On that note, we have reached that halfway point of Alyssa's Awesome Adventures! Crazy! We are currently staying at the Engineering Guest House at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi.
Yesterday was the hardest day yet...we all need a good cry and boy did I have mine at the Kumasi Children's Home. This is a government owned public orphanage filled with 96 children ages 0-26 years old. The 26 year old is one of the many who are there who are developmentally disabled (dd). I was fine walkin through the school rooms, giving high fives and hugs to these tiny strangers who are so happy to see us for some reasons...then we went to the building where the little ones with DD were and my heart just broke in their hands...here is my reflection from my personal journal:
There were three young men around the doorway, one completely confined to the dirt-filled ground with a big smile on his very alive face. His droll and bent legs reminded me very quickly of a client I once had, low body weight and all. One boy looked very healthy but never cracked a smile nor spoke a word. The boy in the red shirt seemed so sad. Trapped by a swolen face and almost sealede eyes. It looked like it may have been physically painful for him to smile. The girls before me tried to shake his hand and make physical contact-but to no avail. He didn't budge, react, speak, or look. What was he thinking about? How is his sweet heart? How can I show love to him? We turned the corner finding some classmantes already oogling over a baby in the doorstep. I moved to the next door and kneeled down by the most beautiful big-eyed little boy-so little. With legs that looked to be growing at a much slower rate than the rest of his healthy body. How could someone abandon this beautiful soul? SO young and scare? I tried to reach out but he flinched, afraid of someone lovin him but being forced to leave him all over again. The pain of such young heart break must be debilitating. I rose before the tears fell, turning around my waist is met by the young boy from a few days ao. The one by the swings;shoeless, silent, underwearless and clinging to Mary Catherine. As I embraced him and pulled him back to say hello, his focus shifts to his left hand and the activity occurring between his tine finers...just like R.S. A spitting image in fact, so much so that my heart broke right there in his little overactive hands. I knew I was about to sob....I rushed to the bathroom-I really felt a sadness so unfamiliar to me, it wasn't pity and it felt beyond empathy. It was a heartbreak filled with grief, an emptiness in search of hope and a weakness yearning for strenth in such sadness...
We are going back today to help paint a mural with the art students, I am really glad we will be able to spend more time with the children...the director is really doing a reat job there and the kids really all are a family. Its beautiful. I just hope my tummy feels better!! It has been so so good until this morning, and it sounds like others are feeling my pain too.
Last night, some of the art students that go to KNUST here took us out last night for the first time! Our professors said that we are the only group who hasn't gone out at all....so we thought we would break that reputation and dance it up! We were definitely the only ones there and that was just find by us...it was awesome-I am so lucky to be experiencing this with such a great group of girls.
Tupac and I hanging out at da club...
L-R; friend of Michael, Michael-KNUST Art Student, Yours Truly!So its memorial day, correct? I hope you all are enjoying it in every way you can...I am so appreciative of all the comments, seriously...they have really kept me going and keep me smiling! Thank you so so much for takin time out of your schedules to read this!
much love to all you, and happy happy holiday weekend! I am thinking of all of you!!
HUGS,
The tummy rumbling traveler.
7 comments:
Where where where??? I miss you so much!!!
Oh yeah- what is Woot?
Blown away pretty much describes how I am feeling from reading your words..keep them coming!!
Getting ready for all the maj/polka kids so I can not give them an up to the minute report on our Alyss!!
Still missing you, Mom
PS I 'm writing this with dad looking over my shoulder. i miss you too and can't wait to see the wonderful photos that you will probably publish in a book. love the father figure
lyssa. i just love you. i can't really say much else. i am so proud of you. i am glad you are halfway home.
hi honey, it's me. anna. i was just reading your journal entry, and it made me so sad for these children, but also so lucky to know someone as amazing as you. you have such a passion for all kinds of people and i think that is such a gift. love you so much and cannot wait to see you when i get back from europe!! i i think june 11 or 12 ill be back. we have some REAL fun times ahead this summer. . . Love!! AMG.
one more thing. i never told anyone my name was "Ana", so not quite sure why the computer thinks it is. haha oh well. love.
I missalyssa! It is wonderful reading about your adventure! You always were descriptive! Stay safe, healthy and strong. Your experiences will forever be part of your fiber...and change the way you see things.
Love you so much!
Sue Silverman
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