Thursday, June 7, 2007

Orphanage #4

Pictures simply don't provide a good sense of how it feels to be at this place. I almost didn't use this shot because from this perspective, it doesn't look that much different from an old public school building back home. Efforts are made to make it more inviting, but the truth is this is a rundown old building most of us could never imagine having to live in.

The dining hall

The children have absolutely no privacy in their rooms, which sleep four.

I was surprised to see how much freedom they have to leave the premises. I saw several kids walking around the blighted neighborhood surrounding the internot.

But they have no money to go out and do things, so they end up doing alot of this.

Upkeep in the play areas and courtyards is sorely lacking.

I saw this tattered soccer goal as being symbolic of the broken world we all live in.

This is their TV room. There's no air conditioning anywhere making it very hot and musty in the summer and the enormous size of the complex makes it hard to heat in the winter.

3 comments:

Leslie said...

J&D-
Are the kids still at the internot? I though they would have gone to the camp by now. The picture of Galya's bedroom speaks volumes. One of the few things Kristina asked for before she went back to the orphanage was a comforter for her bed so she would be warm. Creature comforts we all take for granted.

Floyd Whatley said...

Thank God they have each other. Can you imagine the isolation, the lonliness without another person who shares their plight to talk with? The HOPE, do they ever give it up? Their PAIN, do they hide it behind false smiles?

God bless them, every one. Amen.

Jim H. said...

Most of them are at camp now and I'm going to post on that soon. But Nastia and the kids who are "graduating" are still at the orphanage, studying and taking a series of exit exams throughout the next two weeks.