Happy Valentine's day all! Today was a pretty good day here. A lot of good things have happened so far, and I am still going out on a date for dinner! (My date is with about 6 other girls!)
Latley at CAASAH, we have been really frustrated. Caasah is extremely unorganized, and unsanitary, and the children are very difficult. It is the most challenging placement, I think mostly because the kids have no one in their lives. No one loves them. They don't have consistent staff, and most of the staff that is there just take advantage of the kids and gossip. Most of the kids also have families, but their families don't ever visit them. They have no one to love them, so they don't trust or love people easily. They are also extremely skeptical and need lots of attention. They don't know how to get the right kind of attention, so all they do is act out. I think a lot of it is boredom, and a lot is because they are so desperate for someone to love them that they will do anything to get someone to pay attention to them.
Finally, Monday, one of the other volunteers who is checking out all the other placements came to CAASAH. She has had a lot of experience in things like this so she had lots of ideas right away, with lots of suggestions. Yesterday, she spent the day going over old resources and writing up schedules and plans of action for the volunteers. She noticed that one of the big problems was consistency from volunteer to volunteer. That is a big part of where I come in, because I'm still here for 7 more weeks (well, 6 and a half), and there will be new volunteers at the beginning of March. Today, we tried out our new schedule.
The schedule was supposed to go as follows: 8:30-9:00 cleaning, 9:00-10:30- organized activites, 10:30 - water break, then 10:35-11:30-games. Well, we got there at 8:30 with high hopes, and cleaned. The kids were rowdier than normal, which isn't surprising considering Carnaval starts tomorrow. But we successfully cleaned up the area, and started activity time. We even got the kids to go along with this circle game that starts with a song "Make a circle, make a circle, make it round, make it round, join your hands together, join your hands together, now stand around, now stand around..." Then you introduce the activity, and let the kids start. Well, not a good idea, but it wasnt mine, so whatever, but the first activity we introduced was to paint strips of paper and then make rings and chains to decorate the room with. All was going well enough until this older girl, The Godfather we call her (if that gives you an idea of her personality and her importance for the kids), Christiane, took a jar of paint and literally poured it on her hands and the hands of several other kids. Needless to say, disaster ensued. All the children were trying to steal the other jars of paint, so Dan and I had to guard them, because the tops were holding the paint for the kids to paint out of. It was terrible. Once they got their hands dirty it was all over. they started painting each other, us, etc. It was TERRIBLE! So, we left. Grace and Kharmela, two of the CCS staff were with us and they told the kids basically if they liked having us come every day, they had better act right, because this isn't happening again. They got told off and we spent the next two hours playing dominos with a couple of the adults. Kharmela and Grace had been talking with the staff of CAASAH, saying that the volunteers are fed up and can't work here, so either something has to change at caasah or we won't be coming back! I felt like FINALLY someone got what I've been saying for the past 5 weeks, and something good is finally going to come of this! YES!!! We spent the better part of an hour talking to Grace and Marcia, one of the staff members at CAASAH about the plans and what we needed and what needed to be done. She was VERY receptive to our ideas and our concerns, and I felt really really good coming out of there. Also, the guy we were playing dominos with told us that he really really appreciated us coming, because they are bored there, and we hang out with them and entertain them. We also don't treat them any differently just because they have HIV or AIDS, and they appreciate that soooo much! It was wonderful to get such nice feedback, and to feel so wanted and to feel like we were doing so much good and had no idea.
Today, I finally felt hopeful about the rest of my time here. I felt like I would actually do some good for these kids, instead of just giving them some toys. I feel like their lives are going to be better because I was here. Its something that I've never felt before, and I am so pleased. Its made today really wonderful. It has made me feel like this trip will be a sucess.