My Day in the Orphanage

Aisha Arif was a volunteer on our 2012 Travel Morocco Program and wrote the following piece describing some of her experiences.

You hear them crying before you even enter the room. The kind of crying only the smallest babies do. You push open the door and see the rows of cribs. Each has a name and birthdate listed at the top. As you walk closer, you see a tiny boy in one of the first cribs. You can tell from his voice that he’s been crying for quite some time now. You go a little closer, say his name and stroke his cheek. You rub his small stomach and make soothing sounds to comfort him. His crying slowly comes to a halt. He just stares at you, surprised by this moment of attention he is finally receiving. The way he looks at you with helplessness, the way he now grasps your finger, it’s all too much to handle only minutes after you’ve entered the room. The tears start to burn in your eyes and you quickly swallow them back. You came here for their tears, not your own.

You release your finger from his, with some difficulty, and start moving to another crib. You see a beautiful girl, quietly staring at the ceiling. She is sucking on her fist so intently that you recognize her hunger immediately. The time for feeding is not for another hour. Once or twice her fist shifts away and she starts to cry. It’s a quiet, aching cry that makes your stomach sink inside. Before you move to comfort her, she has already found her fist again. So accustomed to suffering without any attention, she has learned how to sooth herself. This one month child has learned how to take care of herself and no longer even needs your touch. The injustice of it all makes you shake with emotion.

You start moving to the next crib, but not before you recognize a familiar sound. The first child, Adam, is crying once more, crying hard. But so is the next baby in front of you, and the next one. In the days ahead you’ll use rockers for help with this and even hold two children at once. You’ll learn how to prioritize the younger ones before the older ones and learn how to comfort several of them at a time by singing songs. And ultimately you’ll learn how to deal with the harsh fact that it is impossible for you to attend to 18 infants at once. Some of them will cry, sometimes for long periods at a time, before you can even get to them. And there’s nothing you can do.

But today you know none of these things. You feel like you’re failing before you even started. Every cry deepens the anguish that has been growing inside of you. You move from child to child, hoping to give one at least a moment of relief before going to the other. The women working there have advised not to hold them because that will develop a habit that is too hard to sustain. Perhaps that makes logical sense, but that doesn’t make it right. Refusing to deprive these children of physical contact, you pick them up and hold them close. Within seconds they become silent. It’s almost unsettling what little you need to do to quiet them down. Your touch is enough for them. Your voice is enough for them. They could be hungry, feeling sick, none of that matters. The moment you hold them, that is enough. Seeing such innocence, such loneliness, crushes you once again. Prayers pour from your lips. This is the only thing that keeps you from completely breaking at this moment.

Finally, it’s time for their milk. You watch as the women prop up the bottles against pillows so that the children can self feed. No child in this room is older than 4 months, yet somehow they have already learned to feed themselves. Except Adam. You hear the little premie’s familiar cry amidst the rhythmic sounds of others gulping down their breakfast. He is one of the smallest babies in the room, how can he be expected to feed himself. You walk over and bring his tiny body up close to yours. This one you will feed today. And every day you can this week. His tiny fingers again hold onto you, and again that look of helplessness, of dependence. You hold him long after his milk is finished, long after many of the other children have gone to sleep. Somewhere, somewhere during that time you have fallen in love with this child. Fallen so deeply in love that you don’t know how to let him go.

The other volunteers are now waiting outside. You hear them calling your name because it’s time to leave. Your eyes plead silently with theirs, but you know you have already lost. Everyone is waiting. You silently kiss Adam’s hand before you place his sleeping body back into that lonely crib. You stroke his hair one last time and promise to return again soon. Others are conversing outside, but you can’t meet their gaze as you walk out the door. Choking back the tears you silently look at the ground all the way to the car, and all the way home.

Back at the hotel you find a place of solitude. You lay your head down on the couch and pull your legs up close to your chest. Weak with grief, defeated, you let the tears flow. They come slowly at first, but eventually drip steadily down your cheek. It is finally time to cry.

-Aisha Arif