Newsletter Three - Smiles all round! - 26th September 2012

Hiya!

Hope everyone is well?!

VERY pleased to report this email comes written with huge a smile on my face!  

I will tell you, the day after little Hamida went to Heaven, baby Sarah had to spend the night in hospital. I must admit, I very nearly gave in.  I was within a minute of packing my bags.  I honestly don't think I could have dealt with a re-run of what happened to baby Hamida.  Thankfully though, a night in hospital and the medicine she needed, Sarah came home the next day and is doing really well!  HOORAH! :)

So, Tuesday (yesterday) was pay day here at Open Arms Mangochi.  I know this statement has been used an awful lot in my emails, but I've never seen anything like it!!!  I think I've seen all that could force my jaw to drop to the floor and something else is pulled out the bag!!  9am, Tuesday morning, everyone congregated in the outside area of the home - kids, all members of staff (including those that had been on a night shift and been working for 17 hours), some of the older children that have 'Graduated' with their Guardians.  

Getting the children ready....

Ready for the drama....

I got seated next to Rashid the Administrator (boss) and Chiku the Matron at the front - made to feel very important (very embarrassing!).  Then the Nannies all got up and stood in the middle of the room and started to sing......singing like I have never, ever heard in all my life.  No accompaniment of any kind, just their voices.  It took me a good 5 minutes to believe what my eyes and ears were seeing/hearing....I then realised I had the BIGGEST smile on my face.  I must have looked like a total idiot, but it was just the most amazing scene I've ever witnessed - I know that sounds very dramatic, but I was floored.  I was totally mesmerized- didn't have a clue what they were going on about, but it really didn't matter.  The happiness literally flooding from these people was just unbelievable and totally infectious.  This went on for a good hour- I got dragged up to the middle of a circle and had to dance which was surprisingly easy because the atmosphere was that, you just wanted to join in and for it never to stop!  

After the singing and dancing finished Group C performed a piece of drama.  Every pay day, each group (A,B,& C) is given the task of writing some drama with a message for everyone to take with them in the hope of making their lives and the lives of others around them a better place....yesterdays message was "What goes around, comes around".  Basically, a wealthy Aunt and Uncle had been told they needed to look after their orphaned nieces.  They didn't want to, so did things like eating all the food without them being there, making them do all the horrible jobs, sold the clothes that had been given to them for their nieces so they could spend the money on other things...you get the picture.  One day the Uncle decided he no longer wanted them in his house so tried to poison them by drugging their food.  One of the nieces had a dream the night before that this was going to happen so they switched the bowls - I'm sure you've worked out, Uncle snuffed it and the nieces lived to tell the tale!!  The piece they had written lasted about half an hour, and again, although I couldn't understand much of the dialogue I got the picture and loved it! 

Drama mid flow!

These people are just amazing.  Imagine your boss telling you on payday you have to stay on after a night shift to sing and dance and do drama until lunch time!!  Just wouldn't even enter anyone's head would it?!  Brilliant!

So yesterday was possibly the happiest, smiliest day I've had here.  Will forever make me grin every time I think of a payday.  

From my earlier statement, you will not be surprised to hear today has been another first for me.  I was asked to help Chiku at the "under 5's Clinic".  This being a clinic where your children can go and have their injections - whether it being their first lot, boosters, whatever.  No probs I thought.

We loaded the Orphanage Car.....Vesta (Hospital Lady) Jazaka, Jazira and Innocent in the boot (quite literally from the photo!)

Patricia & I in the back

Sarah on the front seat!

Chiku had Sarah and I had hold of Patricia (Patricia arrived last week at 18 hours old!!)  Well, that about did me from the start!  I don't think I breathed or allowed my heart to beat the entire way there......3 babies less than 2 months old lying on a mat in the back of an ancient 4x4.  I think I spent the entire journey with my eyes closed praying actually.  Its making me laugh now, but this place is just a different world from what we are used to!!  Thankfully, we arrived safely.  We were greeted by a crowd of people outside one of the clinic buildings - this crowd turned out to be mothers with their children.  I don't know how many people were there, easily 150 Mothers plus their children, if not more.  It was just carnage.

In line for immunisations....chaos!

I had manage to keep hold of Patricia, and to be fair within half an hour or so her name had been called out so up I went to the little wooden table at the front of the room.  Acting all cool and collected as I strode up to the front, Patricia went on to empty the contents of her freshly filled little tummy all over me and the floor, and a woman's foot....fabulous!  When I say 'little tummy' she clearly has a bottomless pit hidden in there by the amount of coverage she managed!  For all of you that know, I have a irrational fear of sick.....I think that has now been overcome!  :) So, after wiping myself, Patricia and some poor woman's foot down, I was instructed to sit down at the table.  This is where the injections are given......I nearly fell off my chair!  I thought that would be the place you sign against her name or something like that, not actually where the jabs are done!!  Nothing like a bit of privacy!  So, in front of everyone, I was asked to expose her little left chicken leg for injection number 1, turn her round to expose her little right chicken leg for injection number 2 and then her right chicken wing for number 3.  Her limbs are just so tiny I don't honestly know how the needle didn't go straight through her!!  She was not amused as you can imagine and screamed so loud it made my ears ring - can't really blame her to be honest!  Feeling like I needed to redeem myself as much as possible after the vomiting scene at the beginning, I re-dressed the poor little thing (on my knee - getting good at this baby lark!) stood up with her screaming, turned round, took 4 steps and she stopped crying - result!!  Head up high, with a slight smirk on my face I must admit, walked back over to the rest of the 'clan' with my immaculately behaved week old baby.....

I thought that was it until I then got told we needed to have the babies weighed.  Fine, that's a whole lot easier to deal with than needles. Until I realised the scales was a hook suspended in the middle of the room where you had to provide your own "hammock" style loop for the baby to rest in while you hang them off the hook!! It was at this point I got the giggles. 

The weigh in!

I think everything had just got a bit much for me and I just stood in front of all these women and laughed so much I had tears pouring from my eyes.  Thankfully Chiku & Vesta saw the funny side of it and laughed with me (could have been at me on reflection) but I've just never seen anything like it!!!  You will be pleased to know I declined attempting to make a hammock for any of the babies and left that to Chiku & Vesta - knowing my luck, the knot would have come undone and the baby would have come crashing to the floor!

So, 5 babies successfully weighed and inoculated.  At a cost of £10.......this was the Private clinic we had to come to last week so we had to pay.  For £10, 5 babies are immunised against the childhood nasties.  £2 a child.  And there are people in this country that can't afford to have that done and are therefore losing their children to diseases that they really should be protected against.  Just re-enforces, on one hand, how lucky the children here at Open Arms are.  Yet another humbling thought.  

So, I'm leaving here on Sunday.....going for a weeks break by the Lake, then I hope to come back to Open Arms for one last week before heading on to Lilongwe.  A lot can happen between now and Sunday, so I have no doubt I will be emailing you again before I leave (sorry!!) but fingers crossed it'll be nothing but good news!

Love you loads,

Z xXx


For anyone wanting to give any money to help Open Arms Mangochi, please visit my Just Giving page.....any donations, no matter how small make a HUGE difference....

http://www.justgiving.com/Zoe-Morrison1