My Project

If you want a life of chaos and screaming babies come join me at the Mampong Babies Home. I’m not exactly sure how many children are there but it seems like there are around 3 trillion. It’s a lot of work. Not hard work, but dirty work that comes in large quantities. Today will be my third day there.

 I didn’t go yesterday because I was sick. But not to worry, everyone gets sick. And it went as soon as it came. I’m good now. For the most part. Pia my lovely Norwegian roommate took wonderful care of me including cutting up her towel to make a washcloth to put on my head and cooling me down with, buying me some coke, and forcing me to drink it. Mavis helped a lot too. She went out and bought me some medicine, kept me company, was constantly worried, and said she would pray for me. And I guess it all worked wonders because I was up working again today.   

It’s hard because the “mothers” there speak Twi, and so do the kids. Some know English but Twi is there native language so it makes disciplining, and complementing an issue. All the kids need so much attention and it’s hard to give it to all of them because there are so many there. The kids all come from families where their mother has died, usually in giving birth to them. So the fathers have put them in this home because they either can’t afford to take care of the babies on their own, think the baby is cursed due to the mother dying in childbirth, or doesn’t have the resources to keep take care of the baby while they’re working. They’re supposed to come back for babies when they turn a certain age. Many don’t. Then it’s up to Social Services on what to do with the kids, which becomes completely up in the air at that point. Adoption isn’t really implemented here. People can hardly afford to take care of their own kids so why would they want to take on anyone else’s. Some of the kids are getting to that too-old age though.

The workers at the orphanage “sister’s or mother’s” as we call them, don’t really treat the kids the best. They’re probably tired of working there and the work is draining, don’t get me wrong. But they’re pretty rough and tumble with them, lots of yelling too. It’s strange. Maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems to be. Most of the time I can’t understand what they’re saying so who knows maybe it’s all peaches and cream.

A day’s work goes as follows: 

1.  Arrive at the babies home at 8 o'clock
2.   Attend to the babies who have all been put in one large crib who are usually crying, playing with the blinds, drooling, climbing on top of each other, doing normal baby things
3.  Take them out of the crib, lay them on the mat on the floor, change they’re diapers, put on nappies (plastic outer shell with a cotton little blanket type thing for absorption
4.  Take them all into a separate room, feed them 
5.   Bring them somewhere else, bathe them, powder them, dress them, put them in cribs

                                                       Leave

It’s around 10:30 and we have until 3 for a break, then we go back to the home and:

1.    Play with kids 
2.   Feed the older kids. (with your hands… and the food looks like vomit and is hot and you have to roll it up into little balls and feed it to the kids who are swarming you and running around all at once. 
3.  Then we change the babies again and get them ready for bed, mosquito nets down and lights out.

Doesn’t sound like much, but boy are we exhausted by 7 o’clock when we’re let out usually covered in puke and with aching backs. 

And that my friends, is the Mampong Babies Home.

                  








Me, Lobka, 
Carline, &
Pia at the
Babie's Home