Neverland

Yesterday was my first day of my internship at the Orphanage and I think I fell in love. My heart literally melted. These children are so sweet and affectionate, and they have such big personalities! When they're not climbing on you and eating soap (no unfortunately that's not a typo) all they want is to be held. I'm gonna be so ripped at the end of the semester after holding all these adorable children. I've already mastered holding two at a time, but I'm aiming to do three by the end of the week.

In the morning I help with their schooling, which is a lot more challenging than I expected. I knew it would be hard to control the children, because they know an "obruni" (white person) won't hit them, but I didn't realize how emotionally taxing it would be. The hardest part was realizing that one of my six year olds didn't know how to count to ten. No, actually the most heart breaking part of my day was finding that none of my kids knew how old they were. I don't know if that's because the orphanage doesn't have that information, or if the children just don't know their numbers well enough to know their age, but regardless, it needs to change.

The orphanage is really a wonderful place though, the children receive an incredible amount of love and affection from all of the staff and volunteers, and from each other. The four and a half hours I spent there yesterday may be the best four and a half hours I've had since I arrived. Exhausting, but incredible.

The latter half of my day there is a bit more fun. I get to do basically whatever I want with them, so naturally we did Native American rain dances and a million head stands and cartwheels! They are very fast learners. But they taught me too! They showed me a ton of different ways to hang upside down from the monkey bars, and we all made crazy monkey noises! Needless to say, when the head of the orphanage asked who the dancer was I got a little scared that she was going to tell me I have to stop encouraging strange behavior; but instead she asked me if I could choreograph a dance for the kids. I don't know if I've ever said yes to anything so quickly.

I'm so happy I'm working with kids here, when I'm around kids I feel like I'm in my natural habitat, where I can be who I really am- still just a little kid who wants to eat ice cream, dance in circles till the sky looks tilted, and laugh so hard she pees in her pants! Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the funniest part of my day yesterday. I got peed on. No joke, I smelled like a urinal all day. One of my little girls didn't make it to the toilet, but instead of telling me she decided to show me... by sitting on my lap. I'm usually a fan of non-verbal communication, but this might be an exception. Especially because I still don't have water. So again you all are very lucky you can't smell me!