Emotionally charged week!

 

What a week it has been! From electricity failures to a visit at the Rescue Centre-Orphanage to a huge monsoon storm, this week was more intense than any other week as far as my life in Guinee is concerned.  To add to this, our TV stopped working suddenly (this being our connection to the outside world and our only source of entertainment, it was pretty serious!) water leaked again making for slippery, dangerous bathroom floors and my usual patience and positive outlook took a serious nose-dive in a dark, negative place inside of me. I was in a slump!

 

When I rewind the events of my difficult week, the bright light in it was a visit to the Rescue Centre-Orphanage. All the other frustrations fell by the wayside. The Rescue Centre-Orphanage is called Espoir de Vie, Centre Eve.  This Centre was opened two years ago by this wonderful Canadian woman Colette Beaudais, seen on the picture with me.  She is an amazing humanitarian who has loads of energy and creative ideas by the dozen pouring out of her head and heart! She is an inspiration, a human angel with wings folded on her back, authentic, generous and wrapped up in gentle humility. 

 

On Wednesday, I brought my Middle School students to visit the Centre. It was an eye opening experience for them.  My students played with the toddlers, held them and fed them milk.  The children at Espoir de Vie are under the age of 3 and today there were 16 in all! It was a busy, noisy place. The orphans do not get visitors very often so when the door opened with my 9 students, the toddlers squealed with laughter. My students spontaneously knew what to do. The briefing on the  do’s and don’ts of Middle School student behaviour slipped out of their consciousness and they immediately played with the toddlers, held them and fed them milk.  Children are brought at the centre by caring, conscious people and children are adopted from the centre by dedicated, loving people.  Many of these children have very sad stories. The baby I am holding was a no-name baby, only 4 days old. He was found under a bridge, by a river, abandoned, naked and alone.  When I held him,  I struggled with feelings of anger towards the person that abandoned this tiny little Being and feelings of compassion for a person who must have been living  deep despair. Eventually, my pendulum swing of emotions balanced itself out as I  looked down  at this vulnerable, peaceful baby. I told him he was a survivor and that he was now in good hands.  His life at the Centre was a new beginning. Simultaneously,  I couldn’t help wonder how this experience of abandonment would affect him for the rest of his life.  It is imprinted in all his minuscule cells, I am sure.

 

I took my eyes off the baby,  observed my students for a moment, and  thought this was the most precious education I could offer them.  If I don’t succeed in teaching them reading and writing during this year, I know that giving them the experience of the Centre an hour a week will be an education far surpassing any other kind of education.  Nothing else mattered at that moment.

 

The woman-manager of the Centre appeared at the door and in the customary Guinean way she seemed to float in as  the layers of coloured cotton draped her small frame, enveloped her and trailed around her. It always amazes me to see the Guinean women  dressed so beautifully even in the most mundane places.  They go about their daily work of  scrubbing floors, gutting fish or washing laundry calmly and steadfastly. To be dressed like this would stifle me and  prevent me from working. The manager looked at me, smiled and said “bonjour”. She bent down and whispered to Colette.  After a few minutes, Colette looked up and announced that the no-name baby would have a name. She said that since the baby was in the arms of a man for the  first time since his arrival at the Centre, he would be named Raymond.  We were both very touched by this gesture. We glanced at each other teary-eyed. We both knew we had adopted baby Raymond in our hearts and that we would be looking out for him from now on.  Maybe we would even find parents that would love to love him.