239/365

239/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

First, let's get over the fact that I've posted more than one naked baby on my blog. I don't understand it either.

Now that we're all over it, I'm going to tell you a really good story.

On Wednesdays Amy and I volunteer at New Life Home, an orphanage for abandoned babies, most of them HIV positive. Today when we arrived we were told they needed two people to accompany the nurses to the hospital. We had no idea why they needed us, but we immediately said yes.

So, after bottle-feeding some little ones and making balls from sheets of cotton while they slept, we piled into the car. Us, two nurses, and a driver.

In Kenya, no one ever really "briefs" you on what's about to happen. You just go with it. The nurses spoke nonstop in Swahili during the ride to the hospital, so we were still pretty much in the dark. I started playing a game with myself and thinking how people say immersion is the best way to learn a language, so I tried my hardest to figure out what they were saying. Occasionally I would pick up on something! And then realize that they'd just spoken two words in English.

All I could surmise was that they were NOT talking about whatever it was we were going to do.

Oh, until I heard the words "Hope FM" and I just had to interrupt and say, "We've been on that radio station!" which immediately made me interesting and part of the conversation. Which immediately made me like the nurses.

They took us to Kenyatta National Hospital which honestly, felt like an abandoned hospital. Only with a lot of people running around. It was big, old and grimey. Not at all pristine or private.

We took an elevator to the children's floor and by now we'd at least figured out that we were picking up a baby. I didn't know how that was going to work since there was no space in the car and they threw the baby seat in the trunk. But I went with it.

There were kids running all over the floor. They came to us and held our hands. We didn't find out until we left that they were cancer patients receiving treatment. They were all happy kids. All but one little girl who I held who didn't smile or talk. Just held on. Maybe I'm a little heartbroken.

The doctors took us into a room with a dozen or so beds, one of which held three tiny. Tiny. Tiny. babies. They were right next to a blind boy named David who couldn't form words, only lay on his stomach and reach his heals to the back of his head. I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a little freaky. I looked at him and thought, "This is him, Jesus. This is the unloveable." And then I watched the nurse we travelled with show him love. I think she gets it.

One of the babies I couldn't see, he was so covered in blankets. Another one I could see - he was a week old. Both the boys were born in the Kibera slum and had been abandoned. Police officers had brought them to the hospital. The third one was a girl named Dorothy. She was four months old and she was coming with us.

The nurse briefly checked her out, changed her diaper and clothes, wrapped her in a blanket, then handed her to me, to my surprise. She had big eyes and loved looking at people. She kept craning her head to see all around her. She'd stare at one person for minutes.

I held on to her while they finished up her paperwork and then said, "There's another on the other side of the hospital."

So we walked over and we waited for him. A huge group of kids had started following us by now. One had attached herself to Amy, others played with our hair or starred at Dorothy. The kids and the hospital staff all wanted to say goodbye to her.

It took quite sometime to get the other baby, a two-month-old boy, so I held her until my arms hurt. But I didn't dare let her go.

Finally he came out - "African Boy" was written on his charts. No name yet.

And we got into the scary elevator with no sensors on the doors and people who are unwilling to let you through, even with such precious cargo in our arms. Then we just walked out of the hospital.

A few men came up to the nurses and asked how the white girls had black babies. The nurses totally milked it and said the babies had black fathers. And the men said we didn't look like we could nurse (well, they used different wording), and the ladies called our babies "Little Obamas" - who knows what else they said. But they found it rather funny.


Amy, carrying the boy out of the hospital.


Dorothy started crying after about an hour. When we left she was fussy. Maybe 4 months is old enough to be confused about what's going on?

When we got to the car, the babies stayed in our arms. It's not illegal here. But I was praying we wouldn't get hit by a rogue matatu.


She didn't look big enough to hold her head up so I was reluctant, but I think she just wanted to look around during the car ride.


When we got back to New Life, the nurse took the babies temperature, measured them, weighed them, bathed them and changed them. I had guessed right on Dorothy's weight - 10 pounds.

I also had a chance to glance at her paperwork. Her mother is 20-years-old. She dropped Dorothy off at the hospital in June. The father could not be reached. Dorothy tests negative for HIV. She has a scar on her ear and two on her head from reasons unknown.


The nurse's name is Carol. I think Carol is a wonderful woman.


She always had her mouth open.


This is Amy with the boy.


Dorothy and me. Look at her tear! I can't handle it.

As soon as we saw her we couldn't stop talking about how beautiful she is. She is just a pretty baby.

I think she looks like my daughter. Right? Bad joke? Or how about my sister? Mom, Dad...I can speak for Lauren and Rachel when I say I know what we want for Christmas.

I got a little attached, if you can't tell. The nurses were amazing but still very clinical, very job-focused. I asked a few questions about the babies and most of the time they didn't know the answer. Didn't even know the boy was nameless until we arrived back at New Life. I understand, you probably can't be too emotional in this line of work.

Today was so unexpected and I feel so blessed to have been asked to go. I'm excited to see the babies again next week. But I'd be more excited to go and find they'd been adopted already. That would definitely be the happy ending.