La Pouponnière

Ok, so I’ve been failing on the blog-updates front. Again. But turns out that I got insanely busy for a couple of weeks. And it just so happens that lucky for you folks I woke up really early this morning and can’t get back to sleep, thus updating seemed like a good option.

I’ve been meaning to talk about my work at the orphanage (pouponnière) recently, as I’ve been spending quite a bit of time there in recent weeks. I tried to fit in as much time as I could while still finishing off my class hours, which means that I go two mornings a week and once on the weekend.

There are about 90 babies housed at this orphanage, the only one in Senegal, and they are all under 1 year old. Most of the children have lost their mothers, and perhaps their fathers as well. These children will return to their father (or extended family) at the end of their one-year stay. While you then may be asking what the point is of taking them in if they have a family, it’s really to protect their health in early stages of development. These babies all need milk prepared for them several times a day, requiring both milk powder and safe water which are expensive quantities here. Many motherless children become very ill and die within their first year of life because of unsafe milk or other hygiene-related problems. Staying at the pouponnière takes care of these problems, protecting them until they are a bit stronger to return home (and then providing the family with nutritional support for the child for 2 years if necessary). Transition to the home and family ties are facilitated by weekly family visits on Sundays, an obligatory condition when entrusting your child to the pouponnière (visits can be by a family representative, if the family lives too far away).

Another portion of the babies are abandoned by their parents and left to the police, who bring them to the orphanage. These children will be adopted out after a period of about 1 year during which their parents has the right to reclaim them. While Senegalese families can adopt, most adoptions are on an international basis, as it’s really not common in Senegalese society to adopt. Adoptions are not run directly through the pouponnière, but through a tribunal where the parents are accepted before coming to the pouponnière. They then stay a week or so with the infant to help transition before leaving.

Taking care of 90 babies (about 45 on each floor, separated by age) requires a tight schedule. At about 7:30 in the morning, everyone is woken up and fed. They’re then bathed in a room with 5 basins (and weighed right after bathing on Mondays) – there are even specific directions for bathing: grab the towel roll containing new clothes and washcloth, on arriving in bathing room wash the basin, start filling, during which time you undress the baby, then lather them up with soap, shampoo their hair, and then set them in the basin to rinse, then cover them with a clean towel while you wash their diaper cover in the basin, draining it after, put on their diaper, weigh them (if Monday), dress them, then clean their mouth with gauze and a cleaning solution, their nose with drops and cotton, and their ears with cotton – then it’s off to the play room! Play room is actually a bit misleading because the little babies who I work with are too young to do much of anything. But they lay there and giggle or cry as they see fit, and we try to keep them all happy. Generally it’s pretty successful. At 10 they are all given liquid vitamins. At 11 they’re returned to their cribs and take to be fed, set in a car seat after eating. Once everyone has eaten, their diapers are changed and they go for a nap until 2. At 2 it’s time to eat/be changed again, go in the play room until 5 when it’s eat/changing time again and then sleep from 6-10 when they get to eat/be changed for a final time for the night. Just like clockwork!

I really love taking care of these kids and try to give them some individual attention each time that I’m there. That’s really the only thing that’s missing in this environment, as they’re very well-taken-care-of physically but of course with so many babies there’s not a lot of time to hold each one. What does amaze me though is the girls who work there (young women who are themselves in a two-year education program, alternating looking after the babies with classes such as tailoring and cooking) literally know the names of all of the children – no small feat with new arrivals every week!

That about sums up the pouponnière. I have only 10 days left here now, which is a bit surreal after always thinking that 6 months was such a substantial period of time that it would just never end. And here I am. But I think I’m ready (we’ll see for sure what condition I’m in when I actually have to board the plane though . . .) I’ve had a great stay here, I’ve made connections that I hope to maintain for years to come, and I know that I’ll be coming back to Senegal some day – and with looking forward to starting up school in the fall, it keeps me looking on the bright side!