#159 Sucre – A hug or a kiss makes a big difference

I came to Sucre to relax after few days of lots of traveling. Sucre is a small city, but it’s more organized and clean than most of the other cities I’ve seen in Bolivia. The city itself doesn’t have much to see other than the beautiful Spanish architecture, and even around the city there are very few things to do. It’s a place to sit back and relax especially if it was nice and sunny, which in this part of Bolivia is not that often to experience because of the high altitude and general landscape around the city that makes cold and very often rain.

I met a lovely lady from France her name is Hourya, she’s very involved in social work and does a lot of volunteer work in many places around the world. One night we started to talk and I told her I saw a list of many volunteer organizations online, and I am considering to do some volunteer work for about a week. She invited me to go with her to an orphanage the next day. We went and we met 20 children aged from around 2 to 5 years old. These kids were either abandoned, orphans or whose parents cannot afford to keep them the whole week because the parents are very poor. This particular organization care even for little babies, so they have another section that has new born. Personally, it was heart breaking to see these wonderful kids how warm and welcoming they were to us, many times the ones we think they are the weak, they give us the most strength.

When I arrived at the orphanage along with other volunteers, the kids came running and hugged us. They called any male volunteer papa and the female volunteer mama. One girl took my hand and started to tease the other little girl saying, this is my daddy, each one of them says to the other this is my daddy and the other says no he is my dad. It’s like a little gift that each one wants to have. We played with the kids and they seemed happy, but I felt how much they were in need of someone to hug them or show them love and affection. Many times we take things for granted and never crosses our mind how kids like these suffer and the lack these affections would affect the rest of their lives.

There are orphans in many countries and kids like these are not only in Bolivia but in every country around the world, but I guess the opportunity for me presented itself, in order to serve these kids and in many ways it serves me as much. I went back to the hostel and while I was trying to sleep I had the image of these kids in my head. I started to think what’s it like for these little kids to sleep all their lives since they were almost born in a hostel or a dorm. What’s it like for these kids to spend all their childhood wearing used donated clothes. What’s like that every time someone comes to the orphanage the kids would think it’s his/her dad or mom. I slept but these images kept hunting me for a couple of days later. A lot of times I hear from those who has kids thinking if I bought you nice clothes, nice things or I sent you to a good school, it’s enough. But if one thing I learned from this experience it’s all worthless compare to the love and affection that you show your kids.

I remember when it was time to put these kids to sleep, we would get then change their clothes and help the youngest with changing their clothes and wear their pajamas. Later we would put them in bed, and each one will ask you to kiss them and hug them. And the smile on their little faces is just amazing.

As I was leaving the orphanage, the director stopped to chat with me along with other volunteers and she said; you who come from other countries where you have everything but you’re not content but when you come here and you see these kids, you start to appreciate what you have.