Visit to an Orphanage

May 31, 2016

Good morning friends,

We are waiting for Nyasha to arrive to pick us up.  He is demonstrating the concept of African time as we were hoping to be on the go at 9am and its 11:09.  I know he has a good excuse - having hit a safety bump too hard last night while showing us around this massive Chinese shopping centre / amusement park. A piece of the shocks were loose and he was trying to see a mechanic before we start our day of shopping /visiting.

So we have spent the last 2 hours playing hide and seek on this massive 2 acre gated compound that is our guest house - an old Rodesian home that still belongs to the general surgeon at Karanda - who is on his 1 year leave in the US.  He grew up here - his father was a missionary and physician, founder of Karanda and who worked into his 80s.

Yesterday was an incredible day.  We were asked to visit, St-Marcellin’s Children Village, an orphanage that is supported by Emirates airline in exchange for free extra luggage.  We obviously said yes and were in communication with the founders Norman and Sybil before our departure.  They too requested soccer balls as well as thermometers and a child's BP cuff.  We also brought a bag of knitted dolls from one of my generous patients.  So we set off in the morning to their home in the capital.  What a beautiful visit.  This lovely South-African white couple gave us a tour and shared their story.  They are in there early 70s I’m guessing and have 6 children (a pilot who lives in Dubai and 5 in South Africa).  After a career in banking, this religious couple felt the need to dedicate their lives to God and gave up their home and finances to help a Leper colony in a remote part of North Eastern part of Zimbabwe in the late 90s.  They were forced to leave, with 2 hours notice when the house was near completion and after re-contemplating options and having reached out to Italian donors they founded their orphanage in ~ 2002.  They have 77 orphans aged 2-18, having received some of the children from social welfare as young as 4hours old.  The children live as a family, in 3 separate sparse homes; 23 children in each home, ~ 3 children per room (each decorated with magazine cut-outs and stuffed toys).  There are 7 special needs children, including a lovely blind 18y.o. girl, who has taken up making bead necklaces and who has a contagious giggle.  To make ends meet in times of hardships, they have been VERY resourceful… they are almost self-sustainable, with their own garden and chickens, they have invited nuns to live and help with the children (especially when there were many young infants – with nappies everywhere) and they have opened a private school (grades pre-school to grade 7) to offset the costs of running the place.  The nuns teach and they charge 380$ per trimester.  The classrooms are impeccable and the children well-behaved (as you can imagine if you went to nun-lead school). 

Mathieu has enjoyed the day at the orphanage... 6 dogs to play with!

Norman told us about his sales-pitch to the board of Emirates in Dubai; the conference room, the luxury, his nerves … he mustered up his courage and told his story- just like he was telling it to us – and they lucked out with a sizable yearly subsidy from Emirates that comes from the change that we are asked to leave behind at the end of flights.  This funding is crucial for there sustainance.  They tell me that they have received less than 5000$ USD from Social Welfare or any other government source since there inception 14 years ago.  They say that their operating costs are over 15 000$ USD per month.

It was a humbling experience.  The children looked happy yet poor. We felt privileged to have met these two selfless, kind individuals who shared with us an excellent meal and their vision for a better life for these children who otherwise would have no-one. 

Adoption is very taboo in Zimbabwe.  Most orphaned children are raised by extended family, aunts, grandmothers – so to actually been given to the state- must reflect the total desperation that these mothers had.  Sad to think about this, when contraception, education… prevention are such simple concepts to us.

Well, enough about our visit to St-Marcellin… we finished our day in a completely different reality; visiting a stone sculpture garden and savoring our first real coffee of our trip in a Belgian coffee shop – with monkeys jumping on the tin roof top above us.

Nyasha should be here soon – my husband is going stir crazy waiting… I’ll keep you updated on today’s adventures soon...

Take care,

Michelle