Saturdays are full of trying to find all 6 of the Orper centers. I feel dangerously close to a Where's Waldo maze. I have the directions to two of them well memorized and am working on the rest. It requires me contacting Theo and trying to arrange a meeting with him or someone else to show me the way. The previous Saturday no one was available and so I decided to go back to the day center for girls and work with them. It was a very different feel from the first visit.
There were quite a few less girls present and the ones who were there were exhausted. They lifted themselves slowly from the benches where they had been sprawled out in a light slumber. They shuffled up to the school room and sat down. We made self portraits and I tried to encourage them to be fanciful. Draw yourself however you like, add wings, blue hair, etc. The interpreter left shortly after we began drawing and I relied on Christelle to help me understand some of the younger girls. They needed encouragement to add missing arms, legs, noses. Some struggled with heads and necks. Their feelings of powerlessness were evident in all that the figures lacked. I asked them to put their figures in an environment after they finished. While some girls added houses or chickens, or even other people creating a small family, many just wrote the name of a market they like to frequent or the neighborhood where they spend their time.
The older girls finished in about an hour and wanted to return downstairs to fixing their hair and napping. This pattern was quickly taken up by the others so we had a sharing session where each girl presented their work and then retreated. Three girls were left, three who really enjoyed drawing and asked for paper after paper. Eventually they tired of drawing large fish and taught me secret handshakes and clapping games. I had fun with them but was affected by the tiredness that permeated the center. I missed little Anna and Jolie. No one could tell me where they were, and no one seemed to have the energy to care.
Theo contacted me first the following Saturday and arranged for me to meet someone at the girls' day center who would then accompany me to the other center for girls- where they live. Maison Irebu- the day center for girls- was again nearly empty. The kids who were there were all sleeping. I grew more and more confused about the purpose of the center. What is the reasoning behind being a mere day center and not offering full living services? I had been deeply disturbed by the absence of Anna and wondered how she could have been let to leave...how could any of them be let to wander outside, onto the streets?
IN the courtyard I was warmly greeted by Mama Cluadine. She directed me to an older gentleman sitting by the office. He was going to bring me to Chez Mama Suzanne, home for girls. "I make the soap for the center," he told me as we drove. Once we approached the blue walls, I remembered visiting the place on the rounds I had taken with Theo during my introduction. The children had been away on a vacation of sorts, getting fresh air on a retreat.
When the doors were opened and I drove in, I saw a dark blue minivan and a small group of well dressed people. They appeared to be touring the center and I soon found out they were parishioners from the church that founded the center. The kids had been gathered in the covered cement area reserved for large group gatherings. Blue plastic chairs had been placed in a circle and they waited patiently for the visitors to return.
I sat in the small office looking out onto the courtyard, waiting for the Mama in charge of the center to finish with her unexpected guests and make arrangements with me. Another woman sat with me and we made small talk about my program and discussed how the other centers were doing. It soon became apparent that guests intended on speaking to the girls, praying together and handing out food. After listening for a bit to the songs and the sermons, I decided it would be better to return next week. They had begun to call girls to the middle of the circle - for what purpose I wasn't entirely sure. I suddenly found everything very odd, realizing that the story for many street children began with condemnation by the church. I wondered how they felt about being preached to and given charity by yet another institution spouting words of love and obedience to Jesus.I wondered if it all wasn't a confusing mess to them. Just as I was looking around at their faces, I spotted her. Anna sitting snug in between two older girls. To be sure, I asked the older mama who had joined us if she knew the young girl's name. "Little Anna?" she asked me. Yes!
Happiness covered my face. I clapped and thanked God, thanked them and felt such relief and joy to know they had transferred her over here and she was no longer lost on the streets. It was only 12:00 when I left but I already knew that finding Anna meant my Saturday could only be a day of success and good feelings.
