246/365

246/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Went to the butcher today for some hamburger meat and shrimp. Decided to pass on the cow intestines.


And the goat intestines. And the goat kidneys, which I surmised were kidneys since they looked like kidney beans which look like kidneys. Also, passed on that thing up there with the tail still attached.

The butchers were amused at my face. I asked them what everything was and told them that you just don't see that sort of thing in America...and that I'm learning about new cultures. They laughed and peeled my shrimp for free.

We went back to New Life Home today and saw Dorothy and Noel, the former nameless boy we picked up from the hospital. The nurse, Carol, named him.

I also held and fed one of the babies that was in the incubator last week. His name is Max and he came in weighing 900 grams. He got out of the incubator yesterday, is about a month old, and weighs 2.5kgs, about 5 pounds. His face is about the size of my fist. But by their standards, he's doing great.

There was a baby in the room who was 2 days old. The police found her abandoned. She was bigger than Max. Healthy girl. The nurse with me today (Lucy) told me she cleaned the blood off her and cut the umbilical chord. She just stared at her and wondered out loud how any human being could abandon their child. Give up, hand over for adoption...it's one thing. But to abandon? We decided poverty and circumstance has nothing to do with it. Even those with absolutely nothing can still hope, will still take care of their children. It's a mind issue - a lack of faith, hope, love. Completely taken over by selfishness and looking for a quick way out. Lucy is a mother of three boys, one only a year old, so it's pretty close to her heart. She's been working at New Life for five years and said she always thought eventually the numbers would go down and the children would find homes. But the numbers have not changed. One goes, another comes. She apologized for talking badly against her country, but I told her it wasn't bad, she just believed that they could do better. That's a good thing.

Sometimes it's really hard being here. People come to make a difference but often times to more harm than good. They teach people to keep living the way they are living to gain pity and get handouts. They scare them out of moving on to a better life because then they will LOSE the pity and the handouts. It is such a strange cycle. Honestly, I'm happy that I didn't come here with money. The biggest thing I've learned about helping people is that it is not about money. People crave knowledge, advice, counseling, help on a personal level. Not a wad of cash. Did you know that the clothes people so lovingly donate just end up being sold on the streets? It's corrupt. The USA sends goods over and they immediately go into the wrong hands and the wrong people make a profit on your donations. We send food, generations forget how to farm, they starve. We send clothes, generations forget how to sew, they go naked. The smart ones are no longer asking for money, just a conversation.

I wish I were an expert on any one thing. Business, medicine, education. I wish I could take a mess and help pick it up. But I'm young, I'm inexperienced. So I think that my reason here is to love. It's the only thing that everyone seeks and right now it's the only thing that I can give. Of course, it's the hardest thing to give. My heart isn't always open and in those circumstances I'd rather be able to just hand over a couple grand and fly right back to my own comfortable cage.

Well anyway. That's where I'm at. Sorry to juxtapose such honesty with a few pictures of raw meat. I don't plan things out so awesomely.