Lindsay decides to share the health.

In case you didn’t catch it before, I am working at the orphanage with a specific task in mind – promoting health practices among the children. I think I may have been the first ever orphanage volunteer to apply for this position because there doesn’t seem to be much groundwork laid before me, nor does anyone seem to fully understand what I want to accomplish.

Before my leap across the pond, I was certain that my duties would be primarily focused on HIV/AIDS awareness. Having spent two weeks in the orphanage, I have shifted gears to something a little simpler: hand washing. Nobody washes their hands. Not ever. And how could they? There isn’t any place to do it, and with “bathroom” practices being a complete misnomer (not only do they not have proper toilets, but most people prefer a nearby wall to latrines), convincing people to change their ways hasn’t been easy.

On our first full day at the orphanage, Clark and I put all the volunteers into groups in order to efficiently manage all of the different ongoing projects. During this time, one of the lovely Parisian girls (Julie) offered to help me create a health curriculum for the students at both the primary and secondary schoosl. Our plan was to not only teach the children, but to first teach the teachers. This idea was met with some disapproval by the other volunteers. They didn’t think the teachers would want to listen to a couple of white girls tell them what to do.

They could not have been more wrong.

Last Friday, after waiting two hours and throwing up once (I am quickly learning not to take my malaria pills first thing in the morning), Julie and I introduced the plan to the teachers and began our instruction. Not knowing what kind of reaction I would get, I started off hesitantly, briefly covering the topics in the first chapters. Fairly early on, I approached the subject of hand washing and bathing. We were flooded with questions! Everything from HOW to do it to how many times a day to what the necessary ingredients were… these teachers were legitimately curious. Nearly everyone had a personal question about dental hygiene, and of course food safety, puberty and sex education caused quite a stir as well – even among the adults with children. I was thrilled to be able to really engage with these people, and as ridiculous as the questions might seem to us, the answers were incredibly important. They even agreed to put buckets and soap in every classroom!

Next week we will begin going into individual classrooms, guiding the teachers and speaking with the kids.

Last week, as part of the weeknight tutoring instituted by “Mr. and Mrs. Clark” (The kids have practically no basic phonetics or math skills, so we insisted), we had a brief health lesson. Julie and I bought bars of soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for every kid. We brought a bucket of water and gave a thorough demonstration on how to effectively wash, and then we had all of the kids try it out as well. They had a blast, and the headmaster of the orphanage said the next morning they were all brushing and washing. Time will tell… but it’s a start!