Spent...

I sat for a good three minutes trying to come up with a title for this post. Exhausted? Overwhelmed? Emotional? Excited? Sad? No, no...I'm definitely spent- mentally, physically, emotionally.  I finally started work at an orphanage for children with severe disabilities. It is as if you took my kids from home and plopped them in Peru. Except, this is what my kids would be like if you didn't give them a home, love, attention, warmth, etc.  I knew what I was getting myself into, but had no idea what I was getting myself into. I've done things in the last two days that would make my SLP friends sick...well, really anyone. It's weird though because there is definitely a point when you think to yourself, "it's this or nothing." So, yes, I tied kids to a bed and heard them banging their heads against a railing.  I put soiled sheets in a crib. I held a girl down as the nuns force-fed her, listening to her scream and choke.  Like I said, there's a point.  Soiled sheets or no sheets at all.  There isn't heat here, so it's freeze or sleep on stains. They don't have IVs or other ways to supplement nutrition, so it's hold the girl in her chair or watch her starve. It's tie the kids to the bed or have them run away. There's a point.

 I am also conflicted because I want to establish a strong rapport with the staff, which I have definitely been successful at but it also means respecting their way of caring for and treating the children. The physical therapist that runs the program picked my brain for hours today, and I think we are going to be able to make some progress. Most of the volunteers are also a little younger than I am, so they have been incredibly open to my suggestions.

The kids are wonderful. In two days, I think I have fallen in love with every single one of them.  It just doesn't matter if they are covered in pee or throwing their food up all over you.  It really doesn't matter. The second they make eye contact or smile, I know that it is all worth it. 

So I'm spent...