Working with the Children at Baphumelele

Amily, Apiwe, Asanda, Asermahle, Awesipho, Baphiwe, Elvis, Kimi, Kwanele, Leema, Lubabalo, Lukholo, Luthando, Mandoza, Moses, Mesuli, Naledi, Nana, Nenana, Neliswa, Numyama, Nxonxo, Okuhle, Jessica, Patience, Pholile, Phisa, Sange, Shakes, Sinazo, Sinyoyolo, Sipho, Thina, Viwe, Vuyani, Zandile, Zolela…

These are the children that I am working with at the Baphumelele Children’s Home in Khayelitsha, a township of about 1.2 million people located a few kilometers outside of Cape Town. Most of the children are of Xhosa origin, as are the care workers there, as is Nelson Mandela. They speak Xhosa, a language using clicks like the Damara in Namibia. Some of these children are orphans; some have been abandoned or removed from their home due to abuse. Some of these children are HIV positive; some already have AIDs. Most of them have a host of other illnesses, such as one boy with cerebral palsy. All of them need more attention than any of the volunteers and full-time care workers can give them, and it is heartbreaking. I have already fallen in love with them – I would take Nenana (pictured by herself) and Patience (pictured crawling) back to the U.S. with me in a second.

I worked this week at Baphumelele from Wednesday through Saturday morning (November 29 to December 2). It was quite an overwhelming few days, and since I’m still learning a lot about Baphumelele and these children, I’ll start with what is easy to describe for this entry: what the short-term (being 6 weeks to 3 months) volunteers, of which I am one, do at Baphumelele.

My primary role is to assist the full-time care workers with the younger children, about 40 in total, who seem to range in age from 9 months to 4 years old. (We do not know most of their actual birthdays.) All of these children stay in what is called the America House. I am joined on my 3 ½ day shift each week by three other volunteers: a very cool 59-year old retired teacher from Illinois; a 19 year old student from Toronto who is very mature for her age; and a woman in her mid-twenties from the UK. While on shift we live in a loft apartment four doors down from the America House, located above the main kitchen / dining room for the older children at Baphumelele.

We begin each day at 7:00 a.m. at the America House. The full-time care workers have already been up with the children since 4:00 a.m., when they start to bathe them and give them their first bottle for the day or, for the older ones, their breakfast of porridge. We arrive and begin to prepare the bottles for the rest of the day, carefully making sure each child has the correct number of bottles and correct amount of formula and water. We also brush all of their teeth – a real challenge – they love the toothpaste and most just clamp down on the brush, with all their tiny might, and suck all of the toothpaste off. They love it so much that they’ll try to reach for and drink the spit bucket and some of the more wily ones often succeed when we have our hands full with the others!

During all of this time, we try to play or hold as many of them as possible. We simply try to give each of the 40 children at least a few minutes of one-on-one time, at least one brief chance to be picked-up and hugged, each time we are around them – it’s a tragedy that is all we can give them. At 8:30 a.m., all of the crèche (pre-school) aged children walk across the street to the crèche where they will stay until 3:00 p.m. This leaves about 20 toddlers back at the America House for the full day. The volunteers then go back to the apartment to shower, eat breakfast and have a break until 10:00 a.m.

At 10:00 a.m. we go back to the America House and feed the toddlers a snack and play with them until 11:30. For instance, on Thursday we brought out a big water table a previous volunteer had purchased for them and let them all play with water toys. At 11:30 we wash all of their hands (a big deal for them, like the tooth brushing activity) and then head to the main kitchen to grab their lunch to bring back to feed them at the America House. The meals they serve here seem to be the same thing day after day, meal after meal: rice with a chicken or fish stew on top made of a watery tomato base, with tiny slices of potato and carrots mixed in. We sit and help them eat their lunch and then clean the dishes until 1:00 p.m., when we once again go back to our volunteer apartment to have our own lunch and break until 2:30.

Because Khayelitsha is not safe, we can not walk around anywhere, not even around the block in broad daylight. So when we are not on duty, we are confined to our apartment. For that reason also, we have to bring all of our food and water for the three days we work. The volunteer apartment, which has the feeling of a wooden clubhouse one would build in their backyard in the U.S., has a fairly rudimentary kitchen with a refrigerator, microwave, a toaster oven and a few burners. We mostly “cook” toast, cereal and eggs for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and salads with frozen pizzas or pasta for dinner. I have done more “cooking” here than I did the past 5 years in NYC!

At 2:30, we go back to America House and help the care workers wake the children from their naps. We then feed them another snack and once again play with them and the crèche children who return at 3:00 p.m. At 4:30, we do another hand washing and then go grab the dinner meals – more rice and stew. This time we prepare and feed all 40 children. Afterwards, we brush their teeth again, wash the dishes from dinner and prepare the syringes for the vitamins and medicine to be dispensed the next day. Thankfully, we do not change any diapers or do any cleaning, other than the dishes. Wisely, we do not give out medicine. And, we do not put them to sleep. They try to reserve the more intimate, motherly, activities like changing diapers and putting them to bed for the permanent care workers there. Then, around 6:30 p.m. each day, we finish and, again, lock ourselves in our apartment for the evening. And, that is typical day at Baphumelele for the volunteers. It does not take a lot of brains, and would not be they type of work I could do beyond this month, but these children sure do pull your heart strings!