El Puericultorio Perez Aranibar

“Not with a bang but with a whimper.”

Work ended last Friday. My last few days involved some music exchanging and word racing with my colleagues. But, I did manage to snap some photos of the wonderful children at the albergue. El Puericultorio isn’t actually an orphanage– it’s a home for children taken away from abusive/dysfunctional families. All schools in Peru were on break during my last two weeks working, so it would have been super boring working in a public school. So, they sent me to Pueri, where there was a chance I would actually see kids. (Behold, kids!) The kids that stayed at Pueri over this break, then, were the ones from the most dysfunctional families, because they aren’t allowed to return for holidays.

The sight of all the beds lined up in a row was just very moving. Can you imagine this sort of life? Can you imagine what it must mean to work here? Not work like mine, coloring in a little classroom, but work like raising these children and being the parents and guardians that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Made me think twice about the implications of my presence. I was, as usual, delighted by the open affection of the kids– unsolicited hugs, tiny besitos (kisses), young chatter. You don’t need to work hard at all to win affection. But my co-worker told me that these children are used to people coming and going. “Where’d so-and-so go?” “She left, she had to return to her country.” “Oh.” And that’s that.

What do you feel when you see an orphan/dislocated child? What’s the part that gets you most? That they’ve been abused? That they have no house to go home to? Personally what struck me most looking at these kids is the prospect of their future. That one day they’ll be grown and removed from… their blood, so to speak. What’s touching is that these children love their families, and miss their families. In the clouded half light that childhood memories are kept, they’ll see these falling-apart buildings. They’ll remember Paola–the pretty psychologist–who was thinking of her French fiancé. Teachers and volunteers that came and went. Their memory of bedtime will be of the rustle of forty children climbing into bed. They’ll remember each other.

Anyway, on to photos. Unfortunately I didn’t have nearly enough time to dedicate to getting to know these children well.