Week Two: Grace Orphanage Home -Ondo
The Children: They were absolutely amazing! As soon as I arrived they were eager to introduce themselves, to the lady with the funny accent. Letting me know their names, ages and who was a twin or triplet. This orphanage had about four sets of twins, 3 of which were named Taye/Taiwo and Kehinde, generic names given to all twins. All together they have about 22 children, from new born to the eldest who is 12yrs. Within a couple of days I knew all the children by name and they knew me as ‘Auntie Eflyn’.
My first day I taught them action songs like ‘5 little monkeys’, ‘Sleeping Little Bunnies’ and ‘Zoom, zoom, zoom’ basically songs that allowed them to shout and jump about. We sang these songs everyday after that. Later during my stay we played games like ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ They loved that! But what was really amazing was the excitement on their faces each day I arrived at the orphanage, as soon as one or two of them saw me they would run up to get the others shouting ”Auntie Eflyn is here, auntie Eflyn …” and I would see them wide-eyed coming to hug me or checking my hands for sweets and chocolate Hobb Nobbs. They were always excited to know what new things I would bring out of my bag or the activities I had planned for them that day.
The money donated helped enormously to get some really good resources for a lot of the fun activities, as well as story books which they enjoyed listening to me read because of my accent. I only wish I am able to get more things as I am noticing that each orphanage I have visited are in desperate need of basic stationaries and educational play materials. Besides the stuff I brought with me, I still had to buy more things for the second orphanage; dictionaries, plain paper and more colouring equipment for the children, because they were not available. Often times when I ask if they have these items in order to pre-plan the activities, I am told by those in charge that they have but when it comes to bringing them out, they are either invisible or in bad condition. Hence I’ve had to ration what I brought or buy more where possible. This why I keep asking you to continue giving or get friends to also support. The help is needed and a little goes a long way.
On a lighter note, about my accent both the children and staff thoroughly enjoyed themselves mimicking my accent, even when I tried to speak Yoruba (one of the spoken languages in Nigeria) they would still laugh because my pronunciation was sometimes way off. Nevertheless, they were wonderful, the management, the security guards, the day and night shift staff but especially the children.
Faith, ‘little miss happy’ 4yrs old, always giggling and ever ready to help to feed the babies. Favour, 7yrs old who I accidentally kept calling ‘Flavour’ name of an Afrobeat musician, nearly had me in stitches; Took him to church for a change of environment and boy did he get filled with the Holy Ghost. I had to stop myself on several occasions from busting out with laughter watching him dancing and praying like those charismatic preachers on t.v. Eyes tightly shut, both hands raised high and head swinging side to side, with his mouth muttering words of song or prayer, I’m not quite sure. I just knew not to touch him because the way he was bouncing so hard, if I touched him I might catch the spirit too. So I just watched him and tried not to laugh out load. Like anywhere with children you always get the ones that just keep getting into trouble, their names are the first to be called when another child is heard crying, that was Bolu and Kike and they are both only 3yrs old. Then you have the older ones, the big brothers of the house who are in charge of making sure the others behave when an adult is not visibly around, Lekan, Isaiah and Emmanuel. These boys are so loving, polite and sensible that each time I look at them I pray that they find homes with families that will be good to them. All the children at this orphanage are so happy and truly deserve to be in a family that would continue to nurture them .
I almost forgot about the babies-Did a couple of sleep overs with the night staff, helping to look after the babies. It wasn’t too bad but gosh I’m not looking forward to sleepless nights as a new mother. One of the twin babies Taiwo, 1mth+ is such a light sleeper, every minute I would hear her whining, turning and sounding like she was about to cry. Each time I would get up to check and pat her, worrying she might hurt herself or wake up and start crying endlessly like her twin brother. Who on the other hand, was definitely a cry baby, constantly crying through the night. But once Taiwo was fast asleep, I zoned out too. Therefore could no longer hear him as he was in the nursery down the hall with his carer.
Talking of zoning out, think I’m about to do just that, as it’s 1:43am as I write this update. If you are yet to donate please, please do so. Your support is greatly needed.
