First Visit to an Orphanage

I had traveled and even lived some in third-world countries. I knew the look of abject poverty, of rivers filled with the filth of litter, and even of children defecating in the streets. My business had taken me to many places. My wife had rarely been outside the United States and then usually on cruise ships or popular places like London. In this context, we experienced our first visit to an orphanage.

We entered through the back door. Outside the temperature was about -20F in the town of Oral, Kazakhstan. Regardless of where you live in the United States, twenty below zero is cold! The first impression of the orphanage was the heat. Inside, the temperature was hot and balmy--probably close to 80F. We immediately began sweating and quickly removing the extra layers that were needed outside.

The floor was made of tile and had a thin of grimy dirt that covered it. A woman was mopping with a bucket of water that was almost as dirty. It seemed that the primary role was to rearrange the dirt that was on the floor. It is impossible that that water in the bucket could have removed or cleaned the floor to any condition that I would have considered "clean."

We walked down a long hallway. Most of the walls and the ceiling were made with real plaster rather than the sheet rock and imitation ceilings that we use in the US. In this city, the cost of labor was still the cheapest commodity and even poorly funded government institutions had a high degree of workmanship that would have been prohibitively expensive at home.

We saw few people in the hallway. A few orphanage workers were dressed in white jackets and moved quickly. The screeches and screams of children echoed down the hall from every direction--the collective noise of nearly 200 children from ages three through eight. We were seated in a large room where the kids played games. Today, we were told, they would rehearse and "Independence Day" program that they were practicing.

Noise came from the hallway as heard footsteps and shuffling of many people and in came groups of children. Each was dressed in mismatched clothing, sloppy hair cuts, and some indoor slippers. Many of them wore smiles and were immediately aware of a "mama and papa" in the room to observe. Immediately, my wife began to sniff and wipe her eyes. She said, "They look just like little orphans--and they are little orphans!"