A heart-wrenching Experience

That's it. I'm just gonna start posting every blog onto myspace, xanga, and here.... all for the convenience of you!
Well it is still pretty peaceful here... although the Vice President Bemba's tv and radio stations were burned down the other week! It's still not confirmed whether it was an accident or arcenist, but i'm sure someone on Kabila's side started the fire, to weaken him or something. Ah, Kinshasa.today on the way home from school, we saw a man...carrying a wheelbarrow....on his Head! Well, i thought that was a bit weird! I've also seen a man carrying an entire oven/stove on his head! Now that one i couldn't believe, i had to look twice....and stare... Maybe things are made a little lighter over here, like the metal is a little lighter, but still, a whole stove?! Only in Kinshasa! One day I'll write a book of all these funny things you can see only in Africa. I am still in Choir, or actually i'm in choir again cuz i took a pretty long break during the summer since Emily (the elem. teacher and my friend) left. I'm also doin youth praise band... those two things keep my weekends pretty busy, but Sep 23 i did have time to go to an orphanage. We drove like 30 mins. out of the city, saw some gorgeous views of big hills and valleys. The air was a bit cleaner, you could tell, once you left the main city! So that was cool. I went with Shannon, Mr. Kremer (my physics teacher), and Mrs. Blackwell (teacher sub) to this orphanage that was began by Italians. We saw this really old woman who probably has been there her whole life, running it. First we went to the building that had the sick and the mentally disabled. It was a brand new building, but that did not help discourage the flies, or help the air to circulate any better. The stench was terrible, the flies were covering kids (esp. where people were eating), and there weren't enough mattresses for all the babies. There were 2 mats with kids lying, flies buzzing, with dirty mouths and noses,---they looked so sick. We held some of them, and the boy i picked up was so stiff, very awkward to hold, but i felt so sorry for him. He couldn't really bend his legs or arms easily. We left them and went onto the other building --me, with a very sick feeling in my stomach--which had the small babies. Most of them looked well, or decent. There was one boy having his head shaved because he had ring worm. It was nap time, but we went in anyway. No air conditioning, no fans, the poor babies were all in cribs -- 2 to a crib -- some asleep, some just lying there. We went to the crib furthest back, and picked up those babies that were awake. One little boy was really cute, and he had a lot of facial expressions...smiled a lot, and made me smile, too. There was a cute little girl as well, but she had a very unnatural looking fat stomach. I felt bad for her,.. there was a baby that a mother had dropped off the last week, who was a month or 2 old, sleeping very quietly, wrapped in many blankets. We took a few babies outside just to watch other people walk by and to try to cheer up these babies. The "healthy" toddlers were all asleep, so we didn't see them. Soon we decided it was time to let the kids sleep, so we went to see what Mr. Kremer was doing. he was planting bamboo with some Congolese kids and a Cong. man, so we joined in. They were sorta suprised to see us willing to take a shovel, or willing to get on our knees and dirty our hands as we filled up the holes with dirt. There were only 2 shovels, so we let the guys dig, and we put the bamboo in and filled the hole. I had smartly chose to wear flip-flops so my feet were completely covered in reddish dirt, and my hands and arms the same. But it didn't matter. Work like this was more my style. I've never been one to be that good with babies. I don't really enjoy holding and playing with them that much, to be honest, but i've worked in the nursery and babysat, so i can do it, but i just would rather choose yard work or "man's work" than babies! Anyhow, that experience was something I will never forget. Last year, Emily would try to go every Saturday, but I know it would be really hard for me to do that. Even though you hold the babies and make them temporarily happy, I can't stop feeling like I should be giving more than a few hours of my time to them. So much of the time I was just in shock or whatever so I couldn't say or do much. It blew me away, even though I had heard stories of how bad it was and stuff. You just have to experience it yourself to know the feeling I'm trying to describe. It was painful and sad, and just hard to swallow. As we were leaving, we walked back into the "sick" building to wash our hands because they had a bathroom. The sinks were done in a trough style-- like 5 or 6 spicketts coming out of the wall, going into a trough type sink. They were completely filled with brown water, there was water all over the floor, there was a horrible smell, and just a teeny tiny piece of soap on the edge of the sink. I took a breath, rolled my jeans up a bit, and turned on the faucet. Water came out, but it was a gray-ish color... I put my arms and hands in anyway, and used that bit of soap, dried off on my jeans and tshirt, then walked quickly back to the car. Sitting near the doorway was a boy propped up against the wall, who was covered in flies. His mouth and nose were swarmed with them, it was horrible to see. He looked skinny, and Shannon thought she saw him eat a fly that was going into his mouth.I watched as Shannon took some pictures of the kids who smiled so happily. Their clothes were torn, they didn't look like they had shoes, they didn't have toys, but because some people had come to see them and were taking pictures of them, their faces lit up, and they looked really happy. That made my heart break even more. Then we drove away, with the kids following our car, waving to us, showing their smiles once again.I hope I never find myself complaining about MY good life. I have it all and even more, yet I get mad, discouraged, sad. I have so much to thank Jesus for!