to get stopped/searched at security. My carry on contains the following: 12 containers of powdered formula, 20 cricket balls, rubber cricket bindings, cricket gloves, plastic cricket paddles and a stuffed animal, and in a 9"x14"x 22" suitcase. Heck, I would stop me!

New Babies

So for the last week I've been organizing purchases of things to take over. I was fortunate enough that Pine Cone Hill - the company donating the bedding - offered to pay to ship their items over. With those items shipped, I can bring everything I've collected over myself this trip, and after I return (when I've seen exactly what the orphanage needs) I can use the money I've raised to ship additional items over.

While everyone was very generous with what they donated, I didn't really collect a whole lot of kids clothes - mostly things for teens. So this weekend, I used some of the money that I've saved on shipping to purchase clothes for toddlers. I went to TJ Maxx to really get the most bang for my buck - $40 dollars bought about 16 tops, shorts and underwear for the kids.

Then this morning I received an email from Janet, a family friend that we will be staying with in Windhoek who has been our contact with the orphanage, that said the received 3 babies this week: two with HIV and one that had been beaten.

I know that there is suffering everywhere - there are children in NY that are abused or have HIV. That said, I just don't think we can really comprehend the degree to which the Aids epidemic has ravaged Africa. Namibia is one of the more stable and prosperous countries in Africa. Still, there are orphanages filled with children orphaned by Aids. 20% of adults in Namibia have HIV, and the average life span is less than 65 years . Without proper medical treatment, infected mothers often orphan their children. Worse still, is that they can unknowingly pass the disease on to the child.

After receiving the email, I immediately went back to to TJ Maxx, and for $25 got another 15 baby items for children under 6 months. Then came the trip to Costco to buy baby formula. Who knew it was so expensive??? 3 months worth of formula for 1 child (1 month for 3) came out to $120!! After I come back from Namibia, I plan to ship over some more formula and bedding with any left over money that I may have.

Now its time to pack everything up, and hope that the airline doesn't charge me for the extra weight. I can't believe that I'll be in Africa in 5 days, and at the orphanage in less than 10!!

Bag Lady

Over the last several weeks I've tried to carry home a few bags of donations from work each day. New York's subway system isn't the friendliest place for a person schlepping things to and fro, especially the N train at rush hour. So, I've tried to space it out with one or two small bags.

Fortunately though, over the weekend everyone remembered my deadline for bringing in things so I can ship everything out in time (today!) and brought in bags and bags of clothes and sheets. I'm thrilled because some of the new donations included baby and kids clothes, which I had been painfully low on.

Only problem? Now I have to bring home 2 bags of clothing and sheets, a box of bedding, and pick up all the cricket gear! I have no idea how I'm going to carry all this home, but suddenly I'm very glad that I brought my grocery cart to work. I initially brought it in for the cricket gear, (shout-out to Adam and his cricket team for the donation!) but now I think it will be stuffed to the gills with clothing too!


Edit: In the end the box of bedding didn't arrive yesterday - which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I really could not have carried one more thing with me... Check out the picture - that was everything I carried home!