SOS Children's Village

 

I realized that I had never written about my trip to SOS Children's Village almost a month ago when I was in Serowe, so here it is!  SOS Children's Village is a sort of foster home/orphanage.  They have a really unique set up with individual houses so the children can feel part of a family.  In Serowe (there are 2 other villages in Bostwana, but all three have waiting lists as there are many children in need) there are 9 separate houses each with 10-14 children and 2 "house mothers."  The "house mothers" have their own families, but they live at SOS most of the time, returning to their own families 3 days every two weeks.  The children in the houses range in age from babies to 18 year olds and boys and girls are mixed so that the children have "siblings."  Most of the children are orphans, though some are placed at SOS after being abused or neglected, and many have HIV.  Most have connections with their biological families (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc) but for whatever reason their families cannot take care of them.  However, many go back to their biological families for school holidays.  I went to visit to check up on a patient who we had referred there and found her and her "siblings" to be thriving. 

 This is the front of her house.  The children and house mothers can decide on what type of gardening and landscaping to do in front of the house and many had vegetable plots.

It only took a few minutes for the children to warm up to us.  We brought along some stickers which, as you can see, were a big hit.  Trying on our sunglasses also provided much entertainment.  But they got the greatest joy by being picked up, swung around, carried, hugged, etc.  It wasn't long before I was a human jungle gym. I certainly felt sore the next day, but it was well worth all the smiles and laughter ;) 

I returned the next week to play chess with some of the older children (though they promptly beat me, since I am very out of practice!)  

I will surely be a frequent visitor when I return to Serowe in March! 

Teen Club

The first Teen Club event of the new year was the last Saturday in January.  A record number of teens turned out, 137!  As usual we split them into two groups (13-15 and 16-19).  The older group did a lesson on communication.  For the younger group it was Sports Day!  Several adult volunteers and I, took about 80 13-15 year-olds to a nearby field.  We started off with a huge game of Red Rover, Red Rover (above).  And then they broke into groups based on which sports they wanted to play.  There was net ball (kinda like basket ball), tennis, volleyball, football (soccer) and even hula hooping and jump rope.  I played football and was really no match for most of the kids.  Luckily the weather cooperated.  After days of torrential downpours alternating with oppressive sun, we managed to have our sports day on an overcast day with no rain.  As a result it was only about 85/90 degrees with a nice breeze!  The kids all had fun.  The best part about days like that is no one would know that any of these children have a chronic disease and they just get to have a great time!

 

On a random note, I thought you all might appreciate some pictures of the neighborhood equivalent to raccoons.  Yes they are monkeys!  The spend their days eating the garbage, swinging from the telephone lines, and chasing each other across the roof.  Every once in awhile I will hear what sounds like thunder and is actually monkeys running across the roof.  One of the other doctors left her door open for 15 mins to get some fresh in the house and the next thing she knew 5 monkeys were in her house eating her bread and peeing all over her kitchen!  They had climbed through the bugler bars and were having a grand old time! Not so fun to clean up, but at the same time hard to get mad when they are so darn cute!  They remind me of the children's book "Caps for Sale".