The last few days have been amazing, we have spent everyone of them at our main orphanage CPO. I now have found my two favorite kids at CPO, Lavin 15, and Lavid 9. They are brothers. They are not orphans entirely. They still have a mom who lives in the slums, which is about a 5 minute walk away. The slums are basically living the worst it gets, The homes are made or scraps of wood thrown togeather to make a "house". There is sewage running through the streets and garbage everywhere you step. My friends mother is HIV positive and has four kids, two boys and two girls. Both boys live in the orphanage and one of the girls, The other girls is just a baby and will probably live with her mother until she can eat, then will probably live in the orphanage because food costs money and that is something the mom does not have.
Lavin is 15 and very smart, he speaks good English and we can have a small conversation. He is also kind of shy. I had not really met him before we went to visit the mother in her home. Then I started to pay more attention, I felt for the family and how hard it must be to be the kids, being given away by your mother who is still alive, and for the mother who had to give up her kids because she could not support them, it is horrible to think about. But the kids are some of the happiest at CPO. I then noticed him again when we were having a sort of dance party and neither of the two boys wanted to dance. I asked them why and they said "I am no good, no like to dance" so I tried to get them to dance a little but they really were against it so we went out and played some volleyball. Volleyball is the big thing here, soccer is cool, but volleyball is number one.
Lavid is 9 and he is amazing, he is just like his brother in every way, shy, smart, and incredibly generous. Both boys have spent their own money to buy me bracelets. The director gives each kid a little money for a snack for school and they both, spent theirs to buy me 2 bracelets. The family has a little black dog that i think is fed by trash but Lavid loves the dog, the dog will walk over just to hang out and snuggle with him. He is also a big fan of volleyball like his brother.
The sister and the baby I do not know much about other then, the older one is HIV negative and the little baby needs to take three tests to confirm, and she has only taken one and it came out negative.
For work, we have cleaned out the chicken coop and scraped it clean of grass. Then we cut the lawn... I know take lawn mowers for granted. Picture cutting a lawn 50ft by 40ft... with a knife. We cut the whole thing down to the dirt which is awesome because it will provide a good living space to the chicken and makes the place look good. We did this over the queens birthday which is a holiday and told the kids that they could not help because it was a holiday but they did not let us they were constantly trying to help, I wish my siblings were like them ;) (love you guys).
The last couple of days have been really productive, but I am starting to worry about the goodbyes in two day. It will be so incredibly hard to do have to say goodbyes again. This time is different, I will not be able to say "I will come back" with confidence, I have been here twice and another will be difficult. I wish the day would never come.
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