This week’s post is brought to us by intern Lara Norgaard.
As I begin to write this post I’m waiting for the internet to reboot so I can continue uploading document information to Kaeme’s electronic database. At home I would begrudge even the slightest lag in my internet, but one thing I’ve learned here is to let go of my efficiency-oriented impulse to finish work exactly as I’d like to, and to take every delay as an opportunity rather than wasted time. Delays here have led to my favorite conversations with fellow social workers or team members, in learning new clapping games with children, trying my favorite Ghanaian snacks for the first time, or in this case, taking the time to reminisce on the week and write my first Kaeme blog post.
In fact this entire morning has been one of reflection. Uploading work here is actually a way for me to consider the past week’s work and remember children and their stories. As I type up information, I recall working through our largest orphanage so far in the trip – it had 41 children and took two days to profile. Before coming to Ghana we learned as a group about the psychological effects of growing up in an orphanage and the signs that children display when they lacked individual adult attention: they are many times aggressively clingy immediately and build deep connections with adults in a matter of days. What was shocking and sobering about this large home was how the children fit the exact description we learned about. Because we spent multiple days there, the kids grew incredibly attached over the course of the profiling process, and even though my job as “tracker” involved overseeing the different jobs in the profiling process rather than spending large amounts of time with children, the kids’ vulnerable need for adult care created connections stronger than I expected. I will always remember one 8-year-old girl, Lily, chasing me to our car after we finished the full day of work. She was begging me to come live with her, for me to ask the social workers we work with to stay an extra day, anything she could think of that would keep me with her. In my head I repeated myself the policy of to making no promises to the children. I had to steel my resolve and be honest with her that I was not coming back, that I couldn’t, but that I would remember her.
I knew before arriving that such experiences would be part of this job, but I always assumed that they would be isolated to abusive homes. This orphanage was not physically neglectful as far as I could tell from the information we gathered; indeed, I got the impression that it was one of the orphanages with more documentation of children and general funding than many of the others we had visited. As we drove away from the home I realized that despite best intentions, the orphanage couldn’t provide what a family does. I was also pushed to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that the connection I built and then ruptured with children may have led kids like Lily to relive the trauma of being left by family. This is one ramification of the work I am doing, but I also now understand how working towards reform rather than simply volunteering in orphanages is a way to start preventing the emotional pain I witnessed.
After such a fully challenging week of work we had a weekend trip and I found myself standing at the top of the most incredible waterfall I’ve ever seen, looking out onto the pure, uninterrupted green of Ghanaian foliage. As I walked down the path to rejoin the group I remember inhaling the humid air and thinking that each moment here – whether with kids like Lily, exploring a drastically new environment like the waterfall, or even just doing paperwork on a Sunday morning – continues to help me grow in my understanding of the world. Here’s to four more weeks of those moments.