Thought Provoking Friday

I realize this post is a week overdue. I sat down and contemplated what I would write a few times and each time, it never seemed quite right.  Last Friday, several things happened that made me pause and think about life differently. Firstly, my dad suggested to me that I bring some kind of fruit for the kids once a week, we decided on Fridays because the children have extra chores to do that day. We went on Thursday and bought a hundred and fifteen apples. Enough to give to each kid, staff, and volunteers (excluding ourselves). On Friday I also discovered that the kids get three meals a day. For breakfast, they get bread and a hot drink. This is served around 7am. For lunch (served between 1-1:30pm) which is the big meal in Peru, they get a hot meal, usually containing rice, quinoa or potatoes. I have tried two lunches there, and that is pretty much what they get everyday. Sometimes they get soup which is really just noodles in water with a carrot. Then, they get dinner at 7pm, which includes bread and a hot drink again. Kids 6 and under get a snack around 11am.  This made me pause. Do you know how many times a day I wander in and open the fridge to see what there is to eat? A lot. These kids don't get to do that. They don't get to complain about not having "good food" in the pantry and insisting their parents add chips to the grocery list. They don't get to walk into the kitchen fifty times a day and walk out proclaiming that "nothing sounds good." They eat what ever is served to them because they have to or else they would starve. My extremely picky brother Marcus, would die if he lived there. He survives off of Top Ramen and Nutella.
The second thing that happened was that when we arrived, we asked if they had electricity. They run on solar panels, so when it is cloudy they don't have power, and when they don't have power, they have a limited supply of water to use for drinking and cooking.  What happens when they run out? They simply don't give the kids water. Then, when they get water, they have to boil and cool it before the kids can drink it to clean it. So even though they had electricity on Friday, they had just gotten water and were in the process of sanitizing it. Which means that there were kids that were children who were not just thirsty, but dehydrated. One girl, my little friend Melissa, was very upset about this. She was not her normal happy self, she did not jump up to greet me. Instead she was sitting in a corner crying.  How many times in your life have you ever been in need of water? For me, there is always a sure supply of water waiting in the kitchen, and we always have water and milk and juices in the fridge.  To see this girl crying out for water alarmed me, and broke my heart. All I could do was hold her as she cried and whisper to her that it would be okay, that she would be fine. I was relieved and thankful when someone brought in a pitcher of juice for them.

The rest of the day wasn't nearly as dramatic or overwhelming for me. It was still very thought provoking and upsetting. We got an update on the two girls who went to the hospital last Wednesday, the doctors decided that they had "wanted to faint" and that it was "their own doing" Let me tell you, one of them did not just faint, she had a seizure. I am not a doctor, and my only medical expertise comes from first aid training and girls camp, but I am pretty sure the girls did not want to faint or have seizures and it makes me question how much training a doctor here really has and how updated his or her information is. They also keep using the term "Special Needs" to describe how kids are. Only a handful of the kids living at Westfalia have kind some mental disorder. They use the term "special needs" to describe any child who is having difficulty or may be at a lesser level intellectually then what they think he or she should. I do not believe this and am angered by this term. These kids are not special needs kids, they just have problems, and who wouldn't in their situation? This kids were either abandoned, living on the street, or taken from their parents because of abuse. When dealing with that sort of trauma, that baggage, there are going to be problems. But they are not "special needs" because of it. They just need love. These are kids that never get hugs or pats on the back, or piggy back rides. Things parents do to show their kids affection. That's what these kids need.

Going home, and thinking this through all I wanted to do was sit and cry just like Melissa had. It was overwhelming the amount of feelings I was caring around and I just realized how much I take for granted in my life. I am so blessed not only with the things that I need to live, but with lots of extras. I am blessed to be able to go on family vacations, and to have moved around so much, I am blessed that I have never had to work to help provide for my family, that I was able to finish high school and that I can and will be able to get a higher education next year. I am blessed with a family that loves me and a knowledge of God and of his love for me. There are so many experiences I have had that others will never have the opportunity to experience.  I am so blessed in my life and I am so thankful I have never had to worry about food or water, or the basics.

I want to leave you with a question I had Friday as I held Melissa in my arms. I was worried and thought about giving her a drink from my water bottle, but was stopped and told that I couldn't give water to Melissa unless I could also give water to all the other kids. I had only brought one water bottle with me for the day and knew that it would be impossible to give water to every child. As I held Melissa, I thought, What can you do when you know you are powerless to change something that you know is wrong?