orphanage

I was recently able to visit an orphanage.  It is the only government orphanage in the whole country and it is located here in the capital city.  There are currently 137 children at the orphanage.  Most are babies.  The few older children have special needs and are less likely to be adopted.  It is not allowed for foreigners to adopt Malian children at the present time.  Before the coup d'état it was possible, but they put a hold on that and it has caused numbers to rise at the orphanage.  There are still babies coming in regularly, but not as many going out.
I know Malian women who have not been able to have biological children (much to their shame and despair), but they would never consider adoption.  Many Malians would never consider an adopted child to be "theirs."  The babies at the orphanage are mostly there because they were abandoned at birth by their unwed mothers.  This is generally the reason for orphans.  Otherwise children are taken in by family members.  I know several children being raised by aunties and uncles after their mothers died (way too many women here die in childbirth).  But again, I often see that the adopted or taken-in child is not treated as "their" child.  While their biological children wear new clothes for holidays the adopted child wears an old hand-me-down dress.  This is not always the case, but I've seen adopted children treated as less than biological children enough times.

 

Before going to the orphanage I was a little worried about what I might find there.  I've seen scary things on tv about horrible places where children are filthy, starving, and 3 to a bed.  While it absolutely touches my heart to see these kids in an institutional place without parents, I've seen plenty of kids a lot worse off in this country.  The babies in the orphanage were all well fed, clean, well clothed, only 1 to each crib, and they even had some toys.  One young man with special needs was scooting himself across a clean tiled floor and playing with a little ball.  I remembered visiting a young woman in a village with similar disabilities.  She was living with her family, but they seemed to want to keep her hidden away, forgotten.  Instead of a clean tiled floor she had a dirt courtyard shared with chickens and a few sheep.  She was not clean or groomed like the young man in the orphanage.  I did feel compassion for the young man, and I stopped to squat down to hold his hand and talk to him for a few seconds.  But I think that he is a lot happier and probably better off than the young woman in the village who lived with her unloving family. 
The babies don't get held and played with as much as they need, its just not possible with the limited staff.  But they get held and played with some, and they all seemed to be doing pretty well actually. 

Seeing all of these beautiful babies got me a bit upset with the mentality here about adoption.  I remember having a friend in the 3rd grade who was adopted.  Her family was pretty rich and she had a lot of expensive toys.  She told me how her parents had told her that they couldn't have a biological child, but they wanted a little girl so badly, and they were so happy that they found her to be their dearly loved special little girl.  I remember feeling jealous and wishing I were adopted too.  When I tell some Malians about friends I have in the states that have adopted children, how those children are really "their" children now, they find it hard to believe.  I wish that the mentality would change.  It is ridiculous that all of those perfect babies are sitting in the orphanage waiting while there are so many women yearning to have a baby but not being able to conceive.

 

I was glad to visit these sweet little ones, and I hope that I'll be able to go there again soon.  I would be open to consider adopting a baby in the future if the situation changes and they allow foreigners to adopt again.  I'm not sure if the Mr. would be as open to that, but its something to pray about. 

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  James 1:27