Orphanage Love

Every other Saturday I have found an organization that volunteers at a Orphanage close to the outskirts of Beijing. Last Saturday I was very enthusiastic to get involved. I needed to take a 20 minute bus ride to the subway station, then a 15 minute ride on the subway to another bus station, and finally a 45 minute bus ride to the Orphanage center in Shunyi. We are not to disclose the precise location of the Orphanage due to the safety of the center. The center holds 45 children from new borns to the age of 18. Many of the children have disabilities with varying cognitive abilities. My friend Nathan had introduced me to the coordinator of this organization who has a Fulbright Scholarship and graduated from Harvard. Many of the other volunteers have done some really amazing things, just like herself, and it is really interesting learning about their experiences. The busride over to the center gave me a chance to get to know everyone. We all got along really well and we are planning on going out to dinner next week after volunteering. When I finally got to the orphanage I was overwhelmed by the experience. I was a bit apprehensive because I did not know what I was supposed to do and all the other volunteers just kind of jumped into their tasks. Finally, one of the guys suggested I work with some of the kids in the wheel chairs and just kind of wheel them around and communicate with them. The biggest challenge about volunteering was verbal communication because none of the children spoke English. Luckily, I have a knack of being expressive and used facial expressions, hand gestures, and very little Chinese to communicate with the children. I was soo excited when the reaction I would receive from the kids was a big smile. It was as if they understood and it guided me to believe that what I was doing was ok with them. After racing around the rooms with the children in the wheel chairs and playing varous wheel chair games, which I gladly created on the spot, I decided to move stations to the toddlers. The kids were so adorable and I was so overwhelmed by all the "cute-ness." My heart ached with love, seriously. I instantly became atached to all of the children. One of the kids in particular was incredibly fiesty. This child had sharing issues and did not like sharing toys. Before I sat down to play with this child, I stood back and observed him for awhile to see what he was all about. The little boy would scavange around the play pen looking for toys that were abandoned by other children, then he would run over pick the toy up and bring it back to his pile of toys he had already collected. He would then sit down and hold all the toys in the pile and wrap his legs around them in order to create a barrier so that no one else could take them. It was realy funny watching him do this routine over and over again. At one point, the boy got really desperate because there were no more abandoned toys left in the room; he then decides to find another child, whom he thinks he could take, and run over to him and grab the toy right out of the kid's hands and then run back to bring it back to his section. This was when I decided to intervene. I consoled the child that was crying about his toy being taken away. Then I went to the little scavenger boy and tried to explain to him to give the toy back. He did not give the toy up. He held on to the toy VERY HARD. After awhile me and the other little boy gave up and let him have it. A few minutes later, it was snack time and all of the children were given cookies. The boy, whose toy had been taken away earlier, had apprently decided to get revenge. When the scavenger boy was not looking the second boy ran up to him and took the cookie right of the scavenger boy's hands, right when he was about to put the cookie in his mouth. He then immediately runs away and shoves the cookie in his mouth while he was running. It was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen! I decided to focus on teaching the kid how to share for the next 30 minutes. I finally found a way to get through to him. I would cup my hands and say xiexie (thank you) over and over again until he gave me the toy. I took his hand that had a toy and made him place a toy in my other hand. Immediately after this I would smile very big, kiss him on the cheek, and say thank you so that he would know that what he had just done was a VERY good thing. The kid loved receiving kisses. Most likely, because many of the kids are not used to receiving affection and love as often as most other kids. After a few times of practicing this type of conditional pattern (which I stole from the Pavlov theory of dog psychology haha) the child finally willingly gave me his toy and learned the art of sharing. It is very likely that the child would forget everything he had learned within minutes, but I feel that I will continue working with him every other week, and hopefully somethng will register in the future. After this, I decided to move to another section of the room where other, smaller babies were hanging out. They were all congregated next to a radioplayer that was playing Western pop music and occasionally a Chinese pop song. The babies were simply standing around listening with their eyes very big from excitement. The radio was like magic to them. I decided to try and get the kids to dance, mainly because I wanted to dance too haha. I started moving around and swaying back and forth. After awhile, some of the children seemed to get the point and began immitating my behavior. After awhile I would start picking up children one by one and slow dance with them to the music. The kids loved this the most! The loved the idea of ballroom dancing in the air with their legs wrapped around my body. It was amazing to see how quickly the children would pick up what i was doing, and immitate my body language. They were all so smart. It really amazed me. It was as if I forgot all my personal problems while I was there and nothing else mattered. There was something so amazing about being with such innocent and intuitive beings. On the bus ride home, I reflected about the past three hours I had spent at the orphanage center. I understood that I had just signed up for a dangerous project. I willingly signed up to get attached to these children and pour my love into them, knowing that eventually I would have to give them up in a year. This will be a very big challenge for me in the future.