Julien is off to the hospital to work this afternoon. I started work yesterday. Yesterday I went all day to see how it goes and decided to go work only in the mornings. I work with two social workers. They help find solutions for the families who can't pay for treatments, they go around for an hour every morning to meet with each family and talk about their concerns. Then they spend a good time trying to find money. Their office is in a beautiful play room with lots of colorful toys. When I went in for the first time most of the toys were still wrapped. They have many donations but rarely use them because they don't know how to play with them, because they have very little time to have kids come to the room, because a lot of the kids are too sick to come and play. So the first day I opened all the toys and showed them how to play with a few of them (blocs, memory game...)
We had four kids come and play that first morning and in the afternoon we spent most of the time with two kids that are "isolated" and have a lot of toys for them in their room. The sanitary conditions are horrible. It is very disturbing. The parents are supposed to care for the food and bathing of their child, but most adults don’t even wash themselves. There is water and soap; it is just that they have no understanding of hygiene.
I really am having a hard time with the filth in this city. The smells are awful, everything is run down and people go everywhere. The poverty is striking, but it is more than that, when you talk with other Malachi they say that people don’t have any concept of hygiene and even what could be considered good here is still far from our standers.